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The A-Team (2010)
I'm a fan of the series, but not of the movie. This is Hollywood crap at its best.
I was an active kid when I was young, playing outside, building tree houses and racing around with my bike. But even the nicest weather couldn't prevent me from spending my Saturday afternoons in front of the TV, watching the A-Team series.
I guess being a fan of the old series separates me from those youngsters flooding the movie theaters to see the A-Team film. Unfortunately, today's teenagers will never know the charm of the old TV show, since the filmmakers offer them a generic, boring and chaotic action flick.
Let's start with reviewing the cast. Although Liam Neeson lacks the charisma of George Peppard, he is a good choice for playing Colonel Hannibal Smith. Bradley Cooper also does well as Faceman, although he lacks the boyish charm of Dirk Benedict, but he is a pretty boy, so he at least fits that part of the role.
Now on to the bad choices, first of all Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson. For those who don't know who he is: he's a MMA fighter, a good one at that, but his biggest weapons are not his feet or his fists, but his giant ego and his big mouth.
He's be known in the MMA world as a notorious sh*t talker, which is also part of his overall image. Which explains why he is probably the worst choice for playing B.A. In the TV series, B.A. was always serious and spoke very little. He had a menacing attitude towards his enemies, but was very friendly to children and other friendlies.
Jackson on the other hand is a joker, an extremely arrogant overly confident piece of muscle. And this is the way he plays B.A. He doesn't even act, he's just himself in the movie. Having to look at this schmuck's face for over an hour made me wanting to punch his head off.
Then there's Sharlto Copley, who plays Madman Murdock. I knew his face and voice from somewhere, but couldn't quite place him. Now upon looking at his IMDb profile, I know who he is. Now guess what Sharlto, you sucked in District 9 and you suck in this film too.
His Murdock impersonation is not crazy, just over the top and plain out annoying. In the series, Murdock may have had his issues, but he wasn't retarded and certainly not suicidal. He may have been weird when it comes to living among people, but in his job he always was a professional. I wouldn't trust Copley to fly a paper jet, his performance was plain out unbelievable.
Moving on to the script, I didn't expect anything great, but it still could have been a lot better. But to be fair, the writing of the series was pretty basic too.
But what annoyed me the most was that the film was completely unrealistic. Here's a little teaser for you:
- The team avoids getting blown out of the sky by heat seeking missiles by turning of the engine of the chopper. Well even a turned of motor still emits heat and a helicopter is not a bike, you can't kickstart it!
- The team falls out of a plane in a tank that is conveniently hooked up to parachutes. They lose two of the three parachutes during an airborne dogfight with two drones, manage to survive the fall by diving into a (deep) lake, out of which they then drive with the tank.
- They make a steel container float on water by nailing stolen car airbags to it.
- Faceman controls three cranes at the same time, with containers hanging on to them, which he sets down in a line, perfectly spaced apart.
- B.A. drives two cars in opposing directions with video game steering wheels.
In general the film is just a whole bunch of action scenes tied together, with shaky cam filming, CGI, top notch sound effects, expensive high tech gadgets,...
You could have named this movie anything but the A-Team, and it would still have worked. Because it is just another soul-less Hollywood production, which coming from me, a hardcore action movie fan, is a big insult.
Justified (2010)
Great Show
I live in Europe and I've never been to Kentucky or even to the USA, but I absolutely love the setting of "Justified". The small town feeling, the Southern accent, the liquor they drink, the food they eat, the houses, bars and other buildings... It's just very refreshing to see a show that is not set in Miami, New York or some other worn out cliché location.
Timothy Olyphant's character, Marshall Raylan Givens, restores the honor of law enforcement on television. He's well-mannered, humble, good-looking and dangerous, with an edge of cockiness to his whole attitude. He likes his job and does all in his power to do it well, however he is also a man and has his faults.
The counterpart to Marshall Raylan is Boyd Crowder, who is the main villain of the show. Some may know him for his excellent performance in "The Shield" and his acting in "Justified" is just another reason not to miss this show.
In general the writing is great and fresh, and although the episodes are relatively short (45 minutes or so) they aren't shallow, but they are densely packed with character interactions and story. The whole cast is excellent, so that you sometimes forget that you are just watching a fictional show.
All in all Justified is an excellent show and I recommend everybody to have a look at it.
Trust Me (2009)
Very disappointing
"Trust Me" has all the ingredients of a hit show, but after watching three episodes, I can't help but feel bored and very disappointed.
The pilot started off great, but then it became weaker and weaker. The next two episodes were just more of the same, without the show picking up any steam.
The cast features some great actors, like McCormack and Cavanagh who play two high level creatives. They are best friends and supposed to be one of the firm's greatest creative assets. However you don't see them doing any real work, they mostly fight over random small issues. McCormack who is supposed to be a creative director just seems completely overwhelmed by his job, and as already said, he never works.
Monica Potter plays a newcomer to the agency, and she's supposed to be a very talented, award-winning copywriter. However all she does is complain and she also doesn't seem to work at all.
All the characters seem interesting at first, there is absolutely no real interaction between them, especially between McCormack and Cavanagh. I think they are supposed to be the two highly creative buddy couple who often fight but still come up with sublime campaigns, however all they do is being plain annoying.
The supposed "rivalry" with Greg Ellis' character is completely artificial and lacks interest. As does the supposedly high maintenance client company. Or any other difficulty that the cast faces.
Very disappointing and I can see why the show get canceled. It simply lacks anything remotely interesting.
Cop Out (2010)
A comedy that isn't funny: worst case scenario!
I went to the movies with my girlfriend, hoping to have a good time and laugh a bit. She wasn't very pleased that I wanted to see "Cop Out", because she thought that it was another one of those brutal action movies that men somehow consider funny.
Well she wasn't right and neither was I, because the movie fails at being an action flick as well as at being a comedy. There were some mildly amusing moments in the film, the kind that make you chuckle a bit, but I never laughed.
The reasons for this are multiple: first of all the plot is completely ridiculous. I don't expect any highly intellectual miracles with films of this genre, but the story shouldn't be flat out unbelievable, like in this case.
Then there is Tracy Morgan. I find him funny somehow, at least in "30 Rocks", but he shouldn't act in films, especially if he has to keep to a script. His overacted ramblings got annoying pretty fast, although some of the scenes worked a bit, most of them ended with a very awkward silence in the theater. Morgan was his usual eccentric, over the top character, but it was so overdone that only kids may enjoy his performance just because his body language looks so stupid.
Bruce Willis seemed completely annoyed, a bit like he just wanted to get over with the scenes to grab a strong Irish coffee and a cigarette, cash his check and go home to watch TV and hang around. To be fair his acting, if you may call it that, was way better than Morgan's.
I think the biggest flaw of the movie was that there wasn't a single moment at which you could imagine Morgan being a cop and Willis and Morgan being partners. There was absolutely no chemistry between them: every time Willis set up a joke by playing the cynical, though experienced cop, Morgan would ruin it by blabbering like a junkie on too much gear.
Don't waste your money on this.
The Beautiful Life: TBL (2009)
After seeing this all I thought was: wait, WUT?
I had the pleasure of watching the first episode of TBL with my girlfriend, and the show was so annoying that I simply need to post a review.
First let's have a look at the plot: it's fashion week and Raina Marinelli, an aspiring model to whom I will refer to as "All American Cute Girl (AACG)", rises instantly to fame because she wears some special dress.
This doesn't amuse Sonja Stone, because she was supposed to wear it, which means drama on the horizon! Sonja is apparently a supermodel, who returns to the fashion world after a "mysterious" disappearance. Which is of course complete crap, because how can a supermodel disappear in a world where everybody has a camera phone? Also in New York is Chris Andrews, Mister "All American Cute Boy (AACB)" who is discovered by a talent agent. Of course AACB is a farm boy from Iowa, with a very slender build no chest hair and hawt abz. Which is of course the look of all the farm boys from the Bible Belt.
AACG and AACB meet by "accident" and they immediately start to hang out together... watch out it's love! AACG introduces AACB to the biiiiig city, because it's so big and impressive and dark and dangerous and not at all like Iowa. She helps him with the first step in the mysterious and frightening world of "looking good on photos".
Of course the other male models are all mean to AACB, because he's cute. Too cute to be straight as my girlfriend said, which now still leaves a blank expression on my face when I think about it. Their mean behavior is completely logic, since it is very unusual for a bunch of young, apparently attractive (they are models after all) guys living in a top notch apartment in New York to have fun.
I could go on and on, but I hope that you see that they story is overflowed with clichés. The camera work is bad, the music is the usual 08/15 you hear on any other "hip" chick show. The people are trashy, they wear trashy clothes and live in a trashy world.
The show got canceled after only two episodes, which is great news for me because I don't have to watch it anymore. But it simply amazes me how it could get on the air in the first place. It has nothing to with SATC or GG, which in my opinion aren't great shows as well, but at least they are well done when it comes to story writing, camera work and editing.
The Hunted (2003)
Good idea, very bad execution!
The Hunted tries to be an action movie and a drama at the same time, but unfortunately fails at both attempts.
Benicio Del Toro fits the role of the silent killer well, however his characters stays completely flat, ruining the chances of any good acting. He's supposed to be a soldier tormented by the things he has seen at war, however this side of him rarely appears.
Tommy Lee Jones plays the old, experienced guy hunting the killer. He chases him, because he told him how to be shadow like and how to kill with a knife.
That's about all the plot right there. The rest is filled with (certainly well done) action scenes.
However there a lot of things which seem completely wrong. It's an action movie, so of course it's unrealistic. But how is it possible that an old guy like Tommy Lee Jones' character can keep up with a highly trained young professional soldier? And why does he have to fight with a stone knife in the end scene while Del Toro fights with a knife that he forged with very little tools, in the wilderness, while being on the run? You can see smoke from miles away and the FBI agents chasing him were in choppers! And the army was chasing him too. But apparently the same outfit that has highly trained silent killers to do secret missions doesn't have enough staff or firepower to find and kill one of them. Although they know all about his training and although they have other guys just like him.
Green Zone (2010)
Green Zone delivers what the audience expects
Green Zone is yet another movie about the second Iraq War and it seems like Hollywood thinks that the war is now old enough to make movies about it without being branded as unpatriotic by the war waging administration in office.
The first few frames of the picture present the context of the story: we are in 2003, right after the US invasion of Iraq. Matt Damon plays an army officer searching for signs of the existence of weapons of mass destruction. He turns frustrated because because every search operation comes up empty. As a consequence he begins to doubt the accuracy of the intelligence on which the operations are based and starts his own investigation.
The plot is simple, which some people complain about. But Green Zone is an action movie, the goal is to entertain, not to highlight every detail about the big lie which the Bush administration used to justify this war.
And the film does a great job of sucking you into the action, leaving you glued to the seat for nearly two hours. The film climaxes in a frantic pursuit, filmed with a hand camera that manages well to translate the intensity and the confusion of battle into images.
I recommend the movie to anybody who is a fan of the genres of war, thriller or action. Matt Damon's performance is great and you feel that he and the director have been working together for quite some time, because the film has a natural feel, a flow that captures you and doesn't let loose until the ending credits.