The Rock
After a 13 year break from the genre, Sean Connery returns to action movies in The Rock, this time without the famous tuxedo and martinis (shaken not stirred). He is without a doubt the star of the movie and steals the spotlight away from 1996 Oscar winner, Nicolas Cage. Connery's ability to mix action and comedy make it seem as if 007 has merely aged and changed his name. The chemisty between Connery and Cage builds nicely throughout the film and results in a classic buddy action movie.The rest of the cast is also top class with Ed Harris pulling off a very good portrayal of the key villan in the film. David Morse, John Spencer and Michael Biehn also put in good performances to complement the main stars.
There are a couple of reputable gentlemen behind the scenes as well with Michael Bay of Bad Boys fame in the directors chair and doing a commendeble job taking control of a the action genre and making it his own. Jerry Bruckheimer adds another excellent title to his already impressive resume alongside Top Gun and other classics.
One of my main critcisms of the film would be it's length. Certain aspects could have been cut down to shorten the running time to be more in line with other action movies. The beginning of The Rock featured a bit too much character building for my liking however the flaws are more than made up for the fast paced action and usual action move sequences.
If you're looking for an action movie that's just a little bit different from the usual overdose of violence with weak storylines then I'd recommend giving The Rock a look.
Predators
After the shockingly bad Alien vs Predator 1 & 2, Robert Rodriguez does his best to breathe some life into a slowly dying franchise. Rodriguez's best move was pretending the previous cross-franchise movies never existed which works to create an installment which doesn't look out of place against previous Predator films.
One particular aspect of the film I enjoyed was seeing good and bad individuals come together to fight a common enemy, something you don't see too often in many, if any movies. Director, Attal makes some attempts to give the main characters degree of development but as expected from a Predator film, they're anything but 3 dimensional. The plot of the story is very much the same as any horror or alien movie, with the audience merely guessing and placing bets as to the order of how the characters will die.
I found the pacing of the movie to be completely uneven. It begins at a very slow pace with the characters walking around a jungle, without much character development or plot development. In contrast the final third of the film seems extremely rushed and a little too much happens in a very short period of time.
As far as casting goes, Adrien Brody as the lead in an action movie was never something I thought I'd see and certainly wasn't something I'd thought would ever work, but somehow...it does. Unquestionably, Brody has the acting talent as shown in The Pianist, but in Predators he displays a different side of his talents, taking on the role of the anti-hero. With a new physique and deep growling voice to boot, he manages, against all odds to convincingly portray a hard-ass special ops vet. I had no qualms with the rest of the casting as these characters were merely fodder for the Predators. I did however take issue with Laurence Fishburne's appearance, a role which very seemed like it was written for someone else and thrown to Fishburne as a last resort.
Fans of the Predator franchise should definatly watch this film, as it's one of the better installments in the series. If you're looking for a bit of entertainment that doesn't require much brain power check it out as well.