Tag: Action

One of the central plots in The Invention of Lying was that the main guy was a writer/actor whatever, and in their world, all they did was read about the past for their movie. He got assigned the shitty years apparently, and the only event he had to work with really was the Black Plague. As they constantly joked in that movie, you can’t make a good movie about the Black Death!

When I heard that I called BS. Who wouldn’t want a nice movie about the Black Death? Shit was crazy! Disease, dead people, more diseases, populations wiped out. No real war I guess…probably some accusations of black magic. Maybe that is it. But you know?

Looks like SOMETHING is about to happen.

So obviously this movie is about disease. And one village that is getting destroyed by it hears rumors of another village that has not been plagued. Sean Bean, all knightly, wants to go investigate. He gets a group of people, including the priest monk dude Eddie Redmayne.

The journey takes awhile and then eventually they find the village! Lead by a woman, Carice van Houten, who might be a necromancer? What? She has apparently brought someone back to life. Oh shit, they aren’t Christians!

And yeah. The plot is basically that. They try to figure out if the woman really has powers, are trying to find out why the village has had no plague, and you know, not get killed in the process. But that plan also goes poorly. People get locked up, and maybe sacrificed.

The movie had a lot more pretty brutal violence than I was expecting, almost reminded me of Saw levels, just in action movie form not horror. So that torture porn stuff might be relevant.

She’s a witch! Burn her!

And yeah. I think I know what the movie was overall going for. Closer to the end the themes were a bit better to pick up on, and what might have been occurring with the main characters. BUT. It just took way too long to get to that point. By then I could barely find myself interested in the movie. I was actually turned off by the amount of violence in this movie, if you can believe that. So it wasn’t really the type of experience I was hoping for a Black Plague movie. But then again, not sure what kind of experience I’d expect.

From everything I heard about Drive, what I heard the most was how good the “cinematography” was. Camera choices were brilliant, chase and driving scenes sexy, and all of that. Well damn, I thought to myself, I have to see this on Blu-Ray then! Well unfortunately this is a DVD review. I know, I know, lame sauce.

Don’t worry. My website is still in HD quality.

Ryan Gosling plays the Driver! I like writing that because that is his cast name. So mysterious eh? Gosling works as a mechanic, and a stunt driver for movies, but also as a get away driver for criminals. He tells them the same thing every time, that he will wait for five minutes, and then get them to safety, then never talk again. He also works for Bryan Cranston for the mechanic/stunt work (not sure on the Criminal parts. Maybe). But they are looking to expand, possibly into real racing because man, Gosling is a Driver.

Cranston gets a 300k loan from some shady Albert Brooks fella to invest in a stock car to get them the monies. Also going on is that the Driver has a neighbor, Carey Mulligan, who he assumes is a single mom. TURNS OUT NO. Her husband / ex husband is still there, Oscar Isaac (named Standard wtf?). Turns out he is just gonna die possibly, and since Driver might like the neighbor, doesn’t want to see them all sad over that.

Driver agrees to help him get away from another crime that will pay off all of his debts, for Ron Perlman. Simple enough. And hey, Christina Hendricks is there too. What could go wrong?

“Fear/panic” face. Ignore stuff in the background. (cough).

Things go wrong, people die, can he save himself and the ones he might now care for?

It was a very interesting story, that really let the use of silence carry the story forward at points. Long scenes, that were yes, well shot were a great bonus. A little excessive violence never really hurt anyone either. I also loved the soundtrack. Full of weird electro synth pop stuff mostly.

I can also see why this movie could be polarizing. I think the ending was lacking, they could have done something more there. That is a common complaint you will hear. Other people may call it boring or not action-y enough. But eh, opinions are opinions. Mine is that this was pretty good but not top of the plateau.

The Double is another surprise movie I didn’t know I was going to watch. But hey, apparently it was about to come out, so why not watch it. While watching it took me forever to figure it out.

I think it just refers to a Double Agent. Because one of the good or bad guys happens to be one. But which one??

This guy in jail looks pretty shady.

I have been told the trailer gives away one of the major plot points. After only about 30 minutes, you will already know about the killer.

Movie begins with Richard Gere at a little league game, even though he has no children playing in it. After a certain age (and are retired), that no longer is deemed creepy, but charming. But when he gets home, bam, Martin Sheen, head of the CIA is waiting for him. I pretended he was the POTUS for the film though. No idea why.

Turns out a senator got his throat slashed. This throat slashing imitates a bunch of killings that occurred 20 years prior! Gere claims that the killer, Cassius, is dead, and it is just a copycat. But Topher Grace, young FBI operate claims other wise! Dude wrote his thesis on the Cassius killer and knows everything possible about him. Well, except for motives.

Apparently the cuts are the same way. Aka start from the middle of the neck and work their way to the sides, not from one side to the other.

Early on Cassius is actually discovered, but bringing him down is another option. Why did Cassius do these killings? Why is Topher Graces wife (Odette Annable) so trusting and hot, while working at a library? Why does each operative want to bring him down? How many people could possibly have ulterior motives?

Is this the most efficient way to stand for them to talk?

Much like Trespass, this film falls into the hole of too many twists. Pretty much no one in the film is what you expect them to be. Knowing that you might think “Hey, that is exciting. I HATE trusting fictional characters anyways!” Well too bad. The very large plot holes are way more distracting than the pretty bad plot.

The ending feels like a cop out, and the last twists just don’t make any sense. So much so that when you watch the ending your only way of walking out from this will disappointment.

For some reason I thought From Paris With Love was a remake. Maybe I’ve just heard the phrase before. Maybe the trailers back then just looked so ridiculous that I figured it couldn’t be original? Not really sure.

Sexy time?

Movie begins with Jonathan Rhys Meyers, as some lame guy working for the US Embassy in Paris. That is in France! He wants to be an “Agent” of some sorts, and he does some secret mission. After successfully bugging an office, he finally gets the promotion he has been looking for. At the expense of a romantic night with his girlfriend (/fiance), Kasia Smutniak though, a local French girl.

Unfortunately first he must successfully help a different mission succeed, and he is only getting the shot because it is a time sensitive mission, and they are out of agents. Step one, he must help the american Agent clear customs at the Paris airport. That is of course the bald and extremely eccentric John Travolta.

The mission starts out as an investigation of a drug cartel that may have lead to the death of the niece of the US Secretary of Defense, but really being about Pakstani terrorists planning to attack the US ambassadors during a summit.

He also kicks some ass in slow mo.

In terms of action, this movie has pretty good action and plenty of it. Plot however could use a lot more work. I feel like with a lot of action movies, near the end, it seems less actiony, more seriousy, and I tend to care less what starts to happen. This took a lot longer in the film, though the changing of the missions was a bit difficult to keep track of at first. Thankfully it was confusing for the main character too, who never seemed to understand what Travolta was about to do. Loose cannon and what not.

Overall, way more interesting than I originally gave it credit for. Travolta can pretty much do whatever role he likes too.

In Time is a movie with a great science fiction plot, but going more the yay action movie route. This disappointed me, I will tell you up front. I think this movie could have been a LOT better had it focused more on some of the cool aspects of the world. Only thing we really know is that it is the future and somehow, the time stuff happened.

What time stuff? When people get 25 in this world, they stop aging physically…somehow. At that point they have a year on their time that counts down, they can accumulate the time, or spend it. No currency, people just spending and selling their own time. So some people who were born into wealth have thousands to millions of years available, so they can live forever. And stay young to boot.

Which is why this should make you uncomfortable. This is a rich guys mother in law, wife, and daughter, in that order.

Justin Timberlake is your everyday average guy. Living with his mom, because his dad died long ago, he is working with other people at the factories in a lesser time zone. His friend, Johnny Galecki (who they don’t even try to make look 25) is also struggling. Him and his mom, Olivia Wilde, are living day to day. That is until…

Some hot shot with a century of time hangs around the bar! JT saves him and, while he is asleep, the mysterious guy gives him most of his 100 years, except for the last 5 minutes. When he walks away to die, they assume it is JT’s fault. They being the time keepers, aka the police, and especially Cillian Murphy, who has been doing this for over 50 years.

Eventually, after some plot points, and questionable actions, JT decides its time to go all the way up to the big times. The best Time Zone. He is good at gambling, so he wins himself a lot more years. He also gets to meet Vincent Kartheiser, who is kind of the richest man ever, apparently. He also meets his daughter, Amanda Seyfried, if you know what I mean. It takes awhile to recognize that it is Seyfried too. In case you didn’t know, the chick on the right in the earlier picture is her.

So yeah. More stuff happens. Run from the law. Down with the man. Destroying the society. More people die. Questionable ending. And done!

Also running. Lots and lots of running.

I really wanted this movie to be awesome, but I had some issues with it. One was the lack of any real information to how this society could be formed. It also seems pretty unstable. For some reasons these people in the poor areas are just going to keep having kids, despite the fact that they will be pushing them into a life of poverty that they cannot climb out of, and early death, so to speak. So eventually the “workers” should all die out, and pretty quickly, leaving only the rich and no way for their society to work.

Also, the motives of JT were questionable. After an early “oh man, sad!” event, movie watchers couldn’t even dwell on the sadness. Because the next scene was already happening. The evidence the timekeepers have that makes them initially question JT is crap, because it also shows his innocence. Then every once in awhile, I didn’t know what was going on. The final “running scene” which also involved a very unwarranted death of a character, was confusing because we had no reason what they were running too.

Unless they were just running into confusion. So I think a lot of the film could have been better, but as it is, pretty disappointed.

ROBOTS FIGHTING GUYS!

This is not training. This is about to be a bloody brawl.

Seriously Robot Fighting. Review done.

Real Steel is the name of a robot fighting championship. Robots are boxers now because actual boxing is dangerous. Concussions and shit. This is also in the future. Movie begins with Hugh Jackman waking up in his own sad life. He has his own robot fighter (And used to be a boxer before it stopped) and does okay. But he is in debt, especially to Kevin Durand, and needs a get rich quick scheme.

Enter the ex-wife. But not really. She is dead. Giving him custody of his son, Dakota Goyo (Thor as a kid!). But he doesn’t want the son. Who does? The wealthy aunt and uncle, who offer Hugh 100k (half now, half after the summer) if he gives up custody and watches him during their second honeymoon. Done deal. (You can see where this is going).

He gets a new sexy robot from Japan! Voice activated! And wastes all his money again. But when they boy finds an old robot in the dump that is functional, he cleans it up and demands a fight. A smaller robot, one of the originals that was more human like. Meant for sparring and taking a lot, not fighting itself.

You see where that is going too. Can they go all the way, and be the Real Steel champions? Or will other plot lines, like Hugh owing money, or the aunt/uncle wanting the boy get in the way?

FACE!

Oh yeah. Evangeline Lilly (giving this movie at least two Lost alum) is in the movie as gym owner / helpful robot trainer / has a dad who used to train Hugh / might kiss Hugh by the end of the movie / bow chicka bow wow.

If I had to change anything, it’d probably be just the first fight scene. Robot goes head to head with a bull. I felt weird watching it, even though I know its fake. Poor bull.

I enjoyed a lot of the fights. I think they could have spent more time explaining how these controls work. They go from remote control, to voice controls, to imitation, and everything in between. Just how this stuff works would have been nice.

The ending was great, and I would watch the sequel. Overall, I’d have to say Real Steel was a very solid movie.

The Tourist is the last of the “movies I have been avoiding unreasonably” mini theme that I just came up with. Gotta love an unplanned movie shortage!

I mean, what kind of outfit is that for boating?

Angelina Jolie is some sort of spy or agent or something. You aren’t sure. It is pretty vague beginning. Maybe she is a bad guy? But she is getting on a train, and people seem interested in what she is doing.

Typical plot line won’t do. Apparently she used to be all criminally with a lover, who owes over 700 million in back taxes. But he doesn’t want to be found, so he spends 20 million on super awesome plastic surgery. Shh. The government knows this too, so they assume Angelina Jolie will lead them to him. She is told to go on the train and find a person of “similar statue, height” and make the coppers think that that is him, so that she can meet up with him later.

So who does she pick? Johnny Depp, a math teacher on vacation (a tourist!) in Italy. He of course thinks everything is awesome. Hot woman who wants to eat with him, and lets him stay in her wtf-mazing hotel? Hot stuff. Until he wakes up the next day with 2 foreign people trying to bust in his door, and get him, because that guy also pissed off foreigners.

Turns out Jolie is also working for the man, to help bring her lover in, for her own safety.

But who is this mysterious man actually? Will Depp get something popped in his ass because of it? Is Paul Bettany really fine being in a movie where he mostly is in a “control room”?

Maybe the power of math can fix everything!

So, a weird thing happened halfway through the movie to me. I realized that I didn’t hate it yet. I also didn’t like it yet. It felt way super neutral the whole way through. I never really felt shocked by the shocking moments, but I also wasn’t mad by the disappointing shocks. I might have never felt more “2 out of 4” for a movie than this one. Seriously.

I can’t even tell if I am recommending it or not.

Watch maybe?

Ooh, a movie called The Stranger. Turns out there is a bunch of those. But what are the chances of this one being based on the Albert Camus novel? Well. Zero.

I mean, come on. That is never going to happen. Right?

Not if this man has anything to do with it.

Erica Cerra is a FBI person who is the “main character” but also not really. Because who cares about her. People are going to see this movie for Steve Austin (The Stone Cold variety). She is trying to find and detain this guy.

Why? Because he is “Dangerous”. Kind of. Or he knows something? BUT NOT REALLY.

Because he has something wrong with him. He keeps forgetting everything that has happened to him. This isn’t some disorder, I can’t remember why they said it happens. But it means he can’t remember the info they want to get out of him, that he has a family, and he keeps getting confused when the lady agent is near him, every little bit when it is convenient for the plot.

Adam Beach plays another FBI agent trying to help detain him, but he isn’t Steve Austin. Also some other people besides the FBI are trying to stop him. So that is where action comes in. Lots of shooting. Confused shooting.

Apparently torture doesn’t break Amnesia. Yet.

Are you confused about the plot? Good. Because so was I. I watched it, and I just thought it was a mess. This straight to video pile didn’t even feel action-y enough to be entertaining in that regard. Didn’t help that the cinematography was poor, and the obviously bad acting / plot (if it existed).

Only watch this if you ar- never mind. Don’t watch this.

Ah-ha! When there is no movies to watch during a weekend (cause of screw ups) I have to resort to back up plans. Unfortunately, there is only enough movies in my backup plan to last this weekend, so instead of depleting that, I am going for back up back up plan. Movies I kept avoiding for no reason. And with that, The Green Hornet!

Which I think would have been sexier as a CGI movie myself.

Seth Rogen is a spoiled playboy. His dad runs a large newspaper complex, so he never really has to work. He always wanted to do right by people, but got in trouble as a child. So he felt like his dad never cared! But then his dad dies. OH SHIT. He is in charge now of his shares? And in movies, if you control 51% of the shares or more, you can do what you want. He gets all mad and fires everyone in his house.

But finds out his coffee sucks, so he rehires the coffee guy, who also is good with cars, Kato (Jay Chou). Kato is also good at every other damn thing in the world. In case you didn’t know the Green Hornet is all Kato being a bad ass, and Green Hornet being not as cool as Kato, which the movie tries to show.

Blah blah, eventually they try to fight crime, and succeed, but are scene as criminals. Because he now runs the paper, he can have them publish stories on them and sell his image! Even if Edward James Olsmos says it is a bad idea, the oldest editor there. Also there is Cameron Diaz as criminologist secretary. David Harbour and Christoph Waltz are also in the movie, not necessarily as “bad guys” but big dicks.

Yep, just huge criminal kingpin dicks.

So this movie has everything you’d expect. Small humorous quips, badass car, Kato being a badass, eventually Green Hornet and Kato fighting and no longer being friends, Green Hornet wanting to tap Cameron Diaz, betrayal, the death of a hero, and everything. Seriously. Everything is pretty much expected.

It wasn’t the funniest movie, nor did it have the best action. Hell, even the plot was just okay. I think the reason I put off watching it is because of the drama that went into finally making it. Pretty much a decade of problems, with a lot of possibilities of much cooler movies based on the actors previously put into the project. But we got Seth Rogen, so I can’t help but be disappointed.

Overall, the movie was decent on its own, but kind of felt like it brought nothing new to the “hero genre”. Afterall, Hong Kong Phooey already brought us the “bad ass sidekick” concept in TV/Film before Green Hornet (which yes, existed way before Hong Kong Phooey. But still. That was radio and then comics). But was it bad? Not really. Just okay.

Taylor Lautner! Woo!

Finally what everyone has been hoping for. A movie where Lautner gets to try and carry the movie himself, and not be tied down with two other leads who are attempting to have babies and stuff. The Abduction trailer seemed to pop up in every movie I went to this summer, and every time I saw it I asked myself the same thing. “Why does he sound like he is whining the whole time?”

I think this is him whining at a basketball game too? Have you no shame Lautner?

I just found out that Lautner is only 19. That makes more sense. He looks like some 25 year old guy who would be playing high school roles. Because he is supposed to be 16 I think in the movie. So the whining is probably intentional and he is a fantastic actor for doing that. Also, early in the movie when he is boxing or something with his “dad” and he does a super cool spin kick movie. But you know, not with a stunt double, it is clearly him doing it the whole time. Apparently he was good at martial arts, and as a child voted best in his category, at some point, in some version. So that is how he became a werewolf!

Plot? Oh my bad.

He is on a (high school) sociology project with his neighbor, Lily Collins, about missing people. They find a site about what these kids may look like now, and he finds out that one of them looks like him, and he has a similar shirt from when he was a kid. So they call it up, and oddly enough they track his location. Ruh roh.

Well, some people come to their house and kill his parents! Thankfully they don’t appear to be his real parents? Who would want to be related to Maria Bello anyways. So the CIA gets involved, or at least Alfred Molina does. But he cannot be trusted! Why? Because Sigourney Weaver, his therapist, intercepts him and tells him the truth. His dad was a CIA operative, and has a list of names of corrupt people, which includes that guy above.

Also, Serbian terrorists, lead by Michael Nyqvist, want that list so they can probably protect their spies / find new ones to abuse.

So they decide to try and find that list, to hand over to the CIA members who are not trying to get it to erase their name. But Nyqvist wants the list, meet in a public place (A Pirates baseball game, aka anything but public), and Lautner wants to try to kill him. CIA, CIA dad, lots of running are involved, until the day is over, and no one important got hurt! You know, except for the parents he had for most of his life. Thankfully Weaver will let him live with her. What a nice therapist.

I guess what I am really trying to say with the plot is that this movie has zero to do with Abduction.

If anything, I will give this movie credit for actually ending the story line. They didn’t leave hints of a possible sequel, or leave a plot unturned, or anything. Just made it seem like a one off story, and now he can go back to being a “normal” “kid”. But the acting was blah, and it seemed like they wanted to go for a Bourne like thing, but no where near the same, making it even more blah. I found the story / plot to be mostly boring. Like they tried to make that one moment of his life super crazy, instead of just slightly elevated crazy.

I will give you a do-over Lautner. Make your next movie better, or else.