Reviews

Who would thought that after very good Star Trek reboot in 2009 we'll get this as it's sequel. J.J. Abrams and his writers tried to play it safe with villain that almost every Trakkie loves, they really tried to preserve the flavor of original series (although in parallel universe, where they can do anything, they decided not to write anything new), to make funny dialogues and J.J. went in extra trouble to make us remember every inch of every actor's face with so many closeups that Indian soap operas looks like Battle of the Pelennor Fields compared to this view. He tried so much to give us as little as possible. Even the special effects are way under the today's blockbusters level. For almost 200 millions dollars we expect way better visual impression than few shots of Enterprise and future London, although the beginning was very promising in that field. In other hand, beginning was promising in many fields, pretty much all of them. But at the end of the movie there was very little of upsides. Let's see the plot. At beginning we get standard fast sequel characterization primary for those who haven't see prequel. So we once again meet modern captain Kirk, who looks and acts like all-American high school quarterback who doesn't respect any rules but he is extremely moral and brave. We also meet his logical Vulcan friend and first officer, Spock, who in every appearance on screen, logically, remind us that he's logical and unemotional but he makes more illogical and emotional decisions and acts then otherwise. We also meet all those other characters who more or less serve just as humor relief what actually isn't all bad but it is a degradation of those, once interesting, characters. Not to forget, there's even one character whose only purpose is to do a lingerie scene. It's female, of course. That dynamic, interesting, funny and visually impressive beginning with a little dose of philosophy is also this movie's peak. Then we get very fast intro into movie's main plot which is spinning around an evil terrorist who makes a big mess in The Godfather style and then runs away. Guess who's going after that evil man!? Whole idea for plot is solid, but it's way from being original. Every segment in which this writers tried to be original, even in slightest possible way, ended as catastrophe with plot holes, a lot of questions (not philosophical or theoretical, just practical ones), useless characters and constant big and important battles with some new laws of physics which felt like infinity. Approximately one third of a movie went on Spock's and Kirk's bromance and those cheesy and pathetic dialogues and closeup stares between them. Another third was spent on explosions, bad visual effects and Kirk acting like an superhero (aren't all those Marvel screenings enough?). But in one third of a movie we actually saw something good. It was Benedict Cumberbatch as main villain. Although acting was in high level in general, Cumberbatch stole the show. He had help in a view of very good characterization of his character and pathetic one of good guys, so it isn't strange that big part of audience actually cheered for him. Both Chris Pine as Kirk and Zachary Quinto as Spock gave us top performance so it's fair to say that acting performance is the biggest (possibly the only) upside of latest J.J. Abram's Star Trek. Star Trek: Into Darkness ended up as an confirmation of J.J. Abrams's directing and Damon Lindelof's writing incapability. Every one of projects that two of them touched in these roles ended up as a disappointment. But the worst thing is that they have good ideas but realization of those ideas is terrible. We can only hope that they will get better in time and that new Star Wars will not end as an Indian soap opera.

The true story, directed by John H. Lee (A Moment to Remember) about South Korean student unit of 71 soldiers who was left to defend the girls middle school during the Battle of Pohang during the peek of North Korea's invasion of South in 1950. That 71 students defended that position for 11 hours against a North Korean army brigade and the film was inspired by the letters of one of that soldiers. Out of 71 members of the unit, only three had combat experience, while others have not undergone any training before the battle, which makes their resistance unbelievable.

The story focuses on two soldiers, Oh Jung-Bum, frightened and lost commander of the unit who only got the position because of his experience that was minimal, and Ku Kap-Jo, convicted of murder who enlisted in the Army to avoid jail. A good part of the story rests on their conflict and on development of their relationship as well as their relationship with the rest of the unit. Character development is uncommonly done. Oh Jung-Bum changes from a scared kid who couldn't even shot from the gun to brave commander absurdly fast, while Ku Kap-Jo's path is approximately opposite and just as fast, if not faster. In this context, we can mention the North Korean captain Park Mu-Rang which is extremely difficult to characterize as he's almost like another character in almost every scene, while only he's egotism stays.

Performance is standard Asian, full of melodrama, highlighting the pride and courage, and a somewhat caricature acting that is pretty solid here. Cha Seung-won is far form being brilliant in lead role of Oh Jung-Bum, almost completely without emotions, as if he was forced to act in this movie. The rest of the acting team did a solid job. The pace of storytelling is perfect, not one scene is redundant, although movie could work without humorous parts they deliver, alongside humor, additional characterization of the characters. It's a simple, dynamic story with which time goes by quickly. There's no objections to the visual part of the film. A solid budget of 10mil dollars was well used, the effects look almost authentic. Final battle looks really impressive, although it can not be overlooked that it was somewhat idealized.

Film lacks historical context which is not surprising given that, as usually happens with Far Eastern cinema, it's made for their market so they didn't feel like it's necessarily to explain situation, but however, it does not affect much on the experience of the film since the theme is universal, and 71: Into the Fire is one of the better war movies lately.

Spielberg worked on this project for ten years and his effort can not be disputed. Just like perfect acting, detailed scenery, excellent visual impression and great dialogues, which were, like complete screenplay, developed for six years by Tony Kushner.

The film deals only with the last few months of Abraham Lincoln's (Daniel Day-Lewis) life, concentrating on January of 1865. when the House of Representatives debated and ultimately voted on 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, banning slavery except as punishment for a crime. Not surprisingly, a lot of historical facts and figures are idealized, and the very issue of the Civil War is simplified just on the question of slavery, although historical inaccuracy is less then it was expected. But the broader historical context is more or less historically accurate, ie about just exactly as most historians believe it happened. How much Americans find this topic important and controversial is shown by changing names of the voters against the 13th Amendment in order to avoid problems for their living descendants. With this in mind it is difficult to understand why the film did not gave time to explanation of such voting and to explanation of reason for Democratic Party to vote against immediate and absolute abolition of slavery just as it did not elaborate reasons for such pursuit of the Republican Party for its abolition.

There's a lot of historical figures in move and it is quite difficult to catch up with everything without any prior knowledge about topic. That's reason why to those simply not interested in history or politics Lincoln could be boring. But Lincoln is actually quite dynamic, action relatively quickly moves from Lincoln's personal life and his relationship with his wife and sons to the relationships within his Cabinet and the House of Representatives, conflicts inside Republican party and peace negotiations with the Confederation. Each segment is almost entirely based on fantastic dialogues, although it is impossible to ignore the excessive pathos inside a big amount of them, but that's not unexpected given the subject matter. There's a lot talking about acting in Lincoln, and that's with reason. Daniel Day-Lewis embodies Lincoln exactly as historical records describe him. Such performance as Day-Lewis's in this movie is rarely seen. The rest of the cast, Sally Fiel (Mary Todd Lincoln), David Strathairom (William Seward), Tommy Lee Jones (Thaddeus Stevens) and Hal Holbrook (Preston Blair) also did outstanding job. James Spader in the role of W.N. Bilbo, is maybe even biggest surprise. In every scene where he appears he draws all the attention to himself.

Steven Spielberg himself has done a great job, this is definitely one of technically best films of his. Dialogue scenes are generally perfectly done with great camera job, he pulled out maximum form actors, every scene is visually fantastic, scenery is maximally authentic, except for a few exceptions, one of which stands out. Wrong flags of the Union! Definitely one of the most mature Spielberg's movies. From the technical part, musical background deserves negative critics. It's insipid, forgetful and sometimes completely missed. The characterization, even of Lincoln, looks kinda hasty and superficial. Actions of some characters sometimes are not explained, sometimes the explanations are banal and sometimes historically incorrect. Although in general such cases aren't big deal but while viewing it's distracting and causes some questions after viewing it.

Lincoln certainly isn't film for everyone. Non-Americans with no interest in history and politics could find it to be slow, boring, uninteresting and pathetic, and that's completely understandable. But technical superiority is hard to dispute and that's proved with target audience being delighted in combination with, probably far from being deservedly, number of nominations and awards.

So, Tarantino decided to make a western movie, as he is a big fan of them. Not only that he decided to make one, he decided to make a very good one with a relatively typical spaghetti western story but, to put it mildly, not typical characters and locations. So Django Unchained takes place at the South of the USA (so-called Deep South) a few years before the Civil War and the main protagonists are German bounty hunter and a black slave who quickly becomes a black cowboy. A former dentist, now a headhunter, Dr. Schultz (Christoph Waltz) decides to buy a slave named Django (Jamie Foxx) to help him in finding three brothers for whom an arrest warrant has been issued. Thing is that Schultz does not know how they look while Django do. If he successfully complete the task Django is promised to get his freedom but Schultz was thrilled with Django as a headhunter so he offered him a partnership and help in saving his wife from cruel slaver Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).

Django Unchained is more or less what the majority of the audience expected. While it is legitimate to criticize Tarantinos stylistic and filming constant throughout his career the fact is that he creates high-quality films that meets with mostly positive response among the audience. Also stylistic and filming repetitiveness is belaud characteristic of many other acclaimed filmmakers (the Coen brothers, Carpetner...) so there is no reason to be harsh with Tarantino for that. Django Unchained is primarily entertainment, then a brutal display of the first half of the 19th century in USA, and ultimately the criticism of human morality. Often mentioned violence is pervasive and somewhat glorified, but no more than in average action film.

Acting is on extremely high level, which was also directly contributed by writing the script for specific actors. Thus, for instance, Dr. Schultz, Candie and Stephen were written directly for Waltz, DiCaprio and Jackson, while Django was written with Will Smith in mind. Jamie Foxx is definitely the weakest among main cast, although far from being bad his acting is definitely forgetful while previously enumerated trio is far away from being forgetful. Christoph Waltz is simply brilliant in the role of Dr. Schultz, which deviates slightly from Hans Landa and although many will find problem of repetitiveness in that, that should be ignored due to the success of the character and Waltzs performance. DiCaprio is excellent in his first role as a villain. He was so into it that when he really accidentally hit a glass with his fist and despite sizable bleeding never went out of the character. Samuel L. Jackson is also excellent in the role peevish old man with plenty of swearing and yelling.

It looks like Tarantino wanted to have as much people as it was possible to participate in this movie, so we have a bunch of supporting characters, most of which was a cameo or almost a cameo role and most of them end up serving as cannon fodder. Even Franco Nero, the original Django, appears in the film and there were written roles for Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Sacha Baron Cohen and Michael Kenneth Williams which were ultimately thrown out of the film as the trio couldn't participate in project.

The dialogues are wonderfully worked out, with many lines that will become cult. The disadvantage is the unnecessarily lengthiness of the film itself and many completely unnecessary scenes. Some of these unnecessary scenes that serve the purpose of comedy like the one with hoods are not the problem, but the vast majority of others are, specially in the last half of hour. Editing is also obvious worse than in previous Tarantino films which were edited by, now late, Sally Menke. Soundtrack is particularly interesting. Giuseppe Verdi, Ennio Morricone and James Brown/2Pac duet (which unlike Rick Ross is interesting musical experiment) as a music background in few almost connected scenes is really special experience.

Tarantino continues as usual, and while some will be happy with it, others will not, but the fact is that Django Unchained is instant cult film which in addition is well made and which characters will be quoted and scenes will be endlessly viewed.

Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) is a car salesman who is convinced that he has a brilliant business plan that will ensure the life of his family, but there is one problem, he needs $ 750,000 that he, of course dosn't have. His wealthy father-in-law has repeatedly refused to help him so Jerry hatches an ingenious plan of kidnapping his own wife, after which he would be richer by $ 960,000 ransom which will be paid by his father-in-law and the kidnappers will get $ 40,000 and a new car that he stole from his own company, while kidnappers (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare) are convinced that the total ransom is $ 80.000 and that they are sharing half of profit with Jerry. So, Jerry thought that plan, which includes kidnapping of his wife (which should be done by people unknown to him), car theft in the company he works for, extorting ransom from his father in law, fraud of kidnappers and if all goes according to plan the purchase of a large plot for $ 750.000 dollars and opening a parking is ingenious. But it all went wrong when shortly after making a deal with kidnappers he decided to give up from his plan but could not make a contact with the kidnappers who needed minimum time to turn this easy job into chaos. On the other hand we have Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand), who as head of the district police department is investigating murders that lead her to Jerry and kidnappers. Marge is pregnant, sweet, intelligent and capable police officer who represents typical Minnesota resident. This story about easy non-violent crime that has grown into a bloodbath is presented with a large dose of humor, primarily through caricature characters. Even the description Buscemi's character is funny-looking guy. However, the characters are wonderfully characterized and memorable, just like their dialogues, which are often filmed in one shot what was possible only because of the brilliant acting (especially Frances McDormand, who was also awarded an Oscar for this role) and the phenomenal directing of Joel Coen while his brother Ethan took the role of producer. Although it was said at the beginning of the movie that it was filmed on a true story that is not true, but just a marketing trick by the Coen brothers. The truth is that almost all the events in the film took place in Minnesota in second half of 20. century but separated and unrelated. Coens collected few bizarre stories and urban legends and incorporated them in Fargo, which has become one of the best films ever made. Phenomenal photography, soundtrack that is almost perfect for this story, cold and snowy atmosphere that swallows the viewer, memorable characters, powerful dialogues, brilliant directing and superb acting. Simply, every element of this film is excellent.

The Thing is real classic from king of atmosphere, John Carpenter, and one of the most famous horrors which is, nowadays, a lot more easier to classify as a psychological thriller than a horror movie. The film is based on a novel by John W. Campbell, Jr., Who Goes There? and is often mentioned as a remake of The Thing from Another World from 1951. It is also a part of the Apocalypse trilogy which also includes Prince of Darkness (1987) and In the Mouth of Madness (1994). The film begins with a scene of Norwegian scientist chasing a dog in Antarctica. The hunt ends at the U.S. scientific station where Americans, of course, shot fissured Norwegian and saved the dog. They weren't concerned about why someone so badly wanted to kill the dog so they let him stay in the station. Soon we learn the reason of Norwegian pursuit. Norwegian scientists have found unknown being frozen in the ice and being convinced that it's dead they unfrozed it. The thing was alive and just like every other life-form it wanted to survive. Only ability the thing had is to imitate any life-form with which it makes contact. In imitating process original life-form dies. And that is the core of the story. Who's real and who's not? As a psychological thriller film works wonderfully. Horror elements fits perfectly and the atmosphere is brilliantly polished with scenery and music and special effects are pretty impressive for 80's. Many scenes in the film are still striking and recognizable. That's what makes the film special, but pretty much everything else falls under mediocrity. The cast led by Kurt Russell did a solid job, and for many people Russell is most recognizable as MacReady. Here we come to the big problem of characterization. It is not strange for Carpenter that the main characters are superficial and purpose of many of them is only to die. Almost every his story is successful despite this, but that does not diminish the fact that this is still a big problem because the easiest way for audience to connect with film is through the characters. Also, some characters must behave totally illogical for story to be successful, what especially in the modern era, is very annoying. But in total The Thing deserves a high mark. Especially because of the brilliant atmosphere and interest that it creates.

Korean cinematography is doubtless one of the best in the world, and their crime thrillers definitely are. So last film by Joon-ho Bong (Memories of Murder, The Host) does not stand out of that statement. Madeo is a very interesting and emotional story about the mother who is doing her best to prove that her mentally retarded son Yoon Do-joon is wrongfully convicted of murder. Do-joon doesn't even remember what happened in the night of murder but he confesses under the pressure of police. Bong's phenomenal knack for connecting serious genres such as drama and thriller with comedy makes his films special. Black humor is omnipresent in this dark tale and it fits perfectly. Every technical part is excellent, from the use of camera and lights to the music and atmosphere. Bong proved once again that he's great director. Performance by Kim Hye in the role of overprotecting minded mother which in order to save her son run over all moral principles, is one of the best performances in recent times, and even the rest of the team does not lag behind too much Hye has to be singled out. The characters are wonderfully developed, and their motives are entirely clear, but the story itself, although interesting, is overstretched and hardly keeps the concentration of the viewer through entire film, as it usually happens with Korean thriller. Mystery surrounding the murder was not developed enough so final twist, although strong, was not unexpected. Some scenes look very strange for some western viewers, like mother's seemingly senseless dance at the beginning and end of the film, but they are far from pointless. At the end, we could say that Madeo is one average Korean crime-thriller which is generally really high praise.

The film based on the novel by Mario Giordani about the Stanford Prison Experiment in which 20 volunteers agreed to spent two weeks in which one group of them will take the roles of guards and another group will take roles of prisoners. The prisoners were placed in the cells, and the guards had an easy task to maintain order without violence. Of course, if it was all by the rules, this film would not exist. Movie is directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, who became widely know for his movie from 2004. Downfall. He done his job very well, atmosphere is great, camera work could be better but it's satisfying. Technical par of the film is more than solid with excellent acting, especially from Moritz Bleibtreu (Run Lola Run, Munich) who plays the main character, Tarek Fahdia, journalists who expects to deliver a good story by participating in the experiment. The story is very interesting and tense, almost a textbook example of a real thriller with a well thought-out characters. Love story is completely unneeded and it largely destroys the impression of serious movie, but it is well blended into the overall story and does not cause as much damage as it seems at first glance. Historical inconsistency must be mentioned. Because of the dramatic story the events are shown much more extreme and violent, and real experiment was terminated when some volunteers became too violent and there were no deaths.

The life story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart told retrospectively from the perspective of his contemporary and rival, the imperial composer Antonio Salieri, who at the end of his life is confessing to a priest in a believe that he is responsible for Mozarts death. Most of the story shows last years of Mozarts life, his character, his career, his personal life and his death. The technical part is done well, especially the scenery that makes a visual impression fantastic. Mozart's music is blended into the content of the film and is a great foundation for consistently strong atmosphere. It's a shame that some potentially great scenes were somewhat ruined with very bad camera work although Forman generally did very good job. Besides the historical inaccuracies that pervade the entire film, bad reactions were provoked by the choice of Tom Hulce as Mozart. Tom did great job, he gave his best and probably did all that was asked of him but he's just not suited for the role. Shaffer and Forman vision of Mozart is maybe correct, but it certainly is different from vision of biggest par of the audience. F. Murray Abraham is brilliant in the lead role of Antonio Salieri and was rewarded for it with Oscar and a Golden Globe. The movie won 8 Oscars and it's shares that number with movies like Gandhi and Gone With the Wind. The screenplay is very good in almost every aspect besides historical inaccuracies. The characters are wonderfully developed, the dialogues are strong and most importantly the story keeps viewers to the screen for the entire 160 minutes. This is one of the titles that absolutely no one should miss, but either before or after viewing, it may be good to read historically accurate story.

This Brazilian masterpiece, based on the book Elite da Tropa from several Brazilian authors, presents us a Brazilian social system and the special police of the federal state of Rio de Janeiro through the eyes of the main character and narrator, Captain Nascimento. The first part of the film is focused on the presentation of the famous system in which moral boundaries between drug gangs and local police generally don't exist. The police is extremely corrupt, inefficient, and deeply rooted in the criminal system at all levels, particularly in the poorest parts of the country, the favelas. We are introduced to the system through the eyes of two young and honest police officers, Matias and Neto who quickly come into conflict with a corrupt police officers. After that they decide to apply for a special police, BOPE, under the authority of captain Nascimento who is in the process of seeking his replacement because his personal life is suffering. Meanwhile BOPE are on a special mission of cleaning favelas because of arrival of the Pope who insists on residing in their vicinity. Almost every aspect of this film is flawless. The acting is perfect, while documentary directing fits the story perfectly and looks incredibly realistic. Visual impression deserves admiration because of the relative low budget of only 4 million dollars, which, fortunately, has conditioned shooting on real locations in Rio de Janeiro. Excellent soundtrack is also one thing that needs to be singled out. Rap das Armas stays in your ears for weeks after the movie. On first viewing it could be difficult to understand complete story, especially because of huge number of characters from what majority is transient, but non of them are unneeded. Second viewing definitely ensures complete pleasure in superb cinematography but also a creeps because of the reality of system from which most of us are perhaps far away, but it is very much real. Because of the better effect on story, special police is portrayed as completely pure and invincible what is of course far from the truth. However, activities and training of BOPE is accurately shown. Black uniforms, skulls, cruel training, methods of cleaning the favelas and the fear that they inspire are reality that is perfect for the big screen.

The perfect visual impression, excellent music and great scenery are fully anticipated positives of the last Jackson's movie adaptation of Tolkien's works, but that is, more or less, where the positives stop. After a slow and uninteresting, but visually and emotionally nice beginning, in which we see how and why did dwarfs went on their journey and how Bilbo ends up with them, story evolves in even more slower and not too interesting bunch of relatively unconnected adventures. Book intended to be children story and this movie as children movie would be great, but Jackosn's too serious and too dark approach, like one in Lord of the Rings which are more darker stories, made most of the movie torn between something like half comedy children story and dark and strong wannabe Lord of the Rings story. Indestructibility of group of dwarfs is also terribly unserious even despite it is a fantasy film. Forest wizard with sleighs which are driven by big rabbits and big thick goblins who perform strongly and fall from one touch while telling a joke, just aren't characters for the movie Jackson wanted to made. There is also too often use of deus ex machina which is making the movie even less serious. Comedy sequences are great and very funny and they even fit in dark atmosphere, but basically they are just one more element which is making this story childish. A lot of attention was given to unimportant dialogues and scenes while many details are left vaguely, as eagles that help only partially, Saruman and Elvish opposition to return of dwarfs, Gandalf power in a one and weakness in other situations, and even the choice of Bilbo. While the CGI scenes were done almost perfectly, the one without it look amateurish. Camera often hides more than shows, and type of filming dialogues is like one in the soap operas. These were a huge disappointments. On the other hand, acting deserves applause, although not too big. Too serious and dark approached in screening of novel which just isn't nor serious nor dark is a fundamental mistake. Despite big backlog when compared with first trilogy, The Hobbit, if anything else, brings beautiful visualization and solid entertainment.