Category: Movies

With a fantastic premise this movie was a “must see” on our list. Besides the fact that Hayden Christensen was starring in it we put this to one side and saw it anyway. Just as I anticipated it would be, his acting was complete rubbish but Jamie Bell and Samuel L Jackson are well worth seeing.

The premise of the movie is about David Rice (Christensen) who is a genetic anomally in which he can teleport himself and other people or items that he is touching. Once having discovered this talent he takes off from home where mum left mysteriously and abruptly when he was 5 and dad is a bit of a bully. Sadly he leaves behind the “girl next door” that he has been in love with since they were 5. He uses his teleporting skills to “jump” into banks to fund his lifestyle, teleporting in and out of countries as he pleases. What he doesn’t know is that there are other jumpers like himself as well as a group of bounty hunters called the Paladin that are organised to capture and kill jumpers. The Paladins are an ancient organisation that have been hunting jumpers for centuries (i.e. witch hunts in the medieval ages etc). Things start to go wrong for David when the Paladins catch up with him at the same time he hooks up with Mille, the girl next door that he left behind. Help and a person to explain what the Paladins are after comes from a fellow jumper named Griffin (Jamie Bell) to try and stop key hunter Roland (Samuel L Jackson).

With amazing locations and such an intriguing storyline it was a pity that it ended so abruptly and unsatisfactorily. Jamie Bell’s character fell away when things were getting good and the whole ending to the movie felt rushed like they ran out of time or just couldn’t be bothered anymore. I haven’t read the novel so maybe this might hold some insight into where the movie has left off but I am assuming that a second movie is a possibility.

Memorable quotes:

“You think you can go on like this forever? Living like this with no consequences? There are always consequences”

2.5 out of 5.

Nicholas Cage and his side kicks yet again are searching for clues to clear the name of his great great grandfather, William Gates.

I was really looking forward to another instalment of these treasure hunting movies but it just seemed to fall short of the first. The storyline was interesting but the clues were uninteresting and uninspiring and the lack of humour from the sidekicks this time around was quite evident. I still enjoyed my 2 hours of escapism but was disappointed at the lack of sophistication that the first movie brought to this series.

2.5 out of 5.

Seriously, what were they thinking? Get rid of the humans in this story and you could have a half decent movie.

With a fairly good storyline to begin with which picks up very nicely from the Alien Vs Predator, it begins to go downhill once the humans get involved. With shoddy acting, ridiculous side storylines that are a distraction and an ending that was so incredibly predictable it was embarrasing. What’s even worse is that it clearly is set up for a trilogy. Well surely they can’t get any worse from here, can they?

0 out of 5!!!!!

We saw this a week or two ago. I am not the greatest Tom Hanks fan however this was a very interesting story. We were probably half expecting the usual “peace, justice and the American way will prevail” outcome but were quite surprised with this well balanced story.

For a synopsis on the storyline here is the link to the official website.

http://www.charliewilsonswar.net/

Memorable quotes:

“You know you’ve reached rock bottom when you’re told you have character flaws by a man who hanged his predecessor in a military coup.”

“These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world… and then we f****** up the endgame.”

“Why is Congress saying one thing and doing nothing? “, “Well, tradition mostly”

4 out of 5.

Two words – don’t bother!

Over the years I have come to quite like Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoneix as actors. Robert Duvall is another draw card in here with Eva Mendes thrown in for good measure. However yet again, the actors are fab but the directing is tragic.

There is no connection with the characters, particularly stupid criminals, little action which is fleeting and boring at best, insipid dialogue – should I continue? Why waste my energy.

1 out of 10 (just because I feel sorry for the fab actors in this tragic mess).

Starring Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig and a host of newbies The Golden Compass is taken from the Phillip Pullman “Dark Materials” trilogy of fantasy fiction novels. These are “kidult” books that follow the journey of two young childen, Lyra and Will as they make their way through parallel universes as various adventures meet them.

Although the story line was interesting and the graphics, costumes and music were wonderful I still found myself getting a bit bored halfway through. I think this is possibly the “Lord of the Rings” effect on me. This is where the names are quite difficult to understand without having seen them in written form as well as being so many of the characters that I get bored trying to follow who was who. I think reading the book before hand might save me a bit of time.

In the first opening scenes there is a round building with a great dome on top. This is in Oxford and if you read my Oxford post you may well recognise it as the building through the church glass window.

5 out of 10.

http://www.goldencompassmovie.com/

So this weekend was spent watching movies. OK, you got us. However, you have to take the opportunities when they arise. Steve has been ill the last 2 weeks with a cold so we decided to take an easy weekend and just veg (which means watching movies).

Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal and Meryl Streep are the key names in this film. The movie deals with the use of extraordinary rendition whereby person/s suspected of terrorist activity can be transported from their place of capture to their country or any other country for questioning, intelligence gathering, trial etc. Returning from a business trip to South Africa, Isabella’s husband (Anwar) is a no show at the airport stateside. Confused she sets about trying to figure out where he has gotten to. Little does she know that he was on the plane but upon landing in the US was immediately removed by the government and whisked away under the “extreme rendition” law due to possibly links to an explosion in Cairo.

Enjoyable enough but who’s purpose is it serving? Am I too cynical in thinking why is this being made and for what purpose? How sad is that. Meryl Streep was fabulously disagreeable, you just wanted to dislike her intensely. In Cairo the family story happening between Abasi Fawal (Security Chief) and his daughter lead to an interesting end.

Still making my decision on this one purely because of my attitude of “who does this serve” thoughts. So far, 4.5 out of 10.

It has been getting a bit colder lately and we haven’t been going out as much. However, we did get to the movies on Friday evening to see The Kingdom.

Set in Saudi Arabia an FBI team is whisked in to investigate an attack inside an American civil compound. They are there to gather evidence and uncover the culprits as they don’t trust the Saudi teams working on the case. Starring Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner and Justin Bates it was a bit violent for my liking. It was obvious the film was trying to instil in its viewers that the “war on terror” is about the motivations of extremist groups and must be seperated from lumping everyone into the same category just because they follow the muslim faith. It achieves this through cheesy and obvious “peeks” into the family lives of the key muslim characters. In all I was quite glad for the movie to end. For one because I really don’t think Jennifer Garner can act and for the other as said before it was too violent for my tastes.

Rating for this movie? I would give this a 3 out of 10. Really not my genre at the moment. Steve however rates this a 7 out of 10. I leave it to you to make your own judgement on this one.