Sucker Punch (2011)

Sucker Punch (2011)

3/10

Starring
Emily Browning
Abbie Cornish
Jena Malone
Vanessa Hudgens
Jamie Chung


Directed by Zack Snyder


Feminism is what the movie preaches. It had in its own way merged an all-female lead into a movie that lacks good writing but wonderful cinematography.

This movie is a drunk’s adaptation of Inception, and as lame as script was they found a way to keep you watching. You will love the mixture of the modern, technology mixed with World War 2 battle ground.

Kudos to the costumes designer and the settings were well designed, with a cinematography that was off the charts.


The director Zack Snyder probably gets his dream fulfilled by just letting his imagination run wild in this loud, incoherent action/sci-fi/thriller mix-up.

Emily Browning plays a young girl Babydoll, who is wrongly committed to a mental institution when her father tries to kill her and her mother so as to inherit the mother’s fortune.

There in the institution (which is an underground brothel in Babydoll’s dream world. The viewer have to determine which world you’re watching the movie from, because it goes deeper from one dream world to another) she’s given instructions on what is expected of her and that allows her to function in a dream world in which warrior-like fantasies could aid in her escape.

Like you are playing a video game where you lead the heroine to face all sorts of dangers from samurai robots, zombie German soldiers and the mafia with a team of scantily clad girls which I will like to mention are either figments of her imagination or not.

As you continue watching, the movie starts to take a life of its own and goes overboard and at the end it all seems senseless, stupid and unsatisfying.

I actually felt Emily should have been taught to dance the whole swaying back and forth and then fading into her dreamland was a way the producers hide her dance inexperience.

When I think about Emily I remember the cute girl from the movie, Series of unfortunate events, but as we can see that girl has grown.

Other than the lack of interest the movie presents, forget the fact that you see sexy girls, nothing good came from that either.

The movie lacked foundation tossing you here and there, making you feel this movie could be better.
Forget the huge budget, and the 12 week of training the cast went through to master martial arts, all through the movie you will see it but it was not enough to save the movie.

Age of the dragons (2011)

Age of The Dragons (2011)

2/10

Starring
Danny Glover
Vinnie Jones


Directed by Ryan Little


Age of the Dragons is a re-imagining of Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick the producers went ahead to change the whole whale thingy to a dragon  which looked like a good idea when you first start watching then later ends up being a major error.

It is a movie that I can say would have been better if it were not made at all.

The director Ryan Little didn’t show much mastery in the act of directing, as the movie's plot was not well fitted with the idea of a dragon infested earth. Then looking at the chemistry between the actors, it was just not there.

The characters were riding a kind of automobile boat, named Pequod. The Pequod on wheels looked sad; its movement on the ground was so slow that i can bet my salary that my grandma will outrun that thing.

The plot is similar to the Moby Dick story, Ahab is hunting down a dragon that crippled him and killed his sister. He is joined on the quest by his former first mate's daughter, and of cause Ishmael.

Ahab, was forced to hide from the sunlight due to the burn wounds on his body which he got when he was young. (the other thing about this movie that didn't make sense was the fact that Ahab wore a mask, because of the burns, but when Ahab removes the mask all i saw was beards.)

The movie does have a plus though, for a B-movie the graphics were okay which was a huge surprise, gauging from its budget.

The film's budget was around $5 million and made only one fifth of that in the box office. Age of Dragon was the first film developed by distribution company Metrodome. Danny Glover was quoted as saying "This is a great idea ... it's going to be fun." Well he wasn’t the watching it from this end

Also it never hit home for me, the twist that Ahab was actually a coward who ran away from the dragon when he was young.  Let’s not mention the dialogue which was dull and not enticing nor interesting enough to keep you wanting more, or even from dozing off.

The costume and makeup artist of this film was probably hired from that salon in Barbers Shop 2, because it was cheap and never portrayed the theme nor the time enough to keep your mind focus on what was going on.
If you have not been fortunate enough to have seen this movie be happy.

Red Riding Hood (2011)

Red Riding Hood

3/10

Staring
Amanda Seyfried
Gary Oldman
Billy Burke
Shiloh Fernandez


Directed by Catherine Hardwicke


Horror/Romance was the genre for this movie; but i think the correct genre should have been lack of good script/bad acting.

The film is very loosely based on the folk tale Little Red Riding Hood collected by both Charles Perrault under the name "Le Petit Chaperon Rouge" (Little Red Riding Hood) and several decades later by the Brothers Grimm as "Rotkäppchen" (Little Red Cap), like other Grimm stories Little red riding hood is more of a horror story than a fantasy for kids. So it was a good idea that the proper adaption of the movie is done.

Hardwicke decided to give it a try and the first thing that makes you raise an eyebrow is that the co-actors seemed to be lost or not really into the movie itself. Red Riding Hood ain't little, she is a full grown lady being prepared for marriage to a man she does not love (this is where i should have left the cinema).

Her heart was for a woodcutter named Peter (Fernandez), the two planned to run away together when they learnt that Valerie's older sister had been killed by the werewolf that prowls the dark forest surrounding their village.
The Town’s people then hired a man named Father Solomon to kill the werewolf, but Solomon comes with so much trouble that literally tears the town apart.

One thing you have to say that makes Red Riding Hood at least likeable, is the Style, and costumes.

Oh! not to forget the movie did have a twist if you didn't figure it out before the movie ended.

Well in this supposed to be the dark-side of Little Red Riding Hood, our lead character runs around and in the very end of the movie we find her kissing a werewolf, and what does that remind you of?
If you said Twilight, then you are right.
Yes our red fell in love with a werewolf.

Hardwicke must have been really missing the Twilight crew.

After watching this werewolf mistake, we have actors undermining screen time, by either overacting or just not putting in enough and an Actress outshining the movie itself, mix it all up together you get a complete mess of a thing.

So, does the director deliver?

The answer will be a HELL NO!

The cliched script and dull scenes in the movie, makes you wonder if the screenplay was done by a 9 year old.

The movie starts on a sad note, and ends sad. Leaving you the viewer emotionless and fighting to keep your eyes open.

Limitless (2011)

Limitless

6/10

Starring
Bradley Cooper
Abbie Cornish
Robert De Niro

Directed by Neil Burger



So the question is, would you try NZT?

First this movie draws you into a world of anything can happen when you dope-up, then it grows on you.
 
Limitless is based on the 2001 novel titled The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn; it was adapted to a movie with Leslie Dixon (Freaky Friday, 2003 and was also the producer of this movie) delivering the screenplay.
Limitless, is well scripted and well acted as Bradley Cooper delivers a memorable performance that is better than what we had to deal with in A-Team (2010), but not up to that of Hangover (2009).

The movie first went into production as The Dark Fields then was changed to Limitless later on. Filming began in Philadelphia and also New York City.
For the car chase scene Italian car maker Maserati provided the two Maserati Gran Turismo coupes for free in "a guerrilla-style approach" to product placement in the movie.

The sad thing though about this movie is of all the things these drugs could do to the human brain, i was not impressed on all the things Eddie got himself into.

Eddie (Bradley Cooper) is a writer who just got dumped by his girlfriend Lindy. As he was walking around feeling morose, he runs into his ex-wife’s brother Vernon Grant (Johnny Whitworth), who invited him to a drink so they could talk about his book. Eddie tells him he is having problems with the book, so Vernon gave him a drug to try for free. He takes the drug thinking what could go worse in his life, the name of the drug is NZT-48, which increased his intelligence and improves his focus.

All of a sudden he has finished the book in a couple of weeks, the financial market looked like legos to him and all he had to do was up the dosage to make himself smarter.

Later on Eddie started running low on stash and his dealer is killed and he Eddie is addicted already to NZT-48 and was ready to do anything to have it.

The director Neil Burger (Illusionist) took the movie through an interesting path, but the ending of the movie could have been far much better than what they delivered. There are talks that Neil will be directing the movie Bride of Frankenstein, if there is a remake.

Shia  LaBeouf was penned to play the lead role in the movie, but he was later replaced by Cooper a change that i believe suited the film nicely. Cooper was voted "Sexiest Man Alive" in 2011 People magazine.

Limitless though has it's limit but it is a good watch any day.

Mars Needs Moms (2011)

Mars Needs Moms

5/10

Starring
Seth Green
Tom Everett Scott
Joan Cusack
Elisabeth Harnois


Directed by Simon Wells


In mars the men are irresponsible slobs, while the women run the show, the men are treated like garbage and thrown into the dump, as soon as a child is born if it is a female it is kept but if it is male it is sent down the garbage shoot.

Mars needs moms is a 3D computer-animated sci-fi film by Walt Disney Pictures. The film stars Seth Green (performance capture) and newcomer Seth Dusky (voice) for the main character Milo, and was produced by Robert Zemeckis.

The sad thing about the movie is the budget, it cost a total of 150 million and what you see is a weak story line and a box office bomb definitely. All through you keep waiting for something to happen, but till it ends nothing spectacular. I have seen better from Disney and Zemeckis.

Zemeckis obsession of motion capture animation, which he used in Polar Express, Beowulf and also A Christmas Carol seems to be where all his attention is and he didn’t pay much attention to the script and the screenplay and what we have is just one bad movie.

The movie is based on a Berkely Breathed’s picture book, so the story had to be expanded for a full length movie and dragged for 90 minutes. So the simplicity that made the book what it is stolen by the screenplay writers which happen to be Simon Wells the director and his wife Wendy Wells.

The plot is based on the idea that the Martians are capturing mothers from earth to extract their momness and programme it into their nanny-bots so the robots can best raise their children.

Milo is a not so appreciative of his mother, until his mother (Joan Cusack) got taken by the Martians, and he tags along to go save her.

In mars he meets Gribble (Dan Fogler), who had been in mars for too long as when his mother was kidnapped he too tagged along to save her but was unable to and has now grown to become a slob, a scientific genius but a slob.

We also meet Ki (Elisabeth Harnois) who assist them in their ‘save my mom mission’, she is a free thinking Martian girl who lives a life of a rebel in her free time, and had learnt to speak English from watching 1960 American Television.

The movie goes to show that as bad as Mars needs moms we too here need better animations.

RANGO (2011)

Rango

6/10

Starring
Johnny Depp
Isla Fisher
Bill Nighy
Abigail Breslin
Alfred Molina
Harry Dean Stanton
Timothy Olyphant


Directed by Gore Verbinski

This movie may not be popular with the toddlers but with the young and young at heart it is a good watch.

Throughout this film, an owl mariachi band provides commentary that makes you smile.

Rango is a computer-animated comedy western film. A nice cool movie, that I believe it is a little over-rated. The comedy in the movie is not for kids, but the movie wakes up a genre that I believe is long forgotten, western cartoons.

It was a critical and commercial success making $ 245 million dollars from a $ 130 million dollars budget and it also won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

The high note in this movie is the imaginative lies concocted by Rango to fool the town’s people.

The story line goes a pet chameleon (Johnny Depp) becomes accidentally stranded in the Mojave Desert after his terrarium falls from its owner's car. 

After meeting an armadillo named Roadkill (Alfred Molina), who is seeking the mystical Spirit of the West.

There in the desert he narrowly avoids eaten by a red-tailed hawk and runs into a desert iguana named Beans (Isla Fisher), a rancher's daughter, who takes him to Dirt, an Old West town populated by desert animals.

There Rango introduces himself and the lies start, which takes him as high as the Sheriff of the town before bringing him down.

The Director made a lot of references to old time Western movies from A Fistful of Dollars, Chinatown, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, right down to Once Upon a Time in the West, and more.

Johnny Depp delivered as usual, making his mark and a difference in the adaptation of the character. He had 20 days in which to voice Rango; and the filmmakers scheduled the supporting actors to interact with him during those days.

The whole imaginative lies of the main character are fun though, and it was fun watching it all crumble down, i guess that part of the movie is for the kids, to learn that lies breeds more lies till they all catch you in a twill.

This is not the first film that has brought director Gore Verbinski and Johnny Depp together, as they both worked together on the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. This is Verbinski first animation and also the productions company responsible for the animations Industrial Light and Magic first extended feature-film work.

This is a movie I did enjoy and one I know you will too.