Liam Neeson

The A-Team

A few weeks ago I went to the cinema to watch the movie re-make of the 1983 TV series – “The A-Team“. I haven’t seen the original, but I’ve heard a lot about it. As for the new movie – I only saw the trailer, and I was hooked. It seemed like my kind of action movie.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM0ypzvuphg]

And it turned out to be even better than I expected. From the first few moments, the film sets the mood and establishes itself as an entertainment-only flick. What follows a non-stop waterfall of action and witty humor. As far as action comedy goes, I think it’s one of the best films in the last few years. Sure, “Iron Man” had its share of jokes, but “The A-Team” took it way beyond. Just the scene of the A-Team using the tank to fight while falling down from the airplane is worth the money for the ticket. But there is so much more!

Highly recommended for a fun Friday evening. 5 out of 5.

Clash of the Titans

Last weekend I watched “Clash of the Titans” with a bunch of friends. I was insisting on watching it in 2D, since it was widely known that 3D in the film was added in post-production and hence won’t be anything remotely similar to the real 3D, but my arguments weren’t convincing enough and we went to 3D cinema anyway. Don’t make the same mistake.

As I expected it, 3D really sucked. Do you remember those bulky CRT monitors that we used to have with our desktop computers, back when everyone wasn’t a happy laptop owner? If you do remember them, then you probably remember the horrible experience when such a monitor was configured for a low refresh rate, say 60 Hz. The images on such a monitor were flickering, there was no sharpness, and your eyes and had would start hurting pretty soon. That’s very similar to the experience of the pseudo-3D. Horrible experience in other words. In fact, it was so horrible that we kept taking glasses on and off constantly. One could watch this film totally without 3D glasses, but in certain places it was easier to have them on.

So, was pseudo-3D the only thing that spoiled my experience? Nope. I felt that the movie was very shallow in pretty much every aspect – acting, story, special effects, drama, scale, and so on and so forth. Just to give you some idea with a little spoiler – there wasn’t much of a clash in this film, and there were no titans. About 40 seconds of screen time were given to a rather large creature, which many might confuse with a titan. But when we are in Greek mythology, a word “titan” actually has a very particular meaning. So, no titans.

And yet another something else that didn’t help my perception of this film was a fresh memory of “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief” – another Greek mythology action movie that was released recently. And as much as I didn’t want to watch “The Lightning Thief” it turned out to be quite a nice flick. And it happened to be way better than the titans with no titans.

Overall, I’ll give the titans a 3 out of 5. Skip it and you won’t miss much. If you really want to see it though, make sure you watch it in 2D – save yourself some money and a headache.

P.S.: I only now realized that I forgot to review “The Lighning Thief”. I will correct this shortly.

Taken

I just came back from the cinema, where I watched “Taken“. I’ve seen this film earlier on DVD, and it doesn’t have much to offer for the big screen versus the huge TV, but it’s a good enough movie to watch a few times. And I have to say that I enjoyed watching it again as much as I enjoyed watching it for the first time.

There is something about average looking special agents who can tare Europe apart if they need so. There is something about tough guys shooting, fighting, and driving in a very efficient way, without any show off what so ever. There is something about pissed off fathers coming to get their daughters. Well, except maybe the last one, this film is very similar to the Bourne films, so if you enjoyed those, you will enjoy this one too.

The film is a little bit slow to start and is a bit too verbose (to my taste) on the father’s love and protection of his daughter, but once it starts with the action stuff, it never stops until the very end. There is plenty to watch and follow, and there is enough suspense to keep you glued to the screen.

Overall, an excellent action movie – 5 stars.

Rob Roy

I just watched “Rob Roy” a truly classic film, which I somehow missed when it came out back in 1995. This is something! I can’t remember the film which would have been so packed with moral, and which would be as engaging to watch. Really.

The film has it all – honour, love, friendship, and more. It shows how hard simple things can be sometimes. And how place, time, age, gender and social status have nothing to do with who you really are, how much of a human being you are. It also touches upon marriage, and the places of both husband and wife in the family. Compared to this film, most of the other modern film seem to be quite empty. Yes, there is plenty of action and special effects these days, but so little of what people are made of and how they are supposed to be. I think that we need more films like this, and this film in particular should be a part of formal education and character development. If it influence me so much, I suspect it’ll have a quite an effect (and a positive one at that) on the teenagers’ understanding of the world. However, it’s been a while since I was a teenager, so I might be wrong there…

There is plenty of good in this film beside moral. The story itself is quite interesting, even if not new. There is lots of good acting by talented cast. The directing and the visuals are also nice. I also remember positively noticing the music score a few times during the film.

One thing I wanted to mention separately are the sword fights. There are a few and they are awesome. The final fight deserves a film on its own. It’s original, dynamic, and powerful. One of the best ones I’ve seen ever.

Overall rating – 5 stars. Highly recommended.