james_doherty Pro

Favorite films

  • Conan the Barbarian
  • Sanjuro
  • Harakiri
  • Unforgiven

All
  • Solomon Kane

    ★★½

  • No Man's Land

    ★★★½

  • Predator: Killer of Killers

    ★★

  • Sin City

    ★★★

More
Solomon Kane

2009

★★½ Rewatched

Fun if inconsistent little gothic fantasy. Some of the set pieces and production design are very impressive and there are some decent performances. Purefoy in particular. But it also gets distracted in side quests and a disproportionate amount of the run time seems to be people slopping around in muddy, nondescript patches of wasteland.

The film also seems stuck between an action adventure and something darker. A much stronger horror tone would've been appropriate, with a commitment to some proper…

No Man's Land

1987

★★★½ Rewatched

I haven't seen this since the late 80's or early 90's when my cousin and I were obsessed with it because we were (and still are) a pair of obsessive petrol heads. At the time I think we viewed this as an instructional video on how to steal Porsches.

To my great surprise this stands up really well. Despite the absence of any big names behind the camera No Man's Land is a tight, tense undercover cop flick that looks…

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BLUE EYE SAMURAI

2023

★★ Watched

Starts strong but quickly feels indulgent, overlong, repetitive and derivative.

After the initial visual novelty wears off Blue Eye Samurai begins to look increasingly like cell shaded 3d models, with background character walk cycles resembling non player characters from a PS1 game.

The direction feels flat and inert; operating in the constraints of a 3d environment as opposed to utilizing the creative freedom animation affords. This is in jarring contrast to the action scenes which feel like any mid-tier Marvel…

Alien: Romulus

2024

★★ 3

I wish I could think of a better pun but Meh-liens is all I've got.

A bunch of characters you won't care about basically recreate Alien beat for beat, minus the character building, minus the slow ratcheting tension and with 2024 London slang replacing the space trucker lingo of the original, bruv.

The production design and VFX are probably the standout elements here. It's well lit at least but the ever present shaky cam and tight focus are borderline nauseating.…