Movie Reviews By Movie Reviews Pro

The Losers

Rating:

Movie: The Losers (2010)

Studio : Warner Bros.

Info : Click Here

Runtime : 98 min

Website : the-losers.com

Trailer :
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xc2luf

Review:

Based on a comic of the same name, this film is an old-fashioned action movie with tough guys, guns, chicks, and explosions. The plot has the main characters, The Losers, traveling from place to place, working together, carrying out various missions, exchanging witty banter, while trying to find and destroy the ever-so-elusive Max, a ruthless boss who is very well-protected.

Sylvain White (Stomp the Yard) directs this action flick with lots of confidence, zooms, action still shots, and various editing tricks, which, thankfully, weren’t too distracting. The typical action movie plot had occasional fun twists.

The characters and their relationship dynamics truly make this film shine. They have great chemistry. Jeffery Dean Morgan (who played The Comedian in The Watchmen) is charismatic as the decisive, yet flawed leader of the group. Zoe Saldana brings a lot of feminine charm and spunk as Aisha. The banter between the characters brings a lot of humor and life to much of the film.

Jason Patric is particularly great to watch on screen as the bad guy, Max, an evil genius with the best lines, just short from being completely insane. He is often surrounded by women. He kills and gets people killed for small things. Of course, he may not be realistic, but is a great cinematic bad guy.

There are occasional missteps here and there. A fight scene between Clay and Aisha appear to make little sense in regards to plot (but hey, it looks cool). Also, while the stunt work and real-life action scenes look good, whenever there is CG, it looks out of place, and in some cases, took me out of the film. Now, given its comic book origins, I have forgiven a lot worse in other films that were also made from comics.

This film reminded me a bit of the 2003’s Italian Job, in terms of flavor. Overall, this film, padded with humor, action, and fun characters, was made purely to entertain, and the filmmakers have certainly accomplished that mission.

-“D-Art” Kang

Action, Adventure, Drama, In Theaters, Mystery, Thriller Action, Adventure, Drama, losers, Mystery, Thriller

Kick-Ass

Rating:

Movie: Kick-Ass (2010)

Studio : MARV Films

Info : Click Here

Runtime : 117 min

Website : kickass-themovie.com

Trailer :
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xbjehk

Review:

I tend to make it a rule to avoid remarking on films that I am familiar with on other formats since transitions are always difficult to appreciate in both ways. The more exacting the transition can be, the more you alienate fresh audiences to the experience. Likewise, a film that tries a different approach from that format lowers the expectations of the diehard fans. Even the most praiseworthy attempts to new formats suffer from clipping of the original material to make a better—sometimes even superior–story.

While I am familiar with Millar & Romita’s Kick-Ass as a comic, my main problem is one centered on the concept itself: it fails to offer a convincing reality. Granted, this sounds preposterous since this is a superhero movie, but this was marketed from the getgo as an attempt to make a “superhero” that seemed realistic, with his own myspace persona and everything. By removing that grounded perspective, you lose the one item that perhaps made this film different from most other wide-released superhero movies out there aside from the repeated complaints about a 13 year old ninja and her Adam West-like gunman daddy.

To be fair, the changes are justifiable. Certain elements in the comic wouldn’t make for a sellable movie, and characters are better fleshed out as a result. But the problem is that it brings nothing new as a result. Even the acting comes off as relatively underwhelming outside of the ridiculously outlandish interaction between Nicholas Cage and Chloe Moretz.

It won’t impress fans too much, and for audiences unfamiliar to the comic, it’s nothing new. All the same, considering how the “real superhero” concept has been fairly well-tread with 2006 bringing us Special, 2007 offering us Kabluey, and even 2010 heading out with the hard-to-disappoint Woody Harrelson in Defendor, this is an issue best left on the comic rack. If you’re looking for Superbad meets Spiderman, then give this film a go, but considering what other action fare we can anticipate in the next few months, Kick-Ass may graze your cheeks just long enough until something better comes along.

-Donald Lee

Action, Comedy, In Theaters

Greenberg

Rating:

Movie: The Secret of Kells (2009)

Studio : Les Armateurs Vivi Film Cartoon Saloon

Info : Click Here

Runtime : 75 min

Website : thesecretofkells.com

Trailer :
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcupae

Review:

Set in the Dark Ages of Ireland, young Brendan lives in the great walled community of Kells. He has never gone beyond those walls, for fear of Viking raiders who have been pillaging villages and monastaries as of late. When the sole survivor of the island abbey of Iona comes bearing a book of legends so beautiful in pages that it scares sinners away, Brendan finds an artistic side to him that demands to go beyond the limitations placed on him to finish the incomplete book.

The animation itself is a deceptively simple style. The characters are not so much created out of simplicity as it is to make them flow with the pace of the story. As you go further in, the art style begins to show more of its medieval roots, often framing scenes or playing as natural backgrounds seamlessly with the action. It is not unlikely to think of this movie flowing the same way your eyes do watching the patterns of a tapestry or, in this case, the illuminated script of what would become one of Ireland’s greatest treasures.

If there is anything that made me troubled at this film, it’s the unnecessary politically correct direction taken. Brendan’s other fellow brothers are a multitude of ethnicities. The ethnicity shows no real purpose for this whitewashing other than legal purposes and an accessory accent. Thankfully, these issues also don’t seem to detract too much either from the point of the tale.

Although this film is only 75 minutes, it doesn’t feel too short. It actually paces well and feels like it’s much longer at points. This is not a bad thing, as the film completes itself gracefully from start to finish without a moment of awkwardness or padding in-between. If anything, it’s a nice change of pace from the normal fare expected in terms of animation. I would not only recommend seeing this in theater, but will look forward to seeing it again shortly.

-Donald Lee

Adventure, Animation, In Theaters

Greenberg

Rating:

Movie: Greenberg (2010)

Studio : Scott Rudin Productions

Info : Click Here

Runtime : 107 min

Website : here

Trailer :
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcupdf

Review:

Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller) is the brother of Phillip Greenberg. The difference between them is that Phillip is a successful owner of a hotel chain with a healthy family with three kids and a dog in a large home in California. Roger Greenberg is a “do nothing” who lived in New York City as a carpenter with a mental breakdown who lives like an old man wishing it was twenty years ago.

Greenberg is a film about acknowledgement. Greenberg refuses to acknowledge people but wants to be acknowledged, particularly by those who had something to do with his past in California. As he attempts to find some way to bring back the things he loved in his high school days, he finds himself in a frustrating relationship with his brother’s personal assistant, Florence (Greta Gerwig), who is almost twenty years younger than him and strangely resonates with his eccentric attitude. She is one of the only people who acknowledges and admires him, and he hates her for it as he tries to get people in his past to acknowledge him instead.

The only member of his past who is willing to be a part of his life again is Ivan (Rhys Ifans), an old band member with a son and an ex-wife that Roger refuses to acknowledge. Roger insists that Ivan leave the things that has happened to him while Roger was in New York while plotting with him on how to get back the ex-girlfriend that left him during high school so long ago.

It was difficult formulating what to say about this film. It’s awkward and clumsy at times, much like Roger. We don’t really understand him, but slowly start to see the pieces of his past that made him this way. Like Florence, we are strangely drawn to his eccentricities, and only when we see him interact and care for these new figures in life do we start to really acknowledge him.

This is definitely a film for the Wes Anderson crowd. Initially, I was even tempted to call this film another Rushmore (and, no, not in a good way). But thankfully, unlike most Wes Anderson films I’ve seen, director Noah Baumbach is generous with his clues and willing to give you some slack in order to “get it”. As you go further into the film and study the pieces, you start to acknowledge that this film really is more than you originally may have believed.

-Donald Lee

Comedy, Drama, In Theaters acknowledgement, Ben Stiller, greenberg, greta gerwig, review