Smashbomb

Search

Search results

All (1868)

Content

RSPB Spotlight: Foxes

Mike Unwin

(0 Ratings) Rate It

Book

Hero or villain? Few animals divide opinion like the Red Fox. This most successful of the world's...

Stealing Snow

Danielle Paige

6.0 (4 Ratings) Rate It

Book

Seventeen-year-old Snow lives within the walls of the Whittaker Institute, a high security mental...

LeftSideCut (3776 KP) rated Spider-Man (2002) in Movies

Sep 19, 2020

Spider-Man (2002)

2002 | Action, Sci-Fi

7.5

(64 Ratings)

Movie Rating Watch

The first major blockbuster Spider-Man movie hasn't aged particularly well, but it's overflowing with charm and a great cast.

Watching this as an adult is still as much fun as it was back in 2002 (when I was a fresh faced 13 year old). Tobey Maguire, Willem Defoe, James Franco, Kirsten Dunst, Cliff Robertson, Rosemary Harris, J.K. Simmons - all of them are really well cast and bring their comic book counterparts to life in a way that captured the imaginations of comic fans everywhere, all backed up by a fantastic score by Danny Elfman.

It's faults are few, but mainly in line with the first X-Men film - it's just doesn't quite stand up compared to comic films today and suffers from sub standard CGI and an early 2000s time stamp - I must say though - I have a special kind of love for the borderline Power Rangers villain costume that Green Goblin gets to wear...

Spider-Man is an important milestone in bringing comic books to the big screen, and will surely be enjoyed for years to come.

Kudos

Kristina (502 KP) rated The Wife Between Us in Books

Dec 7, 2020

Let me start by saying this: That was unexpected. I usually write notes when I read, jot down theories and emotions, express suspicions or ask questions. While reading this book, that same sentence, "that was unexpected", was repeated over and over. So many people have raved over The Wife Between Us, I was curious. Not to say I'm highly disappointed, but I suppose I feel as if the book didn't live up to the hype. Granted, there were several twists and turns - some I was able to guess correctly and others I could never have predicted - but, overall, it was pretty good. The most intriguing part, for me, was trying to figure out if Vanessa was actually crazy, like her mother, and if I was falling for her altered reality. I would read and read, painting Richard as the villain, then she would say or think something that would make me pause and wonder just how like her mother she really could be. That ending, though, was a total bombshell!

Kudos

LeftSideCut (3776 KP) rated Ghost Rider (2007) in Movies

Jun 28, 2019 (Updated Jun 28, 2019)

Ghost Rider (2007)

2007 | Action, Horror, Mystery

5.4

(24 Ratings)

Movie Rating Watch

Just...so bad

Ghost Rider was one of the many terrible Marvel adaptions that were unleashed upon us before Marvel Studios started the MCU, and for me, this is easily one of the worst.

There's just nothing to really get excited about here - the cast is pretty dodgy (I appreciate Nicholas Cages general existence, but he's such a bad fit for Johnny Blaze), Eva Mendes is pretty forgettable, and Wes Bentley plays a hugely generic villain - a far cry from the demonic Blackheart from the comics.
It's quite obvious that any meaningful script or basic plot were put second behind attempts at flashy shots.

The CGI has aged pretty badly as well, with Ghost Rider himself looking like something from a PS3 era cutscenes, rather than a big budget superhero film.

I can't wait for a proper Ghost Rider adaption to happen within the MCU in the future (Agents of Shield made a pretty good start) but unfortunately, Johnny Blaze was one of the many Marvel characters that got a piss poor movie around this time.

Kudos

Show all 5 comments.

Kelly Knows (95 KP) Jun 28, 2019

We should start a bring Ghostrider to the MCU petition. :)

Kudos

LeftSideCut (3776 KP) Jun 28, 2019

He will come soon enough - most likely in a Doctor Strange sequel - the Robbie Reyes version has appeared in Agents of Shield which is part of the MCU but still waiting on Johnny Blaze!

Kudos

Jesters_folly (230 KP) rated House Beneath the Bridge in Books

Sep 3, 2020

Contains spoilers, click to show

The burning of the wrong person leads to a village being cursed. Years later a car crash leaves three groups of people stranded in a dried up river bed that should be easy to get out of, but isn't. Some take haven in a strange church whilst others find a strange house. Terrorised by a strange monk and a giant toad god they need to find a way out, but who can they trust.

This is the first book by Iain Rob Wright that I have read and I have to say I enjoyed it. There are a number of characters who could be the villain or who could be helping the main cast and the reader is misled through out a lot of the book. The landscape the cast are trapped in is just strange enough to add a bit of unease but not so strange that it takes away form the characters interaction.
It was also nice to find a stand alone novel as there are a lot of series' around.

Kudos

Awix (3310 KP) rated Bad Samaritan (2018) in Movies

May 24, 2020 (Updated May 26, 2020)

Bad Samaritan (2018)

2018 | Horror, Thriller

6.3

(13 Ratings)

Movie Rating

Dean Devlin's second crack at directing a movie (after the uproarious Geostorm) is probably marginally better but not as much fun. Car valet discovers one of his marks keeps a woman chained up in his office - what should he do? If he calls the cops, how will he explain his presence there? Interesting premise doesn't really go anywhere, though, and the battle of wits between hapless hero and weirdly omni-competent psycho is mainly expressed through people looking at their smartphones.

There's very little that's actually bad about this movie, and David Tennant is as capable as the villain as you'd expect (this role really demands a full 30% of his talent), but it rapidly turns into pretty formulaic stuff, often quite laboriously handled. Passes the time as background noise while you're doing something else fairly painlessly. It'd be great to live in a world where Tennant has the kind of film career he deserves, but I guess we'll just have to make the most of this one instead.