Ivan Locke is a concrete foreman, husband and father who needs to get his priorities in order. The whole movie consists of him driving his BMW, talking to people via Bluetooth and those conversations drive the narrative interestingly enough. It’s his reason for the trip under the circumstances presented that border absurdity.
my rating : 3 of 5
2013
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The revenant the title refers to is a pelt hunter named Glass, the story’s most important and most annoying character. After being attacked and almost killed by a bear, an early peak as far as memorable scenes go, he’s left injured for most of the movie. His constant grunting and sighing is what irks to the point of nearly ruining an otherwise thrilling adventure.
The cinematography and choreography of the first ten minutes or so, the Indian ambush, are particularly engaging. There are underlying themes of love and war; nostalgic endearment and bitter revenge are more like it; but The Revenant is mainly a tale of survival as protagonist Hugh Glass, left for dead in the cold and snowy wilderness, fights to survive.
my rating : 4 of 5
2015
The title is a fancy way to say that Batman is back. Did the world need another Batman movie? No. But Wayne Enterprises; a multi-billion-dollar company owned by Bruce Wayne himself; is going bankrupt and popular superhero movies; this is the third in what is now a Christopher Nolan trilogy; make an insane amount of money. Two Face is dead and The Joker, a character who should’ve been mentioned if not given a cameo appearance, is in prison. Enter Bane, a strong vicious beast of a man with a gas mask stuck to his face. He wears it for a reason, but it muffles his voice sometimes to the point of being unintelligible.
Not that these characters, including Anne Hathaway as Catwoman, ever have anything poignant to say. Christopher Nolan is a lot better at directing fight scenes than composing dialogue. So the fast-cut plot, riddled with minor holes and unnecessary twists; Gotham City facing its demise in the form of a nuclear bomb is the gist; gets saved by its exciting and often violent action scenes. Most, if not all, of that action coincides with epic Hans Zimmer orchestral music, yes; and the new flying bat-toy is kind of cool; but this Dark Knight, while entertaining, is a sequel that doesn’t quite match the level of its predecessor.
my rating : 4 of 5
2012
I want my money back! I paid top-dollar for in-ring seats at the biggest MMA event of the year and all the fights are rigged! That’s all I have to say about this brutal lovefest, which follows two fighters on the road to “Sparta”, a multi-day tournament in which the winner gets a whopping five-million dollars to spend on whatever he needs.
The woes of their lives, the financial and psychological misfortunes that are supposed to make us cheer them on, serve as the hook. And the twist, the one and only aspect of the plot that makes it different than all those other fight flicks, is that they share the same father; a former alcoholic abuser trying, unsuccessfully, to mend his past.
The fighting; the actual in-ring combat; is entertaining and realistic. Ringside commentators make it almost like watching real UFC fights, but the movie’s emotional element is anything but tough, so the crowd-pleasing outcomes of those matches are unrealistic and anticlimactic; cliché and predictable; all the way to the scripted end.
my rating : 3 of 5
2011