Movie Reviews
HP7 only proves one thing
It has been thirteen years since the release of the first Harry Potter book which I read back then as a young teenager and nine years since the first Harry Potter film came out and as I am writing this review I am painfully aware of the fact that this is about as sacred a cow as films (and books) go. The superlatives speak for themselves: fastest selling book of all time, highest grossing film ever. A social and publishing phenomenon. A publication which successfully crossed genres mixing fantasy and coming of age and a film which (seemingly) united generations.
Resident Evil: Afterlife
When a film is based on a video game you know that studios are usually looking to cashout on the game’s hordes of fans who have exhausted every angle the game has got and now want to see their hero (or heroine as the case may be) brought to celluloid life.
Inception (2010)
The last time Christopher Nolan helmed a major film was 2008 when Dark Knight (which he co-wrote) was on our silver screens. It’s now two years later and Nolan has earned the reputation he needed in order to secure the initial $100 mil required to kick-start the project. Based upon an idea he has entertained since he was 16 and some nine years in the writing, polishing and editing, you begin to realize that if Inception does not blow your mind then nothing is likely to either.
Predators (2010)
In films, like in books, originality is paper thin (or in this case celluloid-thin) which means that success, often, depends on the execution. In 1987 a sub-par Arnie vehicle became a global hit thanks to a flawless structure, a tight script and a testosterone-laden storyline.
The Expendables
Testosterone is necessary for building muscles, aggression and a competitive edge in athletics but it’s not overly necessary in chess tournaments and spelling bees and that should be a clue for you when I say that The Expendables is a testosterone movie.
Karate Kid
The retrospective mania with the 80s does not limit itself to the comeback of shoulderpads in women’s clothes and big hairdos, it also extends itself to films and we are, these days, firmly in the grip of either comebacks (as in the case of Gordon Gekko in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps or some of the 80s action icons who are thrown together in The Expendables) or remakes of which Karate Kid is one.
The original, in 1984, was a turning of age movie filmed by the same director who turned Rocky into an acclaimed, award-winning film and the remake, filmed by Dutch director Harald Zwart was bound to struggle to get out of its predecessor’s shadow.