‘Cowboys & Aliens’ Movie Review

‘Cowboys & Aliens’ Movie Review: Some films try too hard to be too much; this is one of those films. Sometimes two different genres are just not meant to mix, science fiction and Weston. The first half an hour of this film is the best bit, when a man (Daniel Craig) wakes up in the middle of the desert with only a picture of a woman, a strange iron shackle on his wrist and the clothes on his back, he also has no memory of anything that came before in his life, he then gets in a to a fight with a few men and makes his way to the small mining town, Absolution. From there it has a few of the old Weston clichés which are still fun to watch but soon enough it is found out Jake Lonergan who has committed murder and robbery. Just as he is about to be whipped away to jail, aliens come and blow up the town. From here on out the characters you have been introduced to will not develop in any way.

      There I have said it, my main annoyance with the film; the characters do not interest me at all. The over used story of the man who has forgotten everything and has to work to get it back, the mysterious girl (Ella Swenson played by Olivia Wilde) who seems to know more than anyone else and the grumpy leader who will not trust anyone (Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde played by Harrison Ford). The acting is great but the actors are not given anything emotional to do with their roles. But the story of the aliens is not explained at all either. Sometimes they will be able to be stabbed, other times they cannot, sometimes they can be killed with a gun, and other times they cannot. The ending did not make any sense at all and Swenson was ever explained! Don’t get me wrong I love a good ambiguous ending (I adore Inception) but this really took it too far.

      The most amazing thing about the film though was the awesome CGI on the aliens; they looked very realistic and scary. The Weston setting was entertaining, with authentic costumes, props and shocking scenery. There were a few jump scares but other than that I never felt any emotion during the film due mainly to poor scripting. I was never rooting for the characters or laughing at the cowboy banter. 4 out of 10.

‘Man on a Ledge’ Movie Review

‘Man on a Ledge’ Movie Review: There are some films which you can dislike the whole way though but still somehow drawn into the story, Man on a Ledge is definitely one of these rare creatures. It is the story of a ex convict/ex cop Nick Cassady (Sam Worthington) books in at the Roosevelt Hotel climbs out of the window ready to commit suicide, by he is just the distraction from the heist that is going on in the building opposite, this heist is to reclaim Cassady’s innocence by proving he did not steal a diamond. This seems such a simple plot that it would be very hard to get wrong, right? But somehow this feat is achieved by make Cassady’s role in as the distracter worthless, at no point did he need to be in the film at all, the brother (Joey, played by Jamie Bell) and his girlfriend (Angie played by Genesis Rodriguez) would have go the diamond without him... Also I swear heist films are meant to be realistic as possible, on their way to the safe they only encounter one security camera, and there is no CCTV in the next two corridors and not even in the safe room. At one point they find out there is a heat sensor up ahead that was not originally accounted for  but later on in the film Cassady tells them to set it off with hot pads...

     The acting was mime like, stereotypical and exaggerated in most cases except from Worthington who seemed out of place as the only actor who really acted! I felt the over sexualisation of Angie wore thin very quickly when it started to slow down the plot and would have hindered the heist.

      But somehow, though all this I was dragged into the story! I think is was by the interesting characters of Cassady, the negotiator Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks) and a friend of Cassady's Mike Ackerman (Anthony Mackie) who even though they were stereotypes, they still had funny, complex and interesting personalities. I found myself on the edge of my seat and nearly cheering at times! The Cinematography by Paul Cameron was excellently done and made you truly worried for Cassady and made me feel claustrophobic. I was really frustrated though out this film but by the end I had my fingers crossed for our heroes. 5.5 out of 10.

‘J. Edgar’ Movie Review:

‘J. Edgar’ Movie Review: Some films refrain from shocking because of the audience it is aimed at, J. Edgar is rated a 15 but it still pulls far too many punches. This film is a ponderous biopic of the legendary J Edgar Hoover, who was in charge of the FBI from 1935 until his death in 1972. Leonardo DiCaprio plays the title role as the power loving and overzealous younger Hoover and the frowning, barking and cantankerous elderly Hoover who is stuck behind his desk, kept alive by drugs. And he is magnificent; it is as if the film is a documentary rather than acting. DiCaprio made me feel as if I was in the room with but the real stand out performance was from Armie Hammer who played Clyde Tolson, Hoover’s friend and close work partner. As a young man the rage and confusion is perfectly portrayed in this complex person. But when he played the older Tolson, that’s when he really blew me away, the decrepitness and shaking age was so real and true that by the end he had me in tears.  

      The thing that got me interested in this film was the American history aspect, but by the end of the film everything the trailers advertised turned out to be lies we never see any of Hoover’s great achievements go on to impact on American life. Another thing that attracted me to this film was the impact of Hoover’s supposed gay sexuality on his life. Again this was betrayed; it neither pronounce Hoover gay nor does it say he was trapped in the closet or even portray that he even was homosexual at all. Even in the scenes where it is slightly addressed Clint Eastwood (director) refuses to tell us if Hoover is homosexual, asexual, confused, with sentimental, brotherly feelings towards Tolson. There is a slight sepia tint over the whole film which I felt gave the movie an authentic noir feel coupled with the music by Ludovico Einaudi but it made it hard to exactly make out the expression in the eyes of the actors and I believe that is more important.

      There is a weird, muffled neutrality to all this, a lot of pulled punches and fudged issues, but the film is still a captivating and sad biopic with tremendous acting, six out of ten stars.

‘The Dark Knight Rises’ Movie Review:

‘The Dark Knight Rises’ Movie Review: I have all ways been a huge fan of Batman, he is a super hero without a super power, he is a man who is slowly but surely going insane but still protecting the civilians who will never know who he is and no one will ever thank him for his heroic actions. But now on with the review, eight year have passed since the Batman (Christian Bale) had supposedly killed Harvey Dent (AKA Two Face) and disappeared, Bruce Wayne is now a recluse who hides away in Wayne Manor. Then after a series of unfortunate events the Batman is forced to come out of hiding to fight off the masked terrorist Bane (Tom Hardy) and to investigate the illusive cat burglar Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway). That’s only the very basic premise of the story, because this film plot will have a lot of spoilers if I went into any more detail!

      It had cost £250 million to make, which is a lot of money, and you can really understand this, (based on the themes on a whole of the trilogy, such as fear, chaos and pain) ‘Batman Begins’ was a horror film, ‘The Dark Knight’ was a crime film and ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ is a war film. The director (Christopher Nolan) really tried to keep the synthesised visual effects on the down low, such as the Bat – Batman’s flying vehicle – was attached be ropes, hung from a helicopter and flown over the city! The huge battle scenes were simple as that, huge! The outstanding enormity of the film is incredible, from the length, 3 hours; the time difference in the film, nearly a year; and the frighteningly ambitious action sequences, which was really helped by the awesome cinematography by Wally Pfister and truly smashing directing by Christopher Nolan!

      The acting in the movie was astonishingly good, Christian Bale really dragged me into the film this is the best acting I have ever seen him do, and Michael Caine (Alfred Pennyworth) nearly had me in tears by the end! Tom Hardy was very talented at putting across the rage and pure hated of Bane just via his eyes as half his face is coved by a mask, Anne Hathaway nearly stole the show with her realistic struggled and choices. I have to give a mention to Joseph Gordon-Levitt who played Det. John Blake who starts off as a simple cop who character when though an amazing change by the end of the film, Marion Cotillard is also a magnificent actress who’s twist had me shocked, I evened whispered ‘Oh my god...’ under my breath, that definitely one for the comic book fans!

      But now to the reason that I’m not giving this movie ten out of ten like ‘The Dark Knight’, the story is very captivating up until the half way mark, where in there is approximately twenty minutes of Bruce Wayne’s story that becomes very predictable and cliché, but after that slightly annoying story is over then it is back to the dark and interesting story. There is also another reason that this film was not the perfection it was so close to being but relieving it would be completely spoiling the ending but all I will say is this: The real last twist at the end was disappointing as it cottoned out at the final second from being the hugely fantastic film is was so close to being. But the best part of the film was, surprising, the sound design by Richard King and music by Hans Zimmer it had me on the edge of my seat!

      So in conclusion Christopher Nolan has given us an emotional and beautiful superhero film. It is dark and fitting, there were some amazing scenes and so fascinating lines that really made me think. I would give it a 9 out of 10.