Carrie: Movie Review

Carrie: Movie Review

Cast: Chloe Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore, Judy Greer, Portia Doubleday
Director: Kimberley Peirce

So, after the 1976 classic of Carrie, starring Sissy Spacek as Carrie and Piper Laurie, we get the 2013 re-imagining of the Stephen King iconic story.

Kick Ass' Hit Girl, Chloe Grace Moretz stars as Carrie White, who this time around is an abused child, locked in the cupboard under the stairs by a religious puritannical fundamentalist zealot of a mother (Julianne Moore) traumatised by the birth and confused by the conception.

Shy, awkward and stooping, Carrie is an outsider at high school and encounters the first throes of womanhood in a shower in front of all her classmates. Mocked and bullied by them for her reaction, and taped on a mobile phone (one of only a few touches which suggest this film is in the modern day setting), Carrie begins to realise she has powers springing up from this life-changing event.

But along with those powers, the bullying of a group of girls increases and begins to make her life hell; with only the protection of Judy Greer's PE teacher, it's clear something's gotta give. However, a ray of light comes when one boy Tommy offers to take her to the prom (it's because his girlfriend felt guilty about the bullying) and soon Carrie starts to believe that she's normal and being accepted.

The prom comes around - and we all know what happened to Carrie at the prom....

The remake of Carrie is frightfully dull, despite the best intentions of those involved.

Chloe Grace Moretz doesn't quite give off the impression of a Carrie; she's all wide-eyed, open-mouthed, looking like she's permanently stubbed her toe as she wanders from one miserable encounter to the next. She only really comes alive and brings a few of the chills during the discovery of her powers with her mother and when asked to call upon the naively innocent girl within during being pursued to go to the prom. Elsewhere, she tries to deliver a performance that plays on the outsider but doesn't quite make it thanks to her really not looking the part in the same way that Spacek did.

That the film doesn't quite work is also due in part to the mostly stereotyped bullies, who are scantily sketched out and proffer up little character of their own, meaning there's hardly any kind of pull when the telekinetic storm is unleashed at the prom. That scene alone though is more of a performance though; Chloe Grace Moretz's almost orchestral and balletic movements seem like a show being put on as bits start flying around (a la many superhero origin movies you've seen) and the stuff hits the proverbial fan.

Equally, Julianne Moore gives relatively good unhinged as the mother who'd rather pray and banish Carrie under the stairs than connect with her growing daughter. Complete with self-harming, Moore's mother adds little to the film after a mightily impressive opening birthing scene which is truly horrific and packed with psychological damage.

Religious iconography is plastered rather scattergun throughout the film - a statue of Jesus bleeds from the stigmata when Carrie's trapped in her cupboard, one character's killed off in a crucifixion pose - and it's a little heavy-handed. A degree of subtlety, rather than plenty of slow-mo shots, would have been more effective in conveying the horror.

Overall, the 2013 remake of Carrie doesn't really succeed in bringing anything new or original to the cinematic table - it's all been done exceptionally well back in its 1976 version. This Carrie is a bit of a bloody misfire; not exactly a disaster, but not exactly a seized opportunity.

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First Divergent trailer released

First Divergent trailer released

The First Divergent trailer has been released.

From Veronica Roth's young adult novel, the film's star is Shailene Woodley. She plays a young woman dealing with life in a dsytopian take on Chicago.

Watch the first Divergent trailer here.

Here's your first look at Shailene Woodley as Tris Prior in upcoming film, Divergent.

 


DIVERGENT is a thrilling action-adventure film set in a future where people are divided into distinct factions based on their personalities. 

Tris Prior (Woodley) is warned she is Divergent and will never fit into any one group. 

When she discovers a conspiracy to destroy all Divergents, she must find out what makes being Divergent so dangerous before it's too late. 

Based on the best-selling book series by Veronica Roth 

First Fifty Shades of Grey images released

First Fifty Shades of Grey images released

The first Fifty Shades of Grey images have been released, showing Jamie Dornan as Christian Grey and Dakota Johnson as Anastasia Steele.

Entertainment Weekly's got the first look images in their latest mag.

The Fifty Shades of Grey movie is due to release Valentine's Day 2015. So that's a few date nights sorted for you then, eh?

Take a look at the first look Fifty Shades of Grey images below:

The Internship: Blu Ray Review

The Internship: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Universal Home Entertainment

Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn reunite after 2005 smash hit Wedding Crashers in this piece which is more squarely aimed at a wider audience.

This time the pair play Nick and Billy respectively, a pair of successful, gift of the gab watch salesmen who find their jobs gone after their company is shut down. So, with nowhere to go, Billy finds a chance for them to be part of an internship programme at Google. But as they are by far the oldest people on the course, they stick out like a sore thumb - and when they're teamed up with the less successful rejects to fight it out in a mental "Hunger Games"quest for a job at Google, it looks like they're out of their league....

The Internship movie is a perfectly affable piece, which flounders on charting a course through predictable and safe waters without delivering too many laughs at all. It just gets by on the charm, charisma and chemistry of its two leads but it offers nothing but pleasant life lessons as the two fish out of water, washed up ex-salesmen try to negotiate their internship at the corporate wonder that is Google. 

It's curiously flat though, proffering up only a few Lols here and there and most of them peddling the stereotypes and tropes you'd expect in a predictable piece like this. And yet, with the riffing of the relationship between Billy and Nick (and consequently Vaughn and Wilson), there's maybe enough good will to propel you through the overlong inevitable mush that's on the way. It's a walking ad for corporate Google, with every available opportunity taken to peddle the wonders of their services, the hipster like nature of their workplace and the general happiness (or "Googliness" as it's called in the film) of working for the web giant. Despite a few nods to geek culture and a sequence in a nightclub which brings a few laughs, The Internship movie is a schmaltzy and unchallenging solid feel-good "comedy" with an earnest heart but a lack of continual humour and without any real byte.

Extras: Behind the scenes, extended cut, deleted scenes

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Homeland Season2: Blu Ray Review

Homeland Season2: Blu Ray Review

Rating: R13
Released by Universal Home Entertainment

After winning six Emmy awards, you would always wonder what they would do next for Brodie and Carrie.

This time around, Damian Lewis' Brodie is now a US Congressman and Claire Danes' Carrie is a former CIA agent who find their paths crossing once again, when a new terrorist threat emerges from the woodwork in the form of Abu Nazir.

Twists aplenty and betrayals and shocks may be the order of the day in this latest season of the mystery thriller, but it's fair to say that there's not quite the zing about the series this time around, when compared with the brilliance of the first.

Lewis and Danes give it their all and it builds to a suitably shocking conclusion over 12 episodes. It's a masterclass in acting at times, even if there are moments which defy credibility and belief. A third series is underway now though with the ending to the second, you're not quite sure exactly how they will carry it off.

Extras: Series 3 prequel, deleted scenes and some mini docos.

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Official PS4 Unboxing video released

Official PS4 Unboxing video released

Not long to go now - and with just a couple of weeks until the new PS4 is revealed and given to the hands of gamers, PlayStation has released its official PS4 Unboxing video.

Take a look below - and don't forget to use the hashtag #4ThePlayers on Twitter to follow the latest news and info

World War Z: Blu Ray Review

World War Z: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Universal Home Entertainment

Once again, the apocalypse is upon us.

This time, it's potentially down to Brad Pitt to save the day after a viral outbreak turns the global populace into the chomping undead in an adaptation of Max Brooks' World War Z. Pitt is Gerry Lane, a UN inspector brought in despite having left the organisation when the world's overcome - and he alone can help identify Patient Zero and potentially source a cure to save the human race. So, forced to leave his family with the military, off he sets on a global trip which takes him from Newark to South Korea via Jerusalem before finally ending up in Wales. (Yes, I just said Wales). But as he tries to track down what caused it all, at every turn it appears that the virus could be about to beat him..

World War Z is a tense, thrilling, nerve-shredding ride in places - and curiously lacking in logic and sense in others.

It's also frenzied, frenetic and intense during its set pieces, which get underway very quickly after the non- too subtle ramming home of the fact that Gerry's now a family man (he makes pancakes for the family while watching details of the outbreak out of the corner of his eye on the TV). A cross town journey turns into something hellish within the first 10 minutes of screen time and then doesn't let up for a burst of edge-of-your-seat tension. As scene-setting stuff goes, it's right up there with some of the best as it instantly tells you everything you need to know about this post-apocalyptic world coming directly after such calm start. Foreboding is everywhere with a distorted voice on the radio intoning that "Containment is a fail" and hinting that the worst is yet to come.

And yet, once the story actually kicks in, it's actually a little lacking on the human side as Lane's globe trotting gets underway; he's torn asunder from his family that he's spent the first 20 minutes trying to protect and it robs the film of the emotional pull and personal danger that it needs. Although there are hints of tensions with the military, they're never fully explored or dramatically exploited, which is to the screenplay's detriment.

Pitt's perfectly suited to the role but it's a series of video game style moments which are sparingly sown together and narratively weak - flee the city, escape to the roof of the tower block, follow the troops on a raid through Z infected territory (Zombie Dark Thirty anyone?) and so on - which make it difficult to fully engage with. But that said, the short and often brutal bursts of intense suspense and knuckle gripping terror during the terrific set pieces work quite effectively though.Pulling in the visual style of Steven Soderbergh's Contagion (drenched in yellows) and using 3D wisely to bolster the backgrounds (rather than relying on a zombie jumping out of the screen - of which there is but one shot), World War Z overall, is a success. It blends thrills, spills and suspense to form something which leaves the heart and adrenaline pumping even if occasionally, the action and consequently story, slow to a crawl once the chillingly effective set pieces have ended.

Extras

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