Smashbomb

Search

Search results

All (5000)

Content

Awix (3310 KP) rated The Assassination Bureau (1969) in Movies

Oct 1, 2020

The Assassination Bureau (1969)

1969 | Action, Comedy

7.3

(4 Ratings)

Movie Rating

Knockabout black comedy thriller. A feisty journalist (Rigg) challenges the leader of a group of elite assassins (Reed) to have himself killed: feeling his associates have become sloppy and corrupt, he accepts the challenge as it will allow him to purge his organisation. Exploits across Edwardian Europe follow, together with a touch of romance.

Oliver Reed never had the career as a leading man he deserved; Diana Rigg didn't get the film career you would have expected, either, so the film has a certain rarity value. However it's just not very funny, or thrilling, and the duo don't seem to have much chemistry - that said, a script which doesn't seem to know whether to be darkly witty or zany means he seems to be operating at about half-power. With Rigg and Savalas co-starring in a 1969 film about a suave assassin taking on a criminal conspiracy, the temptation is to speculate that this film gives a hint of what On Her Majesty's Secret Service might have looked like had Eon made better casting decisions - one hopes not, for this film isn't great in any department, on top of which the special effects in the climax are rotten and the closing song is pretty grim too. A waste of several great talents.

Kudos

David McK (3600 KP) rated Jurassic Park (1993) in Movies

May 26, 2020

Jurassic Park (1993)

1993 | Adventure, Sci-Fi

8.8

(129 Ratings)

Movie Rating

I've just realised (at the time of writing) that this movie is nearly 30 years old.

Man, I feel old.

Taking some liberties with Michael Crichtons's source material (Hammond dies and was not a very nice man; Grant likes kids), this is a disaster movie with stunning effects (that still hold up pretty well today) for the time, even if our understanding of the 'headline' dinosaurs has changed somewhat in the intervening years since its release (Raptors were the size of chickens, had feathers, and were NOT pack hunters. or so we now think).

Set on a tropical island hit by a storm just as the owner is given a pre-release tour to special invited guests to show off his scientific breakthrough - cloned Dinosaurs, because that's ALWAYS a good idea … - a series of events leads to the power going down, and the 'exhibits' breaking free to wreak havoc amongst those guests. And, lets not kid around the bush here, despite having the likes of Samuel L Jackson, Richard Attenborough, Sam Neil, Laura Dern and - uh- Jeff Goldblum ("life, uh, finds a way") amongst the cast - the real stars are those dinosaurs.

All the sequels (4 so far, with a 5th ion the way in Jurassic World: Dominion) pale in comparison.