Film Guide

If it wasn’t for The Expendables, Predators would have been a serious contender on my best Action movie pick of the year. I know it wasn’t perfect in many ways, but it all the elements of a classic old school action film, and then some.

It would probably be a safe bet for best opening scene of an action film, if we were to ever be as anal as that in our best of lists, with the film kicking off righting into the action in the first scene where you left wondering what an earth is going on as Adrien Brody is free-falling towards a remote jungle, whilst at the same time being unconscious.

He of course wakes up and starts freaking out, only to gain control of his senses and deploy his parachute just in the nick of time. It’s one of the biggest adrenaline buzz-opening scenes I’ve seen for a while and it sets the stage for an epic battle of man vs monster.

But before we get to the meat of the story, everything start to feel a little like an alternative version of LOST. A LOST that would have kicked arse instead of whimpering out to obscurity.

But let me not digress, Predators as I’m sure you can all guess is a kind of survival horror, though not so much the horror, more a survival action, if that sub genre does actually exist.  Read the rest of this entry »

On the surface Cherrybomb looks nothing more than a vehicle for Rupert Grint to prove that he’s more than just a school boy wizard. Sadly the short and shallow tale of two friends, one with a promising future and one with an alcoholic drug dealing father, never really gains enough momentum to take the viewer anywhere.

The story is spiced up by the inclusion of a new girl in town who decides to come between the two friends as a form of entertainment, but you can easily see where the film is going, especially when it’s set in an unspecified British town where the only form of socialisation is drinking and doing drugs.  Read the rest of this entry »

Remember when the Russians were the bad guys? Well.. they are back as the evil protagonists wanting to destabilize the super powers in an all out attempt to bring back cold war rivalries. Sounds great eh?

And so we are introduced to Evelyn Salt, a talented CIA Agent. During a routine interrogation of a Russian defector she is singled out as a potential double agent. However it becomes very clear very quickly that Salt has more to hide than she is letting on. Queue action, twists and turns and you have yourself one entertaining little movie.

By no means is this the perfect movie; It’s not too hard to figure out some of the plot, and it certainly does not fill in the checklist for damn fine entertainment. But this is a fun film. I quite enjoyed Jolie’s on screen romp as a James Bond / Jason Bourne spin off, and certainly think that the decision to cast Jolie after Tom Cruise dropped the offer has made this movie something different.

I love action thrillers that look at the whole mysterious world of the CIA, Secret Service and the Presidency (yes i think the Sentinel and in the Line of Fire are great flicks) and this movie certainly filled that aspect of entertainment for me.  Read the rest of this entry »

Its traditional at this time of the year to review the past 12 months and find a way to shoe horn every movie into a top ten list. Well.. We dont like that idea. The problem is that this year brought us a number of really good movies, and while Urbankiwi and FamousFiveNZ both enjoy different types of movies, we thought it only fair to build a list of categories and find out their bests.  Read the rest of this entry »

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Gulliver is a nobody. He was working in a mail room until he goes on the boat ride of his life time…

He was supposed to be heading towards the Bermuda Triangle but being Gulliver he gets sidetracked. The boat malfunctions and Gulliver blacks out…

When Gulliver awakes he finds himself surrounded by tiny people.

Soon he finds that he has washed up in the kingdom Lilliput.  Read the rest of this entry »

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