Well I’ve now read all 6 screenplays, and as today is the day they post the top 3 – I’d like to get my final 3 reviews posted before I look at the site. Since resisting temptation was never my strong suit – probably best to get them out of the way asap. So without further ado here’s
Does Anyone Here Remember When Hans Gubenstein Invented Time Travel?
So you remember the part in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure where they use the time machine to change the present by planting useful stuff in the past? Well that’s pretty much the whole movie. It’s a sci-fi time-travel comedy. It’s a bit like Groundhog Day without the romantic sub-plot. A physics professor and his engineer sidekick invent a machine for sending messages back in time. This provides them with a way of changing things. The movie is basically a comedy series of attempts to change the present for the better.
So, this wasn’t that bad – but in a growing trend – it wasn’t that great either. I didn’t mind that the premise wasn’t 100% original – but the trade-off for that has to be that it’s funny and this wasn’t as funny as it needed to be. Having said that it was kinda fun and if executed well it could be an ok movie.
7.5/10
Sixth Street Boyz
Sixth Street Boyz is a vampire story. Would it surprise you to know that a vampire movie with ‘boyz’ in the title borrows heavily from ‘The Lost Boys’? Well this does – in plot and structure if nothing else. It doesn’t quite do the humour and pop-culture references that Lost Boys does but it does have a single parent re-locating to a small town where there’s a surprisingly high incidence of gang violence. No wonder when the main gang – the eponymous Sixth Street Boyz – are vampires.
Again this is an ok script – but I was hungering after something better in the way of dialogue or originality. The word ‘competent’ springs to mind. Well executed it could make an entertaining if predictable movie.
7/10
Wildcard
Wildcard is a story of a couple of con-artists. The male-female pair, on the run from a failed con in San Francisco, move to Oregon and their next mark. Unfortunately he’s something of a wildcard and things are not as straightforward as they appear. Meanwhile a cop from SF is on their trail and working with the local police to bring them to justice.
So, OK, maybe this only looked good by comparison but I did enjoy this. Characters I actually liked, banter that was actually funny. The plot managed to surprise me in places. Dialogue that was more than just cliches. Not that this was perfect but I did l like it. Bearing mind that part of the top 3 is an assignment to see how they respond to notes on the script. I’d go for an uneven script where the good parts are good, like this, rather than a more consistent piece that’s pretty pedestrian.
8/10