Currently browsing the "Action/Adventure" category.

Man on a Ledge

 Man on a Ledge is one of those movies that holds your attention and ultimately entertains, even if it does fade from memory a short time later. The less you know going into it, the more you’ll get out of it. So if you think you may want to see it, skip the more in-depth reviews and stick with this one!

Haywire

Mixed martial arts (MMA) superstar Gina Carano plays the lead and does all her own stunts in Steven Soderbergh’s latest action flick Haywire, which comes off feeling kind of Bourne-lite. In it she is surrounded by a pretty yummy collection of today’s high powered male stars: Antonio Banderas, Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Channing Tatum, even Michael Douglas. And that is the problem with the film. Carano is not an actress, and she really cannot hold her own with the big boys.

War Horse

A boy and his horse are at the center of this Steven Spielberg family drama, adapted from the Tony winning stage play, which was an adaptation of a children’s book. It is a typical Spielberg film, tugging on your heartstrings to the emotive strains of John Williams. Set in the beautiful English countryside, a strapping young lad, Albert, witnesses the birth of an amazing horse and watches as he matures into a gorgeous thoroughbred. Then in a stroke of luck, when he comes up for sale, Albert’s father is crazy enough to buy him, instead of a plough horse, which is what they really need. But unfortunately, World War One soon separates the young man from his beloved steed named Joey, and the film follows this incredible animal’s odyssey through the war and finally (and miraculously) back to his favorite human.

The Adventures of Tintin

Isn’t Tintin supposed to be a dog? C’mon, I can’t be the only one who thought The Adventures of Tintin might be some new animated twist on the tales of a certain German Shepherd named Rin. My bad. The movie is actually based on a popular European series of comics created in 1929 by a Belgian artist known as Herge’. Tintin is not a german shepherd. He’s actually a curious young reporter-detective-adventurer who, along with his dog Snowy (a fox terrier), gets caught up in the wild and wacky world of criminals, villains, artifacts and treasure. He’s part “Brenda Starr”, part “Indiana Jones”.

From a purely visual standpoint, The Adventures of Tintin is rather stunning with its use of motion-capture technology. But the story itself falls a bit flat, even at the direction of the almighty Steven Spielberg.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

They’re baaack! Holmes and Watson (Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law) pick up slightly after we last saw them in the first Sherlock Holmes. Dr. Watson is about to be married, and Holmes is still not entirely happy about it. And meanwhile, bombs are going off all over Europe, and while everyone else is blaming it on anarchists, Sherlock knows that it has something to do with his arch-nemesis Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris). He just has to put the pieces together, and he is willing to play Moriarty’s extreme body-count cat and mouse game if necessary, even if it means ruining Watson’s honeymoon.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

Mission Implausible is more like it. But no matter – this movie isn’t really about plot or plausibility. It’s about cool stunts and stunning imagery. So if you’re into the action stuff, go see it (in IMAX) and enjoy the adrenaline rush through Budapest, Moscow, Dubai and Mumbai.

For those actually counting, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is the fourth installment in the franchise starring Tom Cruise as secret agent Ethan Hunt. He leads a black ops team known as the IMF – the Impossible Mission Force (not the International Monetary Fund, though both are equally mysterious to me).

The Sitter

The Sitter is basically an R-rated re-interpretation of the 1987 classic Adventures in Babysitting. The original featured a reluctant babysitter taking her charges on an adventure through the streets of Chicago in an attempt to help a friend in need. The Sitter features Jonah Hill as Noah Griffith, a lazy college dropout who takes his three troubled charges on an adventure through the streets of New York – in an attempt to score some drugs and get laid. It actually sounds worse than it is. Noah is a total shlub but he generally means well. And by movie’s end, valuable lessons are learned by all.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1

Yes, I was indeed among the masses who helped Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part One reap nearly $140 Million at the box office in its opening weekend. And I make no apologies. I read the books and liked them (for the most part). I saw the first three movies in the series. The first one was quite bad; the second one was better; the third one was quite good. And now, the fourth – well, it’s definitely weak. But it doesn’t really matter. Once you’re sucked into the franchise, you have no choice but to see it through (thus the boffo box office numbers for this penultimate installment of the franchise). My only hope is that Part Two somehow manages to provide a more satisfying conclusion than the book itself, which was my least favorite of the bunch.

Tower Heist

The trailer for Tower Heist makes it look like an Oceans Eleven-esque comedy ensemble thievery pic. And guess what? That’s exactly what it is, only not as good. On the Oceans scale, I’d give it a six and a half.

In Time

The “Occupiers” of Wall Street and throughout the world should take a massive field trip to see this movie. I have a feeling they’d like it – a lot.  It definitely delivers a timely and thought-provoking message in an intriguing and entertaining way.