The Boys are Back!

I told you the sheer level of television would spoil my filmwatching. Maybe it was just being on holiday for a week, time will tell. There's just something mind-numbing about ungreat movies.

It would be unfair to call the The Matador bad. In the same way I couldn't bring myself to call Broken Flowers bad last year. But it was very forgettable. It was recommended by friends who claimed it was hilarious, and I could see why they said it. But aside from the odd guffaw, it didn't work for me.

I had been looking forward to it since seeing the trailer. Unfortunate, because the film was merely the trailer stretched out to ninety minutes.

The basic premise was fine, and very amusing, the characters were well drawn. It just committed my cardinal sin - spending twenty minutes introducing two characters individually before bringing them together. It would have been more effective had it started from their first meeting, so the suprise of Character A at Character B's profession was echoed by us audience. All in all, you may like it, if slow-paced black situation humour is your bent (and times being what they are...). But it didn't work for me.

Much better was Another 48 Hours, probably one of the films Danny Butterman has in his closet of bad cop movies. This was everything Hot Fuzz set out to parody. Relentlessly generic. A dedicated cop who doesn't play by the rules, and his bosses, who doesn't understand. His buddy, who finds him irritating, but secretly holds a grudging respect. Good guys can survive being flipped over eight times in a bus crash. Cans of oil just waiting to be accidentally hit during gunfights. Plotholes all over the shot. 5.2/10 on IMDb.

Look, it was late, we were confined to our hotel rooms; it was this or The Apprentice. And I loved it! Thank you Eddie Murphy! I can't remember if Mr Murphy is regarded as irritating or comic genius by the wider world, but he made this film what it was. He stole the few good lines, delivered them with pizang, and temporarily made you forget that he was being chased by a rent-a-henchmen biker gang. This is highly recommended to anyone who likes well-done brainless fun - as is the original, which I haven't seen, but I figured as this is a sequel, what came before it can only be better.

And some interesting trivia: this film starred Andrew Divoff. We were actually in England for the benefit of my sister, who was going to a Lost conference, where she met The Dharma Guy From The Tapes, A Major Character's Brother, A Minor Character Who Died In The Third Episode and Mikail, the creepy Russian eyepatch guy who cannot be killed played by the aforementioned Divoff. Small world.