Never watched any of the previous instalments of this lucrative franchise but not knowing anything about what happened in six previous chapters was an advantage. Yes, I know there was some back story as to why Jason Statham’s character (Deckard Shaw) had a bone to pick with Vin Diesel and his crew but it really did not matter.
Continue reading REEL TO REAL: FAST AND FURIOUS 7 – TRANSFORMERS WITH CARS
Directed by Scott Frank
Starring Liam Neeson, Dan Stevens, Boyd Holbrook, Sebastian Roche
Actor Liam Neeson’s third act has been defined by his role in Taken – the invincible, grizzled man of action on a mission – which he duly reprised in other action movies like Unknown, The Grey and Non Stop to great effect. In this respect, this crime drama is no different.
The sequel to 300, Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel opens in Singapore tomorrow. 300: Rise of an Empire is based on Miller’s as yet unpublished graphic novel Xerxes and focuses on the second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC. Noam Murro is the director whilst Snyder is involved as co-writer and producer.
Check out the latest trailer below.
If you have never watched Paul Verhoeven’s classic RoboCop (1987), then you might find this reboot to be entertaining fare. Nothing special but passable movie entertainment nonetheless. Whilst the original film came across as a visceral satire of the role that powerful corporations play in the USA and worldwide, Brazilian director Jose Padilha’s re-imagination renders any such social-political commentary inert and most of the time, his RoboCop comes across as safe, family-friendly entertainment.
Reel to Real is a new feature to cover non-geek films over here at Power of Pop.
Machete Kills (Directed by Robert Rodriguez)
The first Machete flick was fairly good fun as the unlikely anti-hero (Danny Trejo) cut a swath through one-dimensional bad guys with OTT cartoon violence, surrounded by buxomy babes and a host of well-known actors e.g. Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Lindsay Lohan, Steven Seagal etc. Inspired by 70s action exploitation movies, Machete did fair business at the box office.
To be honest, I was rather clueless about this movie beforehand – partly because, based on the poster, it appeared to be revolving around F1 – a subject that leaves me rather disinterested. However, the moment I realized that the movie was actually based on the true life story of 70s F1 drivers Niki Lauda and James Hunt – I knew that I was going to enjoy Rush.
Truth be told, I was excited when I saw the first trailer for sci-fi Tom Cruise action movie vehicle Oblivion. It looked intriguing. Of course, a trailer really does not tell you anything about the movie itself. I was also excited by the fact that Oblivion was an original premise (based on a story co-authored by director Joe Kosinski) and perhaps was hoping that it would be as good as District 9, Moon or Inception.
It isn’t.
Ultimately, Oblivion is a huge disappointment. Don’t get me wrong, the movie is a visual treat throughout. For most of the first thirty minutes or so, Oblivion comes across like Wall-E meets I Am Legend (the Will Smith remake), updated with cool gadgets, weaponized drones, sexy encounters between Jack Harper (Cruise) and his colleague Victoria (Andrea Riseborough) and menacing ones with alien beings called ‘scavengers’. The setting is a dystopian future (2077) where the earth is dying after a war with aliens (which humans won, it seems) and humans are about the leave the planet and start a new life on Titan.
However, things are not as they seem (when are they ever?) – Harper has memories of another woman (strange, as his former memories have been removed), he meets this woman when her ship crash lands on earth and Harper is captured by the ‘scavengers’ and discovers the truth.
From then on to the hackneyed resolution, the movie degenerates into a sequence of cliches, with planet-sized plot holes and pedestrian acting – Olga Kurylenko, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Game of Thrones‘ Jamie Lannister) and even poor old Morgan Freeman – and by the time the ending comes, the promise of ‘original’ sci-fi movie genre is utterly lost. Apparently, director Kosinski himself stated that Oblivion pays homage to science fiction films of the 1970s. Seriously? Well, perhaps superficially but whilst Oblivions certainly borrows heavily from the dystopian worldview of movies like Omega Man, Soylent Green, Zardoz, Logan’s Run, Silent Running and the Planet of the Apes series, it has none of the imagination, gravitas or even consistent writing that was a hallmark of the decade.
Oblivion is now showing in the cinemas.
The Man with the Iron Fists promises to be a campy kung fu classic with a tag line to kill for – “You can’t spell Kung Fu without F and U”!!! To get us geeks in the mood, check out the character trailers below for Bronze Lion (Cung Le) and Madame Blossom (Lucy Liu).
Continue reading GEEK OUT! THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS [CHARACTER TRAILERS]
The more I see of writer/director Rian Johnsons’s time-travel flick, Looper, the more I think that this is going to be one of the best scifi films of the year. Already, I am totally sold on the fact that the two leads – Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt – play the same person at different ages in a life-and-death struggle with each other! All possible through that wonderful scifi device called time-travel. Wonderful!! Check out the trailer. Looper opens in late September.
Remakes can be tricky. Early on, the producers talked up the new version of Paul Verhoeven’s classic Total Recall as being more a adaptation of Philip K Dick’s short story We Can Remember ItkFor You Wholesale rather than a straight remake of the original movie. WRONG! As it is clearly apparent from this latest trailer, this is a straightforward remake of the movie as there are no three-breasted ladies or actual trips to Mars in the short story. Fact is, the short story would make a boring action movie if faithfully adapted. So is there any point to repeated the whole exercise once over again. Well… I think so. Based on the trailers, the effects and action sequences look pretty good and having Bryan Cranston on board as the villain of the piece never hurts. Also, the combined eye candy of Jessica Biel and Kate Beckinsale should make up for Colin Farrell’s anticipated over-acting. I mean come on, look at the image above and not picture Arnie in that chair. Try…
I must admit that I am not much of a Tom Cruise fan or his movies. I remember watching (and hating) the first two Mission Impossible (MI) films – convoluted and ridiculous works. But I was intrigued by the fact that the man at the helm of MI4 was animation master Brad (The Iron Giant, The Incredibles) Bird making his live action movie debut. And Bird did not disappoint with a thrilling and fun ride that presented Cruise in a very likable manner as well.
My first impression of this film (based on the title) was that it was a remake of the 1975 film. It’s not.
In fact, Killer Elite is based on the 1991 novel The Feather Men by Sir Ranulph Fiennes which deals with the SAS involvement during the Dhofar rebellion in Oman in 1972. Set in 1980, Danny Bryce (Jason Statham) and Hunter (De Niro) are mercenaries who get involved in a job to assassinate three former-SAS operatives for a deposed Omani sheikh. This puts Bryce in direct conflict with Spike Logan (Clive Owen) the head enforcer of The Feather Men, a secret society of ex-SAS operatives who protect former SAS members.
And that is the gist of it. Don’t expect anything more than good old-fashioned action as two hard men go toe in toe to achieve their ends. There are no heroes or villains here as both protagonists seem to have ‘valid’ motivations for all the killing that goes on. If that is all possible. The attempts to humanize Bryce and Logan work for the most part but the plot relating to The Feather Men and the British government’s involvement in Oman comes across muddied and confusing. Although the scene where Bryce, Owen and the spook are three-way battling is intriguing.
There is a happy ending of sorts, which is rather convenient, but fairly satisfying. Although there is that nagging suspicion that the producers will wring out a sequel if the box office numbers justify. Hopefully not.
Why remake Clash of the Titans? Why Sam Worthington? Why oh why oh why?
As a young boy, I was always intrigued by the Greek myths and read any books about the subject I could get my hands on. So when the original Clash of the Titans was released in 1981, based on the story of Perseus, I was excited! Also as the special effects were produced by the master himself i.e. Ray Harryhausen (Sinbad movies, Jason & the Argonauts), I was assured that it would be a visual treat as well. As it turns out, the movie was an uneven mix of mythology and loads of sub-par Star Wars hokum, with cute robotic owl in tow. BUT it had great effects, as expected.
You might say that The Book of Eli is a strongly Christian-themed film and I suppose cynically intends to appeal to the millions of Evangelicals out there in the US of A. Apart from that, the Book of Eli is basically a cowboy story set in a dystopian future ala Mad Max/Road Warrior. Which is fine in itself I guess – it boils down to the story and the telling.
The “book” in question is of course the Bible – Eli (Denzel Washington) apparently holds the last copy in this post-apocalyptic world and is on a mission to bring the last Bible to the West. The villain of the piece, Carnegie (Gary Oldham) covets the Bible, because he believes that it will give him power over gullible people (or something silly like that). And voila, kids, that is the summation of your dramatic conflict.
Story-wise, the Book of Eli does not go very far although there is a bit of a twist at the end, a minor one, but a twist nonetheless. Directors, the Hughes Brothers (last seen desecrating Alan Moore/Eddy Campbell’s From Hell), do manage to cobble together some decent enough action sequences whilst Mila Kunis and Jennifer Beals provide the eye candy, for all that’s worth.
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