Suspect's Reviews

Great review. Hopefully I can find the time to go to the cinema sometime in the next few days. Rise of the Planet of the Apes was a very pleasant surprise, and it appears that Dawn is even better, judging by the reviews and audience reactions.

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Wow. Great Apes review. I think this review makes me want to watch it actually. I seriously had no interest in this film because I didn't like the first one but this review changed my mind. It seemed like another dumb sequel to me but now that's changed. Great review

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Through the darkness of future past
The magician longs to see
One chants out between two worlds:
Fire walk with me.

Great review that has made may even more interested in seeing the film. I liked the first one but was a little bit cautious about this one originally, thinking they might abandon story and characters in favour of an all action two-hour battle film, but with what you say and other strong reviews (both critics and audiences) I am looking forward to seeing this

Thanks for the review. Rise of the Apes was the last movie that I went out to see; I was thinking about going to see Dawn and your review has made that more likely.

Expendables 3 (Patrick Hughes)




It was surprisingly a fun ride.

On yet another routine mission, the Expendables stumble upon an old friend, Stonebanks, one of the original members of the crew and now, a vicious war lord. Can Barney look past the revenge and get the job done, or will it consume him until it's too late?

The Expendables 3 throws a lot at you and for the most part, it sticks. It follows the same formula as the previous films: open up with a big action set piece, introduce the problem, get the team together, suffer some form of defeat, band the team together again and shoot the hell out of everyone until the finish. What this film does better, is give the new members something to do and deliver on the action. The final sequence in this film alone warrants a watch in my books as it's the best action the series has delivered yet.

Just like last time...this time it's personal. I know, they seem to be running out of ideas, but this series never cared for realism, story or plot. The sole purpose was to give the old stars of the 80's one last hurrah. Well, it caught on and they seem to have enough fuel left in their engines to keep up with the young kids these days. This entry balances both old and new. We have an even bigger Expendables team, with the introduction of Wesley Snipes's Doc, a knife wielding sarcastic medic and Antonio Banderas' Galgo, a guy who desperately needs to be in the action and never shuts up about it. Both are given ample amount of screen time to justify adding them, with Banderas stealing the show in every scene he's in. Without a doubt, he is the stand out character this time round. Harrison Ford basically replaces Bruce Willis, he literally says Willis is out of the picture. Just one of many...MANY winks and nods to the camera about the outside world (snipes has a great one in the beginning and Arnold closes it with a classic Predator line).

But what about the original members who've been with the series since the beginning? Well, they do get left behind, literally at some point. Yet the film never feels like it abandons them. They still have some of the best scenes and make the third act what it is. Poor Terry Crews is giving the least amount to do though, I won't spoil why. Both Jet Li and Schwarzenegger have small cameos as well as Kelsey Grammar. Each have their comedic moments in a film with a lot of laughs. The new kids include Kellan Lutz (Twilight), Ronda Rousey (UFC Fighter), Victor Ortiz (Boxer) and Glen Powell (Small Roles). They all have their charm and "abilities" although I feel Ortiz got the short straw and is showcased very little. Finally we come to the man himself, Mel Gibson, as the villain. He has a few scene chewing sequences that he seems to have fun with, and is withoutadoubt the scariest villain in the series, but he needed a bit more to do. JCVD was showcased quiet a bit in the the second film, as was his right hand man Scott Adkins, but very little time is spent with Gibson. You never feel the emotional relevance of this character to the group. Maybe a flashback might have helped flesh out his significance better, but instead we are given just some dialogue and then we move on. The performance is there, the character is not. This leads up to a final fight between Stallone and Gibson, much like the second film and just like that one it falls a bit too short. All this build up and we get a lackluster final fight.

The Expendables is a lot more fun than the series should have been. The second film and now this one, learned from the mistakes of the first. These films are suppose to be fun and thankfully this one is. The Expendables vs the Army at the end is some of the best action sequences of this year.The film does have some really bad CGI though, stuff you would expect out of a Roger Corman SYFY MEGASHARK film. With that aside, this film is a great addition and a nice send off....hopefully.

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

I'm going to go through this thread and do a little face-lift.

Making the first page an updated contents page.

Also, future reviews will look different. Usually I write a review quickly, no edits, then post. Instead in going to do a draft, an edit, a polish, then post.

This will take some time

Never been able to get into the Lord of the Rings trilogy myself, but your review is well-written and effective displays your passion for the film.

I agree with a lot of what you've said about Primal Fear, but I think you really underestimate Gere's contribution to the film. I think it's one of Gere's strongest performances and without the Martin Vale character, Edward Norton's character wouldn't have been nearly as successful...the story revolves around how Norton dupes Gere and part of what makes Norton's character work is the way he plays off of Gere.

I loved Tim Burton's films and hated the Joel Schumacher film. I love the 2 Dark Knight movies and I enjoyed reading your review of this one, but this film bored the crap out of me. I've never been able to put my finger on exactly why, but this film did nothing for me, though I respect your well-written opinion.

Maybe, I find myself not liking Gere in a lot of movies, maybe it's how he uses his whole head to blink.

I'm more than willing to give this film another go around, maybe see if the fiancee can see the ending coming or not.

LMAO!!!!!

Predestination (The Spierig Brothers)




Don't try and 'figure out' this film

The Spierig brothers first came onto the scene with a film entirely funded by themselves and their friends. This was the Australian horror zombie fest Undead. While the film had an annoying lead character and some tone & pacing issues, it was pretty clear that these guys had some serious talent. I expected big things from them in the future and 6 years later they came back with the genre flick, Daybreakers. Daybreakers came just after the sexy leading man vampire of film (Twilight) and television (The Vampire Diaries). So it was nice to see the gruesome, bloody, ugly creatures that they are come about in this film, which has an interesting enough premise to warrant a watch. Well, almost another 6 years later, the brother are at it again, with Ethan Hawke at their side for the second time, with their sci/fi time travel picture; Predestination.

Hawke plays a temporal agent, a man with the task of going through time to try and stop catastrophes before they happen. He's tracking down a man known as 'The Fizzle Bomber', responsible for the death of thousands of people in more than a dozen bombings. His next bombing will apparently kill over 10,000 people in New York. If this sounds similar, it's because this story has been done to death in time travel films. Someone has to go back, multiple times, to try and stop a bad guy from doing a bad thing; Source Code, Terminator, every other time travel film. Now while the premise of the film seems redundant, everything else about the film is not. I promise you, you've never seen anything like this film before.

I won't go into detail about the story plots of the film, anything I say will ruin the twists and turns the film throws at you. Yet the one fundamental flaw the film has is the fact that it is a time travel film. People will go into this film, I know I did, with theories about this and that, way before there are any hints of it in the film. Predestination suffers from this and it doesn't help that the Spierig brothers drop pretty blatant clues in the first act. I caught them pretty clearly, which made me guess certain things...but here's the weird part; even though guesses came true, I still sat there dumbfounded at what I was watching. I love time travel films. I love trying to pick apart things about them after they've set up their own rules. I had fun with this one.

Hawke is pretty great here, he gets the opportunity to have some fun in certain scenes and lead with some heavy drama in others. The guy is hard to peg, he certainly does love his genre films though. Even though he hasn't done anything to really wow me yet, I find his films to be entertaining enough and a lot of it has to do with his abilities on the screen. Yet the real standout here is the fresh faced Sarah Snook, who undoubtedly has the hardest task here. The backstory behind her character is tragic, weird, gross, mysterious...she pulls all of this off nicely and I look forward to seeing more of her work.

Well shot, but from my experience that is to be expected. The film's premise would make you believe that the film has a lot of action, chase sequences and shootouts. Yet there is hardly a whisper of that. This is a deliberately slow paced film, yet it never drags. Despite the film being about Hawke pursuing a bomber, the brothers are not interested in that aspect. They would rather have the film pursue other means and themes, such as love, identity and purpose. Predestination wraps itself in all of this and more.

I don't expect this film to make a big splash anywhere, yet I can tell it will have a cult following. I enjoyed the film, I found myself coming up with some of the craziest scenarios that could happen and smiled when most of them were right on the nose. Predestination is a fun, stylized science fiction film and should be seen by more people. Check it out.

Also, word to the wise. Don't try and 'figure out' this film. Once you start to think about the hows, the whys, the whos....you'll hurt your brain with the paradoxes. But Damn....

I'm not a big fan of time travel films in that that aspect is the least important part for me. This might be worth a look, though. Thanks, TUS.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

Interesting review.

I remember seeing a trailer for the film awhile back, then nothing since then. I wondered if it fell off the face of the earth.

Yet here we are.

I've been debating whether or not to watch this one. I didn't much like Undead! and I thought Daybreakers was decent enough, but that wasn't enough to sway me to watch Predestination. Having read this review, I may have to give it a shot.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

Nice review suspect. I didn't like Daybreakers, and I thought this was just going to be that plus Identity Report. After reading your review I think I may actually check this movie out.

I found this film quite interesting

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Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
Buddha

Understatement?

John Wick (Chad Stahelski)



"Don't Set Him Off!"

John Wick is an interesting film that came and went before our eyes. Yet those who did decide to give it a chance, seem to love it very much. It's 'Certified Fresh' on Rottentomatoes and has a 7.5 rating on IMDB as of right now. Impressive for a film that is basically one shoot out after the next....after the next....after the next.

An ex hit-man comes out of retirement after he's attacked by three thugs in his home. This attack leaves him beaten, without a car and a dead dog, which was given to him by his recently deceased wife. Big mistake. Once these guys tries to sell the muscle car to a garage that strips parts, the owner seems to instantly recognize it. The man asks, who's car this is. Who cares? The young spoiled brat replies. I can tell you one thing, we beat his ass to get it, and his stupid dog too. Bam, punched in the face. The kid goes crying to his mob boss of a father, who then calls up that mechanic. Did you punch my son in the face? Yes sir, I did. Why, he asked. Well sir, because he stole John Wick's car...and killed his dog.

Oh crap.

This sets up the film, the classic revenge tale. Nothing really new here. We've seen dozens of films where the retired killer has to come out of retirement to revenge the death of a loved one. This time it happens to be a canine. The dog is adorably cute and my wife was in tears...TEARS I TELL YOU, when they killed the poor pup. About one scene before it happened, she says to me, "Are they going to kill the dog?" Terrified of the answer that I would not give her. Well, yes, they did. She instantly wanted John Wick to kill EVERYONE. So I guess when a dog gets it, you instantly want those responsible dead. Funny, I feel the same way. When people die on film, no big deal, but when an animal dies, all hell breaks lose.

After that is out of the way, John Wick suits up to take out those who have wronged him. It just happens to be the son of his former boss. So when the boss finds out, he knows he's in trouble. So now he has to get to Wick before Wick gets to them. Thus, the body count piles up. It piles up in a finely tuned operatic fashion, as the action sequences are some of the best in the last few years. Wick uses his guns with precision. Shot to the chest, then to the head. It's robotic. One man against a dozen? Fair fight.

To say the action in John Wick is stylized in an understatement. This is one of the best action films in years. Chad Stahelski, a stunt coordinator, makes his directing debut here. So he knows his way around a fight, being responsible for such films as the Expendables, The Wolverine, Tron: Legacy, and many many more. I like this new trend of giving people from different departments a chance at the directing chair. See what they can bring to the table. The man clearly knows his stuff, so give him a script to shoot and see what he can achieve. He nails it here. One impressive sequence has Wick going into a club, with multiple levels and rooms and takes out the bad guys one by one. First silently, then when all hell breaks lose, with calm and ease. Bottom line: This is one FUN film.

Reeves never impresses with his acting ability. It's kind of a running gag with people that he cannot act his way out of a paper bag. One scene here has him actually showing some emotion, which is when he reads the letter from his wife after receiving the dog. The rest of the film is how bad ass can Reeves look while taking out dozens of people. The answer, really bad ass. Familiar faces show up, such as Willem Dafoe, as another assassin. Adrianne Palicki as a beautiful....well...assassin. Michael Nyqvist, from the original Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series, plays the Russian Mobster, whose son, Alfie Allen aka Theon Greyjoy, gets him into this mess. As if we needed another reason to hate Theon. Finally Ian McShane as a friendly face in a crowd of so few.

The world created in John Wick is interesting to me. These assassins have gold coins that get them into these places that only the secret society of assassins can access. There are hidden clubs, hotel rooms, etc. How can all these assassins and hit-men be in a club and not want to shoot each other. Well, there seem to be certain rules. Don't break them, or there might be consequences.

Those club scenes are really fun. Jonathan Sela, the DOP, bathes the film is icy blues and nice neon lighting for those club scenes. Giving it a heightened look and feel. Everything about the film feels smooth as ice, just like John Wick. The directing style reflects the lead character. Aggressive when it needs to be, but calm and collected most of the time. When I say aggressive, boy do I mean aggressive. Wick acts like a man with nothing to lose, no fear. He will walk right into the lions den to get the job done.

John Wick is one of the biggest surprises of 2014 for me. While some might call it a no brainer repetitive action film I call it high class action fun. FUN is the key word here. Watching John Wick dispose of those bodies was fun. Seeing this society of people who all know each other was fun. Seeing Keanu Reeves back in the limelight doing what he does best? You called it...fun.