#1 - LIMITLESS
Stars - Bradley Cooper, Robert de Niro, Abbie Cornish, Anna Friel
Director - Neil Burger
Memorable Quote - 'What was this drug? I couldn't stay messy on it, I hadn't had a cigarette in six hours, hadn't eaten, so... abstemious and tidy? What was this? A drug for people who wanted to be more anal retentive?'
Review - 'Limitless' presents an interesting concept - a drug that will allow you to use all of your brain, but the payoff is addiction and eventual death when your supply runs out. Plus, everyone who hears about it wants it, most of those people have guns, and our protagonist doesn't know who the suppliers are. Using his new found powers he earns money at a ridiculous rate, cleans up his act and begins to attract prestigious jobs, but how long can it be before it all catches up with him? It certainly packs a few punches and forces us to ask some intriguing questions, and the execution is perfect - as well as the ending: quite the opposite to the "moral of the story" I would have expected, it twisted any preconceived ideas I had upside down and gave a whole new perspective on the plot. I actually really quite enjoyed it, and rather than shoving the "big star" in our faces as you usually find with, say, Russell Crowe, de Niro was really quite subtle here, and I mean that in a good way. 4/5
#2 - THE HANGOVER PART 2
Stars - Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms, Ken Jeong, Paul Giamatti, Mike Tyson, Mason Lee
Director - Todd Phillips
Memorable Quote - 'Oh, you are having a bad day. Did you die?'
Review - Oh hey, Bradley Cooper again, being in every movie ever. Returning with just as much chaotic humour as the first time, this sequel is smart and pitched just right. Why fix it if it isn't broken? With recurring performances from the popular Chow and all four original hangover-ees, we follow a very familiar pattern (Cooper has to make the call to a worried fiancee whilst he, Helms, and Galifianakis despair, Doug stays out of it, and someone gets lost), but presented in a new way. This time it is the brother of the bride who is lost, and though the conclusion seems remarkably casual (shouldn't they get him to a hospital? Is he not gutted that he'll never be able to play cello properly again?) the journey is just as enjoyable as it was last time out. Effortlessly combining a kind of backwards detective genre with frat boy humour, one wonders if they might score a hat trick next year. 5/5
#3 - COWBOYS AND ALIENS
Stars - Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, Paul Dano, Keith Carradine
Director - Jon Favreau
Memorable Quote - 'I don't know much about boats, but I'd say that one's upside down.'
Review - Listen, seriously, guys. Cowboys. And then aliens. Cowboys, okay, and then aliens. Cowboys and aliens. It's right there in the name. Do you really need to know anything more about how awesome this movie must be? Really? Well, alright then, I'll tell you: Daniel Craig is an incredibly convincing Man With No Name type (honestly, becoming James Bond may have been the worst thing to happen to him, because it hides the fact that he's actually a real actor), Harrison Ford makes a decent bad-guy-with-a-heart, and the aliens aren't half bad either. I don't understand any bad reviews this gets, I just don't. Seriously, cowboys. And aliens. Plus, I do love seeing Paul Dano yet again play a tiny supporting role with more skill in his little finger than most A-listers; it is getting a bit tiresome to see such skill wasted in the background, though, and I'm hoping the rest of Hollywood will begin to wise up and get him back to those stronger roles he deserves. But anyway; Cowboys. With aliens. Doing battle. Awesome. 5/5
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3 comments:
I have skipped over your Cowboys & Aliens review as I have yet to watch and want to form an opinion of my own first, though would say I'd have to disagree with your rating of Hangover 2 - I found it really undermined the strength of the original through its literal rehashing of the same story line. I mean, one time of everyone forgetting everything that happened is of course very hard to believe - and for the purposes of enjoying the comedy we decide to accept this - but TWICE? I couldn't stretch my belief that far again a second time around. That said, it was funny and mildly entertaining, but I wish they'd taken a more 'believable' angle, in whatever form that might take...
Well, they WERE given drugs whose very purpose is to make you unaware of what is happening to you :P I don't see any reason why that would not be believable, after all, it's even possible to forget a night's happenings just with alcohol...
That's true, but, I say again, TWICE? They must be idiots. Well, they are, obviously - the film makes this clear.
Alcohol can lead to forgetting a night's happenings, true, but it's rare that would be the case for everyone involved in the drinking as not everyone would have the same tolerance/intolerance to it.
The first film rocks - I love it - but the second is unimaginative for applying the same concept.
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