And Soon the Darkness (2010)

Touches You

Pretty Good

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

What the actual Hell was this? The 1970's Original had an innocence to it that this pile of c**p was lacking in shovels(never mind spades). What is it with the US film industry that they take what was a decent Film and turn it into a steaming pile of Dog s***e? How can they do it with such amazing regularity almost effortlessly? Instead of Rural France and two English Girls on a holiday, we have Rural Argentina( for some reason?? Why not Canada for example) and two dumb Yank Birds and a sex trafficking syndicate!! What?? Then we have the entire community seemingly in on this kidnapping scheme - again, What?? Some of the acting was passable but sadly the vast majority was abysmal. Amber Heard may look good, but for the love of all our sanity, please Hen, give up the acting. You're clearly no good at it!! The whole thing was awful, with the only similarity with the original ( which is far superior by the way) being 2 girls, holiday, one goes missing. Other than that, nope! Terrible Film, truly awful. They've taken a decent wee story and tried to tart it up and only succeeded in killing it completely.

Two young American women, Stephanie and Ellie (Amber Heard and Odette Annable / Yustman, respectively), are biking through Argentina when one of them is kidnapped.As far as kidnapped-in-a-foreign land thrillers go, this is not bad, though that doesn't say much. Has a reasonable degree of character development, the build-up to the kidnapping-and-search is interesting. However, after that it is pretty much standard thriller fare - plot holes, mostly forgettable action scenes, contrived sequences.Amber Heard and Odette Yustman are OK in the lead roles. Almost as importantly, they look more than OK!Certainly nowhere near being a must-see, but not all bad either.

Not the most original storyline (and yes, I know it's a remake!), but makes for an OK movie.The main characters are as sexy as hell (!!!!!) and are enjoying a bike riding holiday when one of them is kidnapped, leaving the other to figure out what's happened, with little to no help form the townspeople or law enforcement.Unlike others with this sort of storyline, there really is little to no gore or violence right up until the end scenes, but even then, it's not as full on as it could have been.There's probably unanswered questions as to why all the townspeople don't or won't get involved- is it because of fear or other reasons? It's not really explained. Is it plausible? I guess so, but don't know.Overall an OK movie, but not great.....

This is the typical "vacation turns into nightmare" story. Two girlfriends, Ellie (Odette Annabale) and Stephanie (Amber Heard) are in Argentina on a bike tour. They intentionally separate from the group to travel unimpeded through the scarier non-friendlier areas of the country side. Ellie disappears after an argument separates them, the search is on, and once again, like all these films a sinister plot is revealed. Apparently it is a remake of a 1970 movie of the same name, but locations were changed.The Good: The 2 main characters played by Odette Annabale and Amber Heard, are just the eye candy that these stereotypical movies need in order to keep the viewer interested. Amber Heard has become a sort of B movie queen lately and she is definitely attractive enough, but Odette Annabale, personally, is much more to look at, and this movie would have been better if roles were reversed. The scenes of the Argentinian country side are pretty spectacular as well. Something I didn't really expect given the actors involved, and the perceived budget that they infer.The Bad: This is about as cliché as they get. This movie is one of those that attempts to capitalize on the appeal of the first, " Hostel" (2005) movie. The plot line has been around forever but every time a studio makes one it seems to get worse, like "Turistas" (2006) and "The Ruins" (2008). This is probably slightly better than those two movies and I actually think the acting and the overall cinematography is much better even though the others had a higher profile cast. That being said, the two characters just don't seem believable for bike touring co-eds. These girls are more like the train tour through expensive European city types, not the hippy pedal across Argentina ones. The plot lines are also completely transparent which would be fine if this was a film-noire movie, or a comedy, but it's not . At least 15-20 years ago when a movie would come out like this they would at least put the hot girls in a few sex scenes...I watched this movie even though it is a cliché storyline because sometimes you can be surprised by movies like this and overlook them. Like I said it was much better than "Touristas," or "The Ruins" ( unless pure squeamish blood and guts are your thing, then The Ruins is the way to go), but not great.I give it a 5 out of 10, not because it is bad, but it wasn't good, or original. These movies are only made for a few reasons. Director's do them to prove they can make an unoriginal, predictable movie remake which adds no value to the original. Actor's make them to pad their resume, and Studio's put them out so they can save money by not hiring talented, creative writers, making a dollar or two in the process.Like my review? Hate em? Comments, questions, or want a DVD reviewed before you waste your time? E-mail me at : [email protected]