Tag: Radha Mitchell

This is part of Fantasy and Sci-Fi Week at Gorgon Reviews!

Another film to come out in March that I missed, due to the extreme circumstances of birthday nonsense that incorporates that month of my life, when I first saw the trailer for The Shack, I didn’t realize it was a religious film.

Yes, even though there was an original song by Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, I didn’t realize it was a religious film. Even though it came out right around Easter, I didn’t realize it was a religious film. Even though it was about death and overcoming grief, I didn’t realize it was a religious film.

I just thought it was a fantasy film. But when I had to see the trailer a second time my wife was there and told me. Whoops. Well, religious films are still fantasy films, so it is relevant enough for me to finally watch it.

Worst superhero team ever?

Willie (Tim McGraw) gets to serve as our narrator and local church pastor for this film, so I know you are stoked.

This film is instead about Mack Phillips (Sam Worthington), a successful family man at some job, with his wife Nan (Radha Mitchell), and three kids Kate (Megan Charpentier), Josh (Gage Munroe), and Missy (Amélie Eve). Mack had a rough life growing up, when he was a kid (Carson Reaume), he lived with his alcoholic father (Derek Hamilton) and mother. The dad got angry a whole lot, beat up the mom, and beat up Mack. When Mack tried to tell the church, he just got beat up more. Sucks a whole lot.

Either way now he is a happy dad. They still go to church, but he isn’t fully into Jesus like his wife. On a camping trip where Nan cannot make it, he is enjoying life with his three kids. When his two oldest get into an accident on the lake, Mack rushes into the water to save them, hooray big hero! But now his daughter, Missy, is missing.

He was barely in the water, it was only a few minutes, yet she is gone and he and the other campers cannot find her anywhere. The police believe it to be a serial killer (!) in the area, who has been taking girls. Days later, they find her clothes and blood in a shack, no real resolution. Holy crap!

Now, months later, it is winter, and of course Mack is still upset. His whole family is, but Mack is more upset at the big guy upstairs. He ends up getting a note to go back to the Shack, and against the wishes of his pastor, he heads up alone, thinking it is the serial killer and he wants revenge.

Instead, he finds a magical cabin, with representatives from heaven who want him to heal. Featuring Octavia Spencer as God, Avraham Aviv Alush as Jesus, and Sumire Matsubara as the Holy Spirit. Also Alice Braga as some sort of judger and Graham Greene also as God.

They heal his soul the southern way, with biscuits.

A lot of the problems/issues that the movie have, problems with story structure and more, can unfortunately be written away by spiritual magic. Dream sequences and all of that jazz. Because while watching it, the viewer should be saying “Hey, how can he spend multiple days up here with no one knowing where he is?…Oh. Because it was maybe all in his head real time wise and he never made it to the Shack? Gotcha.”

And that takes away from so much. If they dealt with the real consequences of him disappearing it would have added some more real drama to the film. But it gets swept under the rug, we get an hour plus of movie and “growth” from Mack that happens in the span of apparently getting into a car accident and waking up in a hospital. How convenient.

The main message of the film is to live a better life, you need to forgive and forget the bad things and focus on the good. But they chose a really messed up person to preach this too. Yes, they are saying to forgive and forget the dad who beat them. They are saying to forgive and forget a serial killer for abducting, killing, and who knows what else his tiny girl.

I’m sorry, but no. There are bad things in the world, and this film says it is okay, because there are still good things in your life and Heaven awaits. That is a bad message to pass on.

Also, Spencer gets to play neighborly helper woman again, but also as God. She just can’t get a typecasted break. At least the Jesus character looks more Jesus-y than normal.

0 out of 4.

In 2013, our main Doppelganger films were Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down. The former was mostly serious with some jokes, the latter, full on action comedy in the middle of summer.

And you know what? I liked both of them. They had their charms and were unique enough from each other that I didn’t mind their similarities. They both worked and did what they needed to do to make an entertaining product.

But the Movie Gods have spoken, and Olympus Has Fallen has a sequel now, London Has Fallen, meaning it must have been the superior film. After all, the best films always get sequels, right?

And that was with Olympus Has Fallen having a shitty president. I could write a whole review on just why his character is stupid, but no one wants me to rant about fiction. The real presidential situation is crazy enough for us to not need that in our movie lives.

In order to take over London, you first must kill its rivers.

Two years before the events of this film (probably before Olympus Has Fallen? Or right after? Who knows), America did something stupid, as they tend to do. Aamir Barkawi (Alon Aboutboul) was a weapons dealer in the middle east, and he sold big boomers to lots of bad guys. He was a high target and so we drone striked his ass. Of course we also did it at his daughter’s wedding, during a huge celebration with a bunch of bad guys, but who cares, we got him!

And now, a prime minister in London is dead. He died young in his mid-40’s, with a heart attack over night. So now world leaders from all over are heading to London for his funeral with not a lot of time to plan it out. Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) is thinking about quitting the secret service, because his wife (Radha Mitchell) is about to give birth and he wants to be there for his kid. The president is still Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart).

Guess what? Terrorists! They had killed the prime minister and set a huge trap throughout London to kill most of the world leaders. This is of course orchestrated over two years by Barkawi, who didn’t die, just all of his family. Joy. Leaders from France, Italy, Japan, Canada, and more all die, but they can’t knock America down. Now Banning has to lead Asher underground and around London, until the bad guys can all be shot and he can be extracted. Barkawi wants Asher, and he wants to execute him live on the internet for the whole world to see.

Returning characters are still played by Morgan Freeman and Angela Bassett. Jackie Earle Haley is a dude in the war room, and we have MI-6 agents now to help and hurt, featuring Patrick Kennedy, Colin Salmon, and Charlotte Riley, who happens to be married to Tom Hardy!

I bet if Tom Hardy was here, they would have escaped right away without all the death.

It is clear that London Has Fallen isn’t as good as Olympus. The terrorist attack in the first film was plausible, given enough time, sure. But the terrorist attack in this film was make every police, EMS, service worker a bad guy in disguise (all of which totally end up being Middle Eastern, cheers), and blow the fuck out of every major landmark. Not all of the landmark, just parts, to show they mean business. In fact, all of the world leaders who die seem to die mostly by accident, not by planning.

All of the destruction and wanton death happens early on with the President narrowly escaping each time. And then it just turns into a simple man hunt for him. This is after they contacted the White House and said they would stop killing everyone if they had the president. They obviously didn’t turn him over, and guess what? The random killing stopped anyways. There weren’t later attacks, or more death, so the good news is America didn’t have really any more death on their hands. The bad news is the movie is full of scenes like that. They sound intimidating, seem like they will lead to somewhere and don’t do shit.

I mean, apparently they always wanted to capture the president for a live execution, despite blowing him up, shooting at him and such. The president also seemed to know he was wanted for a public execution, despite not knowing who is behind the attack and not receiving any intel.

The worst part about all of this is the drone strike that started the whole thing. One would imagine that this would bring some sort of discussion about drone strikes, killing civilians and responsibility of America overseas. That would make sense. It did cause this horrible event to happen in London as a response, and America gets away with it scott-free (spoilers?). But no. It ignores it. It doesn’t discuss the morality of any of this. Not only that. NOT. ONLY. THAT. But it ends the damn movie (again, spoilers), with another fucking drone strike to get the bad guy again. Literally. No lessons learned. No sign of change. Just a nice fuck you, it’s America time.

The only scene I really enjoyed was when Banning and MI-6 agents were storming the bad guys base. It was full of long shots and shooting and was well choreographed. Everything else was lack luster.

1 out of 4.

As you all know, I am a patriotic American, so if there is a movie out there that will increase my patriotism, by golly, I will see it!

Not that I needed any more convincing to see Olympus Has Fallen. I love a lot of the actors in this movie, even though certain male leads may be pushing out a lot of crap in a row. But hey, this looks like Die Hard meets the White House! That is especially good news given out A Good Day To Die Hard turned out.

Arguably, both this and Die Hard 5 are going to be political. Probably. Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) used to be the best secret service agent there was, working for President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart). Unfortunately, after leaving Camp David on a snowy night, his limo hits a bridge and they are only able to save the President, not his wife. Mike didn’t do anything wrong, but the President just doesn’t want to be reminded of his dead wife every time he sees him.

Few years later, he now is stuck with some desk job. Can’t shoot anyone in the office (legally), damn it! He still relives that night, and his long term lady friend (Radha Mitchell) can’t seem to help him.

But unfortunately today is a day where everything will hit the fan. A fighter plane is able to make it into the DC airspace, and begins to open fire on the white house while the President has the South Korean Prime Minister under his care. But in the panic room, it turns out not everything is as expected. Surprise, North Korea is behind all of this! Not only have they locked the President and Vice President in the panic room, but they have taken over the building as well, and have pretty egregious demands for the country that they are holding hostage. Clearly only one man is good enough to save the day here.

Featuring Rick Yune as the bad guy, Morgan Freeman as the Speaker of the House and now acting president, Melissa Leo and Angela Bassett as government women, and Dylan McDermott as an also former secret service agent.

 

Honestly, to me this looks like they are just dancing. Sometimes you can get an idea that is so crazy, so wild, that it works on some grandiose scale, and I believe that is what is happening with Olympus Has Fallen. It is action packed (after the icy intro and set up) and entertaining. Sure, you can probably figure out how everything is going to end before its through, but that doesn’t even matter in this movie.

That’s right, no real big surprise twists! I think if the entire point of a movie is a twist at the end, it really loses its potential to watch it again for fun (unless you are watching with new people). That means Olympus Has Fallen is rewatchable!

Now there are some pretty dumb characters. I think the President is a moron, but at least he is a bit hard assed. Part of the conflict involves getting three passwords from three individuals, through torture! The President has the last password, and orders the other two to give up their own because there is “no way” he would ever give his up. You know, to stop their torture. Gee, I guess he didn’t realize that they will probably just torture his friends to get the password out of him, since it basically worked two times in a row.

But this movie is about Gerard Butler kicking ass, and damn it, he does. Nice fights, guns, explosions, and a high body count. This movie was so great that I am no longer looking forward to White House Down. When there are two similar movies within a few months of each other, one of them will always outshine the other. I don’t think there has ever been a situation where both have been amazing, but at least the other one has Jaime Foxx playing the President.

3 out of 4.

It turns out that Silent Hill and Silent Hill: Revelation are actually connected movies! Shocking I know. But for some reason I just figured they’d be two different stories both set in the same town, based on different games in the series. After all, it has only been a six year difference between the movies.

But nope, Sean Bean plays the same character in both movies, so I had to rush watch the first one to make sure I understood all the complicated plot developments this movie would surely have.

Well, at least this also has snow. Wait no. Ash. Yep, that’s ash.

Well don’t worry, seeing the first film is not necessary. The dad (Bean) and daughter Heather/Shannon (Adelaide Clemens) are moving all across America because the cult in Silent Hill, West Virginia is after her. She doesn’t remember any of the events from the first film, when she was in the town with her mother (Radha Mitchell), and didn’t know that her mom was still trapped inside its city limits.

But when they move to a new town, with new identities, she continues to receive strange dreams that feel extremely real, telling her that she is never to return to Silent Hill.

So when her dad gets kidnapped to protect her location, she does what anyone would do in that situation, and returns to Silent Hill. Thankfully she has the help of Vincent (Kit Harrington) who also happened to be a new kid in school, and for whatever reason doesn’t find any of this weird.

The cult wants to kill her, because they believe she is the innocent part of a demon child Alyssa that is terrorizing their town…that they also created. They are hoping to kill the demon, in order to birth a new demon, who can uh…kill the world? I am not even sure. But Carrie-Anne Moss is in charge of it all, and Malcolm McDowell plays a blind crazy uncle.

This is also how I like my womenz.

I don’t go to 3D movies a lot, right now my count is at six, but I am trying to give them more chances. “Silent Hill: Revelation” is by far has the worst 3D I have ever seen, and I also watched Katy Perry: Part Of Me in 3D. Its 3D consisted entirely of things coming out at you and roughly zero of everything else. It was made purely for a scare factor, but even did poorly at that aspect.

I don’t think you need to see the first “Silent Hill” film to see this one, because they try to explain everything you need in the second movie. However, the plot made absolutely no sense to me, despite seeing both films. I can’t tell the point of the cult, nor could I fully grasp why the town went to hell in the first place.

Most would say that the movie isn’t about plot, but cool visual effects. Well, its visual effects are bad (and they should feel bad), so then the movie just might be about being scared! But even I didn’t find it scary, just predictable and weird. The first film most would agree was a bit dull, trying (and failing) to recreate the alone feelings felt from the game. I think it is obvious that for this film they tried to amp everything up, yet still it just didn’t feel quite right. A bit disappointing that this is the only horror movie to be released on Halloween week. If you are looking for some good scares, I’d recommend basically anything else but this.

1 out of 4.

Definitely another movie I bought just because of who is on the cover.

Henry Poole Is Here sounds pretty much like a meaningless title to me. I guess this Henry Poole character is some sort of new neighbor, who moves into a suburban neighborhood and parties it up, causing his neighbors ire. Maybe.

By the end maybe he will learn to not be an asshole. Maybe.

Well I was wrong. Shit is a drama, and it is serious at that.

I was dead on with the asshole commentary though.

Predicting movies is hard. I rarely turn out to be right if I have never heard of it before.

Maybe calling Henry Poole (Luke Wilson) an asshole is bad. Mostly because he is going to die. Alright, we all are, but he has a terminal illness. He decides to wait out the rest of his days by moving back to his old hometown, and getting a small house in a suburban neighborhood, where he can waste away his days with pizza and liquor. Pretty much retirement. And waiting to die.

His neighbor, an old hispanic woman (Adriana Barraza) sees a face on his outer wall in his backyard, from mold or something and claim it to be a face of Jesus. She even tries to get the priest (George Lopez!?) to make it a holy site, but he doesn’t seem any proof of it. Not until that shit starts having blood appear. And maybe healing people?

One neighbor Dawn (Radha Mitchell) separated from her husband, and for about a year her daughter has not spoke. But after seeing the face she has begun to speak. A miracle! No…not really. But another girl, Patience (Rachel Seiferth), an annoying cashier at the market, can see when she visits and touches the wall. She had thick glasses before. Another ehhh moment.

But eventually all of this builds up into anger. More and more people are visiting it and bothering him at his house. He meets someone he likes, but he is going to die soon. So he destroys the wall with a sledgehammer.

Then some other things happen.

Oh hey, Cheryl Hines is also in this movie as a Realtor.

When you are going to die soon, you take every opportunity to spray neighbors with a hose.

But then I hated the ending.

This is a movie that is kind of about religion and Christianity, but also about believing in believing. Despite the large faith issues associated with it, I was very into the movie for most of it. The drama was slow at times, but I thought appropriately paced for this guys point of view.

But the ending? It killed me. The last few minutes. Just seems to go against his character completely, and felt like a cop out for the directors. Everything fell into place too neatly, and I just didn’t care anymore.

A bad ending can ruin pretty much everything. But I thought the acting was pretty well done in the movie. Definitely a lot different than I expected. And once I found out it was religious (very early on) I am surprised it kept me as interested as it did.

2 out of 4.