http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1430612
brick mansions is an americanized scene-for-scene reshoot of banlieue 13. which means it is the same movie, except everybody is fatter and dumber, including the audience. i kid, i kid. but seriously. save your cockleshells and just watch the original. they have subtitles, so you do not have to spreken ze francaise to understand. and i do recommend going to the effort of understanding the plot here. the draw for this film is the parkour-inspired action, of course, but it is nicely wrapped up in a reasonable plotline.
brick mansions gets two banlieue 13s, while banlieue 13 gets four brick mansions.
2015-02-10
2015-02-06
taken 2
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1397280
taken 2 was extraneous and took unbelievability to an uncomfortable level. the first taken movie was a novel superagent movie with a plausible, if unlikely, premise. the second was as disconnected from the reality of the first as the first was from real reality, but on a logarithmic scale. the phone-a-friend routine got old in a hurry, and no matter how skilled of a super agent he is, i just cannot grit my teeth hard enough to suspend disbelief and watch him train his 16 year old over the phone. where did she learn how to drive like that, and how did she fail her driving test with that kind of aptitude? seriously.
anywho, everything about taken 2 was predictable, including the part where they are making taken 3. or they already made it. whatever.
taken 2 gets two driving exams. one for liam neeson, the other because i remain a sucker for super agents.
taken 2 was extraneous and took unbelievability to an uncomfortable level. the first taken movie was a novel superagent movie with a plausible, if unlikely, premise. the second was as disconnected from the reality of the first as the first was from real reality, but on a logarithmic scale. the phone-a-friend routine got old in a hurry, and no matter how skilled of a super agent he is, i just cannot grit my teeth hard enough to suspend disbelief and watch him train his 16 year old over the phone. where did she learn how to drive like that, and how did she fail her driving test with that kind of aptitude? seriously.
anywho, everything about taken 2 was predictable, including the part where they are making taken 3. or they already made it. whatever.
taken 2 gets two driving exams. one for liam neeson, the other because i remain a sucker for super agents.
a good day to die hard
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1606378/
yet another movie that really did not need to be made. also, if you were expecting any real connection to the original die hard movies, forget about it. they have john mcclane, but bruce willis is way too old at this point to be a credible action hero. at least they portrayed him as older and wiser. also, justin long was not in this one, which was a vast improvement over the previous die hard flick.
anyway, good explosions, but all standard shootout stuff. the initial chase sequence was just ludicrous, though. i failed to find any deeper meaning to this pile of spent shell casings.
a good day to die hard gets two yipee-kai-yas.
yet another movie that really did not need to be made. also, if you were expecting any real connection to the original die hard movies, forget about it. they have john mcclane, but bruce willis is way too old at this point to be a credible action hero. at least they portrayed him as older and wiser. also, justin long was not in this one, which was a vast improvement over the previous die hard flick.
anyway, good explosions, but all standard shootout stuff. the initial chase sequence was just ludicrous, though. i failed to find any deeper meaning to this pile of spent shell casings.
a good day to die hard gets two yipee-kai-yas.
2015-01-18
the expendables 3
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2333784/
the expendables was a movie whose time had come and the expendables 2 was a movie that did not need to be made. expendables 3 connects those two data points and keeps going along the same trajectory; it is a movie which desperately needed to not be made.
what were the redeeming features of the first two expendables movies? hell if i remember. the third one's blitzkrieg of explosions and gunfire was quite effective as a memory wiping device. i think? hard to remember much of anything, really. i guess it is equally plausible that mel gibson climbed in my window and brainwashed me in my sleep. it could also have been aliens. aliens and mel gibson, working together? perhaps.
the expendables 3 gets one memory wipe.
the expendables was a movie whose time had come and the expendables 2 was a movie that did not need to be made. expendables 3 connects those two data points and keeps going along the same trajectory; it is a movie which desperately needed to not be made.
what were the redeeming features of the first two expendables movies? hell if i remember. the third one's blitzkrieg of explosions and gunfire was quite effective as a memory wiping device. i think? hard to remember much of anything, really. i guess it is equally plausible that mel gibson climbed in my window and brainwashed me in my sleep. it could also have been aliens. aliens and mel gibson, working together? perhaps.
the expendables 3 gets one memory wipe.
cleanskin
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1598873
cleanskin had pretty interesting characters and a nice twist, but the storytelling dragged far too much. by the time it got to the payoff, i was pretty well checked out, and checking back in was just too much effort. if i had had more patience, i think i would have liked it a lot more. also, the sympathetic character was a suicide bomber and the good guy was 1) not a good guy and 2) not likable. i am unclear on what vibe they were going for there, but it had to have been something like "self-loathing" or "sympathetic to terrorist causes." i therefore conclude that this movie was funded by the NSA as a way to find terrorist sympathizers among the movie-reviewing community. well tough luck, assholes. i saw right through your little charade.
cleanskin gets two suicide bombers.
cleanskin had pretty interesting characters and a nice twist, but the storytelling dragged far too much. by the time it got to the payoff, i was pretty well checked out, and checking back in was just too much effort. if i had had more patience, i think i would have liked it a lot more. also, the sympathetic character was a suicide bomber and the good guy was 1) not a good guy and 2) not likable. i am unclear on what vibe they were going for there, but it had to have been something like "self-loathing" or "sympathetic to terrorist causes." i therefore conclude that this movie was funded by the NSA as a way to find terrorist sympathizers among the movie-reviewing community. well tough luck, assholes. i saw right through your little charade.
cleanskin gets two suicide bombers.
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