Review - Smokin Aces

Smokin Aces, I always type it Smoking Aces, but it’s definitely Smokin. There is actually a lot of smoke in this movie, guns too, but the Aces come from the man who everyone wants, Buddy 'Aces' Israel. Everyone from hit men to the FBI want to get hold of this Las Vegas showman turned gangers snitch, but who will get to him first. The Main characters are the FBI who needs to get their man to prosecute various mobsters involved in various dodgy deals, the supporting cast as the various hit men, assassins and hired crazy killers who want to get their hands on Buddy for the Price on his head from his enemies.

Gunshots, Complex interwoven storylines, character mythology are all forced upon us some are done more smoothly than others. The story is very complex and its not shown in a visual fashion its often monologues or voice over where an incredible amount of information is packed in. The director Joe Carnahan is obviously a big fan of Guy Ritchie’s as his movie takes many cues from Snatch and Lock Stock & Two smoking barrels. The characters are introduced in similar fashion with appropriately stylistic font types displaying it on screen, you also have the merging storylines, the conflict of interests and the hip and funky soundtrack.

It doesn’t quite reach the lofty heights of the previous mentioned Guy Ritchie movies though, it’s not as well paced, and the story is often forced down the throat rather than slowly poured. Not many of the characters are really likeable, only Alicia Keys's character, Ryan Reynolds character and his partner played by Ray Liotta make us show any real interest. Andy Garcia also plays a cop in this movie but because of the setting and the music I kept thinking he was playing his character in the Oceans movie, maybe that was just me. The second problem with the movie is that it doesn’t quite know what to be, some of its ideas are obviously larger than life and caricatures, but at the same time is also tries to be a straight up story too with the FBI angle, especially going into he last quarter of the movie.

So to sum up if you loved lock stock and snatch liked the high jinks and settings of Oceans 11 you might get a kick out of this, if you like cop dramas maybe also for you.

More Evil in residence

The upcoming Resident Evil trilogy closing movie keeps catching my eye, and this trailer certainly did, with a quick nod to Planet of the Apes, we get to see Milla Jovonovich jumping, kicking and as captured above generally being a badass zombie killer who is followed everywhere by flames.

The new trailer is best watched over at the Apple site where you can choose your quicktime quality, its far superior to the trailer on the official site so go take a look.

Link to the Resident Evil Extinction trailer at apple.com

Review - The Marine

The Marine, it’s a pretty simple title for a movie and it’s a pretty simple movie, Marine fights for his country does a rescue mission with no authority and gets honourably discharched from the military as a reward. The Marine then arrives back home where his wife decides they should take a road trip after fitting back into society isn’t proving easy for said marine. Bad move they get caught up in something they shouldn’t have, involving a gang of robbers.

The Movie stars John Cena as the Marine, Kelly Carlson as his foxy wife and the only recognizable face I knew which was Robert Patrick as the leader of the robbers, Rome. The gang of criminals led by Rome has knocked over a diamond store and had a stash of goodies. The basic plot and its execution reminded me of some early Schwarzenegger movies, it’s quite cheesy in points but somewhat entertaining with it. I wished at a few points though that there was more substance during the movie or at least better dialogue between the characters. As a movie it took itself a little too seriously and the comic relief wasn’t quite up to par for a movie that would have benefited from some nice one liners, or some funnier sidekicks.

In comparisons to some of the larger movies recently doing this kind of action it’s not quite up to par, the current alternatives are much more imaginative, better produced and with superior acting. One for the die hard action movie fans only.



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Review - Babel

Babel is a strange movie, it doesnt follow the typical hollywood movie style, it does have some shocking moments and it does seem very realistic. However it also walks the line of being shocking for the sake of being shocking and also taking itself to seriously at points. However the music and use of sound is excellent and it does manage to help define the various stories.

We have no one star in the film but the ones you will recognize are Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. the rest of the actors are unknowns to me but everyone is great in the movie i do mean that there are some good performances. With a mix of good performances and some tense and gripping scenes you are often glued to the screen very immersed in what is going on. This is possibly what didnt quite gel for me about the movie it was hard to jump from one story to another, when you had been immersed in one there was a period of readjustment and this broke the movie up for me, which is the reason im only giving it an average score.

Babel is a movie that could have quite easily slipped under the radar completely were it not for the award nominations its received, and its two well known stars. I have really struggled to decide whether or not i like this movie, and my conclusion is i think i do! Babel has made me think if only to wonder whether i enjoyed it or not, or trying to remember which parts i liked, it definately made me think though.



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