16 - The Eye

Connection To KICK-ASS 2 - Chloé Grace Moretz

Remakes of Asian horror, the whole thing started The Ring didn't it back in 2002? Maybe there was ones before that but without The Ring we probably wouldn't have got The Grudge, Dark Water or Pulse, or the sequels to any of these. I don't think I'd be out of line if I called most of them poo and to be honest The Eye never did anything to stand out from the pack.

The original version was released in 2002 and was from Hong Kong (I love Hong Kong cinema and it's never really had the US remakes like other Asian countries have), I have had the original on my shelf to watch for a while but never got around to it, so there is nothing holding me back going into viewing this movie.

I might as well start with my overall opinion and if I had to choose one word about how I felt about that movie it would be - indifferent...

Perhaps one of the words I fear most in watching films, a great film I can get excited by while a bad film I can pinpoint what's wrong but when I feel indifferent it puts me in a tricky position in what to say about it. I certainly don't think Jessica Alba deserved a Razzie nomination for this and the ending is adequately built up too, there is just not enough to keep interest - I think this will be a film I'll forget about even in the next months. I think the plot as clearly a lot of potential blind women gets eye transplant can see but is seeing terrifying visions.

The supporting cast, really don't leave much of an impression, Parker Posey don't get much too do and the male lead Alessandro Nivola is merely okay, another familiar in Chloé Grace Moretz pops up as the littlest cancer patient (and makes me assume that Moretz started acting when she was a fetus).

Overall, bad doesn't seem a fair word to describe if it becomes the end of the year and I ranked all the films it would be difficult to know where to put it, worse films are more memorable, I would probably just say don't watch it in the end, there's 90 minutes you could devote to something more memorable.

15 - Kick-Ass 2

Connection To PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED - Jim Carrey

I really enjoyed the first Kick-Ass movie, for me it was a great mix of comedy and bloody violence with some very enjoyable characters with a great performance from the often entertaining Nicolas Cage and an argument could be made for a little star being born in Chloé Grace Moretz and though the film wasn't a huge success at the box-office, the film did well enough (including things like DVD sales) to earn a sequel.

Kick-Ass 2 was a film I had been waiting to see for a while just based off of how much I enjoyed the first, sadly Cage's Big Daddy was no more we will at least have another famous over-actor in Jim Carrey - who ended up refusing to publicize the film after the Sandy Hook massacre - and we got the return of at least a few of these characters.

To be honest in this sequel, there is a lot evident that is both good and bad - it's a film of stengths and weaknesses that come together only sort of well - I wouldn't call it a bad movie nor would I call it great, the best way I would describe it for me is a film that at times can be good.

Aaron Taylor Johnson in the lead role is as good as he was in the first one as in not awful but not spectacular (there is pattern here in how I'm describing things), and it's the supporting cast who are much more fun - Christopher Mintz-Plasse who is now going by name of Motherfucker rather then Red Mist and is a wannabe supervillian who early on accidentally kills his mother in a sunbed accident making him the sole heir in the family fortune with the only loyal company of John Leguizamo (who I really enjoyed in this movie). Anyway Kick-Ass is attempting to have a normal life but convinces Mindy to train him to be a real superhero, but that becomes at odds when her guardian convinces her to be more like a normal girl, which she really does try and be

Kick Ass ends up joining up with a band of superheroes including the enjoyable Jim Carrey as Colonel Stars and Stripes - whose not in it as much as you would think, speaking of not in it as much as you think Lyndsy Fonseca as the girlfriend from the last movie is little more then a cameo meanwhile Motherfucker as put together his own group of villains.

For me the negative of the movie is the violence doesn't really mesh as well with the humour, at times stuff just seems mean-spirited, while at other times just a touch too dark and is just ultimately not sure what tone it is going for. The film has some memorable moments but none quite match up to Hit-Girl trying to save Big Daddy and Kick-Ass in the first movie but we do get a girl thanks to Hit Girl both vomiting and shitting at the time (makes sense in the context of the movie)

Which brings us to the ace in the hole of the movie, which was true of the first one and that is Moretz, she's so enjoyable that I wouldn't be opposed to spin-off movie sans Kick-Ass - it's possible I would have done without the Mean Girls style scenes but the pay-off (mentioned above) is memorable like I said and it sort of cool how they played up the biological aspect of her and Kick-Ass's relationship (I know there Dave and Mindy but I just didn't want to keep changing between names)

Overall an enjoyable if occasionally uneven movie. I would certainly go for a third (which there are some clues of that happening) but I would want them to study more the first one then this one.