Joe Lynch | 86 mins | Blu-ray | 2.40:1 | USA / English | 15 / R
After being dumped by his long-time girlfriend, Joe (True Blood’s Ryan Kwanten) is persuaded to join his friends Eric (Treme’s Steve Zahn) and Hung (Game of Thrones’ Peter Dinklage) for a weekend of fantasy LARPing — that’s Live-Action Role-Playing to you and me. But things soon go south when it turns out Eric has accidentally released a real demon onto the world, and it’s up to these wannabe-warriors — along with gamemaster Ronnie (serial guest star Jimmi Simpson), ‘warlock’ Landon (Community’s Danny Pudi), believes-it’s-real Gunther (Brett Gipson), and his cousin Gwen (Firefly’s Summer Glau) — to save everyone.
Knights of Badassdom is perhaps best known for its behind-the-scenes wrangles, which saw it taken out of director Joe Lynch’s hands and re-edited in a way he wasn’t happy with. Having been shot in 2010, and gaining some anticipation in certain circles online thanks to funny clips/trailers and general hype, by the time the edited version was released Stateside in early 2014, reception was poor. A lot of this was put down to it still not being Lynch’s cut, but I disagree for two reasons: one, I thought this version was good fun; and two, based on what I’ve read, I’m not convinced Lynch’s preferred cut would help any of the elements that might need helping.
The film as it stands is primarily a comedy. I mean, of course it is — it’s about a bunch of people who spend their weekends dressed up as knights, wizards, orcs and the like, running around in the woods pretending to fight each other with rubber swords and ‘magic’. Whether the film is respectful to this group or taking the piss out of them is a matter of perspective, as I’ve read reviews that firmly assert both sides. Generally, it seems to be people involved in LARPing who think it’s fine, and those who aren’t who think it’s being insulting, which suggests they do have a sense of humour about their inherently daft pastime. 
It’s a fine line to tread, and it seems to me that Knights of Badassdom manages it well. You get a sense of why people choose to do this and the fun that it can be — indeed, the final epic battle between the two factions of LARPers, complete with grand pre-fight speeches from each army’s general, and an awesome surprise, is kinda cool. Equally, the film doesn’t hold back from riffing off the sillier aspects of LARPing, including the rules of combat.
The flipside to this is the ‘real’ supernatural element: the unleashed demon that wreaks havoc, murdering innocent LARPers and eventually intruding on the aforementioned battle. This, it would seem, is where most of the cuts to Lynch’s vision have occurred. He’s a horror director, by both form and intent, and while some incredibly gruesome sights remain (a jaw is ripped off in unexpected and graphic fashion) this is apparently the element most reduced from the director’s cut. Personally, I’m fine with that. As my previous comment should imply, there’s already more than enough of it — literally, because much time in the middle of the film is wasted on the physical manifestation of the demon wandering around the woods and killing people. There’s no plot to that bit, just multiple setups for gory demises. Maybe Lynch’s version linked these better, but the impression I’ve got from interviews with him is he wants to put more gore back in.
Gorehounds are, naturally, excited for this; but as I see it, Knights of Badassdom is a comedy horror, a genre in which the emphasis falls firmly on the comedy side. There’s room for blood and guts in there, especially when used to humorous effect, but it’s not about the visceral thrills of seeing someone eviscerated — 
if that’s your bag, there are plenty of films to cater for it; is a comedy about role-players really the occasion? There are elements of the film that could do with tightening up — the beginning is a little slow, as well as the issues with the middle, and towards the climax it’s sporadically jumpy in a way that makes it clear something has been excised — but just adding gore is not what this film needs to improve it.
On the bright side, the gore is at least well-realised, with a commitment to using physical effects. I’ve read several reviews that criticise this side of the film, and I just can’t understand it. There is some weak CGI, but considering the budget of the movie it’s not too bad, and it’s barely featured anyway. Besides, it’s mostly used to depict a portal to hell — how do you know a real-life portal to hell doesn’t look like cheap CGI? The practical effects are all very good, including a final form for the demon that’s a man in a suit. OK, it doesn’t look real… because it’s a bloody hell demon and those things aren’t bloody real, are they! Honestly, I don’t know what people expect from special effects sometimes — it’s not like most of the effects in $250m movies actually look real, they just look better. But I digress.
According to the most recent interview with Lynch that I’ve found, this version of Badassdom has actually sold and rented pretty well, and the distributors (who aren’t the same people who messed with his cut — it got sold on at some point) have been in touch about possibly releasing his cut. At some point we may get to find out the truth of the matter, then, but I rather suspect those who were expecting a tighter, funnier movie may be disappointed, even if those who just want more blood may be satiated.
As it stands, Knights of Badassdom is an entertaining way to spend just under 90 minutes. A more restrained approach might yield a tighter movie, one that could be funnier by percentage (the trailer remains popular, and you don’t get more condensed than that), but I think it’s still well enough constructed to keep genre-minded viewers entertained.
The current cut of Knights of Badassdom finally makes its way to UK DVD today, and will be on Sky Movies from Friday 27th February.
Christopher Nolan’s regular director of photography (he’s lensed seven Nolan films, from 
Another element that’s probably too challenging for some is where our allegiances are meant to lie. (Some spoilers follow in this paragraph.) At the start, it’s clear Depp & friends are the heroes and the murderous anti-tech terrorists are the villains. As events unfurl, however, artificial-Will perhaps goes too far, Bettany teams up with the terrorists, and eventually so do the government and Will’s other friends. There is no comeuppance for some characters who are initially begging for it; a good one self-sacrifices somewhat heroically. This doesn’t fit the usual Hollywood mould at all (well, the last bit does, sometimes), no doubt to some’s annoyance. The number of people who clamour for any sliver of originality or texture to their blockbusters, but then are unhappy when they actually get it…
robbing the entire film of tension and nullifying any sense of surprise, and the movie doesn’t compensate with, say, a feeling of crushing inevitability. The climax in particular becomes a drawn-out exercise in connect the dots: we’ve been shown how this all ends up, now we’re just seeing the minutiae of how it got there. There’s no twist or reveal to speak of, just a wait for it to marry up with what we already know.
I guess that’s probably the explanation for Transcendence’s poor reception, in the end: it’s too blockbuster-y for viewers who’d like a dramatic exploration of its central moral and scientific issues, but too lacking in action sequences for those who misguidedly expected an SF-action-thriller. I maintain it’s not slow-paced, especially if you think it’s going to be, but nor does it generate doses of adrenaline on a committee-approved schedule. It’s not all it could have been, but if all you’ve heard is the mainstream drubbing, it’s probably better than you expect.
Husband-and-wife detective duo Nick and Nora Charles (William Powell and Myrna Loy) — now with a baby in tow — are once again coerced into investigating a crime when the manager of Nora’s estate fears a dismissed employee is plotting murder.
Screenwriter James Moran doesn’t like it when people compare Cockneys vs Zombies to 
And why is their imagination so stunted that they can’t accept them anyway?
Much maligned on its release, I thought The Tourist was actually a decently entertaining light thriller.
An unnamed woman (Martina Gedeck) goes to stay with some friends at their lodge in the Alps. The friends pop into town, leaving their dog behind with the woman. When she wakes up the next morning, they’ve not returned, and she finds an invisible wall surrounding the mountain. Exploring its boundaries, she sees people outside, paused mid-life, as if frozen. As hours turn into days turn into weeks, she begins to realise the need to fend for herself, farming the land and caring for her animals, which come to also include a cow and a cat. As weeks turn into years, she comes to accept her new life, from which it seems there may be no end…
The Wall starts out with a compelling mysterious premise, but seems to have no interest in exploring it or answering the many questions it raises. In some respects that’s better than the kinds of rote explanation offered by lesser films — you know, “Aliens did it. Why? Because.” — but it’s a bit like a joke without a punchline. Taking the setup as a mere excuse for an exploration of the human condition, I don’t know that it’s that illuminating. Either way, it makes for a sporadically interesting but ultimately unsatisfying experience.
Robert Redford on a boat with no dialogue for over an hour and a half. That’s not a spurious way of describing All is Lost — that is what it is. Well, OK, he does say a couple of words — more or less literally “a couple”, though.
Through chance, coincidence, bad luck, but never forced tension-mounting on the part of the filmmakers (at least, not obviously so), our man’s fortunes go from bad to worse to even worse to even worse than that. Despite his best efforts, he’s on a downward spiral, a seemingly irreversible series of unfortunate events. If you ever had an interest in solo sailing, this is liable to put you off.
Sometimes self-imposed filmmaking limitations lead to an exercise in competency over good moviemaking — “can we pull this off?” rather than “can we make a good film?” Chandor and co do pull their limitations off, I suspect not because someone set out purely to make a film with one character and no dialogue, but because it’s a gripping, exciting, tense movie, carried by a powerful near-silent performance and first-rate direction.
Immediately after their New York Christmastime adventure in 
There’s also an increased role for the couple’s dog, Asta, granted his own subplot as he has to fend off a philandering Scottie with intentions toward Mrs Asta. I make no apologies for preferring this over the previous film in part because there’s more amusing doggy action.
25 years before Jennifer Lawrence had to 
Quirky cult-y director Wes Anderson tries his hand at stop motion animation with this Roald Dahl adaptation, in which an all-star cast voice the tribulations of a gaggle of talking animals — led by the eponymous vulpine — who come into conflict with three vicious farmers.
Compositionally, I thought I’d get sick of the squared-off 2D style, but Anderson’s cleverer than that. It might look flat and lacking in dimension at first, but that’s the starting point for variation, including some great bits of depth (farmer Bean trashing a caravan is a particular highlight of this), and when it breaks form (like a rabid dog chase) it’s all the more effective. There’s also a fantastic score by Alexandre Desplat. Not your usual plinky-plonky Quirky Kids’ Movie music (though there are instances of that), but something more raucous. Nice spaghetti Western riffs, too.
Fantastic Mr. Fox is the kind of film I feel I may enjoy more on a re-watch. Indeed, some comments on film social networking sites (e.g. 
100Films.co.uk 