Real Movie Views

Ever since that embarrassing moment on Oprah’s TV couch Tom Cruise has slipped a horrible slope in the public eye. However a steady set of good performances has lead up to another great Cruise film, but not in the all out action epic you might expect.

Valkyrie is the story of one of the last attempts on Hitler’s life before his demise in world war two. Tom Cruise plays a colonel in the German army, who gets disfigured after an attack in the desert which leaves him with one eye and one hand. His belief in the war is crumbled by what is happening to Germany and how he knows it will be perceived after the conflict.
Cruise joins a group of other army personnel who feel that something needs to happen to stop the war. After a few botched attempts Cruise and a great supporting cast, mostly British manage to set off a bomb with Hitler in the room.  Unfortunately the attempt does not go to plan – although you kind of already know how Hitler dies.
Tom Cruise is back to his best with a very convincing performance on the big screen. You can tell he’s thought hard on how to revive his career and this one does the job, looking forward to the next masterpiece Tom!

In this prequel to the Underworld franchise, we follow Lucian from birth to his liberation from slavery under the vampires, where begins in earnest the centuries-old war between Lycan and vampire.

Starring: Michael Sheen, Bill Nighy and Rhona Mitra

Movie Release: January 23, 2009

Genre: Action/Fantasy/Horror

Running Time: 93 minutes

Visually this movie is stunning.  With seamless CGI effects, dramatic lighting and perfectly choreographed and suspenseful fight scenes, director Patrick Tatapoulos pulls all the thrillingly eerie feel of the previous Underworld movies into this third installment.  The costuming is at times brilliant and at others merely awkward, but one supposes vampires get to flaunt fashion in any manner they choose.  The actors’ performances were, while not mind-blowing, more than adequate to the occasion and one suspects that Michael Sheen (Lucian), Bill Nighy (Viktor) and Rhona Mitra (Sonja) have quite a bit more in them if given the proper script.  In short, each technical segment of the movie came together to produce a film of fair-to-good quality which the easily satisfied moviegoer will find quite enjoyable.  If that sounds like praise so faint as to be damning, that’s because it is.

Where this movie fails is in the story.  The writers took an approximately twenty-second flashback from the first movie and expanded it into an entire script.  Stunningly, they manage to do this without giving Underworld fans a single scrap of new information.  At the end of the movie, one knows no more than what one already saw in the twenty-second flashback.  Rise of the Lycans can be best defined by what it does not have, and that is never a good sign.  It has no additional backstory.  It – inexplicably, due to the first movie’s proof of his importance during that timeline – has no Kraven.  It has no Kate Beckinsale, not even an expansion on her backstory, though we know this, too, happened at that point in the timeline or thereabouts.  It’s a movie about war and it has no war.  One blink-and-you-miss-it battle and the occasional short fight scene do not a war movie make.

Rise of the Lycans offers little more than a love story, and one the viewer has trouble working up excitement for as we’ve already seen the interesting bits.  The main focus of the plot is to instruct the viewer, with agonizing slowness, that Lucian and Sonja are deeply in love.  We don’t get to watch this happen either, however.  The viewer is introduced to the story after the fact.  Once we’ve been treated to eighty minutes of heartfelt assurances of this forbidden love, Sonja is killed.  We already knew this would happen.  We’ve even seen the death scene in a previous movie.  It is boring.  With the casus belli in place, the movie wraps up with Lucian on the verge of open warfare with vampires for personal reasons and leading Lycans with more general social indignities fueling their vengeance.

All in all, a decent movie but a poorly written and redundant story.  Rise of the Lycans lives to disappoint.

It was probably incredibly easy to cast the always-wooden Keanu Reeves to play the dispassionate alien Klaatu for this botched and completely flubbed remake of what is considered a classic, not only of the science fiction genre, but of film in general. With the remake of “The Day the Earth Stood Still” Hollywood once again looked to its past in an attempt at mining some creativity and turning it into dollar signs. Creative license for sure, since they couldn’t even seem to keep the basic premise of the Earth standing still intact.

The special effects seemed to be the only thing the directors and producers worried about. Be damned with the story and with the plot. Characters? Who needs characters, they’re just backdrops to the big scary robot and mysterious glowing spheres which have apparently been hidden around the globe since the 1920s observing the human race and the condition of the Earth.

“Your planet?” Klaatu asks of the Secretary of Defense, played gamely by Oscar-winner Kathy Bates, despite a script with the dimensional diversity of a piece of drywall. Of course, the director made Bates play it clueless. As if anyone intelligent enough to serve in the White House… oh, wait… never mind…

Any way, that gets us to the… female lead… played by Jennifer Connelly. Who tries, she really tries, to bring some life to this character, as a spunky and respected astro-biologist. They keep the idea of her being a single mother, with a deceased soldier husband.

But this film team manages to lose the humanity of the relationship Klaatu developed with the boy in the original film – which was one of the prime driving factors in the original for Klaatu to change his mind and give the human race another chance to clean up its act. And they give the audience a little boy who is so mouthy and unlikable that if in Klaatu’s position, would have caused any sentient being of any species to accelerate the plans to eliminate the human race from the planet, instead of halting them.

All in all, “The Day The Earth Stood Still” is so awful in direction, its script, and its plot, that no amount of “gee whiz” CGI animation can save it.

The tagline of The Ruins is ‘terror has evolved.’ Since the monster of this movie is part of Mayan folklore and is thus ancient, this slogan makes no sense. It does sound cool, though. Four Americans – two guys and two girls – are vacationing in a Mexico resort. Instead of staying put at the pool, where they can drink margaritas and paw at each other, they take a side-trip to an archaeological dig. The ruins are a Mayan step pyramid located deep in the jungle, and getting there is such a hassle that only people who are either very determined or very stupid would bother. Since this is a horror movie, it’s not hard to figure out what category our heroes fall into. Upon arrival, they are greeted by a bunch of screaming Mayan locals who herd them to the top of the pyramid. The Mayans surround the ruins and our heroes are trapped. Their surroundings: a well, a few tents and a bunch of vines with pretty red flowers. Things fall apart quickly, mostly because of stupidity. A jaunt into the depths of the well leads to a broken back. A pair of legs get broken, and then amputated, in a lovingly sadistic scene that takes forever. One of the characters starts cutting herself with a knife, revealing tiny little vines swimming about in her bloodstream. Turns out that the vines are carnivorous and can talk, sort of – they imitate cell phones ringing and American tourists having sex quite well. The Ruins is part of the Stupid American Tourists Must Die genre, a horror movie that features foreigners killing Americans traveling abroad because they’re Americans. This movie doesn’t work for a lot of reasons, but it boils down to the fact that a carnivorous plant is a pretty goofy movie monster. The special effects – such as they are – consist of moving vines. Wow. None of the characters ever rise above the level of road kill; good thing, because the movie is hard enough to sit through as is, and if we cared about the characters it would be impossible to watch. It’s interesting that the rise of Stupid American Tourists Must Die genre has coincided with the fall of America’s image abroad. One of the characters in The Ruins has a speech that boils down to this: we’re Americans. Nobody messes with us. Not unless you’re a man-eating plant, anyway.

Quantum of Solace, the latest film in the James Bond franchise might just leave long time viewers disappointed.

Here we are, over 40 years since the first 007 film (Dr. No 1962) hit the screens. In that time we have seen many of writer Ian Fleming’s novels spring onto the big screen and many actors portray the larger than life character of 007. Daniel Craig doesn’t disappoint, but unfortunately the writers didn’t give him much to work with.

Gone is the barrel of a gun zooming in on Bond, as he turns and fires first before the opening credits. Avid Bond fans will notice the absence of characters like Moneypenny, M’s secretary. Fans will also sorely miss the regular visit to Q, originally played by Desmond Llewelyn until his death in 1999, where Bond got his wonderful cars and gadgets.

The beginning of the movie starts in typical Bond fashion. There is a car chase, explosions, and plenty of bullets flying. After that though, the plot slips. Watchers of the movie will quickly become confused as the director and writers concentrate on the action sequences, and leave out the most important parts – the characters, plot, and those little things which make, “Bond, James Bond.”

At least M’s part, played by Judi Dench since 1995, was well written. She’s everything a fan could hope for in a replacement of the title. M was originally played by Bernard Lee until his death in 1981, and later by Robert Brown until Dench took the reigns.

Fans will still get plenty of action in Quantum. The formula of modern “action” films has been strictly followed.

For all you long time Bond fans, don’t get your hoped up too high. You’ll be disappointed, as well as out the fifteen dollars to purchase the movie ticket.

In Bruges features two hit men (Farrell and Gleeson) sent to the eponymous city after a botched shooting in London. Whilst Ray (played by Farrell) is bored and restless in the Belgium city, Ken appreciates the timeless beauty of Bruges and enjoys the tourism trail.

Although labelled as a laugh out loud black comedy, In Bruges is by far deeper than that as the two debate the morality of killing another man for money. Ken attempts to justify himself by claiming to have only killed bad men, or in self-defence; he is still aware of his sins. McDonagh’s cleverly layered plot is in evidence here, as this intellectual conversation sparks a joke that is to be repeated throughout the plot. This can be seen as epitomising In Bruges, as it never gets too deep to avoid being funny; it never gets too funny to stop the audience thinking.

McDonagh’s quest to avoid clichés becomes apparent early on in the film. Whilst Ray could be seen at first as glamourising a professional assassin – he is young, handsome, easily bored by sightseeing and seemingly comfortable with his life – the darkness inside him soon becomes apparent. In Ray we see one of Farrell’s finest performances, as he must attempt to come to terms with what he has done. Farrell’s portrayal of Ray is one of astonishing scope as we see his anger, his grief, his passion, and in the dying moments of the film, his optimism.

As events in the film start to spiral out of control and the climax approaches, the integrity of characters is tested, characters whom conventional society would condemn for their lack of morals. Within the murky society of In Bruges there is another layer of morality, and with these men there are lines that must not be crossed.

In Bruges could be criticised for the level of violence and swearing McDonagh has produced, and this is certainly not a film for children. It does, however, feature these whilst being very funny. The brilliant blend of comedy and pathos means this entertaining film is far removed from typical gangster movie territory.

When I bought my legitimate copy of Zodiac yesterday I was looking forward to sitting down and being thrilled by this film. Director David Fincher – who’s previous works include Fight Club and Panic Room was one of the main reasons I decided to buy this film.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect as I didn’t know the story (which is apparently based on true accounts) so I went in to the film blind. To my knowledge all I knew was that there was a serial killer that calls himself “The Zodiac”. Usually serial killer films wet my whistle and during the first hour I wasn’t disappointed.

The tone of the film is dark and you get the feeling of emptiness when you watch it, very rarely does anyone raise their voice above 2 decibels but thats what I expected of the film. The first few killings were quite graphic, especially a scene by the lake where you see a young couple get stabbed.

Unfortunately my general feelings towards the film were gradually poisoned as the movie just seemed to drag on with very little actually happening. The cut scenes jump between 1 hour to 4 and a half years in a matter of minutes which can be a little confusing (especially as Robert Downing Jr seems to be the only person to actually age throughout the film).

The film is well directed and the acting is worthy of certain gold awards but for me not enough happened, maybe thats what the point of the film was, not to give too much away but the film does just end very suddenly leaving you to read 4 pages of size 4 type on the sceen.

Overall I did like the film but I have no intention to ever watch this again. I would give this film a 7 out of 10.