Currently browsing the "Mark Strong" tag.

Robin Hood

No men in tights here. No borrowing from the rich to give to the poor either. This new Robin Hood is Ridley Scott’s prequel to all that. We first meet Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe) in France on his way back to England after years crusading with King Richard the Lionheart. Robin and his band of not-so-merry men are tired of war and ready to get home, only getting across the channel seems to be a problem. Fortunately they happen upon some knights who had been ambushed by the evil Godfrey (Mark Strong again as the bad guy) while trying to take the recently deceased King Richard’s crown back to England. One of the knights is still alive. He is Robert of Locksley and asks that Robin return his sword to his father in Nottingham. And so Robin and his crew impersonate the knights, take the boat to England, return the crown, and in doing so Robin is forced to keep the ruse of actually being Robert of Locksley going. When he gets to Nottingham, the old, blind father of the knight asks him to keep pretending to be Robert so that the crown will not confiscate his lands when he dies. Robin agrees and calls him father. (And the old guy actually knew Robin’s father, who turns out to have been a revolutionary who was killed in front of the young boy.)

Kick-Ass

What a quirky little film! From the previews I was expecting more of a comedy, but in fact, Kick-Ass is a teenage angst Tarantino action film gone awry. In it, three main stories converge. In one you have the nerdy comic book reading teenage boy, Dave (Aaron Johnson), who wants to be bigger than life and concocts a superhero persona for himself named Kick-Ass. In another thread a father (Nicolas Cage) trains his 11-year-old daughter (Chloe Moretz) to be his action heroine sidekick in order to exact revenge on the man who ruined their lives. The third storyline is about the big mob boss villain of the piece, Frank (Mark Strong) whose son, the same age as Dave, is desperate for his father’s approval and invents his own comic book identity as Red Mist to try and trap the other superheroes.

The Young Victoria

To look at The Young Victoria for historical accuracy would be the wrong way to approach it. Screenwriter Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park) admits to taking dramatic license in many places for effect. And it is effective as a coming of age love story set inside that gilded cage known as the British monarchy. The story begins with 17 year-old Victoria a heartbeat away from being crowned Queen, as her mother, the scheming Duchess of Kent (Miranda Richardson), along with her power hungry advisor (Mark Strong) attempt to set up a regency thereby taking power themselves until she is 25. (Mark Strong is also the villain in Sherlock Holmes, set in the same time period. Hmmm.) They control her every move, making someone walk her up and down the stairs, deciding what she can and cannot read, making sure that she is kept away from her uncle the King, everything designed to dominate her. But she is strong enough to resist them, though she falls instead under the control of Prime Minister Lord Melbourne.