The Grand Film Adventure- 11-15

On Tuesday I watched 3 films in a day, this is unheard of for me. Also bought a load of DVDs online and from CEX since last time. The Grand Film Adventure - sponsored by CEX and amazon.co.uk
Last 5 films I saw from the list were:

Alien
The Mummy
West Side Story
Gladiator
Ace Ventura 2

Alien
I got a shock when I saw this was released in 1979- it seems to have barely aged at all. It looks like a futuristic Red Dwarf.
The tensest film I've ever seen- really quite terrifying. The atmosphere is constantly eerie and lonely and the sounds you hear from the ship as the crew creep around the metal, dry-ice spewing corridors is unnerving as hell.
The Alien itself is horrifying. They stick to the rule that the less you see of it the scarier it becomes. And it just seems to blend into the backgrounds before suddenly emerging out causing me to have just a small heart attack each time.
The chest bursting scene is even better than I imagined it would be. It literally comes out of  nowhere, everyone just eating breakfast then SPOOSH. If there had been build up it'd be less effective. The terror on the character's faces looks almost genuine- they probably are in a state of shock seeings as none of it's CGI.
It's now easy to see where Metroid got all it's inspiration. Sigourney Weaver is basically Samus Aran.
9 outta 10. Would be an 8 if the cat didn't survive.

The Mummy
I was very aware that The Mummy was a film. It sounds kind of obvious but after Alien  totally absorbed me into that space craft The Mummy seemed very staged and the action scenes there just for the sake of being there. It's like Universal thought 'Okay we need a family adventure about a classic movie monster...The Mummy? Yeah there can be scarab beatles and battles in Eygpt and stuff, it'll look cool.'
If you gewhaimsayin.
Not to say I didn't fully enjoy it. There's a definite sense of adventure especially in the Mummy's tomb with the trap doors and booby traps and stuff. The action scenes as much as they did remind me of an action stunt show you'd see in a Florida theme park were fairly exciting. Getting chased by the beetles never seemed to get old.
The character's seemed a little generic too. The main badass type character who was good with guns etc, the C3-PO type woman who always worried about what was going on while doubling as the love interest for badass guy A. And not forgetting the fat guy with an accent who provided the comic relief. Omid Djalili used to be a 90s film star, who knew?
7 outta 10. The ride was far more fun.

West Side Story
Initially I thought I'd made a big mistake here. The version I watched started with 5 minutes of music set to a blank coloured screen then progressed into 2 'gangs' fighting each other by dancing. I can take camp but this was too much- and there was going to be 2 and half hours of this shit.
I don't know what happened. Maybe I just got used to it but after a while I started to enjoy it. The extended dance scenes didn't do much for me but some of the songs were really quite great. Maria- pretty powerful. I didn't realize 'Somewhere' was from this but that is one belter of a song.
It was a nice little story, the characters were interesting. As musically camp as it was there was death and violence and the end scene SPOILER where the main character dies actually provokes a bit of emotion, a world a way from the prancing about at the start.
An 8 for what I realize is the only musical on the list.

Gladiator
Epic but could have easily been an hour shorter. Length always puts me off films so when I saw this was also going to be 2 and a half hours I was put off a bit.
The fight at the beginning doesn't really have to be there- it's there to show a bit of action before they draw out the reason Russel Crowe becomes a Gladiator.
An hour and a bit in however when he is a Gladiator the film really picks up. The fights in the arenas and Colosseum are fantastic and just the right level of gore I thought. It's there but never quite enough to be repulsed by- Saw style.
The other highlights came right after the fights in the Colosseum between Maximus and the...bad guy. You've probably noticed, I don't usually pick up names. It's great dialogue that keeps you on the edge and delivers some of the most badass lines in any film from Russel Crowe.
If a lot of the pointless talk of Roman politics and such was taken out the whole thing would become more memorable. Still an 8 out of 10, can't say I was not entertained. That's witty writing by the way...cos he says are you not entertained...you see...?

Ace Ventura- When Nature Calls
Woah woah woah, this wasn't the agreement, it's the original Ace Ventura on the list, can't just be changing the rules like that.
To be honest I don't think it really matters. I think I got the general jist of what Ace Ventura is and for the most part I really didn't find it very funny.
Before I continue there's 2 jokes that made me laugh. One where an air hostess says peanuts and he thinks she says penis and the other is where he squeezes through a plastic rhinos arse in front of a startled family.
The rest is Jim Carrey trying to hard to be zany. And for a movie about a 'pet detective' there's not even a lot of animal humor. The film consists of him making weird noises and making funny faces. I'm sure children would get a kick out of it but not me. I'm a film snob now you see.
It's not that I don't like Jim Carrey either. One of my top 5 films ever is the Truman Show. I think the Mask is hilarious as the zaniness is justified. This is just a very light-hearted 'adventure' with an annoying main character and by the mid point I'd started to lose interest completely.
A 5, which my normal peoples marks is probably a bit lower.