Reviews by SJMJ91

I found this film surprisingly brilliant! It has been called a horror film by many but I don't think it is a horror film at all. It is just a very tense thriller. This film surprisingly sent a very important life message: death is unpredictable and can happen at any time. I suppose that is one of the main reasons why some might've found this scary and a horror film. It is a very shocking and horrifying film to watch due to the suspenseful music and gruesome effects and violence.


Final Destination tells the story of a group of teenagers who cheat death by avoiding a plane crash when one of them, Alex, has a premonition of their deaths. Just after their escape, all of the survivors start dying one-by-one due to mysterious accidents. I liked all of the characters in this one and I felt sorry for all of them because they didn't deserve what they got. I mean, when they said in the film that they cheated death, it makes it look like it's God deciding their lives for them and doing things for them so they eventually die when they are planned to. Some of the deaths, you think to yourself "Ewwwwwwwww!!" but in others you think "hahahahaha!" like it isn't that funny but can't help but laugh.


Overall, Final Destination is a very intense, entertaining, eventful and horrific thriller that I think some people would be shaken by when the ending credits roll.

I have had absolutely no desire to see this film all my life but seeing as I was getting into classic horror films, I decided to watch it and thought to myself "I cannot miss this!" My expectations were pretty high because it is the same director as Scream and I absolutely loved that! When I did see Nightmare On Elm Street, it wasn't as good as Scream but it was an absolutely terrifying, suspenseful and gruesome masterpiece!! What I really do love about this film is that it is one of those films that just play mind games with you. When you watch this film, you will be afraid to go to sleep incase Freddy attacks you in your dreams. That is like Psycho (not wanting to go into a shower in a hotel) and Jaws (not wanting to swim in the sea). The classic horror films are a lot better than the modern day ones because most of them new horrors use way too much violence with very little story. There is a remake of the film coming out in 2010 and I am sort of interested in seeing it.


A Nightmare On Elm Street is set in a suburban street called Elm Street where it falls prey to an old foe. A dead child-molester and killer, Freddy Krueger returns to haunt the dreams of the teenage offspring of those that burned him to death years before. So, Freddy is set out on a deadly revenge. Heather Langenkamp was awesome as Nancy Thompson. She is the main character in the film and she is the main victim of the nightmares and Freddy's mind games. Her character was like Sidney Prescott from Scream and I think that Langenkamp and Neve Campbell who plays Sidney Prescott look a bit like each other. Nancy Thompson is the main victim of the nightmares from Freddy. Freddy Krueger is a disfigured dream stalker who uses a glove armed with razors to kill children and teenagers in their dreams, which ultimately leads to their deaths in the real world in the film. He is now definitely one of my favourite film characters. Johnny Depp is another main reason why I needed to watch this film. It was his feature film debut and he is quite famous for this film. His performance as Glen Lantz was really awesome so it was a great debut. To be honest, I think it is one of his best films. Glen is a classmate of Nancy's as well as her boyfriend.


Wes Craven is starting to become one of my favourite directors! First he created a masterpiece that blew me away completely: Scream. And now he has done it again! To be honest, I find his suspense almost as good as Hitchcock. Every single second was gripping where you are clued to the film all the way through! It is definitely a terrifying horror film but I have seen scarier horrors but hardly any better horrors than this.


Overall, A Nightmare On Elm Street is a fantastic, terrifying and intense classic that totally deserves to be one of the best horrors and thrillers of all time. Krueger sealed his place as one of the biggest film villains of all time too.

To be honest, I had absolutely no idea of what to expect with this one because I had not seen the animated version as a child and I had not seen the play or read the book. The film is based on the book version called "Anna and the King of Siam" by Margaret Langdon. This musical is a beautiful film that I would call a family film more than 50s musicals like Singin' In The Rain and Seven Brides For Seven Brothers. What I love about musicals is that in almost every song, I am gripped to them and don't want them to end. I love some of the songs that involve dancing. My favourite song from the film is called "Getting To Know You".


Mrs. Anna Leonowens is a widow from Wales who arrives in Bangkok with her young son, Louis, to teach English to the children of the royal household of King Monghut. She is greeted into the palace but is told to live there, although the king promised her a house. The real Anna Leonowens was born on 26th November 1831 and died on 19th January 1915 at 83 years of age. Deborah Kerr strongly deserved her Oscar nomination for her performance in this film and she should've won it! Yul Brynner delivers an almost perfect performance as King Monghut of Siam. Brynner had that bitter and quite strict taste about him which is what I really liked about the character. King Monghut was born on 18th October 1804 and died on 1st October 1868. He reigned for precisely 17 years and 183 days until his death in 1868. He had 15 children living his palace with him and 67 other children who lived elsewhere. The chemistry between Monghut and Anna reminded me a lot of the relationship between Maria and Captain Von Trapp from The Sound Of Music especially of how they each treat the king's children.


Walter Lang directed this one really well! I hadn't heard of him or any of his work until now. I am glad that a director like Stanley Donen wasn't chosen to direct this film because he would have made it too bright like Singin' In The Rain and Seven Brides For Seven Brothers. The film was nominated for 9 Academy Awards and won 5 of those nominations. It won Best Actor (Yul Brynner), Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design (Color), Best Music, Scoring Of A Musical Picture and Best Sound Recording. It was nominated for Best Picture 1956, Best Actress (Deborah Kerr), Best Director (Walter Long) and Best Cinematography (Color).


Overall, The King And I is a classic musical that isn't quite as awesome as I was expecting it to be but it was still very enjoyable.

I was going into this film with high expectations because it is Disney's first animated musical in a decade (last one was Tarzan) and after reading production diaries and reviews, it is another Disney Renaissance. It was a 2D animation which is tradition Disney animation and is one of the hand-drawn animated films which hasn't been done for many years. I was nervous about it as well because ever since Tarzan, the Disney classics have been either really bad or just disappointments. When I saw The Princess And The Frog, I was in awww just as I was walking out of the cinema and I absolutely loved it! The Princess And The Frog certainly brought back something from Disney that I didn't think we'd ever see again. They bought characters that are full of jokes, which have both adult and child humour involved and most importantly, feeling the magic of the chemistry between the characters and the mesmerising score. The Disney Classics that this reminded me a lot of are Aladdin, Tarzan, The Little Mermaid, Lady And The Tramp and Beauty And The Beast.


Pretty much every single actor who provided their voices in this film I had not been familiar with except John Goodman who played a minor role in the film. The Princess And The Frog tells the story of a young woman called Tiana. She is a waitress and she dreams of owning her very own restaurant. Tiana just wanted her restaurant with a simple name: "Tiana's Place". Prince Naveen arrives in New Orleans where he is turned into a frog by evil voodoo master, Dr. Facilier. To become human again, he must kiss a princess. When he comes across Tiana, thinking she is a princess they share a kiss and Tiana herself turns into a frog. After that one simple kiss, everything starts to change around and in come the new extraordinary characters. Tiana is now one of the 9 Disney Princesses, being the first African-American Disney Princess. When Prince Naveen is a frog, he reminds me a lot of Lumiere from Beauty And The Beast because of his accent and the smile as well when he shows his teeth. Louis the trumpet-playing alligator is like Tantor from Tarzan who has a taste for music as well. Louis is very loosely based on jazz musician Louis Armstrong. Ray the lovesick Cajin Firefly made me laugh in this film too.


Ron Clements and John Musker as directors of this film are another reason why my expectations were pretty high on this film. They both previously directed Disney Classics Basil The Great Mouse Detective, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Hercules and Treasure Planet. Together they revived something that I thought I was never going to see again and that I thought was dying: a beautiful, heart melting and smart Disney classic. They will be remembered even more now for reviving Disney animated films again (dropping Pixar aside). 2009 has been a FANTASTIC year for animation so it has been quite hard to decide which animated film is the best. The Princess And The Frog perhaps isn't as good as Up or Ponyo but deserves to be up there with them.


Overall, The Princess And The Frog is an amazing film that has revived Disney again and we saw something in this one like we did in Beauty And The Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King etc that we didn't think we would see again. No other animated Disney can take that away from Princess And The Frog. Walt would have been proud of this! Definitely the best Disney animated film (excluding Pixar) since Tarzan.

Spirited Away is a film that changed the animation genre around. This is one of the four main landmarks of animation. The others being Toy Story, Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs and The Lion King. Spirited Away went to another level by presenting us such a bizarre world like no other animated film has ever done before. Everything about this film was weird because it was, as I said, something new. I think the main thing I loved about this one was that despite how odd it is, it is a film to expand your imagination. This is better when you are a kid but you can do it if you're a teenager or adult.


Spirited Away tells the story of a 10-year-old girl called Chihiro. The opening scene is Chihiro and her parents driving to a new home in a new town. On their travels, they come across the entrance to the spirit world. Her personality changes from the beginning right until the end. At first she was a whiny and self-centred child and then becomes a hard-working, responsible and optimistic young girl who has learned to care for others. During her time in the spirit world, she is renamed "Sen" courtesy of Yubaba who is the owner of the bathhouse. Chihiro makes friends with a young boy called Haku. Haku is a dragon in the appearance of a boy who helps Chihiro after her parents are transformed into pigs when they ate all that food. He works as Yubaba's direct subordinate. She treats him like a slave more than someone who does favours for her. Yubaba is the adversary of the film. She is an old witch who supervises the bathhouse. She signs Chihiro into a contract and renames her as "Sen" in order to hold power over her for the duration of the contract. She has a giant baby called Boh who is twice her size.


Miyazaki goes really odd in this film. Things like a big baby who is bigger than humans who are years older than him, an old man with six arms like a spider, a devouring, black spirit known as No-Face, a boy who can transform into a dragon amongst others. Miyazaki does use the same kind of animation in every film he has done and he always has different worlds to wow the audience which is what I really admire about him the most. He is like Quentin Tarantino in cases of writing scripts. He thinks of his own stories and writes them so perfectly! They both make them quite cool scripts as well with a cool style to it. I don't know how to explain this with Spirited Away but it just makes me think that.


Overall, Spirited Away is a landmark of the animation genre that has granted its firmly sealed place as one of the best and one of my favourite animated films of all time.

Ponyo caught my attention ever since I heard it was going to be Miyazaki's next film and I like his films. Ponyo reminded me a lot of the Disney classic The Little Mermaid as I was watching it. It is a beautiful film for the family. It is a story on love, bravery and friendship which made it a personal film. Like all Miyazaki animated films, the audience are entering a different world. I mean, Ponyo has its similarities with The Little Mermaid but there are differences as well. For example, it was involving a lonely boy and a fish wanting to be a girl whereas in The Little Mermaid, it involved a mermaid and a prince. Also, Ponyo isn't a musical and it isn't quite as dark as The Little Mermaid. I couldn't believe that this wasn't nominated for Best Animated Picture this year! It wouldn't have beaten Up but it would've given it a tough battle for the award.


Ponyo is a fish-girl who lives in an aquarium in her father Fujimoto's underwater castle with numerous sisters who are fish like herself but smaller. When Fujimoto takes her and her siblings on his submarine, Ponyo swims away. She ends up stranded on the beach of a small town and is rescued by a boy called Sōsuke. After this, Ponyo and Sōsuke make an odd yet very beautiful and powerful friendship that does start to turn into love. The English version of Ponyo (which I watched) had a great cast with a few of talented and very well-known actors in it. That version starred the voices of Cate Blanchett (as Granmammare, Ponyo's mother), Matt Damon (as Kōichi, Sōsuke's father) and Liam Neeson (as Fujimoto, Ponyo's father).


It is a simple fact that Hayao Miyazaki is one of the best animated filmmakers that has ever lived and I am proud to say that Ponyo is another masterful creation of his. It's a shame that Miyazaki's films aren't released in Britain until about 1 year after their original release but it is damn sure worth the wait. I mean, yes Miyazaki used a lot from The Little Mermaid but he actually manages to make it better than that one. Miyazaki was involved in the hand-drawn animation in the film. Miyazaki preferred to draw the sea and the waves himself and this level of drawing had 170,000 separate images. That was a record for a Miyazaki film. Miyazaki isn't just a very talented director and animator but he is a great screenwriter as well.


Overall, Ponyo is another Miyazaki masterpiece. It probably isn't as sophisticated as Spirited Away but definitely is one of his best creations and one of the best films of 2009.

My God! What a disappointment! This film was done completely wrong! This is an American film that is meant to be all Germany!! This film should have been a German film with the German language. This didn't even feel like it was a true story at all. To be honest, the only bit of credit I can give this film is that it had great cinematography and art direction.


This is a true story on the 20th July plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler and to use the Operation Valkyrie national emergency plan to take control of Germany. Before the plot, Wehrmacht Colonel Claus Von Straffenberg is severely wounded during a RAF air raid in Tunisia. He looses his left eye, his right hand and two fingers on his left hand. When he returns back to his home in Germany, it isn't long until he is ordered to assassinate both Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler. Now onto the acting; not only was Tom Cruise miscast for this film, he didn't even try to pull off a German accent when he was playing a German. In fact, none of the actors did. One thing, though: Cruise did look like the real Claus Von Straffenberg. One thing I did notice: there were quite a few actors from the Pirates Of The Caribbean trilogy in this film. They were Bill Nighy, Kevin McNally, David Schofield and Tom Hollander. I thought it was daft that they were all cast together in this film because you think to yourself "Hey, that's blah-blah from Pirates Of The Caribbean!" To be honest, it wasn't just that this film was American that was annoying but the fact that the actors couldn't even try and pull off German accents to make the characters in the film more real, that was bad! The worst thing of all was the Hitler in this film! One: the guy playing him didn't look anything like him except the obvious moustache but the fact he spoke English and didn't have a German accent at all was really bloody annoying!


Bryan Singer, what were you thinking?! I mean, he is the director the first two X-Men's and The Usual Suspects! I thought he was better than this! A German director should have directed this instead. To be honest, Valkyrie was a very bad move for Singer. Not only because the film was shit but also because it was something different than he has ever done before except perhaps Apt Pupil.


Overall, Valkyrie is one of the biggest disappointments of all time. I really disliked this film a lot but the only good things about this film were the cinematography and art direction.

This film was really bizzare because there wasnt really a story to it. It was a mixture of different collections of stories. It is one of those films that a lot of people love because of its beauty and inspiring music but there are a lot of people that hate it because it is boring. I didnt hate it I just didnt like it that much. I think that it is a mixture of shorts that Disney thought of and he adapted them into one film. I just didnt understand the stories that much and I didnt really understand the point in the live action introduction at the beginning by Walt Disney himself. This was an introduction to how imaginitive Walt Disney really was and his development of different styles of characters.


His actions within this film seemed quite serious to Walt because he wanted Mickey Mouse and other characters in the film to be well known and to make other animated filmmakers develop powerful and beautiful characters together. Also, because Walt wanted this film to earn more than family pleasure but mostly because of the beauty in this world. This film was made during WWII so it sort of brought beauty into the world for people to sort of forget about WWII.


The direction was really good by all of Walt Disneys organization. It barely has any script at all but of some of the words that are said seem peaceful words. Mickey Mouse is the same sort of character as he always has been in every film and show he has ever been involved in. I have always been so puzzled about Mickeys voice in the past and in the present days. This film brought the bizarreness to animation because of the mixed stories and also because of the different types of characters. The twists were when the stories switched around. Fantasia had absolutely outstanding music that is a delight to listen to. Music is what Disney always used to be and still is really good at. It is a delight that Walt brings to all of his films. This film didnt earn any Academy Awards at all.


This is one of my least favourite Walt Disney films. I know that my review sounds like a good review but it isnt really because I found this film very boring and very strange because I didnt really understand what was going on between the characters. I thought it was just like a random film that is just a collection of shorts that Disney thought of in his past works before Fantasia. This film was quite a weird one after his two previous and first two films Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio. That is why I have to rate it 2.5 because it was weird, confusing and quite complex for little kids. I simply loooove Disneys classics but this is one of those that I wasnt really keen on. It did have awesome music and that is about it. Wish I liked it more but dont I am afraid.

What a very exciting, tense, romantic and funny film this is. Aladdin along with Beauty And The Beast, The Lion King and The Little Mermaid are the ultimate Disney renaissances. What I love about Aladdin is that it makes you feel different things in different ways. It has intense action scenes especially when Aladdin, Abu and Carpet are in the Cave Of Wonders trying to escape. Aladdin is a hilarious film as well because of the variety of characters and the humour that they bring out. Aladdin has now been made into a trilogy. The two sequels Return Of Jafar and Aladdin And The King Of Thieves aren't as good as Aladdin but are still fun enjoyable films. "A Whole New World" is my favourite song from the whole film as well as my all-time favourite Disney song.


Aladdin is the most heroic Disney male character out of all of them. Aladdin is a very poor young man who can barely feed himself and his monkey friend Abu. We don't find out why he is poor in this one and how he ended up with Abu but we do in Aladdin And The King Of Thieves. He is a thief but he does it for the right seasons. Because he does these crimes he is referred as the "Street Rat" of Agrobah. Aladdin is sent to the dungeon and then meets an old prisoner (Jafar in disguise). He makes Aladdin get the magic lamp for him. After this quest, it becomes more serious yet more magical than ever. Genie has always been my favourite Disney character because he is just hilarious especially with Robin Williams' voice. Also, he can provide any magic you can think of. Jafar is one terrifying villain but isn't as bad as Scar though.


Aladdin is a magical classic that was one of my favourite childhood films and it's not that far from my favourite films of all time. I love this classic but prefer Pinocchio, Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, Beauty And The Beast, Lady And The Tramp and The Lion King though. Aladdin is a very intense, mindblowing film that I did and still could watch over and over again.

Precious is a film that I was really looking forward to due to the reception it received like all the awards and positive reviews it got. Also, the story might've been psychologically disturbing but it certainly was a very powerful film so that expressed my interest a bit more as well. When I watched it at the cinema, it was something that I needed to stick to even though it was quite hard to watch in some moments of the film. Precious is a film about abuse and misery but on the bright side of things, it is a story on love and friendship. It is a very personal film that does adapt together into some things that happen in real life to some young teenagers who have abusive parents or a victim of incest.


Gabourney Sibide's performance as Clareece Precious Jones was absolutely brilliant!! Sibide totally deserved her Oscar nomination but a win for it, however, I don't think she was quite good enough for me to say that she deserves the Best Leading Actress Oscar 2009. Precious is an obese, illiterate, 16-year-old teenager who lives in Harlem with her mother Mary. She has been impregnated twice by her father, Carl. She suffers long term physical, mental and sexual abuse from her mother. While Precious is suffering at home, she goes into an alternative school, she meets friends and they comfort her and help her make the right decision with what to do in her life. Mo'Nique's performance as Mary was mind-blowing. I will be damned if she doesn't win the Oscar this year when she gives a performance that, in my mind, totally deserves it! Mary is abusive towards her daughter and treats her as a slave and like she is absolutely nothing. Mary has a lot of anger and jealousy towards Precious because of the sexual relationship between Precious and her boyfriend Carl (also Precious’s father). She hates that he would rather have sex with their daughter than her. All she does with her life is sleep, eat and watch TV. She is the mother that nobody would want to live with and be raised by.


Lee Daniels directed this film to send a powerful and important message to the people of the world. Precious was filmed in various areas of New York City, mostly in Harlem. Precious had, in total, 12 producers: Lee Daniels, Oprha Winfrey, Tom Heller, Tyler Perry, Lisa Cortes, Gary Magness, Valerie Hoffman, Asger Hussain, Mark G. Magges, Berrgen Swanson, Simone Sheffield and Sarah Siegel-Magness. Precious has been nominated for 6 Academy Awards: Best Picture 2010, Best Leading Actress (Sibide), Best Supporting Actress (Mo'Nique), Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing.


Overall, Precious is a very disturbing film that I don't think that many people would like. Doesn't quite deserve the Best Picture, Best Actress or the Best Director Oscar but it deserves every other Oscar it has been nominated for. Definitely one of the best films of 2009.