My reviews of late have followed 2 patterns; they have been late, and they have been short.
Sadly, this is not the review to buck those trends.
For the lateness, I can only apologise; for the brevity, I feel I have an excuse.
This movie is a remake of week 99's "Who Can Kill a Child?", and in a perfect allegory for the film itself, a full length review would be much like that one, with all the same problems as its predecessor, and any changes would probably result in losing many of the best bits.
So yeah, this is mostly the exact same film; didn't do a side-by-side comparison, but I think bits of it could even be shot-for-shot, and the bits that they changed either didn't need changing, or were changed for the worse.
The original earned a recommendation from both of us; but it wasn't a perfect film. A remake of a good, but not perfect, film is a great opportunity; If they'd fixed the pacing and made the characters a little bit smarter, this could have been a great film, and surpassed the original.
Sadly, the pacing and stupidity remains, and the moralising about children suffering at the hands of adults is gone, taking with it a lot of the point of the movie. Creepiness has also been replace with gore; not that this is a splatter movie, by any stretch, but one or two moments have been ramped up, and lost thier atmosphere in the process.
All in all, not a terrible film, but far from a good one, and it's been done better. Stick to the original.
Showing posts with label Children. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Children. Show all posts
Monday, 15 July 2013
Saturday, 6 April 2013
Who Can Kill a Child - Will's Review
This weeks movie opens with 8 minutes of disturbing real-life footage (concentration camps, victims of Korean and Vietnam wars ect. ) all captioned to remind us how badly children suffer during such things. Grim stuff.
Then we cut to a happy beach scene... Where a dead woman washes ashore - having apparently been stabbed repeatedly, including in her thighs.
This is clearly the feel-good family movie of the year!
Before long we meet out protagonists, holidaying English couple Tom and Evelyn, who have left their first 2 kids at home (the 3rd is still in Evelyn's belly) in order to visit a small island that Tom visited as a child. This island is so small it isn't on the map, yet our stars have decided to leave both the hiring of a boat, and indeed clarifying the exact location of the island, until they arrive at the nearest coastal town in mainland Spain.
You'd think that having gone to the effort of having them spend a day in said town, there would be some kind of payoff to relying on a stranger to point to the bit of the map that should contain the island; but, no, they get there just fine.
Upon arrival the town appears to be deserted but for a handful of children, and it isn't long before we find out why - the children seem to have taken a homicidal dislike to adults.
For some reason, long after Tom starts to realise what is going on, he continues to insist to his wife that the adults have probably just gone to a festival at the next town over, and that everything is fine; Unfathomably, even having seen a girl kill an old man, and then watching the local children use the body as a piñata, he still has his pregnant wife stay the night!
Eventually, they realise that they really are going to have to leave, for reasons I cannot fathom it is only then that they become a target for the children.
The title if the movie is a question asked within the narrative... Apparently the reason the children have been so successful in their adultcide is because no-one can bring themselves to kill a child.
Luckily, Tom is a little more pragmatic than the natives, and has no problem offing the little fuckers once it becomes obvious that its then or him. Evelyn, in the other hand, had me screaming abuse at the screen on more than one occasion.
Sadly, there's also a supernatural element that the film REALLY didn't need - upon finding a small group of
'Normal' children, we see that the desire to kill adults can be passed on by making eye contact (which isn't even the silliest example of the 'infection' spreading in the movie).
At times, I was reminded of the Village / Children of the Damned movies, so it wasn't a shock to see that this movie has also been released as 'Island of the Damned'
I did enjoy the movie, particularly the rather dark ending (the dramatic ending, not the 'sting' which relies too much on the supernatural element) but it does have some fairly major faults; that said, the acting is solid enough, and I did have fun watching it, therefore I will give this one a 'Will Recommends' ... But only just.
Who Can Kill a Child - Lisa's Review
*** SPOILERS ***
I read the title of this weeks movie and right away got completely the wrong idea about what sort of movie this was going to be. Since becoming a mum, I find any kind of child murder/torture pretty near impossible to watch, so I worried how I'd manage with this one. However, it seems I was wrong about the plot line here.
The first 5-10 minutes of the movie were very, very difficult for me to watch, even moreso because it is real documentary footage of atrocities including World War 2, Vietnam and several famines. This footage is horrid! Not anything I haven't seen before and something we should never forget, but it's still difficult to watch none-the-less. The footage concentrates on the effects on the children and gives the scarilly high number of deaths in these atrocities which can be attributed to being kids. I've always found footage like this difficult, obviously because we know its real, but since becoming a mother, any kind of footage involving children is guaranteed to start me off. Make it real and you have one depressed young lady on your hands. The footage is interspersed throughout with an eerie soundtrack of children singing. The tune will probably stay in my head for weeks to come (along with some of those images). The point? To get through to the viewer what children have been put through over the years down to us adults. The biggest victim is always the children. Who's to say they won't have had enough of it being that way some day... and so to the premis of our movie.
The first 10 minutes and this footage seems to be the reason for the on and off of the DPP list. It really isn't required to 'get' the movie, but it certainly adds strength to the premis.
When the documentary footage stops, we are transported to Spain where some sort of festival seems to be taking place. There are pinatas and celebration everywhere, so much so that our stars and holidaying British couple (Tom & Evelyn) are unable to find an empty hotel to book into. Cue the recommendation of a small island closeby which is nice and quiet, which is exactly what they're looking for as Evelyn is heavilly pregnant and in need of a quiet break.
When they get to the island it is clear there is something amiss. It appears to be deserted. It later transpires that the island is in fact inhabited by children. There is the occasional adult, but that's at their own peril. It seems that these kids seek to do away with the adults in the world. If this is due to atrocities children have had to tolerate for years at the hands of adults, I'm not sure, but that's the way we're supposed to look at it.
I won't go into minute detail about what happens as this is actually a really decent movie and one which I heartilly recommend anyone reading this watch. Needless to say there are deaths. The evil nature of the children is quite shocking. They enjoy playing with their own human pinata a bit too much for my liking.
What it comes down to quite simply is.. to save yourself, could you kill a child? In this instance, given what evil little b*stards they are, most definately!
One aspect of the movie which I didn't like is the fact that there is a supernatural element which really was not needed. It seemed if the children make eye contact with a normal child, they are able to 'change them' to be the same way. I suppose they needed some way to make the baby inside Evelyn evil enough to attack her from inside. A bit of attention and belly rubbing from one of the island girls was enough to manage that.
I won't give away the ending or say any more about anything that happens, but this was really easy to watch, had a nice tension throughout, didn't drag and had solid performances from all involved. There were some inconsistencies and oversights which can be forgiven, but all in all, I enjoyed this one.
Gets a recommended from me.
I read the title of this weeks movie and right away got completely the wrong idea about what sort of movie this was going to be. Since becoming a mum, I find any kind of child murder/torture pretty near impossible to watch, so I worried how I'd manage with this one. However, it seems I was wrong about the plot line here.
The first 5-10 minutes of the movie were very, very difficult for me to watch, even moreso because it is real documentary footage of atrocities including World War 2, Vietnam and several famines. This footage is horrid! Not anything I haven't seen before and something we should never forget, but it's still difficult to watch none-the-less. The footage concentrates on the effects on the children and gives the scarilly high number of deaths in these atrocities which can be attributed to being kids. I've always found footage like this difficult, obviously because we know its real, but since becoming a mother, any kind of footage involving children is guaranteed to start me off. Make it real and you have one depressed young lady on your hands. The footage is interspersed throughout with an eerie soundtrack of children singing. The tune will probably stay in my head for weeks to come (along with some of those images). The point? To get through to the viewer what children have been put through over the years down to us adults. The biggest victim is always the children. Who's to say they won't have had enough of it being that way some day... and so to the premis of our movie.
The first 10 minutes and this footage seems to be the reason for the on and off of the DPP list. It really isn't required to 'get' the movie, but it certainly adds strength to the premis.
When the documentary footage stops, we are transported to Spain where some sort of festival seems to be taking place. There are pinatas and celebration everywhere, so much so that our stars and holidaying British couple (Tom & Evelyn) are unable to find an empty hotel to book into. Cue the recommendation of a small island closeby which is nice and quiet, which is exactly what they're looking for as Evelyn is heavilly pregnant and in need of a quiet break.
When they get to the island it is clear there is something amiss. It appears to be deserted. It later transpires that the island is in fact inhabited by children. There is the occasional adult, but that's at their own peril. It seems that these kids seek to do away with the adults in the world. If this is due to atrocities children have had to tolerate for years at the hands of adults, I'm not sure, but that's the way we're supposed to look at it.
I won't go into minute detail about what happens as this is actually a really decent movie and one which I heartilly recommend anyone reading this watch. Needless to say there are deaths. The evil nature of the children is quite shocking. They enjoy playing with their own human pinata a bit too much for my liking.
What it comes down to quite simply is.. to save yourself, could you kill a child? In this instance, given what evil little b*stards they are, most definately!
One aspect of the movie which I didn't like is the fact that there is a supernatural element which really was not needed. It seemed if the children make eye contact with a normal child, they are able to 'change them' to be the same way. I suppose they needed some way to make the baby inside Evelyn evil enough to attack her from inside. A bit of attention and belly rubbing from one of the island girls was enough to manage that.
I won't give away the ending or say any more about anything that happens, but this was really easy to watch, had a nice tension throughout, didn't drag and had solid performances from all involved. There were some inconsistencies and oversights which can be forgiven, but all in all, I enjoyed this one.
Gets a recommended from me.
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