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Dredd (2012)

zaterdag, september 21, 2013
Genre : SF/Action
Country : USA

Cast :
Karl Urban : Judge Dredge
Olivia Thirlby : Anderson
Lena Headey : Ma-Ma

Director :
Pete Travis

Summary
The future America is an irradiated waste land. On its East Coast, running from Boston to Washington DC, lies Mega City One - a vast, violent metropolis where criminals rule the chaotic streets. The only force of order lies with the urban cops called "Judges" who possess the combined powers of judge, jury and instant executioner. Known and feared throughout the city, Dredd is the ultimate Judge, challenged with ridding the city of its latest scourge - a dangerous drug epidemic that has users of "Slo-Mo" experiencing reality at a fraction of its normal speed. During a routine day on the job, Dredd is assigned to train and evaluate Cassandra Anderson, a rookie with powerful psychic abilities thanks to a genetic mutation. A heinous crime calls them to a neighborhood where fellow Judges rarely dare to venture - a 200 storey vertical slum controlled by prostitute turned drug lord Ma-Ma and her ruthless clan.
My opinion


How the fuck are we gonna stop this guy?
"Call 911."

Connoisseurs of the eponymous comic know that Dredd is rough, raw and contains brutal violence scenes in a gray and dark society where there is no future for the average person and crime rules. Judge Dredd reigns in this petty and aggressive society with a strict and ruthless brutal hand. The figure Dredd can be seen as a Robocop-like person with anabolic inflated muscles whose face is covered by his helmet all the time so we can only see a bitter grimace with somewhat frightening-looking razor sharp teeth. He's blunt,rude and there is no room for negotiation. That's my vision on the comic.
And this movie corresponds accurately with the description of the comic as described earlier. Compared to this movie, Judge Dredd from 1995 with Sly is the Walt Disney version. The latter is terribly soft, clean, bloodless and suitable to watch with the complete family. This version on the other hand is full of action and straight-in-your-face violence with accompanying gore pictures and bloodshed. I admit, the story isn't really the epitome of subtlety and far-reaching inspiration. Dredd is accompanied by a mutant who is a rookie (the only notable acting performance) and send to a crime haven with three suspicious suicides. Turns out it's actually an ordinary execution in the drug scene where a certain Ma-ma rules.
This Ma-ma ensures, with the help of another mutant, a lock-down of the big mega skyscraper Peach Trees, to prevent a gang member being taken for questioning. What follows is a race to the top floor and confrontations with all local gangs (which I thought no longer existed) and eventually ends up in a end-fight with the supreme boss Ma-ma. Nothing earth shattering but the whole film is infused with action and ultra-hardcore violence. The slow motion images look "stunning" and gives a clear picture of the impact of the new "Slow-mo" drug.
The only minuses were:
- The fact that the corrupt judges knew they were going after the famous Judge Dredd, means that they should have known that he was accompanied by the rookie Anderson who had some psychic powers. The judge who went after rookie Anderson could have figured out that Anderson would know immediately what the plan was. Kind of silly.
- The end of Ma-ma could be better portrayed. A Slow-Mo free-fall with a spectacular splashing end. That would fit better into the overall picture of this movie.
You can't say much about the acting performance of Karl Urban. Any nitwit with a good posture and grim face could play this part. The only thing shown throughout the movie was the lower part of his face.
Amusing Friday night movie with bloody unfussy uncensored action.
Thumbs up from me anyway

My rating 7/10
Links : IMDB
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Chain Letter (2010)

vrijdag, september 20, 2013
Genre : Horror
Country : USA

Cast :
Nikki Reed : Jessie Campbell
Betsy Russell : Sergeant Hamill
Brad Dourif : Mr. Smirker

Director :
Deon Taylor

Summary
A maniac murders teens when they refuse to forward chain mail.
My opinion

Flashback to an 80's teen-slasher movie.

Oops, and I've deleted so many chain letters.

If they kept the atmosphere like in the opening scene throughout the movie, it would have been quite a great movie in its genre. The moment with all those chains reminded me of "Hellraiser" and gave me the hope for an entertaining horror. Vain hope eventually because after the beginning the movie collapsed like a poorly raised plum pudding.
Off course all known cliches are used in it : the ubiquitous fog, a bath scene with a nice college girl who,as the tradition dictates, won't survive, a gym, stupid detectives and dumb scared teens. It's something like "Final Destiny" but with a lame story, a totally disappointing ending (that's because the beginning was too strong) and a totally incomprehensible storyline. Afterwards you can only guess why it happened and what the actual reason was. Add to this a terribly bad amateurish group of actors and that damned drizzling rain throughout the complete movie. You surely would get depressed because of that !
A total stinker and unworthy for the slasher genre.
It's kind of weird because in the cast there are a few who had to know better, according to IMDB. The next persons were present in this flick :
Betsy Russell: Saw
Michael J. Pagan: See no Evil
Charles Fleischer: A Nightmare on Elm Street
Keith David: The Thing
Matt Cohen: Boogeyman 2
Michael Bailey Smith: A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child, and The Hills Have Eyes The Hills Have Eyes 2
Noah Segan: Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever

So much potential, such a tiny profit.
Better forget it as soon as possible.

My rating 1/10
Links : IMDB
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Tower Block (2012)

zondag, september 15, 2013
Genre : Thriller
Country : UK

Cast :
Sheridan Smith : Becky
Jack O'Conell : Kurtis

Director :
James Nunn,Ronnie Thompson

Summary
Several months after witnessing a murder, residents of Tower Block 31 find themselves being picked off by a sniper, pitting those lucky enough to be alive into a battle for survival.
My opinion

Actually I expected a movie with lots of suspense and a somewhat sadistic overtone, but in terms of brutality it was quite disappointing. Things looked promising at the start with the presentation of all the tenants. A colorful companionship.
Becky (Sheridan Smith) is a typical English blonde that radiated an unprecedented sensitivity and eroticism the way she was walking around in that wife-beater (in which here female forms played an important role) and Kurtis (Jack O'Connell) was from the beginning an irritating brat but evolved into a starring role: hard, big mouth and sometimes surprisingly funny. Brilliant role in other words. The rest of the company was filler and cannon fodder.
The story on its own was dead simple and meaningless. A group of tenants who lived on the same floor and refused to leave the premises were gunned down one by one by a sniper. (An H & K Semi Automatic seems)
Sometimes it was pretty realistic, but most of the times it was only pitiful and you could clearly see that this was a low-budget movie from the UK. The responses were sometimes downright ridiculous. For instance an occupant is blown away by a booby trap. First there is horror and panic about this situation. The next thing you see the victim simply being carried away with the blunt reply: We put him next to his girlfriend.

Also the moment Kurtis gets a solid punch of Neville and a crushing kick in his Easter eggs by Becky, I was like : "Why didn't the dummies acted like that already sooner and taught that blackmailer a lesson". It was really amateurish.


Conclusion :  a movie that, despite the lack of budget, sometimes still entertains with funny conversations and some exciting situations, but with an incredibly faint end. Ephemeral entertainment!
My rating 5/10
Links : IMDB
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World War Z (2013)

zaterdag, september 14, 2013
Genre : Horror/Actie
Country : USA

Cast :
Brad Pitt : Gerry Lane
Mireille Enos : Karin Lane
Daniella Kertesz : Segen
Fana Mokoena : Thierry Umutoni
David Morse : Ex CIA-agent

Director :
Marc Forster

Summary

Gerry Lane, a family man and researcher at the United Nations, and his family have a carefree existence. Suddenly the world is ravaged by a plague caused by a mysterious infection, turning whole populations into mindless, bloodthirsty zombies. After escaping the Apocalypse one can convince Lane to investigate how the disease could occur. What follows is a relentless global search and Lane has to defy terrible dangers so he can find a solution before the whole human race is doomed.
My opinion

Quote : Most people don't believe something can happen until it already has. That's not stupidity or weakness, that's just human nature.


The movie looks like "I am Legend", but on a higher level. I thought it was an exciting and wonderful action disaster movie to sit back and watch it from your couch, with a bowl of salted peanuts, on a Friday night. The zombie concept plays a major role but ultimately it's not a real zombie movie. Where a zombie movie emphasis on bringing the pictures as gross as possible (dismembering human individuals f.e.), WWZ emphasis on the visualization of the mass hysteria that was caused by a rapidly spreading deadly virus. In my view, these shots were magnificent visualized at certain times. The mass moving like running water and how a group of brainless zombies are jumping at everything while chattering with their teeth. For me, the term zombie was shown in a very different way. And it was a very successful way eventually.
The difference between WWZ and "I am legend" is not that mankind is the cause of the whole disaster, but Mother Nature made sure of this. The ultimate weapon against the calamity in the form of a terminal illness causing the creatures to leave you alone, was a new and refreshing idea. Also, it was made ​​credible by saying that this was also applied in the animal kingdom to avoid sick targets. I compare WWZ rather with a movie like "Outbreak", but on a larger scale.
Pitt played a more than creditable role. I found him masterly in "Se7en" and "Inglorious Bastards" but this interpretation may be added to his list of the better performances. He continues to keep that boyish look and always plays with such nonchalance. In WWZ the coolness in which he approached certain situations was overwhelming. The family situation wasn't a reason to go all corny and mellow and a female Israeli soldier ultimately became the ultimate co-protagonist.
There were some weak points for me :

1. The totally unnecessary part with the young scientist who shot himself through the head after a slip in a rather dorky way.
2. The role that Israel supposedly played. First I thought it was a critical look at the state Israel. It looked as if they premeditated completed the protective wall. Sounds a bit the same as the rumors that apparently they warned their employers in the Twin Towers before the disaster happened. I must admit that the images of the accumulating zombies provided hallucinatory images.
3. The seemingly impossible quest for Patient Zero by Brad Pitt goes quite smoothly.
Despite these minor reservations, most images were tremendously exciting and nerve wracking. The final scenes in the WHO building reminded me several times of the game "Half-life". Beautifully imaged with those destroyed labs and deserted corridors.

ClearlyI found it a very fine film. And if it would ever come to a global pandemonium, but not with zombies but a kind of Ebola version that rapidly spreads around , I already have a bit of a visual view of how things will turn out then !
My rating 7 /10
Links : IMDB

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Monsters (2010)

zondag, september 08, 2013
Genre : SF/Drama
Country : UK

Cast :
Scoot McNairy : Andrew Kaulder
Whitney Able : Samantha Wynden

Director :
Gareth Edwards

Summary
Six years ago NASA discovered the possibility of alien life within our solar system. A probe was launched to collect samples, but crashed upon re-entry over Central America. Soon after, new life form began to appear and half of Mexico was quarantined as an INFECTED ZONE. Today, the American and Mexican military still struggle to contain "the creatures"...... Our story begins when a US journalist agrees to escort a shaken tourist through the infected zone in Mexico to the safety of the US border.
My opinion
Post-apocalyptic movies normally attract my attention and enchant me in general. It shouldn't necessarily be a movie where you are treated all the time with images of total destruction, oncoming hordes of aliens or virus mutated zombies. But this movie really was a slow nerve provoking film that looked more like a road movie or a travelogue on Travel channel that was poured into a cinematic form. 
A large part of the film is used to show how the two main characters, a press photographer and the daughter of a newspaper magnate who somehow ended up in South America, are moving from place to place to reach a secure America lying behind immense walls. This travel-images are then interspersed with images of them staring to the horizons, beautiful nature images and impressions, inadequate conversations with the locals and the interplay with Mexican soldiers and mercenaries who sometimes act sometimes in a really hilarious way.
The monsters reveal themselves from time to time. Either it's in a CNN-like way with television reports and eventually close ups at the end of the movie. Mostly you can only hear them making sounds like whales in the distance. The aliens look like walking squids on stilts with an arsenal of disco balls stuck to their bodies. In appearance it was quite something that originated from films out of the years 60-70. Not exactly terrifying.
The acting was at times touching, but several times it was just plain boring. The daughter Samantha is a real babe and seems to move around like a model in the jungle. Her acting is limited to an engaging smile, sadly wiping away a tear and walking around in total amazement. A kind of Paris Hilton and someone who, despite her engagement, is attracted to someone else real quickly and starts to get feelings for that person.Photographer Andrew is a very confident guy who constantly tries to be funny and attempts in a terribly predictable way to fall within the grace of his lovely traveling companion . 
Spending $5000 on a ferry ticket and then they can't take this ferry because Mr. photographer got drunk and ended up in bed with a beautiful local girl who stole his passport. This seemed so stupid to me that I couldn't even believe it. They were forced to pay $ 10,000 then and take the most dangerous road to cross the country.
The end at the petrol station was the highlight of the movie. Apparently the aliens have abandoned the infected zone. That wasn't so difficult when you look at the huge gateway in that immense wall. I got a "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" feeling at the gas station and thought that the aliens would start singing after they were fed with the light and suddenly would embrace each other warmly.

In other words:
pretty disappointing for me, but Mexico does look beautiful at times .....
My rating 3/10
Link : IMDB
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Pain & Gain (2013)

zondag, september 08, 2013
Genre : Comedy/Action
Country : USA

Cast :
Mark Wahlberg : Daniel Lugo
Dwayne Johnson : Paul Doyle
Anthony Mackie : Adrian Doorbal
Tony Shalhoub : Victor Kershaw
Ed Harris : Ed Dubois

Director :
Michael Bay

Summary
Based on the true story of Daniel Lugo a Miami bodybuilder who wants to live the American dream. He would like to have the money that other people have. So he enlists the help of fellow bodybuilder Adrian Doorbal and ex-convict, Christian bodybuilder Paul Doyle. Their kidnapping and extortion scheme goes terribly wrong since they have muscles for brains and they're left to haphazardly try to hold onto the elusive American dream.
My opinion


You know why habit rhymes with rabbit? Because your life goes down a rabbit hole.
(Irrelevant quote from Lugo and an indication what to expect from this movie)

Mark Wahlberg, Anthony Mackie and especially Dwayne Johnson in a movie about three body-builders who are involved in a kidnapping which they screw up completely.
A great action picture that can provide some distraction on a Saturday night. That's what I imagined since that was the only thing I knew about this movie. And judging the poster it could be an entertaining movie with three mindless hulks (Wahlberg in a lesser degree, but that's compensated by Johnson).
After fifteen minutes I actually began to wonder what I was watching and it seemed to me as if those 3 guys wanted to make an absurd comedy. With the emphasis on "seemed" because I really had to look hard to find the so called humor in this movie. It's nothing but three steroid inflated balloon heads experiencing slightly absurd situations. The situations and acts were more and more retarded as the movie progressed. The only positive was the excellent caricature of an arrogant businessman played by Tony Shalhoub. Even when his situation looked dire and hopeless, he still retained a big mouth.
The rest was bland, incomprehensible and totally unbelievable. Those three guys better just stick to decent hard-hitting action movies and as soon as they read the word comedy in a script, run it through the paper shredder. It was as unbelievable as a movie with Pee Wee Herman as an unbeatable action hero who defeats a complete horde of ferocious warriors. Apparently it should be an ironic satire. Apparently there's something wrong with my taste and interpretation, because I didn't see it like that at all. The fact that it was based on a true story puzzled me more. Was it really so or just an ironic untruth ?
Towards the end, I fell asleep for 5 minutes and eventually watched it till the end. I had nothing else to do.

Biggest plus in this corny movie was Bar Paly, Keili Lefkovitz and Vivi Pineda along with a battery of beautiful women sitting in sharply cut bikinis and swimsuits so you were repeatedly treated by dry-trained appetizing looking rosy bums. More of that and I certainly had watched the whole movie.
 
More or less funny : the whole problem of impotence and penis-problem of Anthony Mackie with those snappy one-liners regarding that.

Most boring item : Johnson shooting his big toe of his foot and the dog eventually nibbling on it.
My rating 1/10
Links : IMDB

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Disconnect (2012)

zaterdag, september 07, 2013
Genre : Drama/Thriller
Country : USA

Cast :
Jason Bateman : Rich Boyd
Hope Davis : Lydia Boyd
Paula Patton : Cindy Hull
Alexander Skarsgard : Derek Hull
Andrea Riseborough : Nina Dunham
Jonah Bobo : Ben Boyd
Haley Ramm : Abby Boyd

Director : Henry Alex Rubin
Summary
 A hard-working lawyer, attached to his cell phone, can't find the time to communicate with his family. A couple is drawn into a dangerous situation when their secrets are exposed online. A widowed ex-cop struggles to raise a mischievous son who cyber-bullies a classmate. An ambitious journalist sees a career-making story in a teen that performs on an adult-only site. They are strangers, neighbors and colleagues and their stories collide in this riveting dramatic thriller about ordinary people struggling to connect in today's wired world.
My opinion

Quote Paul Carvel
Internet : absolute communication, absolute isolation.

A great movie with a subject that fits a modern society nowadays and really fascinated me. Because of my professional life I'm closely connected with the used themes and technologies, making it more enjoyable for me. At first I was expecting a boring movie about the contemporary information society with a lot of posturing and dialogues, so the entertainment value of this film would drop to absolute zero.
This was in retrospect a huge judgmental error. This was an intriguing movie with three story lines that eventually were subtly interwoven. The thread is a socially critical message with three examples of what dangers lurk in today's information technology : exploitation, internet fraud and cyber bullying. Today it's reported regularly on the news and that makes this film more realistic. It can happen to anyone what these people go through. The three stories were very realistic, and I didn't think it was over dramatized or corny on an emotion scale.
There is a double message in this film in my opinion. On the one hand there's the warning that not everything has to be taken for granted. There is indeed a risk that your financial information is suppressed and your bank account or credit card could be plundered. Cyber-bullying can go that far that it could drive a person to perform an act of desperation. And there are an awful lot of people/youth on the worldwide web who are abused/used by individuals with the sole purpose to enrich themselves.
On the other hand, I think the real message behind this cinematographic gem is the fact that people never been so connected to each other by means of technology (email, facebook, twitter, blogs, iPhone, iPad, Internet TV. ..) as today, but in real life we have never lived past each other more and alienated from one another.

The acting was superb. Each character was well-chosen and fitted perfectly into the storyline: the schoolmates who went from mischievous to compassionate, an outsider in his friendless isolated world, the lawyer who is more involved in his work than his immediate family, a freelance cyber detective who did not notice the feeling of guilt his son was struggling with, a couple that stopped communicating with each other and try to deal with emotional problems on their own without engaging the partner, the young man whose life takes place in front of a webcam and not in real life and the journalist who eventually wants to play the role of Mother Teresa. At times brilliant performances and poignant self discoveries of the characters. The slow motion scenes at the end were visually strong.
The movie has a happy end so everything turns out just fine : the couple finds each other again despite the financial turmoil, the lawyer realizes that his son became a stranger and that his family eventually is the most important thing in his life, the policeman renewed his relationship with his son. Only the journalist comes out pretty shitty. And we can only guess what's going to happen to Kyle. The cyber bullying victim remains in a soothing coma. For a moment I had the feeling that he would open his eyes in the last minute.But fortunately that didn't happen so that the realism of this film was even of a higher level.
So it's a strong movie with deep realistic situations and pure convincing acting with a sad message. However, it ends ultimately with a glimmer of hope.

My rating 8/10
Links :  IMDB
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The dark Knight rises (2012)

zondag, september 01, 2013
Genre : Action/Crime/Fantasy
Land : USA

Cast :
Christian Bale : Bruce Wayne
Gary Oldman : Commissioner Gordon
Tom Hardy : Bane
Anne Hathaway : Selina
Morgan Freeman : Fox
Michael Caine : Alfred
Haley Ramm : Abby Boyd

Director :
Christopher Nolan

Summary
Eight years on, a new evil rises from where the Batman and Commissioner Gordon tried to bury it, causing the Batman to resurface and fight to protect Gotham City... the very city which brands him an enemy.
My opinion
Our bat-friend has never really captivated me. I've seen both "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight". I can barely remember anything from the first movie. I guess I wasn't really impressed by that one. "The Dark Knight" on the other hand did, and that because of the charismatic figure "The Joker". A figure without rancor and with a phenomenal crazy look.

That's something I really missed a little bit here. Bane was the personification of intense hatred and had a very menacing look, but the feeling I got was not more then "Oh-ok-again-another-bad-guy"....  And then they started with names like Ra's al Ghul. I don't have the faintest idea who that person is.
There was once in the 80's a broadcast a whole day of American Television on Dutch Television, which ended with the movie "Klute". They also programmed an episode of Batman and Robin from that time, where they used fake text balloons during every fight. Batman and Robin also were running around in such gay-looking costumes. Actually I thought that was really hilarious.

Batman's current costume obviously looks much more slick and tough. But besides the fact that the text-balloons are gone, the action scenes still follow the same pattern. Something that nerves me always. It's like everyone neatly awaits his turn to get sucker-punched during a fistfight. It looks a bit ridiculous in the nature of "Wow yeah now it's my turn because the last one got his ass kicked and lies on the floor knocked out."
I'm really positive about the action part. That's something to lick your chops. The SFX is mostly top notch and the settings of Gotham City look very impressive. But the overall tempo of the movie is quite slow with lots of dialogues and things I couldn't place since I'm not a real Batman adept. So the only thing I could do was wait until the action broke loose.
Of course there's also a bit of female beauty to admire and that in the form of Catwoman (I presume) played by Anne Hathaway, who looked immensely appetizing in that leather, latex suit. The scene where she bends over on the Batpod with her perky butt stretched up in the air, is etched in my memory. This image alone was worth a point !
My rating 5/10
Links : IMDB
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