Archive for category Action

INCEPTION! (2010)

Inception PosterAfter seeing Inception, my opinion of Avatar has been downgraded to a “meh”. That’s how powerful Christopher Nolan‘s masterpiece is. It is without a doubt the best movie in years. If you haven’t seen Inception yet, but are planning to watch it, I give you permission to expect something extraordinary. You won’t be disappointed.

Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is an extractor. He invades your dreams and steals your ideas and secrets. With the help of an architect (Ellen Page), a point-man (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), and a few others, he faces a new challenge – to plant an idea in someone’s mind. Director Christopher Nolan takes us into a rich world of dreams within dreams, bringing surprises and confusion at every turn. For a very long movie, this one doesn’t feel like almost two and a half hours. I was dead tired going into the movie, but never struggled to stay awake due to a gripping plot, characters with depth, and a fast-moving, relentless pace. While a lot of movies offer either visual or intellectual stimulation, Inception offers both. This results in a block-buster that makes you think. And in some ways the movie plants an idea in your head while you’re watching. I don’t think anybody leaves a screening of Inception and stops thinking about what they just saw. It will stick in your mind for days to come.

While Nolan has already achieved some remarkable work (e.g. Memento, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Prestige), I feel like he’s still improving. Watching Inception is like getting an insight into the mind of a genius. It shows that Nolan honed the concept for many years to achieve near perfection.

One of the most intriguing aspects of Inception is that you are left to draw your own conclusions about the movie’s end. And the end is what has people talking the most. Already people have come up with dozens of theories to explain certain events in the movie, but ultimately everyone will have to decide for themselves how they see Inception’s conclusion.

I could say a lot more about Inception, but I don’t want to reveal too much about the plot or character development. But if you haven’t seen it yet, you owe it to yourself to watch it ASAP! There’s no other movie like it. Inception will become a reference-point and yard stick by which a lot of future films will be measured.

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The Book of Eli

The Book of EliWhen I first heard about The Book of Eli, I had some interest in seeing it, but it was more like a “I’ll watch it whenever” kind of feeling. But after someone recommended it to me, I went to the cinema that night to watch it. The Book of Eli is about Eli (Denzel Washington), who, in a post-apocalyptic world, travels across America, fighting his way through the desert. He faces many criminals who want to kill him for food, water, jewelery, or anything else they can find. And amidst all these dangers Eli carries with him a very sacred book – the last of its kind. When Eli reaches a little town run by the power-hungry Carnegie (Gary Oldman), his possession of the book comes to light, and Carnegie, having searched for this book for years, stops at nothing to get his hands on it. He believes this book will give him unimaginable powers. And so Eli flees with Solara (Mila Kunis) to get this book into safe hands.

The movie starts out with very little information for the viewer. You don’t even know what caused the world to become what it is when the movie starts. But, little by little, you are given small clues as to what’s going on, and why Eli is on this “mission” to reach the west coast with his sacred book. I was very glad that not everything got explained, though. Leaving something for the imagination always adds something special to a movie. At least for me. And the ending delivers a novel twist that few people will be able to predict. Even though there was a fair amount of violence (some of it was quite graphic), I very much enjoyed The Book of Eli, and would recommend it to anyone who likes movies of this genre.

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From Paris with Love and Breathlessness

From Paris with LoveThis must be the funniest action movie I’ve seen in a long time. From Paris with Love puts together the assistant of the US ambassador in Paris with an NSA spy in a bid to stop a terrorist attack from taking place. James Reece (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) leads a very boring life, doing mostly administrative work at the US embassy in Paris. But lately, he’s been starting to do little secret jobs for the NSA. But now the mother-load has arrived and he’s been given a case and a partner. Charlie Wax (John Travolta) seems like the worst partner imaginable, though. Arrogant, rude, out-of-control, and with no regard for anyone. Reece starts wondering why he signed up for this. But soon he’s drawn way too far into the case at hand, and must find a way to work with Wax to get out alive. After all, he just got engaged.

Coming out of the cinema after watching this, I felt almost breathless. The director, Pierre Morel, is known for fast-paced action films like the excellent Taken. And From Paris with Love is no different. Between chases, shoot-outs, and explosions you hardly get a chance to come up for air. But action isn’t the only thing you get. I was laughing throughout the movie, with humour worked into the dialogue in very creative ways. From Paris with Love is one of the most entertaining movies I’ve seen lately. But I must warn you of two things. This movie contains quite extreme violence and very strong language. If you don’t like either of those… well, you’ve been warned.

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Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief

Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief PosterOriginally I hadn’t planned on watching this movie, but Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief turned out to be the entertainment I needed on a night when I didn’t feel like thinking much.

Percy Jackson is an ordinary teenager. He lives with his mom and her horrible boyfriend. He goes to school every day. But something is about to change. When Zeus’s lightning bolt is stolen, Zeus suspects Poseidon’s son of this deed, and demands the return of the bolt – otherwise a war of the gods would ensue. And you’ve guessed it – Percy is Poseidon’s son. Except he doesn’t know it. And he didn’t steal the lightning bolt. And so begins his quest to find the real thief and return the lightning bolt.

This movie is good, mindless fun if you don’t want to be intellectually stimulated. If you just feel like switching off for 2 hours, to get away from every-day life, and you don’t mind Harry-Potter-type movies, this could do the job for you. Even though I haven’t seen all the Harry Potter movies (only saw the first two), I like this movie more.

There’s really not much more to this movie. It was fun watching it, but it’s nothing to write home about.

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The Spy Next Door

The Spy Next Door Movie PosterHow hard is it, as a foreigner, to learn English over many years of acting in English movies? Apparently very. While Jackie Chan is great for action and combat scenes, he still can’t string together a sentence with each word pronounced correctly. I would have expected a little more.

His latest Hollywood movie, The Spy Next Door, is a laugh. But not for the right reasons. I found myself laughing at a lot of things that are just totally unrealistic and seem a bit stupid. But I guess this film wasn’t intended for intelligent, discerning adults that expect a certain level of sophistication. It’s probably better suited as a family movie that parents watch with their kids. At that level it would probably not seem so… simple.

The first thing that irked me was the relationship between Bob (played by Jackie Chan) and Gillian (played by Amber Valletta). We don’t get any back story or anything to help us identify with their relationship. It’s just suddenly there. And I couldn’t feel it at all. It didn’t make any sense why two totally different people like that would fall in love. Not that it couldn’t happen, but with no background it’s harder to believe.

The bottom line is this: it’s more of a family movie (if your family includes kids), so just bare that in mind if you do decide to go watch it. If you approach it as such, you might enjoy it a lot more. :)

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Sherlock Holmes: Elementary, my dear Jude.

Sherlock HolmesI didn’t quite know what to expect of Sherlock Holmes (2009, directed by Guy Ritchie). In fact, I hadn’t even seen the trailer yet. But nonetheless I wanted to see what was going to be so elementary in this movie. The movie, based on the books (which I haven’t read) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle chronicles one of the first cases that Holmes (played by Robert Downey Jr) and Watson (played by Jude Law) tackle together. After catching and imprisoning Lord Blackwood (played by Mark Strong) for several murders and practising black magic, the case seems wrapped up. But when Lord Blackwood mysteriously rises from the dead to continue his killing spree, Holmes and Watson dive back into the case, putting both of their lives in grave danger.

What struck me most about the movie was Holmes’s character. He’s very rough around the edges, socially ill-equipped, and doesn’t really fit into society. Sherlock Holmes always seemed more brain to me, but this time around he showed lots of brawn as well. I’m not sure how closely this corresponds to the books, though, since I haven’t read any of them. But something about the character seemed very familiar. I couldn’t put my finger on it, until my wife mentioned parallels to Gregory House (played by Hugh Laurie), from House MD. And thinking about it, the character of House was quite extensively modeled on the character of Holmes. It will certainly change the way I watch House MD from now on.

I enjoyed Sherlock Holmes, and thought some of the logical connections in the case were done very cleverly. Before watching the movie, I was gonna bet that the film would end with a setup for a sequel. And it did. As the film is concluded, the connection to Professor Moriarty is made, very strongly hinting at a sequel. But don’t wait for that! Go and see Sherlock Holmes now. If you like detective stories with some good physical action, you’ll find it very entertaining.

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Review: Avatar (2009)

AvatarTo round off 2009, Avatar (written and directed by James Cameron) provided some technically brilliant entertainment. Having developed brand new technology over the last years to make this film possible, Cameron delivers some of the most stunning visuals ever seen on the big screen. Realistic scenery coupled with life-like aliens and great animation makes Avatar one of the more enjoyable movies of 2009. Here’s a basic summary of what it’s about (skip to the next paragraph if you already know): Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is sent to Pandora on a special mission – infiltrate the Na’vi as one of them, and find out how to make them move out of their home, which lies above one of the richest Unobtainium deposits known. The corporation that employs Sully was established on Pandora to mine this Unobtainium, the most valuable substance known to man, and they are prepared to do anything to get what they want. As Sully learns more and more about the Na’vi, he begins to see things from their perspective, and thinks about switching sides. And thus this internal struggle leads to a huge conflict that can only be solved one way.

There are several issues that Avatar deals with. Most of these are only hinted at, though, and so we are left to draw our own conclusions. Jake Selinger has some interesting thoughts on his blog (The Story’s Story), where he talks about the anti-technology and anti-corporation themes that some people see in this movie. I tend to agree that these themes are not very strong in the movie, and don’t make sense when most blockbuster movies are solely approved based on their profit-making ability. The anti-technology argument seems quite weak, as nowhere in the movie is this point raised distinctly. In fact, the Na’vi have their own “technologies” that they use to fight the humans, however primitive (from the human’s perspective) or different they might be.

The anti-corporation argument has more weight, though. But, even though the evil corporation is what is threatening the Na’vi’s existence, the film puts much more weight on the evil leader of the corporation’s “military”, and his obsession to get his way. Colonel Quaritch is really the antagonist here. And while he works for the corporation, it’s his ego that mostly causes the conflict. So what we have is, in fact, just a simple “evil guy vs. good guy” scenario.

As a whole, the plot doesn’t present any unusual elements that we haven’t seen before. Nonetheless, Cameron pulls it off expertly, giving us a thrilling experience including action, adventure, romance, and comedy. I highly recommend Avatar. It entertains like little else in 2009.

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The Hurt Locker

The Hurt LockerOne of the most unique war movies recently was The Hurt Locker. While the movie doesn’t have a plot in the classical sense, it does a brilliant job of showing you what the war in Iraq is like. Jeremy Renner plays Sgt. William James, who joins a bomb diffusing squad after their last commanding officer tragically died trying to diffuse a bomb. Sgt. James now leads the team, continuing their duty in the middle of a war-torn Iraq.

The squad is made up of vastly differing personalities, each having their own issues and quirks. While the rest of the movie doesn’t have a continuing story, it portrays each of the characters as they perceive the different challenges they face. The pressures of their job start to affect some of them, while others seem unaffected.

The stand-out character for me was Sgt. James, who is portrayed as fearless in life threatening situations. Watching how the others try to cope with this addition to the team becomes one of the most fascinating parts of the movie. I would recommend The Hurt Locker to anyone who enjoys a modern war movie that makes you think.

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