Tag Archives: action

Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon

Genre: Action

Director: Tsui Hark

Writers: Tsui Hark and Chang Chia-Lu

Cast: Mark Zhao, Angelababy, Carina Lau, Feng Shaofeng, Lin Gengxin, Ian Kim, Chen Kun

Running Length: 133 minutes

Synopsis: The young Dee (Mark Zhao) arrives in the Imperial Capital, intent to become an officer of the law. He becomes embroiled in solving the mystery of a “sea dragon” that had attacked the Imperial Navy, and also the mystery of another sea monster that seems bent on attacking a courtesan (Angelababy) and anyone around her.

Review: Tsui Hark’s second 3D outing after 2011’s Flying Swords of Dragon Gate (which I felt that was an unmitigated disaster of a movie), Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragons is the prequel of the successful 2010 movie Detective Dee: Mystery of the Phantom Flame, but devoid of any returning actors other than Carina Lau, reprising her role as Empress Wu Ze Tian.

The fresh faced cast is sure to appeal to a younger audience, but the bloat of the movie very nearly obliterates everything positive in the film. It is, after all, supposed to be a fun movie, but Tsui and Chang assemble a plot with so many different plot threads, many unsatisfactorily resolved, that the movie very nearly implodes under the weight of the narrative. The fact that a pretty straightforward tale takes over two hours to resolve is a sure sign that more prudent editing would have made Young Detective Dee a more palatable film.

That doesn’t mean the film is without its merits. The action choreography is top notch, and Tsui Hark does give these moments more than adequate screen time. The use of stereoscopic cameras in the filming of the movie should also mean better 3D effects, but Singaporean audiences will not know better as the only version airing in the cinemas seems to be the non-3D digital release. There’s great attention to detail in the film’s lush set design and opulent art direction, and while the computer generated imagery is still quite visible and occasionally jarring, it never detracts entirely from the rest of the movie.

Already facing the challenge of being much less charismatic than Andy Lau, Mark Zhao is simply unable to muster up enough screen presence to even make his Detective Dee stand out from the rest of the cast. The rest of the cast is similarly unremarkable, and even Carina Lau seems to be present to only up the star power of the film. Young Detective Dee also gets a bit too cute at times, imbuing Dee with what apparently seems to be X-ray vision and some very farfetched equipment (most notably, a horse that can travel faster underwater than on land). While suspension of disbelief is a must in such films, the level to which it must be done for this film makes it an almost impossible task except the truly forgiving, 

Perhaps the biggest problem with Young Detective Dee is that, despite being a movie about an intriguing mystery, telegraphs the answer from a mile away. There is no real mystery about the sea dragon nor the investigation of the case, and even the reveal is so long drawn out that the actual solution brings little joy. It always spells trouble when the b-roll spliced into the end credits feel more interesting than what ensued in the two hours prior.

Rating: * * ½ (out of four stars)

Standard

2 Guns

Genre: Action

Director: Baltasar Kormakur

Writer: Blake Masters

Cast: Denzel Washington, Mark Wahlberg, Paula Patton, Bill Paxton, Fred Ward, James Marsden, Edward James Olmos

Running Length: 109 minutes

Synopsis:  For the past 12 months, DEA agent Bobby Trench (Washington) and U.S. naval intelligence officer Michael Stigman (Wahlberg) have been reluctantly attached at the hip. Working undercover as members of a narcotics syndicate, each man distrusts his partner as much as the criminals they have both been tasked to take down. 

When their attempt to infiltrate a Mexican drug cartel and recover millions goes haywire, Trench and Stigman are suddenly disavowed by their superiors. Now that everyone wants them in jail or in the ground, the only person they can count on is the other. Unfortunately for their pursuers, when good guys spend years pretending to be bad, they pick up a few tricks along the way.

Review: 2 Guns is not a movie that strives to make much sense – in fact, one can say that the overplotted and clichéd script is actually the biggest negative of the film. What one can expect from the film, however, is great performances from the two leads, and an easy chemistry between the duo that’s of utmost importance in a buddy cop movie. That alone will not be able to elevate 2 Guns into a great movie, but at the very least it’s worth its price of admission. 

The less that is said about the plot, the better – 2 Guns has an extremely convoluted plot, featuring way too many vanilla villains (say that fast three times) for its own good. The “buddy cop” dramatic device literally takes forever to set up, and although the interaction between Wahlberg and Washington is what sells the movie, the water is muddied with too many inconsequential plot threads that serve nothing but pad out the running time of the (not very long) movie. To add insult to injury, 2 Guns tries to wrap everything up nicely with a bow tie, but the journey to the denouement takes such implausible turns that it needs a full disengagement of one’s sense of logic to accept the plot developments.

Fortunately, Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg make the proceedings much more bearable. Their banter is great and although the dialogue tends to branch off into the inconsequential, it’s consistently fun and the pairing works well enough.  And although the villains are not really menacing (even when doing some Very Bad Things), the trio of Bill Paxton, Edward James Olmos and James Marsden do manage to make a passing grade at least. Paula Patton, unfortunately, gets the role of the perfunctory hot chick with nothing much to do, but she does look amazingly hot while doing it so that’s a bonus for the target demographic.

There are no pretenses about what type of movie 2 Guns is – it’s not meant to be a serious commentary on corruption in the government, nor is it meant to be a taut thriller. It is meant to be an enjoyable, disposable buddy cop movie that moviegoers would not need to invest too much of their brain power when watching. If viewed from this perspective, then the film doesn’t do much wrong, even though the movie would have largely faded from memory on the trip back home from the cinema.

Rating: * * ½ (out of four stars)

Standard

The Wolverine

Genre: Action

Director: James Mangold

Writers: Christopher McQuarrie, Mark Bomback, Scott Frank, based on Wolverine by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Famke Janssen, Rila Fukushima, Tao Okamoto, Svetlana Khodchenkova, Will Yun Lee, Hiroyuki Sanada, Hal Yamanouchi

Running Length: 126 minutes

Synopsis: Based on the celebrated comic book arc, this epic action-adventure takes Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), the most iconic character of the X-Men universe, to modern day Japan. Out of his depth in an unknown world, he will face a host of unexpected and deadly opponents in a life-or-death battle that will leave him forever changed. Vulnerable for the first time and pushed to his physical and emotional limits, he confronts not only lethal samurai steel but also his inner struggle against his own immortality.

Review: The Wolverine is somewhat of an anomaly in the roster of summer blockbusters – although this is the sixth time Wolverine has featured in a movie, the film’s only name actors are Hugh Jackman and Famke Janssen, with the rest of the cast being relative unknowns. And despite what the trailers might have suggested, this is actually a rather intimately shot film, with only a handful of action set pieces in  itstwo-hour plus running time. While the storyline is undoubtedly engaging, and the film as a whole is definitely superior to the dreary X-Men Origins: Wolverine, it remains to be seen if the film’s box office would be impacted by mismatched expectations of the audience.

The Wolverine comes off to a pretty slow start – the initial exposition takes up more than half an hour before any true action is witnessed on screen, by which time it’s abundantly clear to audiences that this movie is trying to be more than just the typical summer action blockbuster. Credit must be given to Mangold for trying to delve deeper into the psyche of Wolverine and what makes him tick, but it isn’t always very successful. All the Jean Grey visions in particular are cheesy and cringe-worthy, but there are moments of introspection that feel as though he has succeeded somewhat.

Apart from this, The Wolverine is a pretty formulaic superhero movie offering up few surprises. There’s the obligatory (in this case, extremely obligatory) romantic interest, the typical action sequences, and the final showdown. The finale is particularly disappointing, because the villains seem to pose very little threat to the heroes and are quite quickly dispatched. Wolverine’s loss of his super healing powers (much vaunted in the slew of trailers and pre-publicity) also don’t manage to make too much of a difference. Thankfully there is at least a refreshing take on the typical “brawl atop a speeding train” sequence, since it happens on a bullet train travelling at 300km/h, which changes the rules of combat and physics somewhat.

Placing Wolverine in a foreign locale does also help to shake things up a bit. Apart from Wolverine, Jean Grey and Viper, every other character of note are Japanese, often speaking in their native tongue. This is an interesting gambit for a summer film, since subtitles are popular amongst the typical movie-going crowd, but suffice to say it being of the X-Men universe will ease the discomfort somewhat. Mangold and the writers do play quite hard and fast with the canon of the story arc the movie is based on, which may annoy the hardcore Marvel and X-Men fans, but otherwise there’s really nothing glaringly out of place with the plot. X-Men fans would be particularly pleased with the coda just after the first segment of the end credits, which alludes to the already-announced X-Men: Days of Future Past, coming our way summer of 2014.

Rating: * * ½ (out of four stars)

Standard

Pacific Rim * * * 1/2

Genre: Sci-Fi, Action

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Writers: Travis Beacham & Guillermo del Toro

Cast: Charlie Hunnam, Rinko Kikuchi, Idris Elba, Charlie Day, Max Martini, Ron Perlman

Running Length: 131 minutes

Synopsis: When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity’s resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju.

On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes – a washed up former pilot (Charlie Hunnam) and an untested trainee (Rinko Kikuchi) – who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind’s last hope against the mounting apocalypse.

Review: Pacific Rim is what the Transformers film should have been – it’s a behemoth of an effects movie, loud and brash and all guns blazing from the word go, but doesn’t eschew a proper storyline in exchange for CG effects and action sequences. Guillermo Del Toro has crafted a very impressive film here – minus some bad science and logic, this is about as entertaining as the monsters versus giant robots sub genre gets.

It’s clear that the film is targeted mainly at teenaged boys (just like Transformers), and so the proceedings remain very chaste throughout – there’s very little true violence and bloodshed (barring kaiju blood, but it’s about as gruesome as an ad for diapers, blue liquid and all), and virtually zero sexual chemistry between the two leads. The focus is really on the mecha and the monsters, which fortunately are rendered very well. Action sequences are cleanly shot, with none of the confusion that plagued all the Transformers movies, and the film is pretty evenly paced with little downtime.

Pacific Rim is also a rare action film which successfully balances the OTT action sequences with exposition, which allows audiences to feel more vested in the proceedings. There’s also immense attention paid to the finer details of the universe that Pacific Rim is set in – for example, Jaegers each have their own unique look and feel, and it’s readily apparent that a lot of painstaking work was put into making the Shatterdome and other environments look just right. Unlike Transformers and the ilk, there’s no lazy filmmaking to be found in Pacific Rim. This is also a film in which paying for a third dimension doesn’t feel like a pure money grab – the action sequences felt enhanced and even more visceral when viewed in (IMAX) 3D.

That’s not to say that the film is without issues – apart from the junky science (apparent even to a layperson like me), one of the biggest problems the movie has is with the choice of its main lead. Although Charlie Hunnam bears the looks and build of an all-American hero, his thespian skills leave much to be desired, and some of his line delivery is so poor it’s almost comical. To be fair, the rest of the cast is perfectly serviceable (Rinko Kikuchi and Mana Ashida, the child actress playing the younger version of Mako, are the most memorable), and the one scene where Raleigh and Mako face off in physical combat is flirtatious fun.   

Guillermo del Toro has not attempted a project of this size prior, but he has now shown that tackling a big summer blockbuster is not out of the question for him. Pacific Rim borders on being a guilty pleasure – it is hugely enjoyable with the standard trappings of an action film, and yet delves just enough beyond the superficial that it doesn’t become featureless, mindless action tedium. The final title card in the end credits pay tribute to Ray Harryhausen (master of stop motion animation films like the original Clash of the Titans) and Ishiro Honda (the director of Godzilla – the original film, not the pale Hollywood remake), and the film indeed is a shining example of how Harryhausen and Honda’s films would look like if made with the trappings of 21st Century technology and modern sensibilities.

Rating: * * * ½ (out of four stars)

Standard

After Earth * 1/2

Genre: Sci-Fi, Action

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Writers: Gary Whitta and M. Night Shyamalan, based on a story by Will Smith

Cast: Will Smith, Jaden Smith

Running Length: 100 minutes

Synopsis: A crash landing leaves teenager Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith) and his legendary father Cypher (Will Smith) stranded on Earth, 1,000 years after cataclysmic events forced humanity’s escape. With Cypher critically injured, Kitai must embark on a perilous journey to signal for help, facing uncharted terrain, evolved animal species that now rule the planet, and an unstoppable alien creature that escaped during the crash. Father and son must learn to work together and trust one another if they want any chance of returning home.

Review: It’s quite obvious that Will Smith had designed After Earth to be a star vehicle for his son Jaden – after all, he wrote the story the screenplay was based on, and produced this movie together with his wife Jada. Unfortunately, it would seem that the payoff he would be getting out of the movie is likely going to be inadequate – there are so many misfires in After Earth it’s actually hard to pinpoint which is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Suffice to say that if it’s true that Will Smith had intended the movie as the first of a trilogy, he’s going to have a really hard time making the next two films.

It’s not that After Earth is a bad movie, more that it is an ill-conceived one. Ostensibly a coming of age sci-fi flick that also features major father-son bonding, the fact that the two protagonists are separated for a large part of the film makes it nearly impossible for audiences to get a sense of any kinship between the two. This is not aided by the fact that Will Smith essentially spends the movie sitting in a chair, and Jaden’s perfunctory acting skills are not good enough for him to carry lengths of the movie on his own. In fact, there are times where the CGI and the set design (which are both genuinely well done) manage to make more of an impression than Jaden’s stilted performance.

This is exacerbated by the total lack of suspense – since Kitai is honestly the only actively moving actor in the movie, there’s never a true sense of danger even when Kitai gets into trouble. There’s never doubt that he would make it through the ordeal, so even if the character is placed in a situation that seems to lead to impending doom, his continued survival is the only outcome that would make any sense. This predictability greatly detracts from the viewing experience, resulting in a film that seems to drag even though it has a relatively short running time of under two hours.

M. Night Shyamalan has fallen so far from grace that the film has been marketed largely without his name on it, and After Earth would not be the movie that would pull him out from his downward spiral. There are no third-act twists in this film, but it may actually have fared better if there were one (and this is coming from someone who grew very tired of Shyamalan’s plot twists). It would at least have made the proceedings more interesting to sit through.

Rating: * ½ (out of four stars)

Standard

Star Trek: Into Darkness * * * 1/2

Genre: Sci-Fi, Action

Director: J.J. Abrams

Writers: Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof

Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho

Running Length: 133 minutes

Synopsis: When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving their world in a state of crisis. With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction.

Review: With the series reboot in 2009, Star Trek is no longer a movie franchise that solely appeals to a niche “Trekkie” audience. J. J. Abrams had made Star Trek cool and mainstream, and many people will walk into Star Trek: Into Darkness, four years later, with raised expectations (myself included). The good news is that Into Darkness manages to outdo its predecessor(s), raising the bar yet again for the Star Trek franchise. Into Darkness has something for fans of many genres – sci-fi, action, even drama, and although it has once again taken liberties with the “established” Star Trek canon, there’s very little to complain about otherwise.

A caveat: now that it’s the second movie post reboot, audiences will need to have watched the first movie in order to make sense of the interpersonal relationships aboard the starship Enterprise, as there is very little exposition in the film to cast more light on the Enterprise crew list. That does free up the narrative of Into Darkness, and instead of cast introductions, the film kicks off straight in the deep of a really fun, slightly implausible action sequence that sets the tone for the rest of the movie.

The original cast are back for the sequel, and as a whole the performances are more than adequate, with even the usually subpar Chris Pine having a few memorable moments. However, all performances pale to Benedict Cumberbatch’s tour de force turn as the central villain of the movie, and a mid-movie reveal will leave Trekkies gasping for breath (either in horror or in appreciation of the way Abrams has paid homage to the Trek films of yore). The intensity of Cumberbatch’s performance is astounding, and manages to outdo Eric Bana’s banal villain (pun unintended) in the first film many times over.

Into Darkness is yet another post-processed 3D film, which means that there’s really very little reason to view it in 3D. Save for a couple of scenes which displays reasonable three dimensionality, there’s no significant value-add shelling out the extra money for a 3D screening.

The screenplay has almost everything in it save the kitchen sink, deftly switching from action to comedy to character drama, and managing to pull off most of it with aplomb. The only flaw is in the film’s final reel, which feels like an unnecessary addition after what was ostensibly a climactic finale. The film thus ends on a whisper instead of a bang, but even this irregularity doesn’t detract too much from the enjoyment of the movie as a whole. And that’s essentially the reason why Into Darkness is a successful film – it manages to consistently entertain, and yet boasts a depth that is not commonly seen in summer blockbusters.

Unfortunately, with directorial duties for Star Wars looming, it is unlikely that J. J. Abrams will be behind the camera for the next Star Trek installment. However, he has laid such excellent groundwork for the franchise to continue, that it would take a large amount of ineptitude for the next director to screw it up.

Rating: * * * ½ (out of four stars)

Standard

Iron Man 3 * * *

Genre: Action

Director: Shane Black

Writers: Shane Black, Drew Pearce

Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Ben Kingsley, Rebecca Hall

Running Length: 131 minutes

Synopsis: Marvel Studios’ Iron Man 3 pits brash-but-brilliant industrialist Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) against an enemy whose reach knows no bounds. When Stark finds his personal world destroyed at his enemy’s hands, he embarks on a harrowing quest to find those responsible. This journey, at every turn, will test his mettle.

With his back against the wall, Stark is left to survive by his own devices, relying on his ingenuity and instincts to protect those closest to him. As he fights his way back, Stark discovers the answer to the question that has secretly haunted him: does the man make the suit or does the suit make the man?

Review: Now that Iron Man is a firmly established franchise together with the Avengers, it’s hard to feel any surprise about this third installment of Iron Man. Whilst no one can be accused of dialing in their performances (which are in fact quite good given the genre), there’s this overall sense of not really trying too hard with this film. The requisite action sequences are in place, as well as Robert Downey Jr’s by-now trademark wisecracking take on Tony Stark/Iron Man, but the change of directors to Shane Black brings nothing new to the table. Not that change is a necessity, but since this should be the swansong for the Iron Man franchise, I had truly expected the trilogy to end on a higher note.

This is essentially the darkest Iron Man film to date, focusing on the more intimate aspects of the Iron Man universe – Stark’s inability to cope with the events that unfolded in The Avengers, his relationship with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), and his personal vendetta against the terrorist figure known only as The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley). Robert Downey Jr. actually spends a fair amount of time outside the suit, and apart from a lengthy, overly cheesy and somewhat unnecessary “buddy movie” sequence with a young boy, his performance as a superhero is impressive and only a distant second from Christian Bale’s incomparable turn as the Dark Knight. Ben Kingsley is the most seasoned actor amongst the cast, and despite a limited number of scenes, easily steals the limelight from everyone else, Downey Jr. included.

Action set pieces are on the whole quite well done, especially the scene involving Air Force One, but my personal opinion is that the climactic showdown in the final reel is a letdown. Having a whole bunch of Iron Man suits fighting the villain’s henchmen makes it look like a scaled down version of Transformers, and honestly the entire denouement fails to make much sense on most levels. The finale also attempts to inject some emotionality to the proceedings but it’s not a very successful attempt (as compared to, for example, the final sequence in The Dark Knight Rises).

This is the first Iron Man film to be in 3D, but like many conversions to 3D, it is not necessary to watch the film in the third dimension. There’s very little depth to the picture, and 3D actually makes the image muddy and causes a lot of strain to the eyes. Having caught the film once each in 3D and 2D, I can safely say the viewing experience is far better in 2D.

Iron Man 3 is a perfectly fine start to the summer blockbuster season for 2013, and only the fussiest moviegoers will walk out of the cinema not feeling entertained. It is unlikely we will see Iron Man as a standalone feature moving forward, but Tony Stark’s appearance in related franchises (next up in Avengers 2) should leave fans satiated.

P.S There is a post credits sequence which is quite amusing but inconsequential – whether it’s worth sitting through the ten minute credits crawl is of course, a personal choice.

Rating: * * * (out of four stars)

Standard

The Dark Knight Rises * * * *

Genre: Action

Director: Christopher Nolan

Writers: Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan, based on characters written by Bob Kane

Cast: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Running Length: 165 minutes

Synopsis: It’s been eight years since the events that unfolded in The Dark Knight, and Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is now a shadow of his former self, broken both physically and emotionally, casting himself into self-seclusion. An encounter with the sexy cat burglar Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) jolts him out of his stupor, and with a new villain Bane (Tom Hardy) in Gotham City threatening the city’s survival, Bruce has to decide whether to become the caped crusader again. He is aided by his trusty butler Alfred (Michael Caine), Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), his right-hand man at Wayne Enterprises, and Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman). Several other characters also enter the fray, including police officer John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, as well as Wayne Enterprises board member and potential love interest of Bruce Wayne, Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard).

Review: All good things have to come to an end, and after 7 long years, the final installment of Christopher Nolan’s game-changing Batman trilogy has finally arrived. The Dark Knight is a very tough act to follow, and whilst The Dark Knight Rises does not manage to reach the same heights that its predecessor attained, the film is about as good a sendoff to the series as one would hope to get.  

Let’s get the downsides out of the way first: there’s a slight sense of overreach when it comes to The Dark Knight Rises, as though there really isn’t enough time (even in a movie that runs close to 3 hours long) to cover every aspect of the complex narrative web that Christopher and his brother Jonathan have weaved. There are just a touch too many characters involved in the proceedings, to the point where it does seem that some of these characters have been given short shrift – even Batman himself doesn’t take centerstage all that often, despite this being a movie that ostensibly revolves around him.

Yet, these are merely minor quibbles in the grander scheme of things, and The Dark Knight Rises satisfies in ways that few superhero movies can hope to do. Things are never simple in Nolan’s cinematic universes, and in the realm of his Dark Knight, the characters carry far greater emotional weight than one would expect for a superhero movie, and the universally excellent performances (except perhaps for a blander than usual Marion Cotillard) help to give multi-dimensionality. Combined, this means much greater audience investment into the outcomes of these characters, which is never a bad thing.

The Dark Knight Rises also focuses on something that is usually left by the wayside for a superhero movie – it reminds us that beneath the mask, Batman is a normal human being. From the walking stick that Bruce Wayne now depends on, to Alfred’s questioning his intentions for returning as Batman, the caped crusader’s physical vulnerability is underscored repeatedly.

Christian Bale continues to give a superlative performance as Bruce Wayne and Batman, and despite the significant female presence in the movie (Anne Hathaway is particularly memorable as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, although it’s very different from Michelle Pfeiffer’s campy Catwoman), the best emotional sequences arise from interactions between Wayne and his butler Alfred. Christian Bale and Michael Caine will quite possibly be the best iterations of these two characters ever, much like how the late Heath Ledger has completely overshadowed any other actor that have been (or will become) the Joker. Tom Hardy’s Bane is menacing and yet charismatic, though his performance is somewhat hampered by the large mask that he wears. An additional caveat: the distortion of Bane’s voice does makes some of his dialogue almost unintelligible.

The Dark Knight Rises is equally accomplished on the technical front. This is an incredibly good looking film, benefiting from Wally Pfister’s excellent cinematography and Nolan’s masterful framing of shots. Over an hour of footage has been shot on IMAX film, and the movie is best appreciated on an IMAX screen. Nolan is known for avoiding CGI whenever possible, and there’s an organic feel to the movie (which is entirely shot on film as well) which is hard to find in any action movie these days. Hans Zimmer’s score also forms an integral part of the movie, punctuating the action sequences with percussion heavy cues, but also judiciously using silence and dialing back on the pomposity whenever needed.

Without giving anything away, let’s just say that Nolan has given as much closure to his trilogy as possible, but has still left the door slightly open for the studio’s benefit. The denouement of The Dark Knight Rises isn’t as ambiguous as Inception, but this is without a doubt a “thinking man’s superhero movie”, requiring a consistent engagement of the mind. It’s a change of pace from most summer action films, but the film remains thrilling and engrossing throughout, despite its extended running time.

Both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight have largely missed out on Oscar action, barring Heath Ledger’s posthumous Supporting Actor win. Hopefully the Academy will belatedly recognize the greatness of this genre-bending trilogy, and we’ll see a more representative list of nominations for what is undoubtedly the best superhero movie to be released this year.

Rating: * * * * (out of four stars)

Standard

Wrath of the Titans * * 1/2

Genre: Action

Director: Jonathan Liebesman

Writers: Dan Mazeau, David Johnson, Greg Berlanti

Cast: Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Rosamund Pike, Edgar Ramirez, Bill Nighy, Danny Huston

Running Length: 100 minutes

Synopsis: A decade after his heroic defeat of the monstrous Kraken, Perseus (Sam Worthington) – the demigod son of Zeus (Liam Neeson) – is attempting to live a quieter life as a village fisherman and the sole parent to his 10-year old son, Helius. Meanwhile, a struggle for supremacy rages between the gods and the Titans. Dangerously weakened by humanity's lack of devotion, the gods are losing control of the imprisoned Titans and their ferocious leader, Kronos, father of the long-ruling brothers Zeus, Hades (Ralph Fiennes) and Poseidon. Perseus cannot ignore his true calling when Hades, along with Zeus' godly son, Ares (Edgar Ramírez), switch loyalty and make a deal with Kronos to capture Zeus. The Titans' strength grows stronger as Zeus' remaining godly powers are siphoned…

Review: Few films in recent memory have benefitted from lowered expectations like Wrath of the Titans has – after all, its predecessor was a pretty terrible mess, from the clunky dialogue to the awful tacked on “3D” (the most 3D aspect being the Mandarin subtitles), and it really wouldn’t take much to improve upon that travesty of a remake. This time round, the story comes with much less baggage, and despite another post production 3D conversion, looks far better than the first film. That’s not to say that Wrath of the Titans is a masterpiece, but at least it’s much less painful to sit through, with a number of decent action set pieces, and the injection of much-need levity into the proceedings. It also helps to view this film on as large a screen as possible (IMAX 3D being the most ideal), as it amplifies the cinematic experience and makes the film’s flaws more tolerable.

And there’s no shortage of things to pick on in Wrath of the Titans, if one is inclined to do so. The dialogue is painfully clunky, with characters often delivering dialogue solely for exposition’s sake, and the script borders on incoherence very often. The production team does seem to be aware of that, and occasionally poke fun at themselves (at one point, one character tells another to “avoid the big speech”), which makes it a little more tolerable. There’s also a lot of soap opera going on for an action movie, and these exclusively male, uncomfortably melodramatic scenes really weigh down the narrative.

Still, the film largely looks good, and the action sequences are quite impressively choreographed, with the most memorable not being the climactic showdown, but rather a “smaller” scene involving a number of Cyclops and the lead characters. Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes bring higher quality acting and gravitas to the table, while an almost unrecognizable Bill Nighy steals the show with his high energy portrayal of Hephaestus. Action junkies should still leave the cinema feeling sated, but here’s hoping that if there’s a third film in the franchise, that it would be a higher quality production all round.   

Rating: * * ½ (out of four stars)

Standard

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

Genre: Action

Directors: Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor

Writers: Scott M. Gimple, Seth Hoffman, David S. Goyer

Cast: Nicolas Cage, Ciaran Hinds, Johnny Whitworth, Fergus Riordan, Idris Elba

Running Length: 95 minutes

Synopsis: Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage) – still struggling with his curse as the devil's bounty hunter – is hiding out in a remote part of Eastern Europe when he is recruited by a secret sect of the church to save a young boy (Fergus Riordan) from the devil (Ciaran Hinds). At first, Johnny is reluctant to embrace the power of the Ghost Rider, but it is the only way to protect the boy – and possibly rid himself of his curse forever.

Review: It’s probably a sequel that not many people had expected – after all, the original Ghost Rider movie in 2007 wasn’t exactly a trailblazer, even though it did score a pretty healthy box office taking. This time round, the cheesy humour that was so prevalent in the first film is toned down (although there is an absolutely brilliant joke about Twinkies), and the directorial duo behind the Crank franchise seems a little out of their depth when putting together larger-scale action set pieces that aren’t as organic as those found in Crank. 

The acting in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is simply rather uninspired, and even Nicolas Cage doesn’t tap that frequently into his “mad side”, a departure from the first Ghost Rider movie. However, Cage has always been an intense actor, and even though the audience will only get it in small doses it’s still an indication of what Cage is capable of. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast do not do as well, and many seem to be sleepwalking through the whole film.

Many audience members choose to watch a superhero movie to be visually dazzled by the CG and the action sequences, and in both aspects Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance falls a little short. Some of the CG is impressive but quality is rather uneven, and the addition of 3D feels mostly superfluous. The action sequences are also a little subpar, and doesn’t really impress excepting a handful of scenes. The climactic showdown turns out to be just a little anticlimactic, although it is preceded by a nicely choreographed car chase.   

The superhero movie genre has been transformed since films like Batman Begins came onto the scene, and whilst Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance would have been a perfectly serviceable genre film in the past, it quite simply will not be good enough when compared to the other superhero films that are set to be released this year.

Rating: * * ½ (out of four stars)

Standard