Displaying Review 1 - 5 of 7 in total

• One frustrating ending to rule them all. — for The Veteran
  Written by ratone on 06.01.2013

  While british movies usually have unexpected endings, The Veteran just takes the cake.

  Toby Kebbel (The guy from the RocknRolla poster) plays Miller, a traumatized ex-soldier, fresh from combat, trying to start his life again in present-time London.

  The first minutes of the movie makes you believe that it will follow a "ex-soldier tries to adapt" kind of approach, but that is not the case here.

  Right off the bat Miller is caught between two different conflicts, one happens near his house, where the brother of his friend is involved with drug dealers. The other involves the national security of London.

  Miller tries to balance "solving" both problems, but neither really feels like "his business", and Toby really shines in the role. You can feel how disconnected from it all he has become, and much of the movie is the way he looks at the world around him. Expect lots of close-ups of his face and beautiful shots of empty/abandoned places in London.

  The action scenes, while being just a few, have a nice realistic touch to it. Miller gets beaten, bruised, has to patch himself, clean up his guns, or simply outsmart his enemies.

  All of this would make up for a quite decent movie, if it wasn't for the frustrating ending. I won't spoil for you, but when it hits you, I bet you'll be dissapointed with the movie.

• RZA Overextends his skills — for The Man with the Iron Fists
  Written by ratone on 13.01.2018

  The Man with the Iron Fists is a genre-matchup of older B-Movies, RZA takes the helm as director and main actor in this kung fu-esque flick about the lives of people interconnected after a large cache of gold is stolen.

  You get everything you can expect from a B Kung Fu Movie, over the top characters that border on the fantasy genre, but with the interesting twist of a hip-hop soundtrack and a ton of "foreigners" living in china.

  RZA is no Tarantino and many times the "homage" tone of the movie passes as either lazy or simply exploitive, but the movie is well directed enough to be enjoyable most of the time...

  The time when the movie is not enjoyable is exactly when RZA is on the screen. He looks and talks so slow, as if he is constantly high, and as the main character on the movie, he is simply uninteresting.
  Specially when put side by side with other actors like Russel Crowe, Lucy Liu and Byron Mann.

  Mann and Crowe really shine in this movie. Mann as the somewhat feminine leader of the gang of the lions, Silver Lion, he always looks like he is about to crack a smile and has that very seductive "puzzled look".
  Crowe on the other hand plays Jack, a loud and proud british officer, who drinks too much and has a love for blood.

  The movie has a rich plethora of characters, lovers who fight in sync, a bastard son whose armour is full of weapons and so on.

  If you enjoy kung fu flicks and hip-hop (the OST is pure hip-hop) this is the movie for you, the mix of wild-west is pretty cool too.

• Interesting Crime Thriller — for Sabotage
  Written by ratone on 16.01.2018

  Sabotage pairs Arnold Schwarzenegger with Director David Ayer (Harsh Times, End of Watch, Street Kings). And the matchup can be misleading: This is an Ayer movie.

  Ayer has before this movie, worked with Keanu Reeves, Jake Gyllenhal and Christian Bale, actors who despite having their fair share of action movies, aren't straight up recognized as action stars. And this is the part that may fool and even disappoint some viewers: This is not an Arnold Movie.

  Sabotage gives us Arnold as Breacher, the head of a DEA team of assholes who speak loud, always act like they are picking a fight and cannot expend 2 minutes without strippers and dick jokes. You know the drill.

  Breacher and his team, during a raid on a Mexican Cartel SafeHouse, decide to reroute 10 million bucks to a nearby sewer, with plans of getting the money later. Later comes, they make fart jokes while walking around the sewer and... the cash is gone.

  6 Months and some unecessary filler later, Breacher's team start being killed one by one... and thats the main gist of the movie.

  The movie plays with many plots at once, who is killing the team? Will Arnie and his team get jailtime for the money they stole? who stole the money from them? and interwines with all with a FBI agent hellbent in solving the crimes (for no apparent reason) the binding of the elements is weak, and the causes for some behaviors on the chacters is pretty weak too...
  But overall its a interesting movie to watch, the characters are exaggerated but they work in their universe.

• Interesting CGI Anime Movie — for Gantz: O
  Written by ratone on 17.01.2018

  Let me start this review by saying that I've never watched or read Gantz before in my life. I had seen some pictures around the net of the costumes (that look pretty cool, actually) but don't know anything about the universe.

  In the Universe of Gantz: O some dead people get a second chance in the form of a "game" (with scores and all) they are divided in teams and called to missions, the missions are basically team deathmatches against various monsters heavily inspired by japanese folklore. After getting 100 points you can choose between 3 prizes: A better weapon/gear, to ressurect someone from your team or, to have your memory wiped and be able to live your life.

  And in the movie you'll be following a day in the life of Kato, who after being killed on the way to his brothers birthday, gets his chance on the game. (he and his brothers are orphans, so without him the brother will probably be screwed)

  The CG is pretty good, as well as the visuals of the main characters. You got your assortment of ass shots and overly giggly breasts as expected, but many soft-body physics on the monsters are very well made. There is a good diversity in design too, for the creatures! Many revolve around the "older stronger hairy man" kind of folklorical cliche, but they are each well made and have good animations.

  The soundtrack is pretty forgetable and the dialogues are very confusing.

  My main gripe with the movie would be that the rules of the game aren't made clear, I had a elevated tension level between almost all the movie because I misunderstood one of the rules. And some things are too fast/forced to sink in, like a romance between the main character and someone he just met.
  There are some twists in the end and a cliffhanger, but mostly the plot is a linear battle of "courage against great adversity"

  Good movie, short one too 1:30. Had fun but probably will forget about it soon.

• Fantastic Visuals and Creatures Ruined by Main Character — for Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
  Written by ratone on 18.01.2018

  Valerian is the closest I've ever seen for a movie to feel like the Final Fantasy games. Everything is colorful and fantastic, the CGI is stunning and the locations are breath taking...

  Too bad the main character is a pain in the ass, and I mean it.

  I think this movie did more for feminism than any other I`ve ever seen. Never before in my life I understood how aggravating a "pushy" male can be,I feel like I should call every girl I've met and apologize.

  Valerian keeps 90% of the movie asking his sidekick to 'marry him', he has a 'playlist of exes' and thats it, all he can say (and she can reply) is 'marry me' 'marry me'.

  Fantastic movie ruined by the worst main character in movie history.