Action & Adventure
Sin City 2005 (Review)
Brutal and breathtaking, Sin City is Robert Rodriguez's stunningly realized vision of Frank Miller's pulpy comic books. In the first of three separate but loosely related stories, Marv (Mickey Rourke) tries to track down the killers of a woman who ended up dead in his bed. In the second story, Dwight's (Clive Owen) attempt to defend a woman from a brutal abuser goes horribly wrong, and threatens to destroy the uneasy truce among the police, the mob, and the women of Old Town. Finally, an aging cop on his last day on the job (Bruce Willis) rescues a young girl from a kidnapper, but is himself thrown in jail. Years later, he has a chance to save her again.
Based on three of Miller's immensely popular and immensely gritty books (The Hard Goodbye, The Big Fat Kill, and That Yellow Bastard), Sin City is unquestionably the most faithful comic-book-based movie ever made. Like the books, it's almost entirely in stark black and white with some occasional bursts of color (a woman's red lips, a villain's yellow face). The backgrounds are entirely digitally generated, yet not self-consciously so, and perfectly capture Miller's gritty cityscape. And though most of Miller's copious nudity is absent, the violence is unrelentingly present. That may be the biggest obstacle to viewers who aren't already fans of the books and who may have been turned off by Kill Bill (whose director, Quentin Tarantino, helmed one scene of Sin City).
In addition, it's a bleak, desperate world in which the heroes are killers, corruption rules, and the women are almost all prostitutes or strippers. But Miller's stories are riveting, and the huge cast - which also includes Jessica Alba, Jaime King, Brittany Murphy, Rosario Dawson, Benicio Del Toro, Elijah Wood, Nick Stahl, Michael Clarke Duncan, Devin Aoki, Carla Gugino, and Josh Hartnett - is just about perfect.
In what Rodriguez hopes is the first of a series, Sin City is a spectacular achievement.
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The War of the Worlds (Review)
Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds, staring Tom Cruise, is a contemporary retelling of H.G. Wells' seminal classic, sci-fi adventure thriller revealing the extraordinary battle for the future of humankind through the eyes of one family fighting to survive it.
The film centers on Ray Ferrier, a divorced father (Tom Cruise) who witnesses one giant craft destroy his New Jersey town and soon is on the road with his teen son (Justin Chatwin) and preteen daughter (Dakota Fanning) in tow, trying to keep ahead of the invasion. The film is, of course, impeccably designed and produced by Spielberg's usual crew of classy talent. The aliens are genuinely scary, even when the film, like the novel, spends a good chunk of time in a basement.
Alien-happy Spielberg with his amazing effects have recreated H.G. Wells's novel as a horror film packaged as a sci-fi thrill ride. Spielberg (along with writers Josh Friedman & David Koepp) utilises aliens hell-bent on mercilessly destroying humanity and the terrifying results that prey upon adult fears.
This new release is available from November 14 2005.
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Sahara (Review)
It took more than 25 years for another Clive Cussler novel to come to the screen after the financial and critical disaster of Raise the Titanic.
Based on Cussler's oddly landlocked adventure, Sahara finds the author's hero, Dirk Pitt (Matthew McConaughey), a sort of all-American, high seas variation of James Bond, in Africa looking for a Confederate ironclad ship that might have impossibly ended up there.
Soon he and his faithful sidekick Al Giordino (Steve Zahn) are lost in another adventure, discovering a deadly contaminate being tracked by a beautiful doctor (Penelope Cruz). The action is enjoyably varied, while the thrills are mild yet not ostentatious or gratuitous.
Zahn in particular steals the show and sparkles in his role; McConaughey, who also produced Sahara, knows he might be starting a franchise character and plays it safe. He's never as dangerous as Cussler's hero is on the page and in fact, the whole movie plays towards comedy, infused by a soundtrack of 70s FM radio monsters. Action-wise, this film is great fun.
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Bullet Boy (Review)
Bullet Boy is a hard-hitting British film about urban gun crime and social deprivation on the streets of Hackney, London. This topic is familiar to countless American films, but more overdue from a British perspective.
In short, Ricky the protagonist (played by Ashley Walters, aka So Solid Crew's Asher D), comes to the rescue of a friend during a street clash with a rival gang. He soon finds that his efforts to go straight, after spending time in a young offender's institution, are tested to the full when the gang situation escalates.
Director, Saul Dibb attempts to break down stereotypes by steering clear of gangsters and sensationalism, instead focusing on Ricky's involvement in a self-perpetuating chain of events.
A behind-the-scenes documentary reveals the personal experiences many of the actors brought to their roles in this excellent DVD.
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