RED 2 / 2 Guns

120px-Film-stripOne sequel, one film with a “2” in the name that isn’t, and a very sore tummy from eating a landfill-engulfing quantity of jalapeños for dinner.

RED 2

“What happens in the Kremlin stays in the Kremlin!”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: the good guys from the first film are targeted by the nastiest hired killers on the planet because they apparently have some information that they don’t

See it if you like: spy thrillers with a nice edge of humour

You may recall such recent reviews as Kick-Ass 2 and Despicable Me 2. Well, RED 2 can join the list of sequels which don’t try to be the first film all over again, and which are better for it.

Whereas the original RED had some exceptionally comic book-esque scenes (the sequence in the shipping yard being the prime example), these are generally lacking in this sequel which goes more for chop-socky fast-paced combat and over-the-top scenes with guns instead. The good thing is that it doesn’t suffer as a result.

All of the central original cast are there, and this time joined by some other big names. Anthony Hopkins turns up at one point, but I can’t go into detail as it may be spoiler-some. Suffice to say he’s brilliant and shows an impressive range with a very entertaining character.

Also appearing is one of my favourite unsung actors, Neal McDonough. Since seeing him in Boomtown (a superb series which should never have been cancelled), I’d always looked forward to seeing him in things and he is spot on in this. He plays a very determined, no holds barred, whatever it takes to get what he wants operative.

Add to this Catherine Zeta-Jones who has more slap on than three women working at the Boots make-up counter, David Thewlis as a hard-to-catch seller of secrets and Byung-hun Lee as the world’s most dangerous contract killer and you have a very good cast indeed.

The story is also good, and the dialogue fizzes. In particular, and as in the first film, Willis and Malkovich play incredibly well off each other.

There’s everything a decent spy story needs. Guns, women, explosions, tension, backstabbing, cars, guns, more explosions, poison gas, things blowing up… All with a decent number of laughs thrown in.

Yup, this one’s good.

2 Guns

“Are we people?”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Uncovered undercover DEA agent his patsy find themselves hunted for stealing the wrong person’s money

See it if you like: gun-thirsty action thrillers which still make you think

Second up was this nice twist on the buddy story starring Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg. Without giving too much away (no more than the trailer does, anyway), the two are drug-running and robbing places left, right and centre… but unknown to Stigman (Wahlberg), Washington’s character Bobby is an undercover DEA agent.

Thing is, despite this little fact coming to life at an inopportune time, the two end up thrown together in a bid to keep themselves alive and get revenge on various parties who’ve wronged them.

It’s pretty violent, but like RED 2, has some very humorous moments. The dialogue and chemistry between the two leads is great to watch with some fast-paced verbal jousting that’s either the result of a lot of rehearsal or a natural link. Either way, it makes many scenes very entertaining indeed.

Importantly, the story is good as well although it’s a little bit easy to guess who the overall bad guy is. This doesn’t steal any of the story’s thunder, though, and it rides well until a suitably chaotic and blood-soaked finalé.

 

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Safe House

By إبن البيطار (Own work) [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsHaving not been to the cinema for around 2 months, Gillian and I managed to get through enough work at the weekend to free up a couple of hours after we’d put Little Mister to bed. Checking the times, we plumped for:

Safe House

“Time’s a-wasting. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock…”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Spy comes in from the cold to a frosty reception

See it if you like: Very slow-boiling spy thrillers. VERY slow.

The quote above is very apt as the film really is a waste of time. Lots of it. Or at least so it seems after the opening 20 minutes or so. I actually thought it was nearer 2.5 hours long than the actual 2 hours when we left.

OK, so step back and what’s it about? Ryan Reynolds – man of the moment – plays Matt Weston, a new CIA employee. In the equivalent role of a filing clerk, he’s charged with looking after a “safe house“; a location that can be used to stash an agent or prisoner away from prying eyes without anyone knowing where they are. This particular safe house is in Johannesburg which acts as our main setting for the film.

The opening is very cloak and dagger as Denzel Washington‘s Tobin Frost sets the scene as the rogue agent with some kind of secret file that the bad guys want to get their hands on. He ends up in the hands of the CIA who place him in Weston’s safe house… which turns out not to be so safe after all.

The film never quite reaches “buddy buddy” status – Weston and Frost are on opposite sides of the table, so to speak – but Frost does spend his time alternating between treating Weston like crap and trying to convince him that his bosses are the bad guys. Thing is, it’s just so damn slow getting to the point.

Weston has a romance with a French girl who lives locally and if anyone can tell me what the film would be missing (other than about 15 minutes of footage) if she wasn’t in it, please let me know. I honestly can’t figure out why they bothered.

The set action pieces are quite good, though the car crashes (bar the initial daytime chase) actually get a little repetitive. The ending, without giving anything away, isn’t exactly a shock either. The plot has about as many twists and turns as a NASCAR track. You couldn’t see the “surprise” revelation of the evil mastermind more clearly in advance if it was spray-painted fluorescent pink and had a big sign above its head.

This may have been better if it ran for 90 minutes instead of 120, but the story would still have been dull.

Not one to scramble to see before it gets withdrawn from theatres for DVD release. In fact, skip the DVD as well.

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Unstoppable London Boulevard

Two more films to make up for last week’s drought, courtesy of some kids’ film taking up all the new screens.

Unstoppable

“In training they just give you an F. Out here you get killed.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Runaway train!

“Based on real events” apparently, but who cares. Unstoppable is ninety minutes of being sat on the edge of your seat despite knowing perfectly well how it’s going to end. Denzel Washington and Chris Pine play two train drivers (yes, I know there are technical terms – I don’t care) who get caught up in a potential disaster. A huge train laden with dangerous chemicals is belting along the tracks towards a township, and *dramatic drum roll* only they can stop it.

The film has all the stereotypes. There’s a guy with marital problems. Another pushing retirement. A tough female who’s belittled by the powers that be. A **** of a company director.

Tony Scott‘s done a great job with what’s a very simple story. We don’t spend too much time messing around with character development when all we’re really interested in is the BIG SODDING TRAIN. There’s actually very little destruction in the film (it’s Scott, not Michael Bay after all), so it’s more in the thriller camp than an action film.

If you’ve had a tough week at work, then this is an ideal movie to go and see. Switch your brain into neutral and shovel the popcorn into your gob while Unstoppable washes over you.

London Boulevard

“Fahk awf. Cahnt.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Don’t make me angry. You’d not like me when I’m angry. I turn into a gangster.

A hell of a cast, this one, led by Colin Farrell as a released convict who’s expected by his peers to get back “on the game”. However, he really doesn’t want to. The local kingpin, however, has other ideas and it rather insistent.

Farrell manages to almost drop his Irish accent for this one, whereas Keira Knightley hams up her posh one playing a strung-out ex-actress. Who really needs to eat more. And wear a padded bra. Just saying, sorry. Ray Winstone is cast as the big, bad gangland lord which means he gets to swear a lot and be violent. So no typecasting so far.

My choice for best performance of the film goes to David Thewlis, who plays a wonderfully scatty friend to Knightley’s recluse. His character ranges from stoner to thug without ever seeming as if he’s acting unnaturally. Genuinely wonderful to watch.

London Boulevard flips from violence to humour to emotional and touching from scene to scene, often meaning that it seems a little jumpy. However, the story is good enough that it really doesn’t matter.

At risk of giving a spoiler (do stop reading if it worries you, just in case), the film’s similarity to Layer Cake is emphasised by the ending which is just too samey.

I enjoyed it, though. A very good story (even if it’s unoriginal), great performances and some genuine laugh out loud moments.

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Single film Sunday

I was toying with also catching 44 Inch Chest today, but I just couldn’t be bothered leaving the house! I did make the effort to see The Book of Eli, though, and glad I did.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: A lone man walks across the post-apocalyptic US carrying a book which is very much in demand – and not just from nice people.

First off, although filmed in a similar style to The Road which I saw a few days ago this is a hugely different film. For a start it seems to have some kind of plot. There are questions that as a film-viewer you feel you want to know the answers to. There is action. There are some nice snippets of dialogue.

All of these were missing from The Road which is, in fairness, a very different film.

The lead in this case is Denzel Washington who plays the titular Eli as a monosyllabic hard nut who just wants to get on with his little stroll to deliver a package. Bad guy duties go to the excellent Gary Oldman who carries out the manic, power-crazed role as well as would be expected.

Eli is carrying a book (no surprise there) to “the west” and Oldman decides he wants it. It’s a powerful book and what it is won’t come as a shock. What this leads to is a good bit of discussion over how the book has and will be used – how and why, and the effects it has had pre-war and within the society after it.

There are obviously going to be comparisons to the Mad Max films, but given that there are only so many ways you can portray a post-nuclear wilderness. Mel Gibson‘s films pretty much designed the template for any that were to follow, after all.

I definitely won’t spoil the twist at the end, and it’s a good one, but it does drag a bit. The final revelation is made, you get the “joke”… and then there’s more. That, to me, was the only major weak part of the movie. Other than that, it’s captivating and well-filmed. Visually, it’s excellent with a good use of real sets and what must be post-film effects. How else you’d get the Golden Gate Bridge in that state I don’t know.

If you’re only going to see one film set after a nuclear holocaust this month, make it The Book of Eli.

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Sweep of film reviews

I’ve watched a fair bit here in Bangkok as the cinemas are both cheap and very good. I also can’t be bothered writing full reviews for all of them so here’s a quick run-down of the four I’ve seen in the last week.

Public Enemies

Johnny Depp struggles not to remind you of Captain Jack Sparrow in this gangster flick set in the mid-1930’s. He almost gets away with it as well. How closely it tells the true story of John Dillinger I couldn’t say, but the period settings and so forth are beautiful.

It is without a doubt a good looking film with a respectable cast. However, the story just didn’t grip me and I found it a little hard to follow in places. Not as good as I was expecting, but I’m sure others would enjoy it a lot more.

The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009)

A remake of a film based on a book. Who says Hollywood is short of ideas? It’s a simple enough plot – a subway car and its passengers are taken hostage under New York City by a rather insane John Travolta. Denzel Washington, as a city worker, tries to do the hostage negotiation thing.

Simple plot, simple film. Nothing’s really a surprise although the story has been brought up to date to include modern technology. I can’t recall the original 1974 version too well, but I would like to compare the two. I have a feeling it was a far more taut thriller.

Nothing wrong with the performances in this one, but it’s still a little vapid and had a really weak and sudden ending.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (IMAX 3D)

I’ve enjoyed the Harry Potter films up till now, much as I enjoyed the books up till this one. In this regard, the films are now better. This was the first of the original novels I didn’t like – over-publicised, over-long and the ridiculous “leak” about a major character dying had someone carking it in every second chapter. And then being resuscitated, or discovered to be a shape-shifter or something. Bunkum.

As a result of the book’s size, a lot has been stripped out which gets rid of some of the unnecessary padding. The cast have improved with age and the series simply must have every single good British actor ever to tread the boards in it.

The one thing is that as a result of the stripping, you finish the viewing feeling like this was just the opening for the grand finale. I mean, it is. But that sensation is just a little too much. You expect to see “to be continued after the news” instead of closing credits. No bad thing, in a way, as it’s left me gasping for the final instalments (the last book is being split into two films).

A word on the IMAX 3D experience, though. And that word is: WOW. Only the first 15 minutes are in 3D, but they are staggering. Absolutely staggering. Simply the best 3D I have ever seen at a cinema. It’s just a crying shame that the whole film couldn’t be rendered in this way. I assume it’s a cost thing – maybe one day.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Oh, this is a silly one. It’s as comic book as you can get and utterly, totally, sublimely ridiculous. Never before has the phrase “leave your brain at the door” been more apt. You can tell it’s by the director of the Mummy films simply from the insane amount of half-cocked CGI that’s been used. But the thing is, you don’t care.

For every shonky “cartoon motorbike” there’s a collapsing Eiffel Tower. For every “heat-haze to disguise the rush job” there’s a kick-ass fight scene. For every horrendous piece of acting (Christopher Ecclestone – you should be ashamed of that “accent”) there’s a phenomenal pair of boobs to stare at to make up for it (Sienna Miller and Rachel Nichols just made my “must do when I’m incredibly rich and famous” list).

From what I gather, if you’re a fan of the comics then it will hurt you to watch this film in the same way that Sylvester Stallone‘s Judge Dredd made me whimper and want to drive nails into my own head. However, for the rest of us it’s an eye-opening, ridiculous, explosion-filled piece of pure sugar-coated entertainment.

Utter crap. But in such a great way.

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