Danny Glover

Shooter

Being a big fan of anything that involves snipers – movies, video games, books, etc – I am surprised that I haven’t heard anything at all about “Shooter“. It is one of those niche things that is done for the fans only.

The story is not particularly thick or twisted. On the contrary, it’s quite straightforward and predictable. But that didn’t spoil the film too much. It was shot nicely, with some really nice photography. And the casting was excellent – Mark Wahlberg, Danny Glover, Rade Serbedzija, Rhona Mitra, and the rest did their job very well.

Overall, there is not much too say more. If you are a fan of snipers, this movie is a must see. If not, then I don’t know – it’s a nice action movie based on a rather weak story. 4 out of 5.

2012

I just came back from the movies, where I watched “2012“. Initially, when I heard about this film, it sounded awesome. I even posted the trailer in the blog, when I first saw it. But then, it came to the cinemas and pretty much everyone I know went to see it, and I haven’t heard any exciting reviews yet. Yes, the special effects are awesome. Yes, they destroy the US and even pretty much all current Earth population. Yes, it’s breath-taking at times. But there was no excitement in those comments. No thrill. No sparks. It almost felt like the movie was boring. So, I wasn’t hurrying to see it. But today I finally did. First, because I had to. Second, because all the other movies I’ve either seen or they suck.

So, I went to see “2012” with lower expectations than I initially set. And maybe that was exactly what I needed. Because I quite enjoyed the film. There were, of course, a few tongue-in-cheek moments, such as mobile telephony working when everything was falling under ground or a doctor with 2 hours of practice flying planes or a computer simulation being able to predict wave impacts up to the second during the time when nothing was certain. But that doesn’t matter. You get these in pretty much every movie these days.

What’s important is that the movie had something to show that you haven’t seen before. Yes, everyone saw the end of the world movies. But not at this scale. Ground was falling, building were collapsing, giant waves were playing ping pong with huge ships, trains were flying over airplanes, and on, and on, and on. Some of the scenes were so realistic, that I was grabbing my armchair’s handles. And that happens rarely.

If you are not into huge scale special effects films, then this one still has some drama, romance, and comedy to offer. Comedy especially. I think it actually made the film so much better. If everything that happened in the movie would have been given with the serious attitude, it would be way too boring and unrealistic. But an occasional joke here and funny face there brought this film to life. As did some of the acting.

Overall, I’d recommend this film to anyone who expects entertainment from a movie. 4 stars.

P.S.: If I still haven’t convinced you to see this film on a big screen, consider this: it was directed by Roland Emmerich, who also directed movies like “10,000 B.C.”, “The Day After Tomorrow”, “The Patriot”, “Godzilla”, “Independence Day”, “Universal Soldier” and a few others.

Be Kind Rewind

These days there isn’t much choice of what to watch in the movies. So I ended up at “Be Kind Rewind“. It’s a comedy with Jack Black and Mos Def, both of who are often funny. Also, I wanted to see how Danny Glover is doing these days, since the last time I saw him was in “Lethal Weapon 4” or so.

“Be Kind Rewind” is a bit of an akward film. It’s funny, it’s sad, it’s cheap, and it’s kind. Some parts of it are so hilarious that I was laughing out loud. Yet other parsts of it don’t make any sense at all. Some scenes follow each other naturally, yet some other feel like they were glued together very roughly.

Overall, I’ll give it a 6 out of 10. Not something that I would strongly recommend, but not your regular movie experience either.