Tag: Simon Pegg

  • A Fantastic Fear of Everything (2012, Crispian Mills and Chris Hopewell)

    It’s so easy to pick on A Fantastic Fear of Everything there’s basically no fun in it. The only thing worse than co-director Crispian Mills’s script is his and Chris Hopewell’s direction. For the first half of the movie, when Simon Pegg’s basically all by himself making a mocking impression of someone with paranoia, the…

  • Doctor Who (2005) s01e07 – The Long Game

    This first half of this episode is really strong. The second half, not so much. Even after stunt guest star Simon Pegg gets better in the second half it’s not any better. Writer Russell T. Davies doesn’t have a good resolution for the episode’s intrigue and no matter how effectively executed the suspense gets—Brian Grant’s…

  • Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015, Christopher McQuarrie)

    While Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation doesn’t deliver much in the way of plot twists, it instead delivers a lot of easy smiles and a handful of good laughs. The easy smiles aren’t just for the action sequences, which often focus on characters’ reactions to them–sometimes relief, sometimes awe at Tom Cruise’s derring-do–but also for…

  • Star Trek Beyond (2016, Justin Lin)

    I want to like Star Trek Beyond more than I do. I want to be able to look past its problems. It has a whole lot of problems. Michael Giacchino’s music is awful. Stephen F. Windon’s photography is rather wanting. The four editors don’t do any particularly good work, though they’re not working with the…

  • Star Trek Into Darkness (2013, J.J. Abrams)

    For Star Trek Into Darkness, J.J. Abrams operates with an “if it ain’t broke” mentality. It serves him–and the film–fairly well. Except Michael Giacchino’s music. While Abrams goes for sensationalism every time, he does it competently. The Giacchino music, however, is never competent. This Trek tries hard to create mainstream post-modern; it’s a sequel to…

  • Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011, Brad Bird)

    Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol might be a vanity project for producer-star Tom Cruise, but he sort of deserves it. His first scene features some athletics from him–the film’s full of them–and it’s hard to believe Cruise is nearly fifty. Either he’s got a portrait locked in a closet, they CG’ed his body or vitamins…

  • Paul (2011, Greg Mottola)

    Maybe Simon Pegg needs Edgar Wright or maybe Nick Frost just shouldn’t be writing because Paul should be great and it’s not. Some of the problem comes from having Seth Rogen voice the titular, CG alien. Rogen does a fine job but he’s such a dynamic presence, Pegg and Frost sort of fade into the…

  • Burke & Hare (2010, John Landis)

    I don’t know how Landis could have a more indistinct return to feature directing than Burke & Hare. The film manages to be completely professional in all aspects–though the use of The Proclaimer’s “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles),” so well identified with Benny & Joon, is questionable. There are occasional Landis touches, but nothing really…

  • Shaun of the Dead (2004, Edgar Wright)

    So, people told me Shaun of the Dead was good, but they kept describing it as something akin to Hot Fuzz and whatnot. It’s not a spoof of a zombie movie though. It’s a zombie movie with a couple losers discovering their skill sets make them good at surviving a zombie holocaust, if not excelling…

  • Hot Fuzz (2007, Edgar Wright)

    I was going to start this post off with a mention I had no idea spoof movies were back–then I realized I just hadn’t been partaking in them (I’m thinking the Scary Movie series and whatever else the Brothers Weinstein squeeze out between Oscar-lusts). Hot Fuzz is a technical spoof for the most part–though I…