Colombiana: Commando with Brains and a Heart

Late review, but I’ve been kind a busy. Here is a movie with fast, relentless action and no time to breathe coming to DVD and Blu-Ray this week. Colombiana relates the quest of a determined woman, named Cataleya, looking to avenge her parents’ murder.

Colombiana's Zoe Saldana kicks some serious butt without breaking a sweat.

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What We Expect from The Dark Knight Rises

With a critical and commercial success like The Dark Knight, What is next for Jonathan and Christopher Nolan? Is it safe to say, from that point, the only way is down? The bar was raised so high that our expectations have already gone through the roof. The new sequel is not even in production yet.

The Dark Knight Rises is said to feature Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle aka Catwoman

It’s a daunting task. According to IMDb, The Dark Knight won 2 Oscars, another 79 wins and 62 nominations. How do you top that?    Read more »

Quick Review: The Green Hornet

One can usually make pretty good impressions of a movie by watching the trailer. A movie with substance is easy to promote. At least technically. Some trailers failed even when the movie was good, but we digress here. The Green Hornet‘s trailer (watch it after this article) sucks!

Kato (Jay Chou) and the unlikely Green Hornet (Seth Rogen)

When you fail to show the most appealing parts of a movie in 2 minutes, it means you either cannot identify them or there are none in the first place.    Read more »

Quick Review: Red

Red, the movie takes a lot of liberties from the comic. It’s an entirely different story simply based on the same premise: an unhappily retired CIA operative has been marked for elimination.

Bruce Willis teaches how to properly exit a moving vehicle. Probably the movie's signature set piece. A la Wanted.

Paul Moses, in the comic, Frank in the movie (Bruce Willis), is the main character of a short story about a former agent tormented by a past he is trying to forget. But in the movie, we get a group of targeted retirees trying to stay alive. They mention their past a some point or another, but beside Marvin (John Malkovich), the typical paranoid maniac, there are no nightmares. Maybe a few happy/sad memories.    Read more »

No Contest: Tron vs. Tron Legacy

Here is a double review: a parallel between the original 1982 Tron and the new, reheated Tron: Legacy. “Reheated” because it feels like nothing more: mostly the same story from an updated, 21st century angle.

When Tron came out, it was the state of the art, and it showed the world of computers as the young generation of the time knew it. Things have changed now, most of those terms are outdated now. Today, computers are “user-friendly” it’s all about social networking, cloud computing, mobile devices, etc.

Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), rescued by Quorra (Olivia Wilde), will meet his father after a long separation

Would the new movie reflect that? You would think so. But the reality is quite different.    Read more »

Character Agendas: Ronin

Ronin is a round up of balanced, tough characters for a simple heist. They’re all good at what they do. They are facing seasoned villains; so their job is not going to be easy. Worse, by the midpoint, everything goes south when one of them reveals his real motives and switch sides.

Ronin's Sam (Robert DeNiro) leads a band of mercenaries working to retrieve a silver case from another team

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Despicable Me: Why Am I Laughing so Hard?

Despicable Me starts strong with an ridiculous crime: somebody stole the great pyramid and replaced it with a giant inflatable replica. This scene does not just end with a punch line. It is funny all the way through: the dad that cannot come out of the bus door, the kid on a leash, the pyramid is a balloon, the mom who miscalculates her son’s landing point; a good opening scene to wet our appetite for laughs.

The cutest line in the movie, and one of the funniest moments: Agnes (Elsie Fisher), "It's so fluffy!"

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It is All about Balance: Appaloosa

The western genre is certainly not dead. 2008′s excellent Appaloosa is a testament to that fact. Another notable movie is the Coen Brother’s 2010 True Grit, which we reviewed here. Appaloosa is a carefully crafted piece which all fans of the genre will appreciate for what it is: an instant classic, in the tradition of High Noon, Rio Bravo, Once Upon a Time in the West, etc.

Two against four. Both heroes face a runaway criminal and his hired guns (ground level); these last two are good.

This is the story of two gentlemen (nicely played by Ed Harry and Viggo Mortensen) who work as marshals of the United States. They have been called to rescue a small town succumbing to chaos and injustice, under the stronghold of a ruthless Rancher named Bragg (Jeremy Irons).    Read more »

Crafting a Likable Hero: The Book of Eli

The Book of Eli is on HBO this week. It is a good, decent, entertaining movie, with a protagonist that I happen to like a lot. How do you create a character that is likable and sympathetic? The Book of Eli showcases a man played by Academy Award winner Denzel Washington who modestly possesses all the quality of a likable hero.

Eli (Denzel Washington) demonstrates his impressive fighting skills with almost any weapon in The Book of Eli.

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For a Better Transformers: Dark of the Moon

We are not part of the crowd of Michael Bay haters, but we have not been satisfied with the way he has handled the first two movies. The fact that they made an insane amount of money will not help the situation and get us better movies. Actually it will more likely be the reverse. Vindicated in the way he directed the previous installments, he will more likely either get cocky and shoot himself in the foot with the third one or just make another remake of the first (like the second movie).

Is the Transformers franchise just about giant talking robots, destruction and mayhem?

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a recycled Transformers, down to the Bumblebee’s speech impediment, the Decepticons’ quest, or the fight in the desert (which looks like the same desert by the way). Mostly identical “plots” with slightly different characters, on-the-nose dialogs and childish humor, wrapped in more or less the same order. Imagine characters delivering the same lines in both movies and you will have an idea.    Read more »