Something Bloody Spectacular

I think one of my favourite nights out was for a friends twenty-second birthday. Although it started out civilised, after only a few hours of pleasant chatter it quickly took a turn when the alcohol set in. By the end of the evening, we'd stuck one paralytic mate into a taxi to God knows where and another had been abducted by scousers who thought he was the reincarnation of John Lennon. Oh, and then some stupid little bitch accused us of attempted rape which was slightly annoying. Beyond the fact that we didn't know who the fuck she was, the closest any of us had gotten to anything resembling sex that night was when me and a chum had slashed up against the same bin. Still, it was all good fun and has only been rivalled by nights spent drinking at festivals at which you wander round wankered for hours, talking to strangers and getting into mischief. One night at Sonisphere, we found an alcoholic tramp with a guitar and so sat with him for a few minutes as he peacefully played for us his sweetly somber hobo melodies. Then security found him and dragged him away as he kicked, screamed and spat. Also, he reeked of piss. As genuinely enjoyable as all these incidents were though, I thankfully would not say that any were the highlight of my life.

Sadly, this is not the case for Gary King in The World's End which is the latest movie from Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright. Following on from Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, this is the final entry in their “Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy”, which this time focuses on one man's efforts to relive the best night of his life. Gary is essentially the man that time forgot and as his friends have progressed with their lives, he has been significantly left behind. Now almost in his forties, he pines for the days of his youth and so has decided to trick his friends into trying a second attempt at a failed teenage pub crawl. As is often the case though, the best laid plans go slightly tits up and Gary's night is no exception. What starts off as a casual drinks binge in which five friends re-bond (and one teeters on the edge of a mental breakdown), quickly takes a turn when they discover that aliens have taken over the village and replaced everybody with robots. Imagine Withnail and I crossed with The Stepford Wives and you're kind of on the right track.

Green mist is always a sign of a good night out.

Punctuality, for me, is a very big thing and I've lost count of the amount of crippling stomach ulcers that have formed as a result of being forced to wait around. Hot Fuzz was released in 2007 meaning that The World's End has taken six years to reach the big screen and, being a massive timekeeping-nazi, it's a wonder how I haven't torn off my nipples with impatience by now. Having said that however, I guess I can't be too mad as firstly this delay resulted in the release of the incredible Scott Pilgrim Versus The World and secondly, The World's End is fucking brilliant! Currently, I've only seen it once and as their previous works have proven, these films only get better with repeat viewings. They're sort of like the opposite to porn in that respect, I guess. As it is though, this is an epic love letter to the British 'pub' that really prides itself on our decadence and casual, 'fuck you', attitude. If any nation can get so drunk and stubborn that it has the balls to stand up to an alien race then I'd like to think it was this one. At this point, I think my favourite of the three films is still Shaun of the Dead but as far as I'm concerned, this was still a massive success. As a passionate hater of anything schmaltzy, I'm always going to love any film in which the most affectionate line of a romantic subplot is, “we'll always have the disableds”.

As mentioned, I need to see this film again to completely unlock all of it's wonders. But as it stands I suppose I'd have to say that the intro is a little on the long side. Gary's attempt at recruiting his mates is vital in terms of introducing us to them but you can't help but wish they'd just crack on and begin their adventure. Although, that really is only a minor criticism as Wright's kinetic direction easily holds attention and the jokes fly so fast that there's not a minute that goes by in which something funny isn't said or done. The other thing most people have slagged it off for is in how irritating Simon Pegg's Gary King tends to come across. However personally, he didn't annoy me in the slightest, in fact from the moment he started speaking I felt nothing but pity for him. Like The Office's David Brent, Gary is a man who only wants to be liked and accidentally comes across as a dick by overcompensating. There's no maliciousness to his actions, instead it's just that his desperation for happiness tends to blind him to the feelings of those around him. Gary is a smart-arsed manchild who has an answer for everything and hates how shite life is. It's hard to find a character annoying when you can relate to him with such a depressing amount of ease. They say that your school days are the best days of your life which would be fucking grim if it was true... sadly, for Gary, they were, and it is.

This look of panic is how I enter most rooms.

So, as mentioned Shaun, Fuzz and now World's End are jokingly referred to as “The Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy”. With the final entry having now been seen and loved, I guess we can sit down and have a little look at what ties them together. Well, cast and crew is an obvious start, as is the British setting and blatant obsession with the local pub. Each of them also take the extremes of various genre tropes and place them amongst the mundanity of suburban life. The thing that struck me strongly though is that each film depicts the public as appearing normal but acting strange. Whether they're zombies, members of a cult or even robots, the trilogy constantly highlights a paranoia that perhaps those we know are really against us. As a chap who has smoked the occasional weed and seen too many hidden camera shows, this suspicion of being watched is a constant worry to the point that I view the fucking Truman Show as a horror movie. What was surprising with The Worlds End though is how it also feels very linked to their geek-porn sitcom Spaced. The way the flashbacks are presented are very much like those of a young Tim and Mike and there's also a pissing scene which feels eerily familiar of an earlier one from the show. If there's one thing we should take from this it's that there's nothing like seeing a familiar face have a drunken slash against a urinal to feel that warm splash of nostalgia.

The World's End is not only a brilliant conclusion but also an amazing stand alone film in its own right. After Pacific Rim, it might only be my second favourite movie this year to feature robots but that's still pretty good considering how enjoyable Iron Man 3 also was. I'm sure there'll be normal non-geek people out there who might not love this film as much as I do, but for anybody who either gets the reference of this blog's title, refers to things as, “a slice of fried gold”, or has even checked to see if dogs can look up, then this film will be everything you'd hoped for. It also helps me that I have such contempt for humanity that my favourite type of movie involves fantasising about the details of our inevitable apocalypse. To be honest the idea that it could come about as a result of a pisshead with an attitude seems more justifiable and honest to me than either religion or politics. In Shaun of the Dead, the gang brutally murdered an old man by beating the shit out of him with pool cues. In less than ten years, these movies have evolved so much that we now have Nick Frost twatting the life out of an army of androids as he Hulks-out with some bar stools for makeshift fists. With progress like that we can only drool at the epicness of any future pub fights that this gang will be dreaming up in another decade's time. Like Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz before it, The World's End is off the fucking chain!

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I Hope We Die Like This

I don't necessarily believe it myself but I have a theory in regards to alien life. So far, we've not been visited by little green men and anyone who claims to have seen one is either a nutter or a bullshitter. Therefore, what if the reason we've never found any hard proof for alien life is because we're actually alone? I guess everything starts somewhere so why not with us? As Earth dies we'll move to another planet and then eventually another and another until finally you've got millions of human colonies on a million different planets. As we travel about the galaxy like intergalactic squatters, we'll eventually all evolve to suit our individual planets until inevitably the colonies look nothing like each other. By living and shagging on various worlds we'll eventually transform into the aliens that we currently imagine, abduct and probe us. Basically my theory is that in a few millenniums time, humanity will have reached its peak and become Parasitic Space Gypsies. 

Pacific Rim has a completely different idea to this, instead presenting extraterrestrials as giant fish creatures that want us dead. A giant portal has appeared in the ocean and has started spewing out these freaky looking aliens who have nine rows of teeth, five arse holes and swords for fingers. In response to this, humanity has participated in the only logical defence which is to fund skyscraper sized mecha-suits controlled by little people inside who are psychically connected. So basically, what we're left with is the ultimate Power Ranger Movie in which huge, fuck off-sized robots punch the absolute shit out of massive gunk-filled monsters. It's kind of like some sort of sci-fi, medieval film in which ugly future dragons are fought by knights that have been bummed by steroids and then strapped into a suit of armour that has rockets for elbows. What's not to love?

Stick it up his anus!

The basic message of the film is that life would be so much better if we all just settled our differences and became friends. So fish aliens aside, it's very obvious that this is a fantasy that takes place in a movie world that's very distinct from our actual reality. I don't even get on with my own neighbours so I'll be damned if I ever have to work alongside the French. However, in a climate where every film makes an effort to be real and gritty, this was a very welcome change. In Man Of Steel, the destruction of Metropolis was laughably over the top because it had tried to ground itself in realism. When Superman dragged Zod’s face along a skyscraper, I began to total up the financial burden that this would place upon our already struggling economy. Lois Lane would end up working in a supermarket, Perry White would become an alcoholic and Ma Kent would become the most wrinkled whore in all of Smallville. However, when it all kicks off in Pacific Rim, nothing matters beyond the joy of seeing a robot twat a monster with a massive metal ship. I don't think about the innocent victims, I don't think about the cost of destruction and I don't think about the state of world politics. All I want is for the big mechanical man to shove the boat really hard up the alien’s arsehole so that we can see the expression on its gigantic, startled face. The movie is just fun as hell and yes, I am aware of my issues.

I guess the only problem with these kinds of films is that when you've got apocalyptic sized bitch fights going on, the human characters can get slightly lost in the mix. It's hard to care about some fucktards’ daddy issues when we could be seeing an oversized Robocop get fist deep into some scabby Godzilla. However, for me, this film manages to avoid that pitfall by firstly making the characters interesting and secondly ensuring that their personalities are integral to the fights. The psychic connection that controls the machines means that any issues a pilot possesses could play a huge part in the outcome. If you get pissed off about something, the odds are you're going to fight better. If however you start getting flashbacks to some traumatic childhood event then I guess that'll become an influence too. As a child, I got my arm trapped in a fence and so just stood there crying until I was rescued by a passerby. If something as traumatic as this came to mind when I was in the middle of fighting a ninety foot creature with balls the size of the moon then the odds are that our world would quickly be fucked.

Everything about this film is just amazing, though. Being human, I'm obviously a huge fan of director Guillermo del Toro and although this might not be his best film, it's still absolutely brilliant. It's a big mainstream movie but it still contains all of his weird, quirky trademarks such as huge cogs, steampunk gimp suits and furless apeman Ron Perlman. Pacific Rim might aim for just being pure dumb fun but as big robot movies go, it shows crap like Transformers how it should be done. Where Michael Bay has banality and sexism, this has heart and style. There's a fight here between a robot and a lizard thing that starts in the ocean and ends up in space. After seeing something like that, it's obvious that Transformers 4 has got a lot to live up to. Sadly Michael Bay is such a talentless arsedroid that I'm not getting my hopes up. The neon colours of Pacific Rim are so gorgeous that it was like somebody had violently clawed at my eyes with a nail-file made of rainbows and glitter. Transformers, on the other hand, is so far away from being art that it's like watching an advert for overpriced cars, superficial tramps and lobotomies.

Humanity was not worth the fucking effort.

Speaking of bad movies, it's such a huge shame to see how badly Pacific Rim is doing at the box office. Despite being such a brilliant example of a summer blockbuster, it is currently being beaten by Grown Ups 2 which is about as depressing as being injected in the head with the blended up remains of Coldplay. Guillermo del Toro makes films that are genuinely unique and amazing whereas the quality of rival star Adam Sandler's cinematic output is equal to that of a particularly unambitious cauliflower. I'd like to hope that the success of shit like that at the expense of something as impressively imaginative as Pacific Rim is due to some sinister organisation subliminally brainwashing the taste out of humanity. Sadly though, I suspect the truth is that most people are fucking idiots all by themselves.   

Of course Pacific Rim isn't going to change the world but nor does it intend to. I'm sure there are plenty of plot holes and yes we can easily feign outrage at why the robots took so long to fight with swords instead of fists. Perhaps as well it'd have been better to stick the cockpits of the machines in the chest instead of the head considering how often they seem to get ripped off, but with something as big and glorious as this perhaps you've missed the point if all you can do is nitpick like a bell-end. Everything about this movie is geared towards pleasing the young child inside you and I don't mean in a Jimmy Saville or a rentboy kind of way. From the opening shot of the Roboteers tooling themselves up, my twenty-four year old mind just digressed twelve years and my excitement levels reached critical. I think I'm doing pretty well with seeing films released this year and so far this has been my favourite by far. I mean, I loved Furious 6 too, but with this I at least didn't need to over work my irony glands. In fact, the biggest disappointment with this film is just in how shit our reality seems afterwards. If we really were attacked like this in real life then there's no fucking way our governments would have either the balls or sense of fun to start funding giant metal bastards. Although when our destruction does come, I do hope it's at the hands of huge Japanese fish dragons. Not only would it be more interesting than our inevitable nuclear war but it'd be the most beautiful apocalypse we could ever hope for.      

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Everyone Knows An Oddball

Every town has its very own resident weirdo and mine has the locally notorious ‘Purple Aki’. To summarise his life as briefly as possible- he's our local sex pest whose hobby is to force young men to squat down so that he can sit on their back and feel their muscles. At around 6 foot 5, Akinwale Arobieke got his nickname when his mugshot began to circulate and people declared that his skin colour was so black that it actually looked purple. One of the more glamorous rumours that surround him is that he was the inspiration for Clive Barker’s Candy Man. I don't know if this is true but I'll be damned if I say his name whilst looking into a fucking mirror. More commonly though is the story that if you met him, he would give you the choice of either being raped or having his initials carved into your arse cheeks. It is alleged that he proposes this situation to his victims by getting straight to the point and casually asking, “Pop or Slash?” Luckily he's mostly attracted to teenagers with muscles and I am currently neither. I'm in my mid-twenties and the idea of weightlifting just makes me screw up my face and think, “Fuck that. Who can be arsed?”

Recently I saw a film which involved a town being introduced to their local oddball. But instead of being a tall, black guy it was in fact a magical white one. Powder tells the story of a young boy who is gifted/cursed with the ability of controlling electricity. Oh, and I think he's meant to be an albino although in this case he's been painted so ridiculously white that he looks more like one of Prometheus's naked Space Jockeys. His magical powers are a result of his mum being struck by lightning whilst pregnant with him... because you know, that's how science works. Personally, I would have just assumed her feet would explode and her baby would fry in vitro but I guess I'm not a doctor.

I guess people are all made of stars...

The young albino child quickly finds himself orphaned and living with his grandparents who, as the title suggests, have considerately nicknamed him Powder. Kind of like when you have a little kid riddled with cancer and to make light of the situation you refer to him as Kojak, Gollum or He Who Must Not Be Named. Also, because the local town isn't ready to see somebody slightly paler than usual, they keep their innocent grandchild imprisoned in the basement. I don't know if America understands albino-ism because the film really does treat the little honkey as if he was Frankenstein's milky monster. After the death of his family, the magnetised cracker is forced to enter society and does not adjust well. Despite his only crime being a resemblance to a vampiric Moby, the town rejects him and Powder becomes the subject of some pretty intense bullying.

Don't forget though that the kid does have the ability to manipulate electricity as the bullies seem less interested in electro-manipulation than they are his unfortunate complexion. I mean I know racism is fairly rife in some areas but I still would have thought that even the most bigoted of twats would be at least a little distracted when presented with the powers of almighty Thor. At one point, Powder almost develops a relationship with a kindly red-haired girl but her father sees and intervenes. For some reason, this plot thread is just left hanging and I'm pretty sure we never see her again which really is a shame. When you think about it, an albino and a ginger would make a really nice couple as neither can go out in the sun and neither have souls.

Still, I don't want to credit the film with being an over the top satire on the state of a discrimination. It's really a lot dumber than that. In actual fact it's really an odd and overly sentimental movie that unashamedly steals the structure of Edward Scissorhands. In both cases, the kind-hearted freak comes down from the outskirts, is thoroughly rejected by society and so returns to isolation. Although in Powder’s case, instead of going back home, he just gets hit by a bolt of lightning, burns completely up and dies. Personally I'd have thought that telling you that would be an end-ruining spoiler but considering it's the image on the front cover of the DVD I guess not. Spoiler alert... It actually is!

What the fuck am I watching ...?

So, at this point it's not sounding too great but there is one ace in the hole that might attract it an audience. Playing Powder's school science teacher is Jeff Goldblum who has once again been set to ‘fully watchable mental mode’. He bursts into this film full of his weird stutters, smiles and twitches and is instantly as funny as hell. At one point, to express surprise, he looks about the room before finding the camera and randomly staring straight down the lens for a lot longer than I suspect he was directed to. Sure you could just watch him in The Fly which is clearly a much better movie but then you'd miss out on the one scene here which is just too fucking random. At one point, young Powder shows Goldblum his electrical powers by holding his hand and passing a static current through him. This results in Goldblum's hair bouncing up and down whilst his eyes look up towards it so sensually that it's as though he's about to spontaneously ejaculate. Now that the two have bonded, Goldblum, with his hair still messy, starts to fondle the albino boy’s face for no real reason. I have no idea what was going on here but it was fucking hilarious all the same.

I was introduced to this film by a friend and I'm genuinely grateful for the experience of having seen it. Beyond the fact that I'll watch anything that's new to me, there's enough oddness here that even with its predictable plot, it's hard to get bored during its fairly tolerable running time. Before Powder explodes at the end, he finds himself in the presence of the bullies for one last confrontation. Things start to get a little rapey though, when they strip him completely bollock naked and throw him into a puddle. During his anger, he calls on all of his electrical powers and magnetises his attackers belt buckles, yanking them open and causing their pants to fall down. Now I have no problem at all with gay scenes in movies but this one did appear slightly out of the blue and a little out of place. Imagine you were watching something else - Spiderman for example, and there was a random scene in which Aunt May caught him tossing off. It's not that it would bother or offend me, it's just I'd wonder who thought that sequence was the best idea?

Well the answer to that question is a convicted paedophile.

Before this week I'd never heard of the film Powder and I'd never heard of its director Victor Salva. I therefore decided to research what other films he'd made and was unsurprised to discover that his filmography was fairly bare. As it turns out, beyond Powder, the only thing of any significance that he had done was the Jeepers Creepers franchise. Oh, and apparently at one point, he had been arrested for child molestation. It seems that during the making of a film previous to this, he had kiddy-fiddled a twelve year old actor and subsequently been imprisoned as a result. I guess that explains why the climax of Powder has an unexpected schoolboy nude-off. Now, I'm not one of those extremists who feels the urge to go out with a flaming torch so that I can kill the monster in his giant, gothic windmill but still... There are so many talented filmmakers out there that struggle to receive any funding that it seems wrong that this pedo managed to get money to film his climactic student cock fight.

Is Powder a particularly good film? No, not really. Do I recommend that you watch it? Yeah, I guess so. It holds the attention, has moments of Goldblum-related hilarity and it's interesting just to see how a pervert works a predictable plot into their own creepy, fantasy. For best results, I suggest watching with friends so that you can talk throughout and take the piss. It's not brilliant but for stories of doomed, freaky, white people that contain undercurrents of paedophilia, it's certainly better than anything featuring Michael Jackson. Still, I watch Roman Polanski's films and he's not much better. I guess it's just Powder’s slightly random scenes of pant-less-ness that just seemed a bit sinister when knowing of Salva's history. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer it when Hollywood doesn't fund the casual whims of an untrustworthy nonce. 

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Wanna Play A Game?

Anybody who read last week’s blog will be aware that I have recently seen Furious 6 for the first time and loved it a little too much. After seven days of intense medical investigations though, there is apparently nothing newly wrong with the contents of my head, meaning my enthusiasm for a film which is obviously a pile of shit still cannot be explained. Both Fast 5 and Furious 6 were directed by a chap named Justin Lin who is either a full on intellect or the most human-looking vegetable to ever step behind a camera. For anybody who missed last week’s waffling, the conclusion was that these two films are so inventive and shocking in their stupidity that there's a very small chance that they were made by a genius. Sadly though, Lin will not be involved in Fast and Furious 7 meaning the directing duties have fallen to somebody else. I guess he's either too busy using his mind to solve our world’s biggest problems or more likely has had his life support machine turned off after so long without any sign of brain activity. Whatever the reason is though, the future of this enjoyably retarded franchise now rests on the shoulders of director James Wan. I therefore decided to refresh myself with his work and re-watch his breakthrough film, Saw.

The rest of this blog will be mostly nothing to do with The Fast and The Furious franchise and so I'll confess to the tenuous link between that intro and everything that's about to follow. But at the same time, fuck it! I can't help but take any opportunity to bang on about that shitty film series. Oh and The Rock, I didn't even mention The Rock... Argh God, I need to focus... Ignore the distractions. Must crack on!

So- Saw opens with two strangers chained up in a bathroom, unaware of how they got there and with a dead body lying between them. Although my initial assumption would be a smack party with Charlie Sheen, it turns out that something only slightly more sinister may be taking place. A murderous psychopath is keeping them locked up and forcing them to perform gruelling tasks in exchange for their lives. It's kind of like a more adult version of the kids’ game show Fun House but instead of sliding into gunge, you have to rip up somebody’s intestines before you get your head snapped off. As the film progresses, we learn that the orchestrator of this violent ordeal is some mysterious nutcase known only as 'The Jigsaw'. I guess 'Jigsaw” isn't the best alias for a serial killer but if you're going to name yourself after a puzzle it's probably more intimidating than either 'Jenga', 'Boggle' or 'Kerplunk'. 

Murtaugh finally hears the 'sugar tit's rant...

At the same time as all this is going on, Jigsaw is also being hunted by a slightly deranged Danny Glover. In many ways, this film could be seen as a sequel to the Lethal Weapon franchise with Glover again playing a reliable detective who’s just a bit too old for this shit. In this film, Murtaugh may come across as a little on the mental side but let’s face it- that's probably just a side effect of spending too much time with Mad Mel Gibson. In regards to what Glover is hunting our villain for though, the very obvious answer is ‘murder’. A friend of mine once told me that the clever thing about Saw is in how the bad guy isn't actually a serial-killer because he gets his victims to kill themselves instead. Well clearly that's a load of shit isn't it, as he is very definitely guilty of some sort of homicide. If I died of blood loss after being stripped naked and forced to crawl through a maze of razor blades then I'd be seriously pissed off if it was then declared that I was a victim of suicide.

As the two trapped men try to think their way out of their situation, we're treated to several flashbacks that provide a little context. I should point out that things are about to get a little spoilerific so newbies might want to leave now. Although considering the film is almost ten years old, I'm guessing you've probably either already seen it or are just at a point where you really couldn't give a toss. Anyway, so of the two men trapped in the bathroom, one is a photographer and the other a doctor who is cheating on his wife. Apparently the reason they've both been chosen for this is as a punishment for not valuing their lives. Although considering the doctor has a loving family and a fuckbuddy on the side, I'd say he was enjoying his existence as much as is probably possible. The theory behind this sadistic game being that if they sum up enough will power to endure and survive all the horrendous traps, then afterwards they'll have a new found appreciation of life. It's kind of like that bit in Fight Club in which Tyler Durden pulls a gun on a store clerk and encourages him to become a veterinarian but stretched out over about ninety minutes. Generally when we see suffering, we do our best to help the situation improve. This philosophy of making things significantly worse before then just restoring the original grimness would certainly make charities such as Aid For Africa an interestingly different organisation.

However Fight Club in fact may not be the only film directed by Fincher that Saw shares similarities with. Se7en also seems to have been a direct influence too with both movies featuring a sadistic but intelligent killer who punishes his victims in ways that are supposed to mirror their sins. Contrary to what the franchise may have become, I think Saw is more of a thriller than a horror and despite the sequels, I actually do enjoy this film. It's suitably grim, interestingly structured and has an enjoyable twist at the end. Again, spoiler alert, but... as it turns out, the dead guy between the two chained up victims was actually Jigsaw all along who for some reason was just having a bit of a mong-out down there. Considering that all he had to do was lie down on a bathroom floor for the entire duration this must have been the easiest acting role of Tobin Bells life and was presumably written with a pissed up David Hasselhoff in mind.

Despite churning out about three hundred sequels, I have only ever seen the first two Saw films. From what I hear though, the franchise became increasingly more convoluted and dumb by quickly descending into that crappy fad known as 'torture porn'. For anyone unaware other examples of 'torture porn', might be Hostel, Final Destination and One Night In Paris. The difference between Saw and Saw 2 though would be in that with the first, you wonder how the characters will survive and with the second you wonder how they will die. Could I escape from being chained up in a bathroom? Maybe. Could I hack up my own eye to remove a key that will prevent my head from exploding? Not a fucking chance! Anybody who seriously believes that Jigsaw isn't a serial-killer is clearly a fucking idiot.  

"Where's me tickling stick?!"

As a film on its own though, I think the first is pretty good. Sure it's reputation has been a bit screwed by the shitty sequels, but perhaps it's not alone here. There's about a trillion entries in the Halloween Franchise but that doesn't mean John Carpenter's 1978 original should be considered any less of a masterpiece. Not that I'm saying Saw is a masterpiece although it does deserves some credit for adding a few memorable creations to the genre. There's a creepy puppet thing that looks like an albino Ken Dodd and a sinister Jackie Stallone/Pig Mask that have both since become very minor icons over the last decade. I do question the believability of some of the traps constructed by a man we're told is dying of cancer though. When my Granddad was dying of emphysema, he spent most of his days watching daytime TV and moaning. This fucker though has spent what looks like years building an S & M wank-dungeon of joy. Still it's all good fun and nastily inventive, so for this first film at least, I'll go with it.

So yeah- I guess I'll be interested to see exactly what director James Wan does with Fast and Furious 7. The acting isn't overly brilliant here, which is a good start. Everything is okay in the beginning but the moment that actor Cary Elwes chops off his own foot, the rage he conveys is a bit too much like a grumpy old man whose just noticed some kids on his porch. There's also a fucking awful car chase that, although was clearly done on a budget, is ridiculous looking enough that it shows the lack of promise that I'm after. So yeah, Saw is pretty good and although not nearly as amazing/shite as Furious 6, I think I'll still stand by my claim that the seventh instalment will be the greatest film of all time.

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