Patriotic Superheroes Are a Thing Of The Past

With the record breaking release of The Avengers (which I will be reviewing, don't you worry) I thought it's about time we jumped back and had a look at some of the other movies that have led up to this. I've already looked at Iron Man 2 but I've neglected a couple of others. Let's make it up to them. Now we look at the first (and also last) Avenger: Captain America.

Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), a scrawny little fella, has dreams of joining his fellow men in laying down his life for his country. not because war excites him, but because he thinks, 'why should he do any less.' Unfortunately, he's completely unsuitable, physically, for the army and keeps getting rejected. That is, until Dr Erksine (Stanley Tucci) presents him with the opportunity. He immediately signs up and heads off to boot camp. It's obvious, when he stands next to the other soldiers, that he truly was not suitable for the army, as Colonel Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones) isn't hesitant to point out. Once again, Dr Erksine comes up with a solution. An experiment known as Project Rebirth put together by Dr Erksine and Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper) (Tony Stark's father). Rogers is chosen because of his humanity, because he's a good person, because he, above all others, will value the rewards of the experiment. Project Rebirth gives Rogers super human strength and abilities. The allies begin using him as a form of propaganda under the name Captain America. But when it turns out the Captain's old friend Bucky (Sebastian Stan) might be in trouble, he turns to Stark and Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) to help him take matters into his own hands and find the evil Schmidt (Hugo Weaving), otherwise known as Red Skull.

Schmidt rehearsing for the annual Nazi show...
They're doing Hamlet. 

A wonderfully well cast movie. Hugo Weaving was a nigh perfect Red Skull. He was delightfully evil and equally chaotic and plain insane. It's always hard to play a super hero antagonist just right as everyone has different interpretations on how they should come across on film (For example, the realism in Christopher Nolan's Batman movies compared to the cheesiness of some other superheroes.) Hugo Weaving managed to strike a nice balance that should please everyone. Chris Evans was fantastic as Captain America, the soldier with a heart the size of America. Admittedly, it was hard to focus on him as every time he appeared on screen my friend had a little fan-girl session. But he did a swell job even though his face and voice did not match his small body at the beginning. Stanley Tucci... well, what can't he do? Another fantastic role from him. I never felt any care, however, for Hayley Atwell's Peggy. She seemed far too plain for Captain America. I honestly felt more attached to the random blonde who randomly kisses Captain America in a cheeky moment of weakness.

On second thoughts... Fan-girling over Chris Evans is allowed.

There were some brilliant decisions with the movie. Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark was a bit of casting genius. The CGI was all solidly handled - people really looked like they were exploding in a plume of blue. Considering how cheesy Captain America has the potential to be, Joe Johnston handled it extremely well. He kept the cheese but presented it with a slight disdain and focused more on the darker elements of the Cap. The war, Red Skull's insanity, the deaths. Things like the sequence of cheesy propaganda stops to Star Spangled Man (A fantastic song. Why was it nominated for an Oscar? Academy? You have some explaining to do...) were fantastically cheesy but Johnston made sure you could see the way it ate away at Rogers. My only major issue with the film was the pacing. There were moments that dragged and dragged on and then they were followed by some incredible action. My advice to the film makers would be cut half an hour. Dragging is one of the worst things in a movie. If someone has to check how long is left, you;ve made a mistake with the pacing.

Overall, a good superhero movie. Not quite as good as the first Iron Man or Thor, but enough to keep us excited for more in the form of The Avengers. A good back story to a good character and one that I could
happily see in more movies, providing that they're shorter.

Best Bit? I'm always a sucker for a good army training montage. Therefore, I shall say boot camp. I loved seeing Rogers at the top of his intelligence and heart.

Die Hard. Again. And Again. And Again. (Part 2)

Here's the second part of my Die Hard reviews. The first part is here. Five years after the second Die Hard was released, a third installment came out. Then it'd be another 12 years before we'd see anything Die Hard related in the cinemas. How did they keep a franchise going despite the massive gap in time? How did they adjust? Lets have a look, starting with Die Hard: With A Vengeance.

John McClane, (Willis) now almost a full-blown alcoholic, is on suspension from the NYPD. However, when a bomb goes off in a department store and the police are stuck for answers, a mysterious man named Simon (Jeremy Irons/ Graham Greene) phones and asks for McClane. He states that if the police want answers, McClane has to complete the tasks Simon tells him to. Task one: Wearing a rather offensive sign in the rough part of town. Fortunately for McClane, Zeus Carver (Samuel L. Jackson) steps in to protect him from a group of thugs. Not so fortunately for Zeus, this means he is now involved in Simon's games. Simon gets McClane and Zeus to run around town trying to stop bombs that he has rigged. However, Simon is planning a little more than he's letting on.

Both McClane and Zeus were extremely suspicious of the phone.

Despite being an alcoholic, being suspended and having not spoken to his wife, McClane continues to prove how cool he really is. By adopting a slightly more I-don't-care attitude, Willis provides a better performance than his second outing as the character. He brings the same wit and bad ass-ness that he's brought for the first two movies but this time they it comes with a fresh dowsing of pessimism. However, the stand out  performance of the movie comes from Samuel Jackson as Zeus. Continuing Die Hard's theme of having a handy black sidekick is presented with a twist this time around. Zeus is strong willed, sassy and powerful. He's very funny, if not very racist. The antagonists, Jeremy Irons and Graham Greene are superbly dark and smart. Their plots provide more twists than either of the first two movies and they create such a tense atmosphere which makes the film extremely exciting.

The Die Hard science begins to get a little bit out of control in this movie. There's ridiculously high and yet survivable falls, surfing on giant dump trucks, and goons with even worse aim than ever before.  But all of this only helps to make the movie all the more fun to watch. My least favourite aspect of the movie is not the slowly sinking realism but the incredibly annoying choice of music. Throughout dramatic moments of the movie, we are treated to an instrumental version of 'The animals went in two by two hurrah hurrah'. (Technically known as When Johnny Comes Marching Home). Something about it doesn't fit.

Overall, another good movie. Not as good as the first, slightly better than the second. Good fun and definitely worth a watch.

Best Bit? Personally, I have a soft spot for the dump truck chase in an underground system of water tunnels.

And finally we come to the fourth and (currently) the final installment in the series: Die Hard 4.0 (Or Live Free Or Die Hard)

So the plot of the last movie is slightly more nerdy than the others. This time, the terrorists are hackers and they're developing a system that can systematically shut down the entirety of the United States, one bit at a time. McClane (Willis) gets involved after he is sent to bring internet hacker Matt Farrell (Justin Long) to Washington. Soon after he arrives at Matt's apartment though, unknown assailents begin shooting at Matt and McClane. After getting him out safely, McClane turns to Matt to gain some insight from his hacking knowledge and together they plan to bring down mastermind Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant) and his assistant Mai Linh (Maggie Q). Unfortunately for McClane (and in some ways, fortunate for Farrell), Lucy Gennaro McClane (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), John's daughter, gets caught up the whole ordeal and despite her disliking of her father and his attitudes to things, she relies and trusts in him to stop the terrorists.

Thomas Gabriel never understood the idea of
 going on a date and showing one's guns.

In the twelve years that John was absent from our cinema screens, a lot changed in his life. He lost all his hair, stopped talking to his ex wife and daughters, became a much angrier and older man. Willis continues to develop and adapt the character we've grown to love but still sticks to his roots. The years have aged him, and he shows us that. Also a brilliant performance from Justin Long. Admittedly it's a role that he plays more than any other, the awkward nerdy teenager. But the contrast between Willis and Long is so perfect it makes the movie great fun to watch.

Die Hard science goes to a whole new level in this movie. Death seems to become a thing of the past, or at least all of the characters have developed super strength. Cars are driven into helicopters, people are run over but able to continue fighting and fighter jets will destroy half a city on a very vague order.  However, being a more modern movie, the special effects, camera work, and general appearance of the entire film is a league above the other three movies. Probably the most silly out of all four movies but also one of the easiest to watch. There's lots of action and lots of explosions to keep your eyes busy.

In my personal opinion it's the weakest of the four films but compared to a lot of action films released nowadays, it's still of a better quality. It's fun and it's everything we love from Die Hard, if not a bit more exaggerated and silly.

Best Bit? The fight scene between Mai Linh, John McClane, and Matt Farrell. A whole new level of fight scene with use of cars, elevator shafts and a combination of them both. Or extremely tense tunnel scene when cars are flying all over the place.


A great set of movies. All worth a watch. And don't forget, yippee ki-yay, motherfuckers.

Gay People Are All Right.

When presenting a modern relationship, movies can often get a bit cliche. Things have to be mixed up in order to create something new, original and unique. Following the success of troubled gay man Harvey Milk in 'Milk' in 2009 in which Sean Penn won the Best Actor Oscar, how about this year we haven a lesbian couple with two kids. Oh, and the sperm donor starts hanging around. But don't worry, The Kids Are All Right.

The premise is rather simple. A gay couple of women Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore) have two kids Joni (Mia Wasikowska) and Laser (Jos Hutcherson) who is particularly interested in meeting their biological father. When Joni arranges a meeting, they immediately bond. Slowly, sperm donor Paul (Mark Ruffalo) begins to be invited into the family which cause discomfort with Nic. This is only made worse when Jules starts as Paul's garden designer and begins to spend a lot of time with him. Feeling like she is being pushed out in preference of a father figure in the family, confrontations come to light.

Annette was tired of pretending to love Julianne. She just wanted to finish her wine.

Unfortunately, it's difficult to delve to much into the movie without giving away a lot of spoilers. I mean, there isn't that much to give away, but if you're like me, you like to not know any details about what happens in the film. So I shall restrain myself. The film is good. Not as good as other Oscar nominees but better than, I don't know, anything made by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. But seriously, it's not the best film to be nominated but still enjoyable. It may sound like I criticise the movie a lot in the paragraph to come, but I promise, it isn't bad. I'll start with the best things. The performances. Two of which are nominated. Bening is up for Best Actress. Does she deserve the gong? In my opinion, no. While she is better than a lot of performances out there, I think the only reason she may get it is due to her numerous nominations in the past with no big wins. She does portray all the emotions that Nic is likely to feel but it all seems a bit mild. In contrast, other nominees like Portman, almost drove themselves to mental and physical torture to do the best damn performance they could. Ruffalo, however, is up for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar and is great. Also a mild performance but so is his character. The calm and collected character who seems to have found what he needs in life. A family. Against such strong competition, I doubt he stands much chance at winning, but he's very good all the same.

All other performances were also excellent. I think it's very unfortunate that Julianne Moore wasn't nominated but already the actress categories have such strong competition. However, I felt she did a better performance than Bening. Both young performers did really well. Wasikowska as the more sensitive and independent daughter and Hutcherson as the 'cool' kid. Wasikowska certainly showed that she has great potential and Hutcherson is showing promise, but still has a way to go.

'The Sofa Musical's' finale number didn't go down too well.

My biggest issue with this film is it all seemed very rushed. It builds up slowly and then all the exciting and tense moments just seem to pass. The ending in particular left me very frustrated. I'm not sure whether it's the screenplay's fault or the directing or whether they just cut a lot out in order to decrease it's running time. I don't know. All I know is, it was very unsatisfying. Perhaps it was just love overcoming all obstacles and all the jazz.... Apart from that, everything else was very average. There was nothing special in the sound, editing or cinematography departments. Generic would be a good word to use.

Like I said, it seems like I'm slating the film but it's one of those times when the few negatives stand out over the many positives. Also, there is a lot of sex scenes. I think there's too many. But still, it's a good film and I recommend it. If you can't tell from the star rating.

Best bit? The dramatic confrontation between Paul and Nic. Best part of Bening's performance and shows that Oscar winning potential.