Shadow in the Cloud is an action thriller directed by Roseanne Liang from a screenplay co-written by Max (Chronicle) Landis and Liang. Shadow in the Cloud had its world premiere on September 12, 2020 at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the People’s Choice Award for Midnight Madness. The movie is now available digitally worldwide.
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Tenet is a scifi action thriller written and directed by Christopher Nolan. The movie stars John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki and Kenneth Branagh. The story of Tenet involves a secret agent (Washington) who has to save the world from a nefarious plan involving time manipulation executed by the villain of the piece viz. Branagh.
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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.
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of Frank Miller’s graphic novel opens in Singapore tomorrow. 300: Rise of an Empire is based on Miller’s as yet unpublished graphic novel Xerxes and focuses on the second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC.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.
