Tag: Jude Law

Turns out the movie Sleuth is a remake! The older version came out a whole twenty five years before the remake, which means a third version of this movie should be out in about 2016.

That is a remakes come faster nowadays, joke.

Remakes also feature more knives.

This movie doesn’t have many people in it. Basically just the two leads. One, an older writer (Michael Caine), rich above all imagination, who finds out his wife is cheating on him. The latter, a young actor (Jude Law) who hasn’t made it big yet, who is currently sleeping with said wife, and planning on running away with her.

Here is an awesome tidbit. In the original tidbit, Michael Caine played the young actor character, wanting to run away with the wife. I fucking love stuff like that.

Either way, the movie begins with Caine inviting Law to his mansion. They get to talking. Skirting around the issue, until he drops the bomb. Yes, he knows about the affair. And he is fine with it. Wow, really? In fact, he’d rather the marriage was gone all together, but divorce means losing wealth and other assets. He’d rather she just ran away with the lover to Europe and never bother them again.

Caine warns Law that the wife expects a certain level of luxury that he won’t be able to provide. So he suggests that he steal from them, with his own help. A necklace, valued at around $1 million, he will break into and take with him to Europe. He will sell them to a guy Caine has set up for $800,000 and Caine will collect the insurance. Win win for everyone. But Law doesn’t just want that, he wants to get married to her, and a divorce would be necessary.

Also, and more obviously, what if this is all a trap for him, to get him put in jail by a husband mad at his wife’s infidelity. This “game” is set in motion, and it becomes a battle of wits between the two individuals, each not playing their whole hand, trying to come up on top, and potentially someone dying by the end.

Ah, look at Michael Caine. Young as a toddler.

It should be noted that a lot of this movie is dialogue. A lot. I mean, just two people and a plot. And then some escalation and other plots. You better pay attention, because they are both well spoken individuals and it might be easy to miss out.

I split this movie up into three acts in my head, roughly each a half hour. The first half hour, I was super interested, and was curious where it was going. The second half hour confused me, because what was going on felt quite obvious, and thus uninteresting at all to the story for me. I don’t need to see 30 minutes of a character obviously lying to another, knowing the surprise at the end wont be a surprise.

The third act is just all sorts of what in the fucks. It didn’t really make any sense to me. I can’t say I was surprised, just because of how confusing the whole situation was. The last two thirds of the movie felt like shit to me, and I honestly didn’t understand why it was all happening. I am afraid of ever seeing the original, because I really don’t want to have to ever listen to dialogue like that, for that long again. Even if the first is universally loved.

I definitively had Repo Men on the shelf for over a year before finally watching it. Why? Because I thought the plot would be obvious. I thought it would be lame action.

I also knew that the Repo! The Genetic Opera had also existed, even though I hadn’t seen it yet. Just didn’t like two movies having similar dystopian futures, despite their (now knowing) very different plots.

But hey. Lets not judge it before we watch it. That’d be horrible.

But the action does look quite shocking.

Jude Law is a repo man! Not really too scary, but he does you know, go collect organs from people who are behind on their payments by a certain time. He is required to ask them if they want an ambulance, but normally doe when they are knocked out. Not that it matters. If they are losing their heart, an ambulance wont really be able to help. His wife, Carice van Houten, wants him to stop (because its kind of mean) and move to sales. Yes, switch to giving the organs (and bad contracts) versus taking them. Pay is worse, but at least hours are stable.

Either way, on his supposed last extract before he was going to switch, a crazy explosion happened and left him badly hurt. So something happens, can you guess? You can totally guess. He gets a new heart from the company. Yet has the same exact guidelines as a normal person, thanks to Liev Schreiber, his boss. This pisses him off, and thinks it is a death sentence. His partner, Forest Whitaker, tries to get him back on the job and collecting, but Jude can’t will himself to kill others anymore.

Knowing his time is up soon, Jude finds himself in a colony of people hiding out with organs. He meets John Leguizamo, who i a surgeon himself, but only takes away the organs from other people. He also meets Alice Braga, a girl who has been on the run forever, and has dozens of expired organs. Once his time is up, needless to say none of his former workmates want to go after him, but in the end it has to be Forest.

What then occurs is their attempts at both escape from the country and clearing their organs from their record book, so they can escape to a foreign beach and live carefree for the rest of their days.

Not to mention some intense ass-kickery.

Despite the kind of obvious turn of events, I was still thinking it was a pretty decent movie. But the last twenty or so minutes? That shit was amazing. The action was intense, the drama was intense. The ending? I was definitely surprised by it, and made the movie much better. It answered all of my questions, and was not at all what I was expecting.

Well done ending. Pretty sure its worthy enough to be the only reason to watch it.

Wooo, sequels!

A Game Of Shadows is the sequel to the very successful first Sherlock Holmes movie that came out two years prior. I remember the day it was released to theaters, they announced they would already o a sequel, unbeknowingst to Guy Ritchie and Robert Downey Jr. at the time, making them both cancel projects. Did you know that RDJ was supposed to be in Cowboys & Aliens originally? Me neither.

As far as I am concerned, from the trailers, this is the only thing that happened in the movie.

This time, the movie is narrated by Watson (Jude Law), as he appears to be typing up a story. What kind of story? Well one that begins with Holmes stalking Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) down the street. He sees that she is delivering a package, and has goons following her. Whoops, those are her bodyguards. Holmes is still narrowly able to catch up to her before she delivers the nice package, a bomb. Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris) is up to some shenanigans, has been for some time, and Holmes tends to always put a stop to him.

Some things happen, including the fact that Watson is getting married tomorrow, to the same Mary (Kelly Reilly), and Holmes forgot about the Stag party. He invites his older and equally annoying brother Mycroft Holmes (Stephen Fry), and they go out to a bar and gambling den (void of any of Watson’s friends). Mostly to see a gypsy Simza (Noomi Rapace) who Adler also had a letter to deliver to. Oh look, another assassination attempt.

Turns out that her brother is working for Moriarty as well, and they have no idea why. This leads them to Paris to try and stop another assassination attempt, then Germany and Switzerland. The battle of wits is played out between Holmes and the Professor, all the while other big spoilers happen, and a very unexpected honeymoon disaster.

Holmes was Mary the whole time! No wonder he hated the idea of marriage!

Woo, [rushed out] sequels!

They even said it themselves. Or at least when I hear “fast tracking” a sequel I think of them doing it as fast as possible, spending less time on the script and other areas in order to release it fast enough to ride off the popularity of the first. I mean, it makes sense, but usually means a movie isn’t as good as its predecessor (not that it matters, because the sequel will still make bank).

I did find parts of the movie entertaining, but it wasn’t the same as the first in all aspects. I thought the elements of thriller and mystery were lessened greatly, which took away part of the experience. Sure, I didn’t know what was going on, but not because of the mystery, mostly due to the confusing unraveling of the plot throughout.

It made sense during the beginning, but most of it seemed kind of unrelated, a problem I usually have with stories that span “all across Europe.”. Usually not enough time I feel is spent at the new location to accurately get the appropriate emotions I should get form each scene, and then we are whisked away to a new location.

Although not a bad movie by any means, I just felt that it lacked a lot of what I liked from the first.

Sherlock Holmes is one of those characters that everyone knows. Like Robin Hood, but with Asperger’s Syndrome. and nothing like Robin Hood.

The movie tries to create a Holmes that is closer to the actual source material, and not like the more famous “pipe and hat, smart guy” that some other show popularized. Because apparently Holmes can fight too!

He also is trusting of such silly things, like jail cells.

At the beginning of the movie, Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) and John Watson (Jude Law) are trying to stop Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) from killing a woman, and attempting to summon a demon.

Well they catch him, and successfully put him in jail. Later, he is successfully hanged for his crimes and the movie is over, yay!

Or not? A few days later Holmes is visited by Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), a former adversary, and still current thief. She needs his help to find a man, and is working for a mysterious professor. Oh yeah, and Lord Blackwood’s body cannot be found, and it makes it seem like he escaped from the inside. Especially when other people start dying, and you know, see him.

This causes the Temple of the Four Orders to get involved, a secret society dealing with magic and the dark arts, and want to put a stop to Blackwood, so they try to hire Holmes. Long story short, bad things happen, where Blackwood puts the entire British parliament in danger, with plans on then taking over the US and the world.

Oh yeah, and we get the bumbling Inspector Lestrade (Eddie Marsan) and Mary (Kelly Reilly) the potential fiance to Watson in here as well.

It should be noted that most of her outfits look out of place, even in old-timey England.

This movie probably gets the distinction for being the easiest to understand Guy Ritchie movie. They are all British, but since it is helmed by RBJ, it is the least British. Not saying that all American actors are easy to understand, because Brad Pitt in Snatch was definitely the least understandable character.

Much like how my paragraph probably made no sense just then.

But still! Its hard for me to to give the genre “Adventure” to most movies, but I find it entirely suitable. With action, drama, and comedy, the first Holmes movie was entertaining in all aspects.

The second one? Well, we will see. I heard it had Thor in it.

When I first heard of Contagion, from a movie preview, I was not sure what kind of movie it wanted to be. It really seemed like it wanted to be a “real life horror”, and scary scenes of people panicking, and people dying in horrific ways. Or it could have been a drama about it. Really couldn’t tell.

Well, now I can say it is a Drama like movie about it. No real fear from the audience, just a few “intense” scenes from the panic.

OH GOD. WHY CANT THEY REMAIN CALM?

The story also features a few different plot lines about this virus. Short story, somehow, something happens, and a virus that is pretty easy to kill someone pretty quickly gets out. How? You don’t find out until the end. But the people have seizures and die. You can be immune to it though, like Matt Damon. Which is good, because his wife, Gwyneth Paltrow, kind of dies at the beginning of the movie with it, and he doesn’t want to die as well. Not when he has a daughter who relies on him, and may not be immune.

But that felt like a very minor plot. The more interesting stuff involved Laurence Fishburne and Marion Cotillard, people working at the CDC, trying to find a vaccine/cure, and determine how best to break news of the virus to the public, without inciting riots. The possibility of chaos is more scary than the actual virus, (which probably kills 1 out of 4 people!). Which says a lot. Also, once vaccines are made, how will they be handed out? Do their families get them first, do the rich? Do they do it by birthday? Who knows.

Also there is Jude Law, conspiracy theorist trying to spread the truth about the disease, the vaccine, and the cure, and controlling millions of followers who believe everything he says.

Also, Demetri Martin plays a low level scientist. One who doesn’t make jokes. What?

The last two plots were the most interesting, and thought the Damon plot was just meh. It of course shows why it matters, like everything in the movie. But the ending seemed a bit disappointing. The movie takes place over a long time, even has nifty pop ups saying “Day 144!” and all that shit. Hard to say what is missing from the movie, besides Damon having a bigger role. A lot of it could be considered boring as well, which isn’t the best way to sell a movie. Who knows.

I like parts of it as a “man what if THIS happened” movie, and would like to assume a lot of it is wrong. But eh, probably true. Humans love to riot.