Tag Archives: Critic

The Grey (2012)

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the_grey_2012-2560x1600Roze-Rating: 4 / 5

Liam Neeson stars in this survival thriller, taking place in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness after his plane crashes leaving him and his colleagues stranded as Wolf prey. They are totally exposed in a barren land of snow and freezing temperatures, making them fight for their lives. It’s a film which explores hope, faith and fate, when in a situation where only your own will to live can save you.

One of the better survival thrillers around and definitely one of the most unique films this year. I’ve actually never seen a film which depicts such a disastrous situation as scarily as this. I mean what’s more scary than being in a plane crash? and then on top of that, you end up crashing in the middle of nowhere, where the temperatures are below zero, and on top of that you have to fend off uncharacteristically brutal wolves who just want to kill you. Even though some of the scenes are inevitable, you’re actually so immersed in the film that you second guess every seemingly predictable moment.

The isolated afflicted tone of the film is what gives the themes explored justice, and it really keeps your heart pumping for the characters involved. They succeed simply because of the dark greyish aesthetics and eerie music which is inhabited throughout the film. The filming is rugged and shaky matching the scenario the characters are in, it just wouldn’t have been effective if the camera shots were still and precise. All of this truly adds to the thrills and gets you sweating as it did for me.

Liam Neeson and co steal the show with some believably gritty performances, which doesn’t just aid the story but makes you genuinely want them to survive. The characters do this through their dialogue and their attitudes in the situations, they effectively promote the themes of hope, faith and fate. It’s their faith that keeps them going because they believe that it was their fate to survive the plane crash. Hope is all they have.

Once again Liam Neeson is truly amazing in this, really showing his true acting chops. The last few scenes are honestly the most powerful scenes I’ve seen in a film this year, pretty epic stuff.

I for one is shit scared of wolves now, I know a lot of it is exaggerated and fictionalized but still, if I was alone in the wilderness and saw a wolf, I think I would excrete from every hole in my body, PERIOD.

Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

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936full-safety-not-guaranteed-screenshotRoze-Rating: 4.5 / 5

Safety Not Guaranteed follows two interns and their superior on a work related journey to the seaside to investigate a newspaper add which states that a man is looking for a partner to travel back in time with. At first the three Seattle magazine employees are apprehensive about the man and expect the reality to match their cynical views, but as they get deeper into the man’s life they find themselves second guessing themselves.

This film is truly something special and out of all the films that I’ve seen this year, Safety Not Guaranteed is definitely the most genuine and real. There’s been quite a few films that share a similar tone as this but doesn’t quite make the mark and that’s purely because they lack heart. This film explores the strength of belief, youth and how your past can haunt you. There are numerous scenes which exude these themes simply from an awesome soundtrack and down to earth movie clips. Without the playlist the whole tone and indie feel of the film would be lost, and it’s honestly one of the best playlist I’ve ever heard for a film, it’s just perfect. It’s weird how much music can bring out emotion from a film scene, but it totally works.

The cast is awesome, it’s nice to see comedy series stars on the big screen. Mark Duplass and Jake M. Johnson completely surprised me with their performances, cementing their places as big time film stars. There’s also a pleasant quirky performance from Aubrey Plaza which will just make you smile uncontrollably. Definitely looking forward to any of their future films.

It’s definitely a feel good film, and it really tells you to cherish your youth and to cherish anything because one day they may disappear for no reason at all. I particularly liked the scene where Jeff tells Arnau to man up, get off his ass and start living because your only 21 once, it’s so true and the scenes that follow will just make you smile like you just discovered your first boner (if your a guy), Inspired film with genuine intentions and good laughs, perfect if your feeling down and need a pick me up.


The Expendables 2 (2012)

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2012-The-Expendables-2_1920x1200Roze-Rating: 4.5 / 5

The Expendables come back for a second go at a full on action flick. This time they have new members Billy (Liam Hemsworth) and Maggie (Yu Nan) who help take on money hungry savage Jean Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme) who has no conscience about the destruction he causes along the way to fortune. His actions prompt Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) and his men to track him, find him then kill him.

I really wasn’t a fan of the first one, I enjoyed the action but everything else was just pure… fail. The acting was terrible, dialogue cliched and the plot was just stupid. Thankfully Mr. Stallone has recognized a few of the problems and fixed them quite successfully, but of course he forgot a few.

The cast has some how gotten awesomer from the first film with introductions of Liam Hemsworth and Chuck Norris and more screen time from Bruce Willis and “The Terminator” Arnold Schwarzenegger. Action junkies will be pumped just by seeing all these action stars together, and that alone is satisfying, as it was for me. Although not all of them put in their best performances, and well there’s a reason that I’ve had a blind eye towards it. It’s unusual because you can really separate the real actors from the action stars. That being said, a lot of them did improve since Expendables 1, and Jean-Claude Van Damme makes a brutal villain, and he plays it to perfection; one of the only good performances.

The action is relentless as it should be and plays tribute to all of the past action classics. It’s loud, violent and unnecessary which is what makes it a lot of fun. It even improved in that aspect of the film. This is what I think was done a lot better than the first, it had clear intentions, which was to pay tribute to these action stars past films and parody them. This will become apparent when you see Arnold Schwarzenegger tell the crew “I’m back!” and when he replies to Bruce Willis with a “Oh yippee-kai-yay”. This film doesn’t takes itself seriously which is where the first film really faulted. This made me look past the below par acting and stale dialogue, because the film isn’t meant to be “excellent”, its meant to be mindless, gratuitous, blood stained fun. It finds the right balance between fun and seriousness.

The Expatriate (2012)

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expatriateRoze-Rating: 2 / 5

This film is set in Europe about an ex CIA operative who is looking to move on with his past life of violence and concentrate on being a good father. All that suddenly changes when Ben Logan (Aaron Eckhart) and his daughter Amy (Liana Liberato) narrowly miss a hit murder while they were at the hospital over night. Due to the following day’s strange events, they realise that something has gone terribly wrong, and they may be in the middle of a termination plan as an attempt to cover up a government conspiracy. This also proves to be a time where father and daughter get to know each other even more, but maybe not for the best.

This was clearly a hit and miss film. It overall lacked originality, as you got the sense that it was going to be a Jason Bourne type film. The start may have resembled the Bourne films, but the rest was certainly not. From watching the trailer, you get the sense that it’s going to be an action spy thriller, with some decent action scenes, but this film didn’t seem to offer anything vital, especially to the genre it boasts. Usually with films like this, you expect it to at least shine at something, but this film honestly doesn’t, in terms of the genre, there aren’t any memorable action scenes, characters or quotes.

The film lacked memorable action scenes, and when they did come around, they were short, lacked conviction and didn’t offer any thrills. The character Aaron Eckhart had to play was showcased as an extremely intelligent CIA operative trained to kill, despite this impressive range of skills, the film makers didn’t use any of it to their advantage in any scenes, which made the character seem a lot less impressive and ultimately unrelatable. People want to see a bad ass agent go nuts and partake in crazy secret agent stuff, so that they can go home and think “I wish I was him”, but this character left so little to desire. There was also another problem I had with the film, the hit-men featured to “terminate” their objective were incredibly sloppy and lacked finesse, which are characteristics you wouldn’t expect from a man in that career. This just made the film a lot less believable, because as a professional killer, it would be pretty poor to be spraying bullets everywhere and hitting everything BUT the target intended, so I couldn’t take that aspect seriously.

When it comes down to the plot, there were too many links to Aaron Eckharts character to fully understand who he was involved with, which made it seem like it was made complicated for the sake of it without making it seem intelligent and concise. This made it very confusing at points, and in the end, it really wasn’t worth the brain power and confusion just for something quite petty.

The one bright spark of this film is the female role of Liana Liberato, playing Amy Logan, who was incredibly solid and did her role well. It was nothing more than just solid because the script didn’t leave her much to play with, but this film may give her the opportunity to test that acting skill in the future.

Ultimately for a film of this genre, there should have been more action, a lot more intelligence in terms of the plot and its characters and just a proper emotional connection between audience and character. Positive is that the two main characters pulled out a couple of good performances, but even they couldn’t save such a script.

Total Recall (2012)

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colin-farrell-total-recallRoze-Rating: 3.5 / 5

This film is a remake of the same titled 1990 version starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, which achieved raving reviews. I haven’t seen the original version but from research the remake covers most of the events which take place in the original, except for a significant mars scene. The remake also focuses more on the political side of the story. It takes place at the end of the 21st century after a nuclear war had broken out affecting almost the whole earth, leaving only “The United Federation of Britain (UFB)” and “The Colony”. This nuclear outbreak prompted the governments to build a gravitational elevator which transports people from one side of the earth to the other, so that workers can be used within the UFB. One worker Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell), is extremely unhappy with his life, despite having a loving wife, he still seeks a way to escape his lifestyle and live his dreams, motivating himself even more to visit “Rekall”; a solution for his problem. The procedure goes terribly wrong and Quaid finds himself in a world that he may regret wishing for.

This film suffers from being a remake, which explains a lot of the negativity surrounding it. If its predecessor never existed then this would be a pretty solid but regular blockbuster film, which is why I have rated it “3.5 / 5″, which could rightly be a lot different had I watched the original. That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed a few aspects of the film, which I can safely assume improved upon the original, such as the special effects, action and filming.

The special effects helped create a whole new world which was quite frankly awesome to look at, it truly looked like a post apocalyptic world, with seemingly floating buildings and magnetic cars moving with no wheels. The fact that they could create the look of this fictional setting with a genuine slum tone and a coherent style was magic to my eyes. This aspect of the film, ultimately sets up the rest of the film in terms of action sequences and atmosphere.

The action was easily the best part of this film, making it a lot of fun to watch since it wasn’t your typical gun fight, fist fight or human fight. The war zones were infested with robot killers and people dressed in robot looking gear which you could instantly tell was going to be unique compared to your average blockbuster. The best scene will have to be the elevator scene, giving it a real comic sensation, where your getting main characters switching from elevator to elevator trying not to get crushed. The main cast were exceptional with their action sequences, especially Kate Beckinsale, who has proved time and time again that she can take on gritty action chick characters from her roles in “Underworld”.

Aiding the relentless action was the sharp camera work and it’s movement, which gave it a futuristic look. This was appropriate since the contraption Quain used seemed very video game like, and that’s exactly how the film felt. For instance the way the camera would quickly sway from one kill to the other and the zero gravity action scenes. It made the sequences a lot more exciting and engaging to watch.

The plot is very complex and it leaves a lot of room for an elaborate psychological game to inhabit the film and it’s characters as well as the audience. The reason for this is because I found that I was constantly second-guessing myself after a certain event would take place, and I went from one opinion to another then back again. If done correctly this would have been a pretty great film, but they were extremely safe with it. The dialogue was too literal, and you found yourself listening to a character practically explaining every single significant occurrence which affected the storyline. This made it a lot easier to understand, but it wasn’t subtle or mysterious and took away a lot of the fun that could have come with it. It also felt unrealistic as characters would spend quite awhile just explaining. A clear example of this would be at the start with Kate Beckinsale’s character, when she confronts Quiad, which didn’t make sense anyway.

A lot of potential was lost with that one little lost opportunity, but other than that better than average blockbuster Sci-Fi flick, with top quality action. Popcorn stuff.