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aonanim
Reviews
The Descent (2005)
Do not rent - Dire
This movie is simply dire. It's predictable, clichéd, tripe.
The casting is weak (at least two feigned British accents); and the plot has so many holes it borders on the ridiculous.
The director treats us to a glaringly-obvious and wholly unoriginal scene-setting at the outset... which is rehashed throughout as "flash back". If this is intended to highlight a common emotional bond between (some) of the characters, it fails drastically. The subterranean creatures fail to scare in the *least*. He employs predictable scare tactics ad nauseum: sudden cuts to violent flights of noisy birds and bats.
Do not rent. This is directorial detritus.
Histoire de Pen (2002)
Terrible
Released under "Banged Up" (Cert 18) in the Irish/UK markets.
Avoid this made-for-TV tripe at all costs.
Not only does this "movie" suffer from an absence of plot and a liberal peppering of flash-backs throughout (yawn...); the disc production is wholly sub-standard:
A) This movie is *dubbed* into English (not subtitled). B) Colour conversion from NTSC->PAL is awful. (Unless the original was also bathed in a crimson hue?) C) The disc is labelled as "Aspect: Full screen". Unless your TV is capable of manually resizing its picture, this movie plays out-of-aspect. Changing your player settings to 4:3 (PS/LB) are not sufficient to repair the over-stretched (tall) picture.
My DVD store were kind enough to refund my euro4.75. Hopefully others will be as sympathetic!
As for the English-language release title ("Banged Up"); this is surely a pun too far?