Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

Genre: Action/Adventure/Fantasy/Mystery

Starring: Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Denholm Elliot, Alison Doody, John-Rhys Davies, Julian Glover

Archaeologist, Dr. Indiana Jones (Ford) believes in fact and not fiction. His father, Henry Jones (Connery) researches the Holy Grail, something which Indiana does not believe in. Walter Donavan (Glover) is an antique collector who believes in the Holy Grail and employed Henry Jones to find it. Henry goes missing and Indiana needs to go and rescue his father. He has Marcus (Elliot) to accompany him and meets his fathers associate Dr. Schneider (Doody) in Venice. Indiana's father mailed him his secret diary, a diary which contains maps and mysteries and any information that Indiana would possibly need. The Nazi's are searching for the diary and wish to get to the Holy Grail before anyone else does. The Holy Grail is supposed to grant the drinker immortality and Hitler wants just that. The movie is a huge improvement from the previous two versions. Sean Connery's mere presence takes the movies to an absolutely new level and he knows when to be funny and just the right time. The perfect movie for someone looking for adventures and mysteries.

Thumbs up: Sean Connery
Thumbs down: The fantasy aspect could have been left out

Rating: 8.2/10

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Zombieland (2009)

Genre: Action/Adventure/Thriller/Drama/Comedy/Fantasy

Starring: Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Jesse Eisenberg, Abigail Breslin

The mad cow disease evolved to effect human beings, which turned them into zombies. One fateful bite and the infection gets transferred. The virus spreads, consuming the world with only a handful of human survivors left. Columbus (Eisenberg) a 20-something youth, abides by a self-created set of rules which has managed to keep him human. He is making his way half-way across the country to make sure his parents are still alive and comes across Tallahasse (Harrelson) a Twinkie-loving cowboy who gains sadistic pleasure from killing zombies. Wichita (Stone) and her kid sister, Little Rock (Breslin) are successful con-artists who dupe Columbus and Tallahasse of their vehicle and weapons on more than one occasion. Realising that they still need each others company if they wish to survive, they make their way to an amusement park in Los Angeles. The movie seems to be inspired from the Will Smith starrer I Am Legend, the only difference being is that this movie has a comedy aspect attached to it. Woody Harrelson puts on an amazing performance and is someone you have to watch out for. The story is interesting but gets slow and boring around the half-way mark. Its the climax that is the perhaps the highlight of the entire movie. Some parts are gory but that doesn't mean the movie is not watchable.

Thumbs up: Great Climax
Thumbs down: Gets a bit slow and uninteresting at times

Rating: 6.3/10

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Black Sheep @ The Box Office

As expected, IRON MAN 2 had no trouble hovering over its throne at the top of the box office, presiding with a a little more than $15 million than its closest competitor, ROBIN HOOD.  The sequel is outpacing the original by about $45 million but it should be noted that it's 58% drop is about 10% higher than the first installment.  It debuted higher so a steeper drop is to be expected but it also falls in line with the slight sense of disappointment with the sequel.

Meanwhile, ROBIN HOOD performed solidly if not spectacularly.  It would have truly been impressive if it had come from behind to take the weekend but that wasn't likely.  Reviews have been mixed in general while I enjoyed it more than I expected to.  The lack of resounding support though means older crowds might pass up on the crowds and wait for something supposedly stellar.

Proving that overcrowding does not necessarily mean that everyone has to go home disappointed, LETTERS TO JULIET and JUST WRIGHT, both female skewed pics, managed to similar per screen averages.  That said, neither of those averages were over $5K so while the results may have been split, they were still disappointing.

NEXT WEEK: What promises to be the final chapter in the Shrek saga, SHREK FOREVER AFTER will trounce onto 3800 screens.  As I have not seen a Shrek film since the first, I will be avoiding this one as well and checking out the "Saturday Night Live" skit comedy, MACGRUBER, instead, when it appears on 2400 screens.

Source: Box Office Mojo

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THE TROTSKY

Written and Directed by Jacob Tierney

Starring Jay Baruchel, Emily Hampshire, Ricky Mabe, Colm Feore and Saul Rubinek

Anne Bronstein: Leon! Supper!
Leon Bronstein: One minute!
Anne Bronstein: You can finish your little revolution after dinner.

If you met a teenager who genuinely believed that he was the reincarnation of the Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist theorist, Leon Trotsky, what do you think you would do with him? Do you think that you would applaud his obvious delusions and allow him to wander around through life sharing his beliefs with everyone he meets? Or would you simply sit him down and set him straight about how the world really works? And if that didn’t work, you could always have him committed, I suppose. If you’re Montreal writer/director, Jacob Tierney though, you would take this guy and throw him up on the big screen for everyone to learn from and you would call it THE TROTSKY.

Montreal actor, Jay Baruchel, plays young Leon Bronstein, the potentially disturbed character I was just referring to, and Tierney should forever be in his debt for this. Tierney’s script is certainly funny but the subject matter itself has such great potential to be entirely missed by most audiences. It may be a pseudo-intellectual teen comedy but I would wager that a fair amount of adults are not that well-versed in Russian politics, let alone the adolescent demographic THE TROTSKY is partly aimed at. Baruchel sells it hard though and with so much conviction and charisma that you can’t help but want to see just how far he will take his crusade to vanquish fascism at the public school he just started attending. His passion for the part and ability to balance the character’s brilliance and insecurity simultaneously bridges the gap between the audience and their potential lack of knowledge on the prevailing subject at hand.

While watching THE TROTSKY, I never really understood why anyone allowed this kid to get away with half of what he was trying to pull off. I also never grasped why no one made the connection between Leon’s antics and his obvious issues with his father (Saul Rubinek). Granted, if anyone did actually call Leon out on his issues, then we would not have been taken down Tierney’s often hilarious fantasy. And, perhaps more importantly, I would still know absolutely nothing about Leon Trotsky.

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RocketMan (1997)

Genre: Drama/Comedy/Adventure/Science-fiction

Starring: Harland Williams, Jessica Lundy, William Sadler, Jeffrey DeMunn, Beau Bridges

A goofy, geeky, immature and over-enthusiastic computer programmer Fred Randall (Williams) lands himself the opportunity to be on the crew of the first manned flight to Mars. Although he is highly eccentric and comes across as a complete lunatic, he manages to break all astronaut test records and NASA has no option but to finalise him. Along with astronaut Julie Ford (Lundy), flight commander Will Overbeck (Sadler) and a chimpanzee, they launch for Mars. His senselessness doesn't end even when he is aboard and he somehow doesn't fall asleep during the 8 month hyper-sleep mode. With nothing to do, he decides to use all the food paste to create a painting on the shuttle ceiling. The only sensible act that he does is to observe the weather patterns on Mars and realises that a dust storm is brewing which could be fateful to their mission. The movie is corny but yet laugh-out-loud hilarious. Although Harland Williams' acting is pretty lame, he does a good job in making you laugh. The plot is simple and very basic and its the jokes that you have to watch out for. Best watched with family and your kid sibling for a better experience.

Thumbs up: Great laughs
Thumbs down: It's fine just the way it is

Rating: 7.5/10

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ROBIN HOOD

Written by Brian Helgeland

Directed by Ridley Scott

Starring Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, Mark Strong, Max Von Sydow and William Hurt

Godfrey (on Nottingham): I’ll make this place famous.

I’ve seen a number of Robin Hood movies.  Who hasn’t?  I haven’t seen them all and I’m sure some people out there have, but even those people haven’t seen Robin Hood in Ridley Scott’s bluish hue before.  Originally titled, “Nottingham” (which I actually prefer), ROBIN HOOD tells us the tale of how this famous outlaw actually came to be that outlaw.  It’s Robin Hood, the prequel, which would explain why it often feels like you’re watching a film franchise being set up instead of the historical account Scott seems so determined to present.

With a reasonable amount of historical inaccuracies (aside from Robin Hood not having actually existed, that is), writer, Brian Helgeland (who has floored me once with the Oscar-winning, L.A. CONFIDENTIAL but who has mostly made me want to vomit with scripts like GREEN ZONE and MYSTIC RIVER) takes us back, way back, to when Robin Hood was still Robin Longstride.  Longstride used to fight alongside King Richard the Lionheart against Norman invaders at the turn of the 12^th century.  That is, he did until the king was killed and he saw the opportunity to abandon the army for a life of freedom.  He took with him a few other men, all with appropriately varied degrees of merriness, and they set off to disappear.  They ended up becoming more visible than they ever desired when they came across a dying group of knights whose duty it was to return the fallen king’s crown to his queen.  This is where Longstride adopted the name most would know him as officially, Robert Loxley.

As transparent as Helgeland’s intentions to enlighten us about invented Robin Hood’s past are, Scott’s skillful direction is focused and fiercely barrels through the near two and half hour runtime.  He wants to plant Robin Hood’s roots firmly in the ground and proceed from there, taking an iconic figure and making him more human.  Albeit an odd choice to cast a 46-year-old actor to play a younger Robin Hood, Russell Crowe plays him with both restraint and confidence.  His Hood is one that fends for himself whenever possible but that respects the hardships of the greater population.  In that regard, he is often painted as somewhat saintly but that is in line with what we know of him anyway.  And with that classic Crowe ruggedness, this Hood is essentially a sexy bleeding heart.  It’s no wonder then that Marion Loxley (Cate Blanchett) falls for him when they meet. 

Scott’s ROBIN HOOD is a lesson in history with a somewhat misplaced agenda to turn one of the most famous heroes of the people into Hollywood hero for the masses.  The talent caliber spread amongst the director and the actors easily boosts the film to a level of strength and stature fitting to the size of the subject.  The constant attempts to champion the origins of the lore undermine the pedigree little by little.  What we’re left with is a legend that feels more manufactured than legendary.

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Iron Man 2 (2010)

Genre: Action/Science-fiction/Drama

Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Don Cheadle, Scarlett Johansson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cam Rockwell, Mickey Rourke, Clark Gregg

Iron Man went on to become the popular super-hero of Earth, bringing about peace in parts of the world where others failed. Tony Stark (Downey Jr.) the man who pilots the Iron Man, started getting a lot of fame and attention which he too is enjoying. The US government though is not happy with Tony Stark and want him to hand over the suit for military purposes, which he refuses to do. Meanwhile, in central Russia, Ivan Vanko (Rourke) creates a suit similar to the Iron Man and attacks Tony Stark at Monaco. Apparently Ivan and Tony's fathers knew each other and Ivan blames Tony's father for his family's demise and seeks revenge. With the world realising that terrorists could have gotten hold of the technology earlier than predicted, the Iron Man becomes a threat to society. The palladium used to power Tony's heart is poisoning his body and he cannot develop the antidote for it. Realising that he is going to die very soon, he appoints his secretary Pepper (Paltrow) in charge of the company and takes on inappropriate behaviour, forcing his good friend Col. James Rhodes (Cheadle) to don the spare Iron Man suit and bring an end to Tony and his bad behaviour. The movie is a vast improvement from what we had seen in the earlier version. The plot is different and unconventional which comes as a big relief. What it missed out on was some serious and highly destructive action, which came only towards the end and which actually wasn't up to the mark. It would have been great fun if the movie had come out in 3D. Don't leave your seats too soon cause there is an Easter egg for you to see after the credits get over.

Thumbs up: Fresh plot, an improvement from the first movie
Thumbs down: Bland action for a movie of its kind

Rating: 7.2/10

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