After a long interval which was mostly unavoidable I am back!

Presenting without any unecessary ramblings, the review of the new
movie titled Taken. As always, the star below the post are for the movie and not the content of the post!



Title: Taken

Director: Pierre Morel

Cast: Liam Neeson ... Bryan
Maggie Grace ... Kim
Leland Orser ... Sam
Jon Gries ... Casey
David Warshofsky ... Bernie
Holly Valance ... Diva
Katie Cassidy ... Amanda

Plot: Bryan(Neeson) is a retired undercover agent/spy (they never make clear who he really was) who has given up the shadowy dark world of covert operations to spend time with his daughter who is turning 17. His wife left him for a billionaire and took the daughter with her. Neeson is left with nothing really other than a bunch of old work colleagues, beer and you know general misery.
His daughter Kim (Grace) goes out to Paris with one of her friends from where they plan to go around Europe following a rock band tour. Both these girls are underaged and alone in the friend's cousin's upmarket residence in Paris. They befriend a guy at the Airport who leads to them getting kidnapped by a gang who specialize in kidnapping young girls. This gang kidnaps the girls, put them on drugs and then sells the girls to the highest bidder in the underworld.

Kim manages to get a message to her father who immediately dashes to Paris to find and take his daughter back. He now must penetrate this dark world of drugs, rapes, killings and other evils of the world while managing to keep himself alive and find his daughter. And he must do it within 96 hours else he would never be able to see his daughter ever again.

Fun! My Psychobabble: Here is a scene from the movie. So I am this super cool, ultra deadly, trained to kill in my sleep with my bare hands (or loud snores) kinda ass kicking expert in hand to hand combat who is calling upon his years of experience doing dark, dirty, hush hush stuff for the US of A government (who else!). I am hunting for my daughter who has been kidnapped from Paris and I have a lead on a guy who is usually found at Charles de Gaulle airport (the busiest airport in France and possibly the most secure). Great! So what do I do then? I wait keeping my trained eyes on the dude whom I have spotted at the air port. I lurk in the shadows relying on my experience to keep me invisible from security cameras, police and any backup the dude might have. I then follow the dude out till I can corner him in an isolated place (smiling secretly and rather perversely to myself that even disturbs my twisted sense of self realization) and torture him like Daniel Craig was tortured in the last Bond movie (kick those balls baby! Oh yeah!) until he screams the whereabouts of my daughter.

Good plan!

But hold on it is not I whose executing this hold up is it? It is Mr Neeson under the expert guidance of Morel. So what Mr Neeson’s trained, deadly, invisible character does is he pounces on the bad dude in front of the airport, police, cameras, security, dude’s backup and then starts beating the shit out of him! Right in front of the entire Paris and in broad day light! The result!? The dude's backup jumps into the fight, the dude manages to escape, falls from a flyover and is dispatched to the netherworld by a loving hug from an 18 wheeler.

Hmmm nice plan. Neeson might not have the whereabouts of his daughter but hey this was more fun than just lurking in the shadows! And lets face it, nothing interests the sickos in the audience than to see a nice man on man action.

This probably summarizes my review of the movie. The movie is an absolute bore with almost every second sequence torturing your waking conscience making you ask yourself things like “what the heck is this guy doing? My grand mother can do this better than him. Oh weight my grand mother would have never lost my mother like this to begin with. Boy this guy truly sucks.”

The combats fail to impress, the chases are boring, and the plot is overdrawn and poorly conceived.
A lot of dialogues in the movie are spoken in French. Sometimes when you are lucky you do get to see sub titles while the other time you are expected to make educated guesses as to what the characters are trying to say to each other. I am quiet sure in one such situation Neeson says to his friend in the French police something on the lines of "Ahh I am so constipated! All this bloody French food has gotten into my gut and made a bloody concrete bunker in there. Damn you! Damn all your food!"

I personally think that the script was actually written as a lullaby for mentally retarded but when they shunned it the director tried to feed it to us gullible people out on the streets who would sit tight during the course of the movie for nothing else but to recover some cost from that hard earned money we spent on the ticket.

Verdict: If you really want to kill time then please rather go and see paint dry than watch this movie. Give me Bourne series any day!

As always, please click one of the stars at the end of this post to rate the movie!

Where the fock have I been! What happened to my effing commitment to publish movie reviews and just what the heck do I think I am!

What else eh my bona fide, beloved reader ;)!? Yes I have been away for a real long time but trust me it was not by choice. I have been so utterly busy with my new job that it was nigh impossible for me to find out time for anything else at all. But I do apologize for this disappearance and without further ado let us get on to the review for this week.

Describe the movie in one word: Imoteph-Ownes-Dragon-King-Any-Day

Vital Stats;

Title: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Director: Some real lonely dude…

Nahh..*grin*

Director: Rob Cohen

Starring: Psychos and some real ugly babes

True

LOL! Seriously

Starring: Brendan Fraser, Jet Li, Maria Bello, Michelle Yeoh, Isabella Long, Luke Ford, John Hannah

Runtime: 112 minutes

Plot: Nothing new or innovative really. Alex (Luke Ford) is Rick O’ Connell (Brendan)’s son who is really messed up by the tall shadow cast by his father. Portrayed as a bit of a rebel (a real ugly one by the way) he ends up digging an ancient Chinese Emperor (Jet Li). Now this emperor dude (Han) was cursed by a witch back in his time and was frozen in time along with his army of 10,000 strong terracotta warriors (is it just me or do these guys sound something that is made up of 60% cotton and 40% polyester or something?). Trailing Alex’s find is a rogue Chinese Army general who manages to break the curse on the emperor and bring him to life. The reason – this general wants “order” bestowed on this rogue chaotic world. Well this is it. Now it is upto the O’ Connell’s along with a mysterious Chinese girl who can summon the abominable snowmen etc to stop this mad emperor from resurrecting his army of cotton warriors and taking over the world.

My Psychobabble: I MISS RACHEL WEISZ! I am sorry to say but Brendan Fraser had no chemistry with his onscreen better half Maria Bello who was just awful. Accepted that every individual has his/her own special personality traits and while some have excellent looks (aka yours truly ;)) while some have exceptional talents (ahem!) but then there are people like Mario Bello who are truly exceptional (in the sense that they have neither!). Her portrayal of the character was week and left much desired. Somehow even Brendan Fraser looked quiet uncomfortable playing this part which he played amazingly in the first two movies. Luke Ford seriously could be Maria Bello’s real son for he had all the qualities of his on screen mother viz. nothing! He acted bad, looked bad and worst – had the longest role really.

Michelle Yeoh – oh well wont go into details on her as this would invariably lead to spoilers. But suffice this to say that Michelle Yeoh, Jet Li and John (Jonathan) are truly wasted in the movie.

Other than bad acting and badder (don’t you dare frown over my seemingly incorrect English) looking actors the movie has too many week points. The script is poor and does little to hold one’s interest during the length of the movie. The direction is week and the characters are poorly written. I don’t even want to start pointing mistakes made in the movie as many sites already have this information. However special effects of the movie are commendable. They are better than the first two indeed.

Verdict: If you liked the mummy series then watch this simply for the reason that this is unfortunately one of them. This is like the ugly duckling of the family but then alas! It is family.

Please click one of the stars at the end of the post to give your opinion on this review. I would really appreciate if you could post a comment and share your opinion in detail. If you do leave a comment, I will definitely reply back. To send this to your friends, simply move your mouse over to the "Add this" button that comes at the end of the post along with the stars!

So another weekend passed by and this time in the UK it was a long weekend. I was hoping to catch up a few movies but I could only manage to squeeze in this one unfortunately. Without further ado, here is my review of this movie

Describe the movie in one word: WhatAnUtterDissappointment

Vital Stats:

Title: INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL

Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, Ray Winstone, Jim Broadbent, John Hurt, Shia Labeouf
Length: 112min

Plot: Setup in 1957 Indy has escaped a Soviet madwoman who wanted to use him to restore a certain mysterious magical skull to a mythical city set deep in the hearts of Amazon. Indy acquires a sidekick who in my opinion is perhaps the worst sidekick I have ever seen in any movie (counting even the worst Batman one!). So this Soviet madwoman (more like a real pissed off clown really) is hunting Indy who is running away from her and has also sadly become a suspicious character in the eyes of FBI. The legend says that whoever restores this skull to this mythical city(of gold) would acquire the power to control human minds and thus be invincible. Indy must now find and restore this skull before this Soviet madwomen does if he wants to save the world.

My Psychobabble: Seriously Steve(n) basing a movie in 1957 doesn't mean that you use the 1957 jokes, humor, technology, stunts and scriptwriters mate. I mean come on now you are a good director, you know better than this to use a snake in your scenes that looks more fake than the one used in Anaconda (at least we had J-Lo there to keep us interested!). The movie my readers is just about as good as the fake dianosour dung Steve conjured up in Jurrassic Park (all of them) and I DONT mean this in a good way. If I were to simply list the gross technical mistakes in the movie I would perhaps be creating a whole site dedicated to the "oops in the movie" so I would not go there. But just to list a few

1. Indy escapes a proper extreme Nuclear Blast that occurs like a mile away from him by hiding in a refrigator! It doesnt end here, the refrigator gets badly and I mean badly thrown up on rocks yet survives and whats more - our Indy survives. He then opens up the door, walks out, looks at the mushroom cloud of fire and radiation and walks away. Now I am wondering why wasn't Indy affected by the radiation? Is he like a black hole or something that can bend energy? Perhaps he is, perhaps not, Steve knows!
2. Snake scene - So Indy and his Mrs are stuck up in quicksand and his side kick is trying to pull them out. What does he come up with, a rope? Nahh! A freaking live snake! Indy grabs the snake and the side kick pulls him out. Damn! Let us use snakes on mountaineering expeditions throughout the world now. Apparently they are as strong as ropes and hey if you carry a mama snake and a papa snake you can always make them breed (wink wink) to produce lots of baby snakes and have an unlimited supply of ropes! Voila!
3. Magnetism: Seriously Steve and I mean VERY seriously here. Why does the "strong magnetic" power of your objects come into picture ONLY when the hero drags the box containing them from beneath the other boxes? Wood doesn't stop magnetic effect! Why oh why does the object start attracting guns when the lid of the box is open!
4. Oh fock it I dont care anymore

(Brrr! I am so scared of her)

Despite these(and many more such) goof ups the movie is completely and thoroughly boring. It appears as a selection of random clips thrown together by a drunk 14 year boy who got his hands on his dad's laptop when dad was away, got very excited on the prospect of watching p0rn but drank too much beer, got utterly mixed up in his head and ended up using windows movie maker rather than windows media player, got scared, tried to hide the movie but couldn't. The dad came back, saw the movie on his laptop and thought "Hey you know what! Maybe I can shove this one to Hollywood if I publicize this right (wink wink)"

(Jeez what an uttely rubbish techy joke I cracked up there. Steve's talent has certainly rubbed off on me!)

Yes the movie is boring and does appear very disconnected and incoherent. The effects are from 1957 and so is the execution of the script. Towards the climax a very interesting phenomenon happens concering the Soviet mad woman. I won't give the details here but would share a joke that shall explain what I am trying to say

So there is this dude whose like maxed dedicated and stuff. He prays like straight on for a gazillion years to his God, doesn't eat or sleep or you know any other morning stuff as well (and is seriouly ill) but constantly prays and prays and prays. Eventually God gets real buggered up and decided to pay him a visit mostly because God is so ultra sick of this idiotic attitude of his. So God comes to him and feeds him the usual cock and bull story of how much God is impressed by his devotion and asks him to chose between infinite wealth or infinite wisdom. The dude is so like impressed by God appearing and is so bloody satisfied that he asks for infinite wisdom. Bang! There is the usual Harry Potter style wizardry effects (I mean come on God is not like Steve to cut down on effects here) and when the smoke clears the guy is flat out on his back with his hand on his forehead. The passerbys get real worried and shake him and throw water at his face (I bet one of the more drunk dudes kinda u know releived his bladder there). The guy slowly comes back to life and has this utter gloom look on his face. When the other guys ask him "dude whats up? What happened man!" He slowly looks at them with these eyes shinning like diamonds from his profound wisdom and says

"Should have asked for money. Should have should have asked for money"

Verdict: If you are not a die hard Indy fan but liked his earlier movies then I would suggest you skip this one. It would seriously tarnish the memories of the earlier ones. For die hard Indy fans who want to hunt me down now and kill me, check my advise that I gave in my review of Iron Man here http://john-on-movies.blogspot.com/2008/05/iron-man.html. For those who dont care shite about Indy phobia, guys there are better movies out there, dont waste your time and money on this one!