Taken - The Downside To Human Trafficking

 

Daddy's little girl makes a few false moves in Europe - ending up in the biggest ordeal of her life. Liam Neeson, former military spy of the US government plays the ultra-protective daddy, with good intentions in Taken. Neeson's character sets out to find whoever took his daughter, utilizing his life experience as a spy to locate her and her captors. 

I may be very biased to this film as I think of it as the Euro version of Man On Fire, starring Denzel Washington and Dakota Fanning. If anything, Taken was the poor man's version of Man On Fire. Alot of this comes down to whether you love or hate Tony Scott's fast paced style directing. I for one love Scott's films as he engages the audience with heavy impact action scenes - well - maybe all of his scenes. Taken seemed too passive and Bourne Supremacy-esque, something I didn't think fit well with this film. The best advice I can offer is to watch both Taken and Man On Fire in whichever order you prefer, and decide for yourself. I'll be nudging you into the direction of Denzel.

The Soloist - Homeless Folks Just Seem Crazy

Every time you see a homeless person on the street acting strangely, you might have second thoughts as to how that person reached that destination. The Soloist is an introspective film that delves into the life and times of Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx), a once promising student of the Julliard School of Music. Until meeting LA Times writer Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.), Ayers was nothing more than your seemingly odd homeless man ranting off in strange fashions. 

Ayers was what you would call a prodigy in the realm of music. His ability to channel his energy into playing musical instruments like the cello is unlike anything one would ever see. Ayers's musical talent was offset by his slow development in schizophrenia as his mind would unfold in his first year at Julliard. One fateful day arose when Lopez meets Ayers in the street as he performs his musical talents. At first, Lopez wants nothing more than to find a hot new story of the paper, but many of his readers begin to help bring awareness to the fact that being homeless does not equate to not being a human being. Ayers comes off as socially distanced but he becomes coherent as patience is the key to understanding how he thinks. Foxx and Downey Jr. make a complimenting combo of on-screen talent with their range of showing the depth of each character.

The most interesting element of the movie was in the Extras features where you learn about the making of the film. The realism in the world of the homeless is surreal as many extras were true homeless persons. Their ability to convey themselves as normal folks is as simple as their discussing of interests and mental psyche. The elements of The Soloist was somewhat similar to Reign Over Me (Adam Sandler, Don Cheadle) though in a different  frame of mental breakdowns. I recommend this film to anyone looking to learn about the little explored realm of homelessness.

I Love You, Man - The Story Of Man-Dating

There's always that one guy you know that has spent his whole life in relationships - but manages to have no close guy friends. If this sounds like someone you know, I Love You, Man is probably the closest thing to a documentary for guys like that.

I Love You, Man stars Paul Rudd and Jason Segel, regulars among anything made by Judd Apatow (Knocked Up, 40-Year Old Virgin). Rudd's character, Peter, is about to get married but realizes that he doesn't have a single male friend that he could have as a best man. In times of need, he considers man-dating, the almighty ritual of making new male friends. In Peter's hilarious attempts to reach out and make a new friend or two, he comes across Segel's character, Sydney.

This flick does a great job of showing the little known world of man-dating as most guys would know, trying to meet new male friends is pretty hard especially when there's effort involved. Unlike dating, making friends isn't exactly something many people set out on a mission for. The great supporting cast of familiar faces is a good enough reason to check out this off-beat comedy.

Blindness - When Things Go All White

I'm finally back with something new to review; my procrastination never seems to wane. Everybody loves a good "what if" film and Blindness goes to a new level previously untouched. What would happen if everyone in the world were to go blind in a sea of white? This is exactly what happens as Julianne Moore stars in this film about the world coping with a blindness epidemic.

The origin, explanation and cause of the widespread blindness is never explained because the film deals more with the sociological impacts of blindness. As more and more people are afflicted with being blind, they are slowly moved to a concentrated area in hopes of isolating the problem. This is all a waste of time as the entire world is affected with the only known person who can still see, Julianne Moore's character as the Doctor's Wife, inside the concentration camp. As more people are placed into the camp, we learn how civility ceases to exist and mob rule takes over.

The split between differing mentalities forms between the civil and those that are willing to exploit what they can. The exploiters are partially headed by a man born with blindness who seems to do just fine in the circumstances. When the uncivil decide to seize the food that comes into the camp, they make their demands, first valuable possessions, then the lust for women. This is probably the most disturbing part of the film as we see just how unforgiving some can be despite their disabilities.

Blindness is effective in showing how much we take for granted, especially for those of us who have vision. Compassion is absent in those who have lived without vision and we see just how far some are willing to go to take advantage. I recommend watching Blindness as an eye-opening experience but its probably not worth watching more than one time.

Punisher War Zone - Boring Gorefest

If you're looking for a decent action flick, Punisher War Zone is not a good choice. This is one of those cases where Marvel Comics should have left the previous version alone and move onto something different.

Replacing Thomas Jane (has a new show on HBO called Hung; looks very promising so far!) with Ray Stevenson was a terrible idea. Stevenson has zero likeability in this flick and he'll never flash believable emotions of a man who lost his family to the mob. If you have a weak stomach and a need for a good writing, this is not the movie to look to. The goryness of this film is not so much gross as it is unnecessary. Marvel is branding this under the more mature geared name Marvel Knights and it's getting off to a good start. Blade is far superior when it comes to films geared towards adult audiences.

I always thought that Marvel would do well with rated R type movies but its just not the case. The X-Men, Spider-man, and soon to be Iron Man series has done quite well for PG13 movies. Is it me or does Ray Stevenson resembles Sean Bean? You know, the guy from the 1st Lord of the Rings.

Incredible Hulk - Sans The Comic Book Frames

Eric Bana and Jennifer Connelly got replaced by Edward Norton and Liv Tyler. Not sure if casting made a huge difference but the script definitely took a more serious tone. I guess I was one of the few that liked the Eric Bana version of the Hulk. The whole take on making it seem like watching a comic book was kind of neat. Nevertheless, Marvel decided to reboot the Hulk into this one.

The Incredible Hulk sort of branches off from the previous with Bruce Banner (Norton) on the run in South America trying to control his anger, preventing an unleashing of his Hulk-powers. Banner tries desperately to find a cure, forcing him to return to the US. On his way to find a cure, Banner bumps into his beloved Betty Ross (Tyler) while her dad, General Ross (William Hurt) is hunting him down. Hulk's nemesis this time around is the Abomination (Tim Roth).

The acting in this version was definitely the high point to consider over the previous version. Norton isn't the prototypical choice for blockbuster movies but he does an admirable job commiserating with his dilemma and the on-screen chemistry with Tyler. The Incredible Hulk isn't a great flick but it'll serve the purpose of entertaining you with a decent story and fight scenes. At least it doesn't make you feel like you wasted your time like X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Knowing - For A Nic Cage Movie...Not Terrible At All

Seems to be a crapshoot when watching something that stars Nicolas Cage. The good, the bad, the ugly. Knowing was surprisingly good as I had very low expectations of this movie when the trailers first came out.

Knowing is part of a slew of apocalyptic movies that every warm-blooded human enjoys given their curiosity to wanting to know how it'll all end. The premise of Knowing is about a young girl in the 1950s writes down a sequence of numbers that spells out each and every major disaster that is to come. Nicolas Cage's (John) son (Caleb) receives this sheet of numbers as it was part of a time capsule that was buried at his grade school.

The movie suspense is centered on John's journey into finding out that the page indeed tells three main factors to each disaster: the exact date, number of people that die, and the coordinates of the event. John experiences firsthand 2 of the disasters with the last event being the end of existence. The suspense was well written as each clue engages you into the next until the end result is well...the end!

There may be some controversy surrounding this film as there is an indication that the "whisper" people are not so much messengers ( guardian angels) of God as they are aliens. What I kind of took from it was that from our point of view, what we believed to be a God was really aliens. Maybe I choose to believe this from the perspective of an atheist and this makes more logical sense. Anyhoo, Knowing blends the suspense elements of Signs with a bit of the Day The Earth Stood Still twist.

Push - Too Cool For Anyone

Just released on DVD July 7th, Push was a flick highly recommended by a coworker. Push is one of those films that tries hard to feature a concept of Hong Kong actioned themes with visually appealing actors (Chris Evans, Camilla Belle). The plot of the film tries so hard to get your attention that it lacks the pure concept of simplicity. You're busy spending time figuring out the different kinds of special talents each group brings. The title of the film describes the ability of pushers - those that have the ability to manipulate (push) a person's actions.

What puzzled me was Chris Evans' character, Nick, has underdeveloped powers of moving (telekinesis - think Jean Grey from X-Men). Nick manages to die or get severely injured so many times, it makes you think whether he even qualifies to be a protaganist. Is it me or is Dakota Fanning's acting gotten significantly worse? Her incessant screaming in War of the Worlds was mindnumbing. I was hoping for something not crappy with Djimon Hounsou in this flick but his character was nothing notable. About the most refreshing thing about this film was having it shot in Hong Kong. Nice to know that there are other places to film action movies other than New York or LA.

If you're looking for an action flick that has more to bring to the table, rewatching Jumper or the Matrix is your better bet.