Archive
SAN ANDREAS – Andrew Lockington
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
For Los Angeles natives, San Andreas is a disaster film which could hit too close to home. It’s been more than 20 years since the last major earthquake to hit the area – the 1994 Northridge quake, a 6.7 – and many people feel that a ‘big one’ is imminent, considering that the famous San Andreas fault runs almost directly through the city. Director Brad Peyton’s film takes a look at what might happen if the fault were to rupture, and the devastation that the cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco would suffer as a result. The personal story within the film centers on Ray Gaines, played by Dwayne Johnson, a Los Angeles Fire Department helicopter rescue pilot, who embarks on a dangerous mission to rescue his estranged wife Emma (Carla Gugino) and their daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario) from the aftermath of the disaster. The film, which also stars Ioan Gruffudd, Archie Panjabi, and Paul Giamatti as a Cal Tech seismologist, has been a surprise commercial hit, and has been praised for its special effects and action sequences, while being simultaneously derided for its rather terrible dialogue and cliché-ridden plot. Read more…
CITY OF EMBER – Andrew Lockington
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A lavish sci-fi fantasy based on the novel by Jeanne Duprau, City of Ember is the second film from director Gil Kenan, following his animated 2006 debut, Monster House. The film stars Saoirse Ronan and Harry Treadway as Lina and Doon, two teenagers who live in the underground city of Ember, built several centuries previously when the surface of the Earth was left uninhabitable by an unspecified disaster. Lina and Doon begin to discover some dark secrets about Ember: the city is crumbling, both physically and morally, and the corrupt mayor Cole (Bill Murray) doesn’t seem to care. Taking the advice of several similarly disillusioned inhabitants of Ember, Lina and Doon take it upon themselves to escape from Ember, and a way back to the surface. The film, which also stars Mackenzie Crook, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Martin Landau and Tim Robbins, boasts dazzling production design and special effects, and features an original score by up-and-coming Canadian composer Andrew Lockington. Read more…
JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH – Andrew Lockington
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The last time a major movie was made of Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth was 1959, and the composer was Bernard Herrmann. It’s a big pair of shoes for composer Andrew Lockington to step into, but step into them he has, and although his score for the 2008 version certainly does not emulate or surpass Herrmann’s excellent work, the young Canadian has nevertheless created a fun, exciting, enjoyably old-fashioned score which stands as an unexpected highlight in what has otherwise been a largely lackluster summer.
2008’s Journey is the directorial debut of special effects whiz Eric Brevig, whose previous films include Total Recall, Hook, Men in Black and Pearl Harbor. Read more…
SKINWALKERS – Andrew Lockington
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Skinwalkers is a Canadian horror-action film about werewolves, directed by James Isaac and starring Jason Behr, Elias Koteas, Rhona Mitra, and Tom Jackson. It follows the fortunes of a young boy named Timothy (Matthew Knight) who, unbeknown to him, is a member of a ‘good’ werewolf family, and who upon his thirteenth birthday will begin to fulfil an ancient prophecy and “cure” his family and other werewolves of their lycanthropy. However, a gang of other werewolves, who have embraced their flesh-eating ways, are searching for the boy, determined to stop the prophecy from coming true. It’s an interesting premise which, unfortunately, lost something in translation between the page and the screen, and generated some surprisingly negative reviews. Read more…
Shop at the Movie Music UK Store
Member of the
MOVIE MUSIC UK 