Stars Nicholas Hoult, Eleanor Tomlinson, Stanley Tucci, Eddie Marsen with Ian McShane, Ewan Bremner, Bill Nighy, Warwick Davis and Ewan McGregor Directed by Bryan SInger The sense of fun this movie projected came right at the very beginning with the company logos, particularly director Bryan SInger's company logo for Bad Hat Harry Productions. Modelled after the iconic line-up of The Usual Suspects, instead of the human criminals, we had the silhouettes of the giants taking the line-up. Left over (or delayed) from last year when adaptations of classic fairy tales were running rampant - Mirror, Mirror, Snow White and The Huntsman are all I can remember actually… and Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters was also pushed out to 2013 - Jack The Giant Slayer would have actually left the others in the dust. It's not super fantastic of supposed blockbuster appeal, and Singer's stock has dropped considerably since the mis-step of referential / reverential Superman Returns and the slightly dour Valkyrie (although Mockingbird Lane was lots of fun, if completely dismissed from having an actual chance). It probably shouldn't have been a surprised if the studio decided to dump the movie into this seasonal dead zone. Then again, it's now obvious that they had no idea exactly how to market the film. The trailers really don't do the movie any justice at all. Taking a spin on the Jack and The Beanstalk fairy tale, Jack the Giant Slayer is more a romp with some great dialogue, wonderful ideas going on and some great turns, especially from the senior cast members. Ian McShane brings some gravitas (not too much) to King Brahmwell while an almost unrecognisable Ewan McGregor puts up the derring do as Elmont, head of the Royal Brigade and bodyguard to Princess Isabelle (Eleanor Tomlinson). The constantly enjoyable Stanley Tucci gets to twirl the moustache as Roderick, accompanied by a wonderfully hammy Ewen Bremner as Wicke. What the story does is give us just the right amount where each of the characters are concerned and leave us wanting just that little bit more, but the focus has to be on the titular Jack (Nicholas Hoult, very ably carrying the movie, enough that I want to check out his other film, Warm Bodies) and Isabelle. The two are shown to be quite kindred spirits right from the beginning And then there are the giants (yes, plural) led by the two headed Fallon (voiced by Bill Nighy, sounding very much like Pirate of The Caribbean's Davy Jones). The giants are an intriguing bunch, most of whom have their own individual personalities, which breathes some life into the horde so that they're not just one one big bunch of a threat. So, character and effects design really get a good workout here, as is the world-building (kept simple for the most part), with some excellent costume design from Joanna Johnston. Editor John Ottman also provides the rousing and adventurous score. There are a few niggling flaws but as the ending shows (my favourite aspect to the whole thing, the animated prologue being my second favourite thing about the movie), things get left out, forgotten and changed as the story gets passed through the generations into the fairy tale that we know today (spoiler? don't think so since it's not really the ending of the movie or even the epilogue or a plot point). Still a little resolution to some things might have been nice to acknowledged, but it the greater scheme of the story, it's probably deemed not too important. The overall approach to the story and how its presented is key tho, and that's what makes the movie work for me on an overall basis. Solid characters with a great sense of fun, and full-bloodied adventure on hand, this is pretty much the best of the new movies I've seen so far.
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Stars Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney, Sebastian Koch, Yuliya Snigir, Sergei Kolesnikov with Cole Hauser and Mary Elizabeth Winstead Directed by John Moore Released in 1988, Die Hard became a seminal movie. It was a touchstone concept that became a genre unto itself influencing a whole load of films that followed(Die Hard on a boat or a bus or a hockey rink or train, and so on) - some good, most not. None that followed actually managed to capture the magic of the original where Bruce Willis' cop, John McClane, finds himself in a situation that is beyond his grasp. Due to circumstance of the situation, he finds himself on his own with no shirt, no shoes and only his gun. One man, stripped to the bare essentials, improvising and making things up as he goes along trying to survive and save his wife from the bad guys. Add to that the confluence of the simplistic plot, outstanding script with numerous red herrings, witty dialogue, beautiful cinematography, stirring music, tight direction and a star-making turn from Willis (and Alan Rickman as the villain), Die Hard is rightfully a classic action movie. Twenty five years later and following three sequels that barely fudged with the formula, but simply raised the stakes and riding on the pure charm of its star, A Good Day to Die Hard is the least 'Die Hard' movie of the lot. Sure, it has Willis as McClane, who still finds himself caught up in some crazy situation, but it seems to be more by choice than by accident. It's not quite the 'wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time' as it used to be. Also, as the series has progressed, McClane has seemed to have grown a little more invincible and less the everyman he started out as. (And Willis seems have kept in damn good shape.) Finding that his son, Jack (Jai Courtney), may be in trouble, McClane travels to Moscow (for a guy who didn't like to fly, he was very comfortable in the plane) and then gets caught up with his son's business. He then decides to hang around and help out Jack. That's pretty much it. There are four major action set-pieces that are just piled up one upon the other. All done with some slick workmanship that there barely feels like there's any variation or any real stakes. (Oh, look, there's a beefy tough guy working for the baddies, surely there's going to be some fist fight with that guy… but no.) Even when the expected twist comes, it doesn't surprise as it used to (and McClane himself isn't as surprised anymore). In all, it feels very much like this is a direct-to-video version of what someone else thinks is a Die Hard film, only because it involves McClane. This is no more than any other action film you might find on cable these days (the image ratio is even formatted to the 16x9 format), albeit with far bigger explosions. The far too slim plot barely carries the movie to 100 minutes (more than half is just the action alone), and McClane is no longer the 'fly in the ointment' for the bad guys. There's no scale, no real threat, no sense of danger and very uncharismatic villains who barely register. If anything, this feels like it's simply passing the torch, or setting up the next one (and it would feel like there would be just one more to bring back the remaining family member and properly raise the stakes again). Take it as some action film that just happens to have a familiar character - ignore the Die Hard connection - and you might just have a decent action film that's held by some silly plot. As a Die Hard film (the first to not be based on some pre-existing material), it just fails. Stars Sylvester Stallone, Sang Kung, Sarah Shahi, Jasom Momoa, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Jon Seda, Brian Van Holt and Christian Slater Directed by Walter Hill Following Schwarzenegger's return to the leading role in The Last Stand and preceding Bruce Willis' fifth attempt to Die Hard, we have Sylvester Stallone continuing his action man resurgence with this Walter Hill flick. And it fair to say that Stallone looks remarkable and carries himself far better than one might expect of the ageing star. Not to say that Bullet to The Head is an action masterpiece. Stallone plays an ageing hitman in New Orleans. Following an uneasy job, his partner is killed and a cop (Sang Kung) comes to him with a proposition of teaming up to find the mastermind behind the hit. So the movie follows the fairly straight line of moving up the chain of bad-guys to find this mastermind. Complicating the matter of this unusual team-up is a beefy mercenary (Jason Momoa) working for the mastermind, and gunning for the hitman for increasing personal reasons. This is, of course, a simplification of a simple plot, and it's in this simplicity that the movie thrives. As with most of his movies, director Hill has essentially made a western laden with testosterone filled characters heading for that showdown. Of course there are the requisite action set-pieces along the way, although not quite the bombastic over-the-top summer blockbuster variety. The few fight scenes are brutally grounded and most of the action staging is fairly old school, giving the movie a nice gritty feel. At the same time, it might feel like the movie is a couple of decades late to the big screen, or it might belong on a cable movie channel like Cinemax. Still, with solid pacing, a decent if stilted story, acceptable action with a pretty good final fight (even if it's reminiscent of the final fight in Hill's classic Streets Of Fire) and fair performances from the stars, the movie entertains well enough. There's nothing much to really expect and there's also nothing that really impresses. Very much a "guy movie" this adaptation of a graphic novel by Matz is an entertaining fair waste of time. Stars Jason Statham, Jennifer Lopez, Michael Chiklis, Wendell Pierce, Bobby Cannavale and Nick Nolte Directed by Taylor Hackford The character of Parker as created by Donald Westlake (a.k.a Richard Stark) has made numerous transitions to the cinema before. Most prominent, I believe, would be Lee Marvin's Walker in Point Blank and the most recent before this was Mel GIbson's Porter in Payback. This is supposedly the first time the character has retained its own name. My familiarity of the character is based on the previously mentioned movies and the graphic novel, "Parker: The Hunter" as adapted by Darwyn Cooke. The impression I got is that the character in the movie does closely hew to the character of the books. The problem being that Jason Statham was cast in the role of Parker and with that, the movie, Parker, is very much a Jason Statham movie as one might expect. As true to the character tho, Parker is double crossed on a job and then left for dead by a bunch of supposedly independent (not tied to any organisation) thieves (which include Michael Chiklis, Clifton Collins Jr, Micah Hauptman and Wendell Pierce). When Parker recovers enough, he starts to track these thieves to get what is owed to him. In general, that's about it as it is with almost every other book in the Parker series (as it was in Point Blank and Payback). I'm sure the books might be straight-forward easy reads, but how that translate to an almost two hour movie is really dependent on how the writer and director might tackle the story as a whole. Therein lies part of the problem. Director Taylor Hackford has put out some decent movies but here seems to be extremely workman-like, and it doesn't feel too much like any other Jason Statham movie (see The Mechanic, Safe, Blitz, Killer Elite). Even the usually reliable Michael Chiklis seems to be glowering for the most part and doesn't expand beyond that, which doesn't him make as menacing as his character might be, or as dangerous as his lead character in The Shield TV series. And then there's Jennifer Lopez as a token female in what appears to be an essentially glorified cameo role as a desperate real estate agent. In short, aside from Statham, who seems very comfortable with this kind of role (even when putting on a fake Texan drawl as part of a disguise, unconvincingly), everyone else who might be in a major role seems miscast, or not given nearly enough to do with the roles they have. The story is simple enough but the pacing of the scenes seem off, especially once Parker escapes from the hospital after his near death betrayal and starts hunting down his former colleagues, and the whole plan after that. There's almost nary a red herring in sight and a lot of stuff telegraphed way in advance, which leads to an fairly predictable conclusion. For some, this is keen entertainment because it simply delivers the goods without requiring much brain power in use for the viewer. Maybe I'm being overly analytical. Still, fans of the Stath are not likely to be disappointed, although fans of the Parker series might be of a different mind. I'm not too familiar with the books, so maybe the movie is true to them, or maybe not. Darwyn Cooke's graphic novels (three of them- The Hunter, The Outfit, The Score) provide a solid visual representation of how it could have been. Stars Jeremy Renner, Gemma Arterton, Famke Janssen, Pihla Viitala, Thomas Mann and Peter Stormare Directed by Tommy Wirkola So, after being kidnapped and almost eaten by a witch, but able to turn the tables and thus kill said witch, siblings Hansel and Gretel decide that witch killing is a pretty decent business to get into as they grow up. At least, that's how the opening goes. And that's just the first of many liberties thrown into the mix of which one can only assume is some fanboy comic book dream idea of a movie. Yep - this is the kind of concept that would usually rear its head in the comic book world more than it would in the movies. Then agin, we're in a cinematic time when comic books ideas seems to be seeping into the movies more than ever. Following an almost similar plot to the Terry GIlliam movie, The Brother's Grimm (which in comparison would be so much more superior), Hansel (a pre-Bourne and pre-Mission - which also means pre-Avengers - Jeremy Renner) and Gretel (Gemma Arterton, having a ball with the kick-ass role) are hired to look into a problem of missing children in a town. Of course there's a witch involved (see that title) and something of a past to be confronted. Oh, and those liberties I mentioned? Hansel and Gretel are pretty well armed with some firearms that look positively futuristic (gattling gun?) by their standards, but with a slight steampunk influence, perhaps for credibility. And there are vulgarities abound. Just so you know, this ain't your kids' fairy tale. Parents take note. And so, as it should be, check your brain at the door. And with that, you might actually find that the slim and trim (just under 90 minutes) fantasy adventure does have quite a few nice surprises, little twists and turns that do defy and subvert some anticipated cliches, at least for me. Oh, this is far from a great fantasy adventure, but it's not quite the toxic waste of time either. The performances range from flat to monotonous, some characters are a little predictable - Peter Stormare was more fun in The Last Stand, and seems wasted here and the story doesn't quite take as many risks as it could (as a plot device, Hansel has a disease akin to diabetes because of all the candy he was fed by the witch, guess when the problem decides to kick in?) On the plus side, the designs of the witches are decent and there's a troll to gawk at. Some of the fight sequences are good, or at least, above average. The dialogue is funny at times (intentionally?) and all that thrown together makes this typical above average cable feature fodder. The 3D might have been a little more fun in-your-face bits, but I didn't catch it in 3D. Some of the effects were just obvious in that way. Given the season the movie was released in (the January/February dead zone for cinematic junk that the studios have no hope for) its decent, if average, entertainment if you're looking for something to while away an hour and a half. |
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