There is little new brought to the table by The Pact, but in spite of the occasionally hammy dialogue and some serious Apple product placement it emerges as a modestly successful horror, carefully cultivating an atmosphere of dread instead of investing in cheap, CGI-assisted scares clearly outside of its budget.
Nothing wrong with the shoot-run-fight-chat-run-shoot formula, but TR 2012 is so disinterested in its central conceit it could genuinely have been called anything, so why bother sullying Verhoeven’s classic? Biel is better than this. And while Beckinsale’s inhumanly gorgeous hair is enchanting, Farrell’s eyebrows walk away with the acting honours.
Consigning the bulk of the action to the final ten minutes, Straw Dogs seems to forget what its point is for much of the running time, giving you a good hour and a half to get to know the central pair – a pleasure on a par with self harming.
Beloved by snobs who aren’t blamefully hungry for a decent quirky teen/college comedy, Damsels in Distress is nevertheless incredibly, inarguably bad; as boring as it is baffling; as irritating as it is inane. It is however a case study in the invincibility of a genuine star in ascent (Greta Gerwig).
Fifty word film reviews 