Tag: Action

Originally I was going to just ignore Dredd 3D. Hopefully it would go to the cheap theater at some point and I’d watch it then, but $10? It’s probably going to suck. But then something happened. People I knew were liking it. It was weird. The internet liked it. What? Don’t people hate remakes?

I never got to see Judge Dredd, I was like six at that time and it is violent. Hell, I still haven’t seen it. But what I do know about it is the pop culture references, of course. Basically it can be summed up in these 10 seconds for all I care. LAWWWGGHHH!

Yeah, well if anything, this new guy looks like the law.

Dredd 3D is set in…the future! Giant ass cities, so many people. Lot of them live in these big tower things. The police force are now called Judges, because they will find criminals and carry out the sentencing on the spot, and all of it gets recorded. It is just what has to be done with this many people. Too bad only some small percent of reported murders even get investigated by the Judges, they are so busy.

Who is the judgiest judge of them all? Judge Dredd (Karl Urban. Who is also a Doctor, sometimes). He knows all the rules, all the tactics, and is a bad ass motherfucker, more or less. He has no remorse, and will sentence without a care. Definitely won’t ever remove his helmet. But he is asked to train a rookie, Anderson (Olivia Thirby) who is also a psychic. Yeah, one of those mutants, who lucked out and got a useful transformation instead of an extra hand out of her stomach.

So yeah, she suggests a place to go. These three guys got skinned and fell about 30 stories. Could have been worse, could have been from the top, 200 stories up! They investigate, turn it into a drug bust. New “Gang” is in the area, lead by a Ma-ma (Lena Headey), who took over the entire complex. Hell, turns out they have a new drug that is hitting the market strong. Basically it makes your body feel like life is in slow motion. Kind of awesome. But one of the people she takes from the bust, Kay (Wood Harris), she can tell killed the people directly. He might even know the entire working operation of the drug place, meaning if he gets interrogated, he might spill the beans. Can’t have that happen.

So Ma-Ma does what everyone does. Gets the weird Technie (Domhnall Gleeson) to lock down the building completely, and shut off communication, and tell the residents to kill the Judges. Can they get out alive, and you know, actually still obey the law?

She has no helmet eh? Well that makes things easier. You know, shooting her in the head.

Wait a second. People trapped in a living complex, and wanting to take down the leader with the whole building trying to kill him? That unfortunately sounds familiar. If you read my reviews a month ago, it would sound like The Raid: Redemption. That really is unfortunate!

These movies were probably being made around the same time, so the similar plots were not intentional. Just ruined the awesomeness of this one.

Karl Urban? Wow, what a Judge Dredd. Obviously the best I have seen, but he kicked a lot of ass, and I was cheering him on. Never removed his hat, so really couldn’t tell it was him, but he made that character awesome.

How about the 3D? Well, I can say don’t watch this movie in 2D. I think the reason for the drugs was just to see that shit in 3D and make some super slow motion deaths. But it worked. It was killing porn, basically, and looked amazing. Plot not the best, but the twists and turns were fun to watch. Definitely see this bad boy either in theaters, or your 50 inch blu ray 3D TV.

If you wanna have a good time, every time you say Looper, you should pronounce it as “Loopah”. Reminds me of Zelda a bit.

It is a good idea to laugh. Especially when you see Looper, and feel all sorts of weird feelings during it.

The year, 2044. The setting, Kansas, because why the fuck not? Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a Looper. Probably want to know about that, eh? Well, in the future, time travel is invented and immediately banned. Naturally then, only criminals have time travel at that point. So they sent a representative back to 2044 (Jeff Daniels) to set up a system to their advantage. Bodies are hard to dispose of in the future, so they send back the people they kill at predetermined times and locations! The loopers job is to kill them right when they appear. They get paid with silver bars strapped to the back.

They work until their loop is closed. How does a loop close? That is when the mob sends back the future version of yourself. They are always bagged, so you don’t realize it until you see that you received gold bars instead of silver. Then they know they have 30 years left of their life, and to take their huge wealth and enjoy it. But things start to hit the fan for the Loopers. Loops start closing quickly. Joe’s good friend, Seth (Paul Dano) ends up letting his future self go, causing problems! Apparently the future is scary. Some new guy is taking over and closing up shop.

But what happens when Future Joe (Bruce Willis) gets sent back. Will Joe do his job, kill his future self? Or will he help him figure out how to change the future for the better, with every action they take changing it in some way? And what does the future have to do with a local single mom (Emily Blunt) and her kid (Pierce Gagnon)?

Tell me I am not the only one who immediately thinks of Bangkok Dangerous when I see this?

Shocked. Shocked is basically how I felt after watching that movie. Not at the ending. No, I could see it coming, just still didn’t expect it. Hell, there was many options the ending could have chose. The film did a nice job of keeping you guessing, and leaving you with a feeling of wonder.

I know what you want to know. Time travel? Does that mean this movie will be confusing? Does their time travel make sense? Hard to say really. I’d say there is some confusing elements. Comes with the territory. Is their time travel without paradoxes? No, not really. Especially when dealing with loops and stuff. I would say their metaphysics isn’t perfect, but it is good enough for the movie.

The science in the movie isn’t the main feature though. It is the characters involved. Lot of serious questions get asked when dealing with your future self and the implications of it, of which I think the film handled wonderfully. Everyone acted pretty amazingly, and I was on the edge of my seat wondering what was next. They also did great job with the makeup work to have Levitt look like a younger Willis.

Finally the movie does a few things that few films outside of horror ever do. Have the potential death of multiple children, and the use silence in the music and action to convey feelings of isolation/being alone. I love it when a film steps out of a normal comfort zone. It is great when a film makes you think too, and focuses a lot of energy into character development in arguably a short time. Just don’t go in expecting some action heavy flick, and you will be set.

I am pretty sure I heard about Hit and Run first from Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell. Do you know them? They have been a couple for a few years, since they met on When In Rome. Both very delightful people that make me laugh. Well they wanted to do a movie together, damn it, where they can be in love on screen too!

Fun, face punching, bloody love.

Annie (Bell) and Charles Bronson (Shepard) are living in the middle of no where California. They have been dating for a year, but they really do love each other so much. Heck, Annie has a PhD in Conflict Resolution. What? Yeah. But she is teaching dumb sociology because she can’t run her own program anywhere. Until now. Her boss (Kristin Chenoweth) has to make some cuts to the department, and she is too awesome for them. Luckily, she set her up with an interview at UCLA, to run her own program there and have a real job with real monies!

The only problem is the city. LA. Turns out Mr. Bronson is in the witness protection program, and yes, he is from LA. That is literally the worst possible city to have the job at.

But he doesn’t care. Screw it, he will drive her to the interview himself. It has been four years for him, it shouldn’t matter at this point. She knows he is in witness protection, so even if his secrets come up, she should accept it right? Nope. Not if he used to be the getaway driver for his bank robbing friends (Bradley Cooper, Joy Bryant, Ryan Hansen).

Unfortunately during this routine trip to LA for an interview, Annie’s ex boyfriend (Michael Rosenbaum) gets a bit jealous, always has been, and actually figures out his real identity through his cop brother (Jess Rowland) checking up his old car’s plates. So course he contacts his old buddies, who he ratted out and are now free (technicalities), causing a race to LA with lots of guns and crazy chase scenes. Not to mention the Marshall assigned to check in on Charles (Tom Arnold) going along for the ride as well.

Oh no, looks like the find them and have an uncomfortable sex talk scene!

Hooo boy. This movie ended up actually having a lot more car driving chase scenes than I thought. Nothing to the level of Fast and the Furious craziness, of course. No, those people use NAS and stuff. Just straight up old school racing is what it felt like, with a soundtrack to match. They were thankfully exciting.

I also need to give a lot of props to Tom Arnold, he hasn’t been doing as well on the humor, being mostly a spaz in all of his recent roles. Well, it is true for this one too, but it works really well for once.

I was annoyed every once in awhile, I thought Bell’s character didn’t make that much sense, based off of her background. I don’t think anyone would actually assume someone was lying to them by not telling them about their witness protection circumstances. Probably laws about that stuff! But I found it pretty funny, with some nice chase scenes. Some over the top, unbelievable characters too. The ending wasn’t my favorite, just felt a bit weird. But hey, most of it was awesome!

Total Recall, for people who like movies based off books that also already had another movie based off of said book.

Do you love the old Total Recall? Yes? Then why the heck are you going to watch this film? You know it wont be anything like it, and will just make you mad because you compare the two. I say ignore it. See how this one goes. Then don’t get too pissed off when you realize this one has no trip to Marsin it.

But if we’re lucky, we are in for a mind fuck. Kind of like the recall business.

Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell) is a factory worker, helping build police drones, in the Britain Empire. After chemical war, there are only really two livable places left, Britain (Which is a lot of Northern Europe), and Australia, now called The Colony. Guess which one is in charge? GUESS. Lead by President Cohaagen (Bryan Cranston) of Britain, times are rough. Hell, Douglas lives in the Colony, but has to tramsute to Britain each day for work with his pal Harry (Bokeem Woodbine).

What? How can they do that daily? Oh haven’t you heard? The Fall is a giant gravity elevator that goes through the earth’s crust and mantle, around the core, to the other side. Don’t ask questions.

So times are rough. There are ways to get over it though, through Rekall. They will implant false memories into your brain to make it all better. People don’t trust it though. Since Douglas has been having strange dreams about a girl, he finally decides to go. Despite the calming voice of John Cho, shit hits the fan when he tries to have secret agent memories. What’s that? Apparently he already has those memories? How can that be?

Either way, shit is weird. Even his wife Lori (Kate Beckinsale) seems to have turn on him! She is a spy for the government? Oh nos! But at least he finally met the mysterious girl, Melina (Jessica Biel) who claims he was kidnapped and had his memories replaced, and he is actually an agent for Matthias (Bill Nighy), a resistance leader wanting the Colony to break out of Britain control.

Oh, or is all this actually just the memory that was implanted in him? That could be true as well.

For “whatever reason”, when you google Total Recall you mostly get these images.

Wooo science and action! And that is about it.

I mean shit. Okay, I know they don’t get to go to Mars. That sucks. Mars is awesome. Curiosity agrees. But you know, all this felt like was a bunch of confusion, with action, and eventually a crazy ending. I have talked before about how too many plot twists can ruin a movie. Once you reach a certain point, you lose interest, and don’t trust the film anymore. I think this movie passes that threshold. Also, if you thought the lens flares were bad in Star Trek, you are going to be pissed off watching this movie.

I mean shit. Besides the obvious, I feel like the science presented in the movie didn’t even stay too consistent. I’m looking at you magnet cars.

Fuck, I can’t even think of more to say. I just thought it was kind of boring and dumb.

End of Watch (I hate that there is no ‘the’ there) is another of those movies that I felt bombarded by trailers for. Unfortunately they only made a single trailer for this movie, so I saw the same two minutes over and over again. But from that trailer, I was definitely curious about this movie. Filming style was different, might have been a buddy cop movie, but at the time with very serious overtones. I do love genre bending movies!

Oh man, look how happy they are! If only they knew…

Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (Michael Peña) are partners working the hard streets of South Central LA. They are great at their job, if not a bit reckless. Brian is slowly taking classes, working on a Pre-law degree, with high aspirations. Mike is happily married (Natalie Martinez) with a child on the way.  The beginning of the film opens with a chase scene and subsequent shootout, causing the two to be suspended for a month while they make sure it was a legitimate shooting.

But no worries! They make sure they follow the book, mostly. Brian is also taking an ‘art’ class, where he has to make a movie so he decides to document his life. Why not? Cops are exciting! So he has his normal hand held camera, and some ‘spy cameras’ on their shirts, along with other footage from police scanners to make up the majority of the film.

They are like most stereotypical cop units, there is a hardass equal who always gives them crap (David Harbour), a lieutenant who only cares about results (Frank Grillo), and some other friendly cops who actually appreciate what they do (America Ferrera, Cody Horn). Heck, even Brian has started to see someone, a smart girl who is more than just a booty call (Anna Kendrick).

But when the two start an investigation on a Hispanic gang shooting, they soon find themselves deeper and deeper in the dealings with the drug cartel, who have expanded their operations out of Mexico.  Discovering mass murders, cocaine, golden guns, cash, and human trafficking have put them as the number 1 priority for the cartel to deal with. What they just assumed was a normal shift will turn into a fight for survival to just make it to the end of (the) watch.

Yes, the same Cody Horn who helped ruin Magic Mike is a cop in this. Same disgruntled face.

I know my description of the plot made it seem like a pretty serious action movie, but surprisingly I would instead describe it as a “Comedy Drama Action Thriller” film. It is seriously all of the above. I laughed, quite often, I cried once, there was the obvious action, and I felt scared more than once.

The film isn’t a typical ‘found footage’ film. I believe the director originally wanted the whole thing to be in police camera / hidden camera footage, but there is plenty of actual camera work thrown in as well. So that means we have a movie that fits multiple genres, and doesn’t even keep its camera use constant, but yet it works really really well.

Frankly I thought the movie would be stupid, but I ended up loving every minute of it. Gyllenhaal and Peña had excellent chemistry together, and it shows that they spent months shadowing LA cops and hanging out for inspiration.  My only suggestion for watching this movie is to be prepared to have scenes change suddenly. It may go from hilarious banter to scary cop moments in an instant. This form of ‘genre shock’ is pretty rare, and now something I hope to see more often in movies after this. End of Watch is a definite must see.

Confession time! From the original Bourne Trilogy, I only really saw the first one and I am pretty sure that was ten years ago. I just didn’t care that much, thought it was too slow. But you know, okay. So I had to rewatch it last week, and for the first time the second and third ones to make sure I was prepped for the newest installation, The Bourne Legacy.

Smiling Bearded Jeremy Renner wants to be your friend. Not really a joke, just a fact.

Remember everything from the first three films? Well too bad, not much of it matters. Basically, this movie takes place around the same time as the events of Ultimatum. Jason Bourne scared a lot of people when he showed up out of nowhere in NYC and started messing with them all. So much, the CIA went into lockdown.

Potentially a spoiler, but I think knowing the next part helps a lot.

A different program, called Outcome, was similar to the Treadstone program of the first three films. Instead of taking individuals who were already skilled to turn them into agents, they are taking individuals on the bottom of the totem pole and enhancing them artificially with pills.

Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) is currently fucked, because he is almost out of pills. On a random mission in the Alaskan mountain range, he lost a bunch of his blues/greens, and is almost out. Even when he gets to the outpost and meets another agent (Oscar Isaac), he can’t get any extra from them. Have to file a report. Without the pills, his body will go crazy and crash. No good.

Too bad, thanks to CIA head person Eric Byer (Edward Norton), they have decided to wipe out the existence of all of the Outcome agents. Gotta kill em all, most by switching their pills, but, wouldn’t you know it, Aaron Cross escapes! Still needs the Blue/Green pills though. So he does the only thing he knows, kicking ass, to find Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz) who might know how to get more pills.

Or even better, a way to not need the pills anymore. Can he survive long enough to find a solution, when people with guns and other super agents chasing him? Can he stay ahead of the entire CIA and all of its surveillance long enough? Does the fact that Stacy Keach and Dennis Boutsikaris play other head of operation people actually matter to Edward Norton?

Whoa, two guns Renner? Amping up the violence here, eh?

Fuck. Not even a spoiler, but Extreme Ways by Moby does end this movie as well. Gah, when I first heard that note, I had a silent rage in my seat. I really don’t like that song.

But hey, other than that, I really like it. There were issues of course. I didn’t like the way it was spliced in the beginning, making sure you had no real knowledge of what was going on for awhile, and setting it up. Bump that, just tell me. I liked Aaron Cross better than Jason Bourne. Jason Bourne was almost emotionless, while, as you saw above, Aaron Cross at least smiled. The relationship between him and Marta also made more since than Bourne’s relationship.

When they are eventually in the Philippines, there is one chase scene that is incredibly long. Way too long. They split it up to involve different aspects (foot, vs motorcycle, vs what is chasing after them) but I felt like it got above ridiculous at that point. Either way, besides that, found it all pretty entertaining. Even the parts where Renner had that bad beard.

Hey look at that, here we are with 600 reviews for the Website. Pretty snazzy I must say.

Normally here is where I list my other milestone reviews, but fuck that, I realized just tagging them all as Milestone Review was a way easier idea. Because my best milestone review at 500 was Clash of the Titans, basically what this website ends up alluding to, I figured a nice tribute was to do its sequel, Wrath of the Titans for 600!

This bad boy will also spoil the whole thing, so that’s important, you know, if you actually care about this movie.

“I care about spoilers! Don’t let them know what becomes of me!”

Ten years after the death of the Kraken, Perseus (Sam Worthington) is just hanging out. He has a son, ten year old boy, but he is a widow because Io went out and died on him. Oh well, being a demi-god is rough I guess, but he don’t care. Not until his dad Zeus (Liam Neeson) shows up being all fucking morbid.

Apparently no one gives shits about the gods. This lack of devotion is causing their world to come undone. If no one cares about them, all they have created will cease to be. Tartarus (a afterlife prison) has its walls coming down and that can be bad! But Perseus has zero fucks to give.

“Yep, I checked the charts. We are lost, and no fucks at all around.”

But Zeus (who no longer has that bitch ass glow going on) goes to Tartarus, and brings with him Poseidon (Danny Huston), Hades (Ralph Fiennes), and his son Ares (Edgar Ramirez).

Turns out Hades is still pissed off from last time, and totally kills Poseidon and injures Zeus. Ares feels like now is a good time to betray his dad, and helps Hades! Since they are kicking ass, they decide to become immortal by draining Zeus of all his power and give it to Kronos, who Zeus defeated way long ago. Somehow this plan works, and can’t possibly fuck up.

Aww, he is just a magician clearly. Needs to work on his ninja escape dust though.

OH FUCK MONSTERS ROAM THE WORLD NOW. AND A CHIMERA COMES OUT OF NO WHERE AND ATTACKS PERSEUS.

Well, that was easy. Chimera are the bitches of the monster world.

Because Perseus has no idea whats up, he tries to ask his dad, but you know. Prisoner. Thankfully Poseidon, with his last breath tells Perseus what is up. Not good things of course. Gives him a cool trident though. Tells him to find his son Agenor (Toby Kebbell). Because his son can help him find Hephaestus (Bill Nighy). Why Hephaestus? Because he knows the way to Tartarus. Seems complicated. Oh well.

Why not go steal Agenor from Andromeda (Rosamund Pike). Easy enough, hell, she will join too and bring soldiers. Eventually they get to an island, where they are attacked by Cyclops!

“And I kill all the humans and eat them for dinner, right? Right?”

Turns out they eventually find Hephaestus. Crazy right? Well, they realize that the three weapons of Hades/Zeus/Poseidon can be combined to form a spear, and that is the only thing that can kill Kronos. Pretty weird, but alright. Looks like time to collect shit. Or just go to Tartarus and find the other two pieces just hanging out. I’m sure Ares won’t try to stop them and fuck some shit up.

Andromeda doesn’t like it when people jinx situations.

Minotaurs die, and look, Tartarus! That was overall pretty easy. Too bad Kronos is about to bust out and fuck up all the shit. The only saving grace is Zeus apologizing to Hades for putting him in the Underworld. Aww, shucks, that is all he really wanted an apology. Too bad Ares is still a bitch, and he totally kills Zeus, and everyone teleports out of the area because Kronos is scary.

But with 2/3 of the spear, Perseus prays to Ares to challenge him to a one on one fight, so he can get back Zeus’ thunderbolt. While this is going on, Kronos’ demonic army of Mikhai are ravaging the planes and generally kicking everyone in the army’s ass.

I think all those limbs give them an advantage. And being demons.

Thanks to using his son as bait, Perseus is able to eventually kill Ares. Kind of serious, but hey, whatever. At that same time, Hades decides to give up his immortality to revive his brother Zeus, and Zeus looks young and stylish. Too bad Hades is old. And both of them are now mortal. Oh well, still got cool powers. So they help drive back the demon army.

“Bitch, I’m fabulous!” – Zeus

Yadda yadda, spear is made. Zeus sacrifices himself again to save Hades, so he can slowly start to die. Perseus rides off into the sunset — wait no, that is Kronos, my bad. He rides off into Kronos and destroys him with a glowing spear. Yay the father of the gods is dead!

Too bad so are all the rest of the gods. Man, Zeus is about to die, Hades is now old and mortal, Poseidon is gone, Ares. Everyone left sucks. Apparently the time of the gods is over naturally, and now maybe demigods can rule the world? Perseus gets it on with Andromeda, and decides to train his son to be a fighter, you know, because they have to deal with their own problems, and the titans that are about to start rising up again, since they are no longer imprisoned.

If I was Kronos in this situation, I would have sprayed Perseus with magma. Yep. Sucks to suck Kronos.

So, I had some big complaints about the first movie. The action, all of it, I just found boring. The look of it all felt wrong. Way too much CGI, not enough realism. Shitty glow of the gods. Well this movie actually fixed a lot of my complaints.

Obviously, the gods don’t have that glow. Easy fix, now they look better.

Better CGI use? I’d say so. The battle with the chimera felt kind of cheesy, but less green screeny. Overall the movie was a lot less just “Always brown”, because the last film had tons of desert. So visually it was better.

Better action? I’d say so. The final fight between Perseus and Ares felt real, two powerful men slugging it out. None of the fights in this film were every “whole bunch of people versus things far too big for them” like the damn crabs in the last movie. A lot more close fights. The giant ass Kronos vs everyone isn’t a real fight either, since it is more of a “just die and stall until the spear is made” tactic, and not an actual battle they think they can win.

Despite the fact that I truly think this is a better movie than Clash, I still wasn’t entirely entertained. It improved though, and might be worth a watch. But when TNT starts to show it in the future, I know I won’t just sit back and watch.

Ice Age Fucking 4: Continental Fucking Draft. Much like Madagascar movies, I had to watch a few of these films real quick before seeing the latest installment. I saw the first one a long time ago, but 2 and 3 I never really go to, because I never really liked the first one. Might have just been old bitter teenager phase though, so might rewatch it as well.

Either way. I have been up to my neck in these guys this last weekend, so lets just get straight to it!

Marathoning these things could explain why I find the teenage girl Mammoth Peaches strangely attractive.

Manny (Ray Romano) the mammoth, is living the good life. With the help of his “half opossom” wife Ellie (Queen Latifah), he is busy raising his ~teenage daughter Peaches (Keke Palmer). Diego (Denis Leary) the sabretooth is still kicking ass, kind of lonely. And Sid (John Leguizamo) the sloth is still crazy. But at least his family came to visit! Just to drop off his grandma (Wanda Sykes) who is also ‘crazy’.

OH WHAT THE FUCK THE GROUND STARTS TO BREAK APART AND THE SHIT IS HITTING THE FAN. Sid, Diego, Manny, and Grandma Sloth find themselves on a small ice chip floating down the sea, with plans on reaching the rest of the herd at the ‘land bridge’.

They have to get there while being chased by a (geologically quick as fuck) slowly moving massive wall, that uhh, represents something. Peaches wants to fit in with the other teen mammoths, especially cute Ethan (Drake). But he has nasty ass ho friends (Heather Morris, Nicki Minaj), and they all hate other things. So she might have to disown her best friend a molehog named Louis (Josh Gad) to do it, but hey, whatever. I’m sure he will understand.

Back on the crazy ass main adventure, uhh after giant storms, they run into pirates. Because why the fuck not.

Captain Gutt (Peter Dinklage…!) an ape like creature, named for his tendency to rip open animals from their gut to their neck, wants the sabretooth and mammoth to join his crew (on a floating ice, yes). That is how his crew was formed, saving animals mostly, and them wanting to work for him. There is a song and everything. It includes Shira (Jennifer Lopez), a white female sabretooth tiger (yes that means exactly what you think it does). Some sort of bunny (Aziz Ansari), a kangaroo (Rebel Wilson), a large Sea Lion (Nick Frost) and many other smaller critters.

So their big plan involves escaping from them (At every corner), trying to figure out how to get back home to save their families and friends from certain doom. How they’d save them once they get back? Who knows, thinking ahead is for lame people.

Arggh, a band of ice pirates, rag tag sailors, scurvy, etc.

Ugh. So uhh, first off, as you may have guessed, this movie is full of bad science. “But it is a kids movie…!” Get that excuse out of my face. That seems to be the go to response when filmmakers would rather be lazy and make a poor movie with little to no value. That is sad though, because the original Ice Age had tons of science facts on their side. It actually took place when there were Mammoths and Sabretooth Tigers and even Humans. Sure, during an ice age too. That was around 18,000 BCE. Well, this movie is arguably a few years later than the first, with the birth and growing up of the mammoth baby. But yet Pangea splits apart in it? Something that began 200 million years ago, but instead is represented as something 20k years ago? That is a few magnitudes off, fuck that shit.

It is a popular notion in education. Get an idea in their head, and every few years, fix it a bit for them until it is actually correct. But why not just always be correct? You know, so the kids don’t feel lied too?

Either way, this movie had WAYYYY too many characters. I left out some pretty big names, because small roles because I was just tired of adding more.

It also did bad on its own self pacing. Would show a few days in time with the main cast, then 5s with the rest of the families. Their story lines being mostly one of a normal middle school drama that we’ve all seen before, and happens the same way every time. I guess they took a cue from Madagascar and decided to get in on that interspecies lovin’.

I’d say the CGI was better than the previous ones finally, but most of it was just ridiculous ice boats floating on random storms and water. And narhwals.

I think there is a lot of negative stigma in this country towards prisoners. I mean, if they go to prison, they deserve to be there, is the general rule of thumb. Which is why no one cares about prison rape/violence, and it has become jokes on themselves. But sometimes you get other points of view, like Oz, which dehumanize these practices and make them not a laughing matter.

And it can go completely the other way too. You sometimes get a movie where you are escaping from a future space prison, which has a zero violence record, like Lockout.

Oh shit. That space prisoner has a space gun! Quick, call the space police!

Pretty simple story. This is the FUTURE! CIA Agent Snow (Guy Pearce) has been arrested! He apparently murdered another agent who was undercover, who had evidence of a different agent selling secrets about the space program. Well, that makes it look like Snow is guilty. Snow is threatened to be sent to the space prison by Scott Langral (Peter Stormare) head of the secret service. So that happens, while Snow has one of his agent buddies Harry Shaw (Lennie James) go searching for the dead agent’s briefcase that may show him as innocent.

Speaking of the space prison, you are probably wondering how there is no crime or anything. Well, they kind of put them into sleep up there, and get woken up when they are done with the sentence very nice. But reports are that being in stasis might make them crazy, or get dementia. That sucks. Clearly the president’s daughter, Emilie (Maggie Grace), is the best person to send up there to investigate these claims. She wakes up and interviews a prisoner, Hydell (Joseph Gilgun), who as luck would have it is actually crazy! He escapes and releases all the other prisoners, and they also gain the president’s daughter and security team as hostages.

Hydell’s brother Alex (Vincent Regan) ends up taking charge, because he isn’t completely bat shit insane and realizes killing hostages is stupid.

Either way, rescue attempt, escape attempts, maybe everyone is actually a bad guy on this prison, not just the prisoners. Normal stuff to wonder about in a space action movie.

Always time for a smoke break when you are silencing an entire prison.

It really does take a lot more than just basic action to please me. By now, long time readers would realize that. I like action movies if they also have a nice plot or wonderful acting to it. But that is not how most action movies are made. And thus, they are dreadfully skewed on the scale at gorgonreviews.com. But hey, that is why they are my opinion.

I actually thought Guy Pearce did a nice job as a leading action star dude, but everyone else was a let down. And you know, shitty plot, some bad special effects that they didn’t work too hard on, and a pretty predictable-ish plot.

But fuck it, space prison, amirite?

I think the only thing I heard about The Raid: Redemption was to watch it. Maybe it was “watch the fuck out of it”. And I might have heard that from multiple sources before I was able to see that. Pretty strong of a recommendation for some Indonesian film (my first on the site, woo?) that I have never heard of.

Hopefully it is nothing like Tactical Force. I want my SWAT teams to actually be effective, and not you know, shitty. Fighting skills plus guns seems like a violent bonus.

The bodies? They kind of hit the floor in this movie.

In the heart of (Big City Indonesia) is an apartment complex, that is no where near normal. It is home to a lot of drug lords, criminals, murderers, people good at fighting, and the most corrupt thing ever. No one could take it down. Not until today. A SWAT team of 20 some men is sent in to stealthily take the apartment, floor by floor, hopefully with no murders. Just you know, arrests. Big ballsy idea, but one that might work.

Lead by Team Leader Jaka (Joe Taslim), the raid initially goes off without a hitch until they reach the sixth floor. During the mission, a young lookout spots them causing a tense momenet. He is able to escape and tell the next lookout before he is killed, alerting the head boss on the top floor, Tama Riyadi (Ray Sahetapy) of their arrival.

Our actual hero is young Rama (Iko Uwais), a soon to be father, who really really just wont die. Needless to say, shit hits the fan soon after. Snipers take out the ground floor crew, and some of the team members. The power is shut off, and free rent promised to any individual who takes out a SWAT team member. Jaka soon finds out that the raid is not officially sanctioned by the department, just Lieutenant Wahyu (Pierre Gruno), meaning the last five swat members (who are split up) are now on their own and must survive the onslaught.

They also have to worry about Tama’s right hand man, Andi (Donny Alamsyah) who is the head of the logistics and narcotics, and Mad Dog (Yayan Ruhian), an incredibly incredibly great fighter, who can pretty much fuck all the people up.

Whoa whoa whoa, wait a minute. WHOA. What is this!? Just wow.

Well first off, if you are like Hank Hill, and hate foreign movies (because if they are good they will get remade here anyways), then no worries, because that is totally what is happening. Similarly, a sequel and maybe third are already planned, with the rights bought my Sony. So if you like this movie, there is that to look forward to as well. I believe the same fight choreographers are involved for the US remake, but really, we will see what happens.

Despite my best attempts, the plot was actually pretty weak in this movie, and hard to grasp. Lots of betrayal. Lots of death.

BUT LOTS OF KICK ASS FIGHT SCENES. Holy crap! What all action movies try to do, basically, is have enough cool stuff happen that the plot doesn’t matter. And generally most of the time I find myself bored with them, and start analyzing the plot, and picking it apart. Really didn’t have that luxury with this movie. Was bad ass pretty much start to finish, and some of the sickest fight scenes I’ve ever seen. And lots of crazy death.

What a horrible way to recommend it I feel, but fuck the rest, just pay attention to the action.