Doomsday

Doomsday

With all the movies coming out of the Hollywood these days, one needs some set of mental filters (aka stereotypes) to pick good films and avoid all the rest.  But, as with any other area of human life, stereotypes can heal and harm.  According to the set of movie stereotypes in my head, I was totally going to avoid the movie “Doomsday“.  I’ve heard that it was about some virus outbreak, sealed contaminated area, and a bunch of people going in to find the cure.  That’s all I knew, and that sounded a lot like something along the lines of “28 Days Later“, “Resident Evil“, and many other movies.  Those movies, they aren’t bad, but I’ve seen enough of them.

Luckily, my friend and colleague Igor likes this type of movies a lot.  So he managed to persuade me to go and see “Doomsday”.  And I’m glad he did.

The story of the film was very much like I expected it.  But, we weren’t there for the story, were we?  It’s how one tells the story.  And in this type of films, it’s all about how you show infected people, their mutations, human flash, body parts, horror, black humor, and the rest of the visual effects.  “Doomsday” was pretty good in this regard.  I’d say it was a little bit more bloodier than it needed, but no serious complains in this department.

All that is not very important however.  Because “Doomsday” has something that so many other movies don’t.  It has the spirit.  The atmosphere, if you will.  And it suits it very well.  It is a very rock-n-roll movie.  So much rock-n-roll, that it is much closer to punk rock in its spirit (and literary, most of the characters appear to be some serious fans of punk rock music).

Doomsday scream

There are a few places in the movie, which are either boring or a little bit too far fetched, but, gladly, they are very few and very short.  In most of it, the film provides excellent entertainment and positive energy boost.  It is mostly funny, and hilarious at places.  It has excellent special effects and strong characters in it.  There are a few memorable quotes, including some very peculiar ways of using an F* word (the film is very British in its nature).

So, if you like uncensored punk rock with lots of fun, if you are not easily destabilized by motion pictures, if you don’t truly belief that people in the movie suffer in pain or die in pieces, if you welcome the creativity of the creator even if it is a little bit out of your bounds sometimes, if you enjoyed “Mad Max” trilogy and darker (non-romantic) side of “Waterworld” than I strongly recommend to watch this movie.  You won’t regret it.

7 out of 10.

Brazil

Sometimes I surprise myself by the kind of movies I find accidentally. “Brazil” is one of those highly recommended classics that I’ve never heard about before.

Directed by: Terry Gilliam
Genres: Comedy, Sci-Fi, Fantasy
Cast: Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Bob Hoskins, Michael Palin, Ian Richardson, Peter Vaughan, Kim Greist, Jim Broadbent, Barbara Hicks, Charles McKeown, Derrick O’Connor, Kathryn Pogson, Bryan Pringle
IMDB raintg: 8.0
My rating: 8.0 [rate 8.0]

This film came just in time. I was about to get pissed off with all the crap that I watching recently – cliche copies of copies of copies that as predictable as Formula 1 for the last few years. And suddenly I get across this movie, which came out twenty years ago, is included in IMDB’s Top 250 movies of all times (#199), has Robert De Niro in it, and is one I’ve never heard anything about.

The movie is very original. The story, the setups, the costumes – everything. But the feeling of deja vu wasn’t leaving me from start until the end of the film. The story felt a lot like something based on George Orwell’s “1984” spiced up with lots of satire from Monty Python and mixed with personalities from World War II movies.

A very small investigation confirmed my deja vu feeling. The director of the film – Terry Gilliam – is a part of Monty Python gang. He has written, directed, and acted in a number of Monty Python flicks. He has also done a number of other well-known movies, especially in sci-fi area. One of those well-known films is “Twelve Monkeys“.

Interesting story twists, good character development, great acting and lots of amazing special effects make this film into a real masterpiece.

Resume: highly recommended.

Danny the Dog

I added “Danny the Dog” to my list of movies to watch because it was one of the most mentioned Jet Li movies. So I didn’t expect anything but a good action out of it when I pressed the playback button.

Directed by: Louis Leterrier
Genres: Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller
Cast: Jet Li, Morgan Freeman, Bob Hoskins, Kerry Condon, Vincent Regan, Dylan Brown, Tamer Hassan, Michael Jenn, Phyllida Law, Carole Ann Wilson, Michael Ian Lambert, Jaclyn Lee, Puthirith Chou, Tony Theng, Owen Lay
IMDB raintg: 7.2
My rating: 8.5 [rate 8.5]

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