This movie was directed by Brett Ratner after Bryan Singer, who directed the first two movies, left the franchise and moved on to the Superman movie franchise.
I wasn’t expecting much from the movie, especially that the feedback I got from some people I know who saw the movie before me wasn’t that positive, but well it turned out a lot better than I thought, and I ended up really enjoying it.
In fact I think this is the X-Men movie I enjoyed most of the series, with all due respect and admiration for Bryan Singer’s work.
This installment is supposed to be the last one in the series, but the ending leaves the options open for taking it further.
The story of the movie is that a “cure” is found for mutations, and mutants are left with one of two choices: retain their uniqueness, though it isolates and alienates them, or give up their powers and become human.
Of course Charles Xavier’s camp is always on the side of tolerance and all, while Magneto’s camp want to start a war against the government; In the end, it turns into a war beween the two camps in what is portrayed as the mother of all wars.
This movie is certainly the darkest of the series, the one with the greatest special effects, some of the coolest action sequences and the most mutants with a range of cool and different powers.
I personally recommend this movie to all fans of comic book based action hero movies, it’s a light fun movie that I’m sure you’ll enjoy.
After much anticipation, I got to watch “The Sentinel” last night, featuring Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland, Kim Basinger and Eva Langoria.
I had some high expectations for this movie after the reviews that I read and all, but even though this is a really good movie, it was just a bit below my expectations.
The movie is basically a thriller about a plot to assassinate the president, with an insider from the secret service being part of the plan.
The pace of the movie was quite fast and the plot an exciting one, but still the bad guy was easily predictable, and the ending kept you feeling that something was missing.
I personally think they could have added to the suspense and made it a much better movie very easily.
Kiefer Sutherland did a great job as a secret service agent, but then again he has all the experience from 24 to thank for that; Michael Douglas gives one of his best performances lately; Eva Langoria does quite ok in her role as a rookie secret service agent; and finally I thought that Kim Basinger gave a more or less average performance.
All in all, this is a really good and enjoyable movie, but still what bugs me is that it could have been better with some minor touches. Anyway, I do recommend checking it out.
One of the movies I watched this weekend was Transamerica starring Felicity Huffman.
The movie is about Bree/Stanley, a pre-operative male-to-female transexual awaiting gender-reassignment surgery who learns she has fathered a son named Toby, who is in jail. When her therapist strongarms Bree into facing her past, before getting to go through with the operation, she bails Toby out of jail and they end up on a road trip across the country.
I don’t know why I wasn’t expecting much from this movie, maybe it’s because I didn’t know what to expect, but well, it turned out to be quite a good movie.
It’s more or less a typical movie about a parent and child getting to know each other and themselves better through a road trip, with the additional quirk of the parent being a transexual.
Felicity Huffman does a really good job in this movie, her acting was brilliant, and I liked how well she conveyed the set of complicated feelings that her character is going through.
I do recommend this movie if you’re in the mood for something of this genre.
My score for it would be: 6/10.
Last night, I got to watch Suspect Zero, a crime thriller, featuring Ben Kingsley, Aaron Eckhart and Carrie-Anne Moss.
The movie is about a mysterious serial killer, who belonged to a secret FBI program before he dropped out and started hunting down other serial killers, and one FBI agent who suspects there may be more to the vigilante than they imagine.
The movie reminded me of Seven in its style and ideas, even though I think Seven remains a slightly better movie than this one.
The name of the movie “Suspect Zero” is a reference to this theory that the main character in the movie has that a serial killer could go ahead and commit crimes all over the country without being identified or captured if he made sure not to follow a certain pattern in his murders.
This is something I too believe in, not out of experience of course, but it’s obvious that what gets a serial killer caught is the unique pattern he follows in his crimes which helps detectives read his movements and eventually get him.
The movie did feel like it had some loose ends and that it was being stretched a bit too thin, but overall it’s a good movie, which I do recommend to fans of this genre.
Last night, I rented and watched “Lucky Number Slevin” featuring an all-star cast with Bruce Willis, Josh Hartnett, Ben Kingsley, Morgan Freeman and Lucy Liu.
I’m going to quote IMDB’s plot outline for this one because it says it as it should be said without ruining the movie: A case of mistaken identity lands Slevin (Josh Hartnett) into the middle of a war being plotted by two of the city’s most rival crime bosses: The Rabbi (Ben Kingsley) and The Boss (Morgan Freeman). Slevin is under constant surveillance by relentless Detective Brikowski (Stanley Tucci) as well as the infamous assassin Goodkat (Bruce Willis) and finds himself having to hatch his own ingenious plot to get them before they get him.
Of course there’s a twist that I don’t want to ruin for you, but that I kind of started expecting from the beginning of the movie.
The movie is quite reminiscant of a Tarantino movie, although this one’s script is a bit lighter or looser.
Still this is a really good movie, pretty enjoyable, and I do recommend watching it.
The Yacoubian Building, a movie based on Alaa Al-Aswani’s bestselling novel, is to be reviewed by the Egyptian parliament after 112 MPs demanded censorship of the homosexual scenes in the movie.
They have criticised the movie saying it defames Egypt by portraying homosexuality, terrorism and corruption.
MP Mustafa Bakri, who led a campaign against the film, said it was “spreading obscenity and debauchery”. He added: “As a citizen I felt hurt when I watched it.
This is complete nonsense and it makes me sick: all the novel and movie do is reflect, through the interlinked lives of the residents of a Cairo building, the true facts of the Egyptian, and Arab society with it’s good and bad; homosexuality exists, so does extremism, and no need to even mention the wide spread corruption.
So how is the movie defaming Egypt just by telling the truth?
Or do we only want to hear the good things about ourselves and hide the bad?
I think it’s about time our Arab societies stop turning their backs to the important issues and problems that lurk in them, acting as if they don’t exist, and try to face them head on, finding real and lasting solutions.
I finally got to watch “V for Vendetta” this weekend, and I have to say I just loved it.
I heard the following quote in the trailer that I saw a few months ago, and ever since then I’ve been dying to see the movie.
“People shouldn’t be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.”
The movie is by the Wachowski brothers, the duo behind the Matrix, was directed by James McTeigue and features Hugo Weaving (as V, doing a great job “talking”, reminding us of Agent Smith) and Natalie Portman.
The movie is based on the popular graphic novel by Alan Moore, “V For Vendetta“, but it seems he didn’t really like it.
The story takes place in a dark future that is very reminiscant of George Orwell’s “1984”; after years of various wars, England is under “big brother” Chancellor Adam Sutler, whose party uses force and fear to run the nation.
Under this rule: people are living in constant fear; minorities and political dissenters are rounded up and removed; artistic and unacceptable religious works were confiscated. Cameras and microphones are littered throughout the land, and the people are perpetually sedated through the governmentally controlled media.
Taking inspiration from Guy Fawkes, the 17th century co-conspirator of a failed attempt to blow up Parliament on November 5, 1605, V dons a Fawkes mask and costume and sets off to wake the masses by destroying the symbols of their oppressors, literally and figuratively.
The reviews I read about this movie were mixed, and it amazes me why.
Some people say it encourages terrorism, although I don’t think it does.
The idea of the movie is simply that radical and drastic events often need to occur in order to shake people out of their state of indifference in order to bring about real change.
Of course use of force is never a good thing that anyone should promote, but sometimes and in certain conditions it remains as the only option.
Personally, I enjoyed the movie, both story-wise and artistically, and I truly recommend it to everyone.
Last night, I watched the movie adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, directed by Michael Radford, featuring Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons and Joseph Fiennes.
I read “The Merchant Of Venice” a long time ago, back when I was in school, I think, and I remember really liking it.
And as the guy I rent movies from is a big fan of Jeremy Irons and Al Pacino, he’s been pushing me to see this movie adaptation of it ever since he knew me. I heard the movie didn’t do that well, but eventually I gave in and rented it.
Now, I can see why it didn’t do that well; it’s not your usual commercial, popcorn movie.
The movie is a serious work of cinema that does its best to stick to the spirit of the play, recreating a decadent renaissance Venice with its fitting set of characters and places, not to mention the strict use of Shakespearean language.
I was impressed the most by Al Pacino’s performance in the role of Shylock, he did a great job, and really brought the character to life. You understand and feel sorry for him yet you hate him at the same time, and Al Pacino carries it perfectly.
I’m usually not really into movie adaptations of old plays or literary pieces, as they mostly turn out a bit boring, but this one was worth watching, because it was pretty well done and again because of Al Pacino’s performance.
Just like I predicted and hoped for in my review of the book “Angels & Demons” by Dan Brown, author of “The Da Vinci Code”, the book is going to be made into a movie too, following the success of “The Da Vinci Code” movie in cinemas.
The Da Vinci Code movie took $224m around the world in its first weekend, despite poor reviews and controversy over its religious subject.
So now, Columbia Pictures, the studio behind the film, has ordered an adaptation of Angels and Demons.
Akiva Goldsman has been drafted in to write the script, having penned the screenplay for The Da Vinci Code. And a spokesman for Columbia said “The Da Vinci Code” director Ron Howard and Tom Hanks would be given first option to work on Angels and Demons.
I still haven’t seen “The Da Vinci Code” movie, and now, I have yet another movie, “Angels & demons”, to look forward to seeing.
Last night, I finally got to watch the third installment of X-Men movies; X-Men: The Last Stand (X3).
