20151027: Action Review--John Wick

Name: John Wick (2014)
IMDb: link to IMDb page

Genres: Action, Thriller  Country of Origin: USA

Cast: Keanu Reeves as John Wick, Michael Nyqvist as Viggo Tarasov, Alfie Allen as Iosef Tarasov, Willem Dafoe as Marcus, Dean Winters as Avi, Adrianne Palicki as Ms Perkins, Omer Barnea as Gregori, Toby Leonard Moore as Victor, Bridget Moynahan as Helen, John Leguiziamo as Aurelio, Ian McShane as Winston, Bridget Regan as Addy, Lance Reddick as Hotel Manager (Charon).

Directed by:  Chad Stahelski and David Leitch.  Written by: Derek Kolstad.

The Three Acts:

The initial tableau:  In modern day greater New York/New Jersey, John Wick's wife Helen suddenly dies of a long lingering illness.  His old acquaintance Marcus gives his condolences after the burial.  He grieves for an interval.  In the days after the wake, a puppy, Daisy, is delivered with a note from Helen.  John and Daisy get to like each other.  While out with Daisy getting gasoline, two Russian mobsters stop for gas at the same time. Iosef admires John's Mustang, and offers to buy either the car or the dog or both.  John declines, and an older associate calls Iosef off.  Iosef and two friends break into John's house, beat him up, ruin beautiful things, shoot Daisy, steal the Mustang, badly damage his newer car, and steal the bracelet of Helen's that John kept near him.

Delineation of conflicts: Daisy was John's last living link with Helen.  The necklace had similar importance.  John wants vengeance on Iosef and on Viggo.  Aurelio informs Viggo of Iosef's actions.  Viggo understands the problem that Iosef has created.  "That fuckin' nobody is John Wick." he informs Iosef the idiot.  He advises Iosef to get out of his sight.  He asks his associate, Avi, to task all his available men to take on John.  When that fails, he sets a bounty of 2 million USD on John's head, and also asks Marcus to do the job as soon as possible.  Will Viggo live through this?

Resolution:  The many conflicts were resolved in what I thought were reasonable ways.  I recommend this film to anyone who likes the genre.

One line summary: Excellent action/revenge film.

Statistics:
  a. Cinematography: 6/10 This would be one of the weaker parts of this film.  I do not like filters, and there were too many minutes of that.

  b. Sound: 9/10 There are some great music tracks in this film, and the incidental music was well-chosen.  The actors were well miked, and I had no problems picking up dialog.

  c. Acting: 8/10 I liked Dafoe as always.  This was a great role for Keanu Reeves.  I have only liked him in The Matrix before this film, and was glad to see another film that suited him so very well.  Michael Nyqvist was superb as Viggo.  Ian McShane, John Leguiziamo, and Lance Reddick were all very good.

  d. Screenplay: 10/10 For a revenge movie, this was a fine script.  The direction and the plotlines certainly raised my hopes that John would succeed in everything that he tried.  Plus, the end of Iosef is something I looked forward to from very early on.  I seldom get that engaged with revenge films.  I loved the humour between old pairs of friends while there were lulls in the action.

Final rating: 8/10

20140131: Action Review--Heavy Metal 2000

Heavy Metal 2000

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Canadian/German animated feature length film, 2000, rated R, 86 minutes, action, animation, fantasy, music.  Spoken word is in English.  Aspect, 1.85
2. IMDB: 5.3/10.0 from 5,005 audience ratings.  Estimated budget, 15 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 0% on the meter; 37% liked it from 11,804 audience ratings.
4. I watched this on Crackle on its last day for a while.
5. Directed by:
6. Starring: Michael Ironside as Tyler, Julie Strain as Julie, Billy Idol as Odin, Pier Paquette as Germain St. Germain, Sonja Ball as Kerrie.


2. Setup and Plot
1. An ordinary space miner named Tyler touches a shard of a glowing rock that gives him a hunger for power and a thirst for immortality.  He attacks a space colony, Eden, to kill people and collect survivors who have a precious substance in their blood.  Unfortunately for Tyler, he kidnapped Kerrie, but left alive her sister Julie.  Germain was in his crew, but when Germain tries to protect Kerrie, Tyler leaves Germain behind.


2. Jule dragoons Germain, and they follow Tyler on his journey to a jump point.  They hitch a ride just before Tyler's ship enters the wormhole (the 'jump point').  Tyler tries to kill them.  The results are really bad for both ships.  They crash on a nearby planet where Julie meets Odin and his rock-like assistant.  Odin is in search of the 'Key' (the glowing rock) which Julie is oblivious to.


3. Tyler becomes leader of a local race of lizard people.  He searches for the pool of the pure substance that will give him immortality.  Odin leads Julie to Tyler's ship, where she rescues Kerrie.  They go back to the city that protects the pool and the chamber of immortality.


4. Will Julie and her new friends be able to protect the city from the lizard horde?  Will they keep Tyler from his goal?


3. Conclusions
1. Favourite quote: 'how do you lose a six foot bitch with a talking rock?'
2. One line summary: Not PC, guns blazing, swords slashing, revenge, spaceships, ample bosoms, aliens, and metal soundtrack.
3. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Art/Animation: 6/10 Varies from barely competent to good.  It seems a bit weak for a film made around 2000.  Also, the use of mixed productions modes (some flat, some hand drawn, some done by export of 3d modelling) is rather distracting.


2. Sound: 8/10 The sound levels might have been a bit better balanced.  The metal background music seemed to be kept too low compared to the sound levels for gunfire, explosions and voices.


3. Voice: 10/10 Michael Ironside, Julie Strain, Billy Idol, and Pier Paquette were all fine.


4. Screenplay: 7/10 The twin quests for revenge and for immortality move the story right along.  However, the story lacks the powerful heart and heroism of the first film.

20130906: Thriller Review--Hate Story

Name: Hate Story (2012)
IMDb: link to Hate Story page

Genres: Thriller, Crime.  Country of origin: India.

Cast: Paoli Dam as Kaavya Krishna (the protagonist), Ghishan Deviaiah as Siddharth Dhanrajgir (her tormentor), Nikhil Dwivedi as Vicky (Kaavya's ally), Joy Sengupta as Rajdev.

Directed by: Vivek Agnihotri.   Written by: Vikram Bhatt, Rohit Malhotra.

The Three Acts: 

The initial tableaux:
Journalist Kaavya exposes corruption between an industrialist and a judge regarding fixing cement prices.  The industrialist strikes back, by offering her a job she could not refuse, then romancing her, including a rather large stone on a ring, plus other expensive items. Then he rejects her: the job is gone, the 'romance' was a ploy, and he's not done screwing her over yet. First off, her job search is a bust.

Her pregnancy by Sid does not change his campaign against her.  He lures her outside her apartment, then gives her something like chloroform to knock her out. Thugs transport her to a cheap clinic to abort the fetus forcibly, to sterilize her without consent, then to leave her with no assets in the middle of nowhere.  She barely gets in touch with her family, who save her life, but then rejects her upon finding out her recent story.

Delineation of conflicts:
Kaavya wants revenge against Sid: physical retribution, emotional retribution, retribution against his reputation and wealth.  Sid, being a born bully, figures that the victim is the cause of the problem, and wishes to crush Kaavya into the deepest places of degradation and despair.

Kaavya becomes a high class prostitute to gain information and leverage against Sid.  Sid employs thugs and surveillance to counter her efforts and to damage her further.

Resolution:
The two principals deal considerable damage to each other.  Who remains standing at the end?

One line summary: Revenge, prostitution, government corruption, and industrial spying in modern India.

Statistics

Cinematography: 8/10 The camera work varies from just competent to almost glorious.

Sound: 4/10 The interjected music routines were more than a bit intrusive, unlikely, and off-putting.

Acting: 5/10 This was a mixed bag.  Some of the minor players are indifferent.   Joy Sengupta was fairly wooden, for instance.  Ghishan Deviaiah's Jekyll and Hyde performance was not convincing.  On the other hand, Nikhil Dwivedi was fine as Vicky, and Paoli Dam was wonderful as Kaavya.

Screenplay: 5/10 It is difficult to take this one seriously.  That is, did you just do that?  Seriously?  The plot's twists and turns were frequent and about 50 percent of them were too unlikely to believe. The house of cards the Sid character had constructed was just too unwieldy to hold up to any kind of scrutiny.

Final Rating: 5/10

20130617: Action Film Review--Haywire

Haywire

1. American live action theatrical film, released 2011, rated R, 92 minutes; spy thriller, action and adventure, revenge film.  Steven Soderbergh directed.
2. IMDB rated it 5.9/10.0 for 54,711 users; blurb--'A black ops super soldier seeks payback after she is betrayed and set up during a mission.'
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 80% (seems way too high) from critics; 6.7/10 from 179 user reviews.  More tellingly, 40% rating from 40,262 ticket buying audience members.
4. Filmed in New Mexico US, Dublin IR, and Barcelona ES.
5. Gina Carano, Michael Fassbender--leads (in the billing, anyway)
6. Also, Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, Bill Paxton, Antonio Banderas, Channing Tatum
7. ----------------------------------------------
8. Gina Carano is a 'top rated female MMA fighter' as one reviewer put it.  I think she should have stayed with 'reality' fighting.  She might be more convincing there.  The foley for the fights was usually off to the extent that I was certain that no blows were ever landed, just as in 'reality' fighting.  The foley defeated any chance of this being an engaging action film since everything was clearly faked.
9. Channing Tatum comes across as he usually does, as an irredeemable thug/uncivilized bully/blunt instrument/sociopath.  He shows a moment of thoughtfulness toward the end of the film, and is immediately shot for it, fatally, as it turned out.
10. Ewan MacGregor's character was flaccid and malevolent at the some time.  Perhaps that was what he was aiming for.
11. Antonio Banderas had very little screen time.  In the end, though, he was the one who pulled all the puppet strings.  I did not buy that one either.
12. Michael Fassbender gave a short performance as an ineffectual betrayer working for MI6.  Looks like he was an actor who 'fit the suit' for the role, and was not needed for anything else.
13. Michael Douglas was sleazy and smooth as a Gordon Gecko type.  He was hard to believe as the only source of possible official redemption for the protagonist.
14. Bill Paxton was the only actor I liked in this film. He played the straight arrow father of the protagonist who believed in his daughter and supported her, no matter what sequence of lies was fed to him.
15. ------------------------------------------------
16. The sound track was regularly annoying and anti-relevant.  Gunshots, for instance, should be a bit louder than conversation.  In some sequences, they were softer than footsteps, and nearly drowned out by the low-volume 'music.'  The techno-crap music was horrid.  It often served to convince me that what I was watching was of no importance, as well as of no emotional significance.  This was all a dreary intellectual exercise in fakery and treachery. The fakery--fake fighting, fake motives, fake stories--made the treachery a lot less believable.
17. The cinematography was also repugnant.  The over use of yellow (tungsten lights, yellow filtration) was rampant in the interior shots, as well as several exteriors.  There were dozens of fast cuts between the yellow palette and more natural scenes, such as Dublin on a cloudy day, or long shots of nature in New Mexico.  These jarring juxtapositions made me itch for the movie to be done.
18. -------------------------------------------------
19. This film deeply eroded my overall admiration of Soderbergh as a director.
20. I rated this film as two stars of five.

Cinematography: 4/10 This was a major detriment.  See above.

Sound: 4/10  Another major detriment.

Acting: 4/10 Some good, mostly indifferent or bad.

Screenplay: 2/10 Too many flashbacks, too many tricks.