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Reviews
One Life (2011)
Excellent !! Fills you with wonder and emotion about life on earth
This documentary is just a collection of selected scenes/stories from the more comprehensive BBC series Life but is fantastic nevertheless even if you have already seen it on TV. For me the one standout was the narration by Daniel Craig and the very subtle music. Here in the US the TV show was narrated by Oprah Winfrey which was a disaster. You might not think of James Bond as a narrator for a nature documentary but Craig really did a great job on this one. He really conveys the astonishment and wonder that you feel watching these animals in his tone of voice but in a very playful way. And the music is very subtle and not too dramatic. In fact the total silence with no music and no narration in the scene with the Ibex climbing down the cliff is more powerful than if there was any. My favorite scene however is the one with the cheetahs on the prowl filmed head on, with the cats walking almost straight ahead towards the camera, it just conveyed a sense of power of the predators on their land. Highly recommended regardless of whether you watched the TV show or not.
The Expendables (2010)
Stallone the director took the day off on this one
I expected a little more from this movie considering that Stallone's last 2 movies were great. Rocky Balboa and Rambo had lots of action but also had heart. I guess because they were such iconic characters that he is identified with and he made those movies with passion. This movie had lots and lots of action and I loved it. But nothing else. Sure all the meatheads from the 80s were there but it was really Stallone and Statham in most of the scenes. I just wish there was little more meat in the story. Every scene was an action movie cliché.. good guys never miss and the bad guys can't shoot straight even though our hero only has a knife. The women are just props. The scene with Bruce Willis and Arnold was just a waste and probably the worst scene in the movie put together simply as a gimmick to get the big 3 in the same scene. Stallone could have explored the CIA drug smuggling connection a little more seriously. Also Jet Li hardly had anything to do. They could have dropped Terry Crews or Randy Couture and given Jet Li the big gun. Think about it, Terry Crews is the crazy guy from the Old spice commercial not a big action star and is nowhere close to the stature of Jet Li or the other stars. Jet Li did have some funny lines though. Having said all that , the action was fantastic. My favorite was Jason Statham on the nose of the airplane firing those guns to destroy the pier and also the fight scene in the tunnel under the palace. If there's anything I would like in the sequel is a stronger storyline and same amount of action.
Snakes on a Plane (2006)
Go see this NOW !! And bring your best friends.
I must tell you , people who are waiting for this on DVD, DON'T. Grab somebody with you and go see this movie. I haven't had this much fun in years and I mean it. I haven't laughed this much in years. This movie made me laugh my ass off. No comedy movie has ever been made or will be made that will make you laugh as much as this. And its not even a comedy !! It goes well beyond its expectations of "its so bad its good". Snakes are everywhere and they are biting every single body part (male and female) in gruesome detail. Oh it was brilliant. Samuel L.Jackson delivers as expected and the movie just moves along briskly with no apologies, there is nothing like it. Go see this NOW.
Batman Begins (2005)
THE best superhero movie ever made !! Its almost perfect.
Few movies ever meet the expectations you may have about them given their premise and the talents of the people associated with them. And there are only a handful of movies that exceed your expectations. Batman Begins is one of those movies that will far exceed your expectations and give you even more. Right from the opening sequence when the young Bruce Wayne encounters the bats for the first time until the final showdown in downtown Gotham I was completely blown away by what I saw on the screen. This is the story about the dangerous and painful journey that Bruce Wayne takes to become Batman and it is as dark and haunting as a Batman movie should be.
The story starts off with Bruce(Christian Bale) living the life of a petty criminal in a far east Asian country (looks like Mongolia but is not mentioned). It is explained that he is doing that to study and experience the mind of a criminal in a land where no one knows him as the heir to Wayne enterprises. Here he meets Ducard(Liam Neeson) who recognizes him and after hearing his story decides to train him in the martial arts. The training sequences are fascinating to watch and are given ample time by the director unlike other movies where such scenes are just summarized into fade-in / fade-out shots with background music. It reminded me of Uma Thurman's training sequence in Kill Bill. Its amazing how paying attention to such simple details make or break a movie. There is a cameo by Ken Watanabe (Last Samurai) as the chief of the Shadow Ninja warriors with whom Bruce trains.
Next stop Gotham.
The shots of Gotham city are unlike what you have ever seen before. No crazy neon lights or huge statues or crazy looking towers as in the previous Batman versions. This is a Gotham of the real world. There are skyscrapers and there are the slums. The bird's eye-view shots of the city are unbelievable from a cinematographic POV but very believable from a realistic POV (since most of it is CGI).
The next stage in his journey (after the training) is logistics and equipment. Wayne enterprises' in-house scientist Lucius Fox (Freeman) introduces Bruce Wayne to the Bat-Suit , the Bat-Cape and of course the Bat-Mobile !! And what a machine that is. A real military armored vehicle that looks like a cross between a tank and a sports car. Watching this thing move is worth the price of the ticket (Does it come in black ???).
Of course Batman needs a girlfriend and there is Katie Holmes who looks very cute. Many people have pointed out that she is too young and nice to play a District Attorney. (Well would you prefer Amanda Peet who always plays a hard-ass beeyatch ?) Katie does a great job in her role as a DA who's fighting to get the Mafia thugs behind bars. I mentioned in my heading that the movie is almost perfect. It could have been perfect if not for a miscast. The mafia boss is played by Tom Wilkinson who tries to put on a fake American-Italian accent and doesn't even look like one. Even Joe Pesci could have done a better job. Not that Wilkinson's a bad actor ,its just that you don't get a Brit to play Tony Soprano.Anyway, aside from that the movie is perfect.
All that was what I saw on the screen. But one of the best things in this movie was the background score. Never has the music been so integrated into the movie as you hear here. It is haunting , grand and moving all at the same time. It complements the main character wonderfully. Bruce Wayne is very tortured in his mind and his struggle with himself is very moving. And Batman is a very haunting , frightening figure (not the nice guy portrayed by Clooney and others).
The cinematography is excellent (note the shots of the mountains in Mongolia). One of the most astonishing shots in the movie is when Bruce Wayne goes into the cave and turns on the flashlight waking up the thousands of bats that completely engulf him and the cave. Almost as fantastic as the Sentinals attack in Matrix Revolutions. The acting is top notch (Bale, it seems was born to play Batman) and the direction is just what you hope from some of the great directors , and Nolan has proved himself to be one. The audience in the theater clapped at the end of the movie which proved that this is not just for the die-hard Batman fans.
If you decide to see just one movie this summer or even this year , skip StarWars 3 , skip War of the Worlds, GO SEE BATMAN BEGINS.