My Review: Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (7/10)

"It is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."

This is an ambitious film because it centers on an inspiring figure who made history by overcoming hate and uniting the South African nation. The only problem is that the story of Nelson Mandela is just too long to try to encapsulate in a film, and this biopic suffers from it by trying to chronicle his entire life journey. I felt the film rushed through several decades of his life highlighting every major event, but never digging deep enough. The biopic lacks those illuminating elements that Mandela's life had, and it just felt dull and overlong. This is a straightforward biopic with very conventional storytelling, which at times under develops the magnitude of its subject. This long and extensive movie failed to connect with me and I didn't feel it said anything new about a man who I highly admire for being an example of love and forgiveness. I am giving this film an extra star just because he is such an inspiring figure and his story is worth telling every time. Unfortunately this biopic isn't deep or insightful enough and a more appropriate title for this film would be Mandela: Long Watch to Boredom. Based on Mandela's own autobiography the script was adapted by William Nicholson (Gladiator) and the film directed by Justin Chadwick (The Other Bolyen Girl). Despite not delivering the epic film they were aiming for, this is still worth a watch because it centers on this inspiring hero's life who gave the world a lesson in leadership and forgiveness.

The film chronicles Nelson Mandela's (Idris Elba) life journey beginning from his childhood in the village where he was raised and continuing to his days as a lawyer where he becomes involved with a radical political group known as the ANC (African National Congress) which was against the racial separation enforced by the white government. The ANC is soon considered a terrorist group for their involvement in explosions of government buildings, and Mandela is arrested for terrorist charges along with his partner Walter Sisulu (Tony Kgoroge) and other members of the ANC. The film then chronicles his life behind bars as he is separated from his loved ones while his second wife, Winnie (Naomie Harris), continues to support his political group which grows increasingly violent during his long stay in prison. The film later focuses on his eventual release and his election as the first black president of South Africa.

Mandela's life is so extensive and full of meaningful historic moments that this biopic failed in trying to portray all of them in such a short period of time. The story jumped from one highlight of his life to the next in a way where each transition felt forced and rushed. That is what made this film feel dull at times and hard to get emotionally engaged with. It only scratches the surface of Mandela's life and never manages to dig deep enough. It simply covers way too much territory and by doing so it felt like it wasn't saying anything. I do have to give a lot of credit to Idris Elba who gives a powerful performance as Mandela and was especially good at capturing his young years as a fierce activist. Later when he grew older the makeup got in the way and distracted me quite a bit from his performance. I just thought it felt too fake and they should've used an older actor for that role. Elba does succeed in capturing his mannerisms and does excellent voice work. I also enjoyed the soundtrack, especially the Ordinary Love song by U2 during the credits.

My Review: Skyfall (8/10)

¨ It always makes me feel a bit melancholy. Grand old war ship. being ignominiously haunted away to scrap... The inevitability of time, don't you think? What do you see? ¨

¨James Bond will return¨ is one of the few promises that have never been broken, and that is where Skyfall jumps in as the 23^rd film of the franchise. There have been several changes along the way, this is the third film Daniel Craig stars as the main character, but it is the first time Sam Mendes (American Beauty and Road to Perdition) directs. Long time screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade are back again writing the script although this time John Logan (Gladiator, Hugo) was brought on board to help out. I think these new additions improved the film and gave the characters a lot more depth. This is a very different James Bond film; it begins as your average spy thriller with a motorcycle chase but ends like a Western film with a final shoot out in an open field. Skyfall is beautifully shot by cinematographer Roger Deakins who should receive his tenth Oscar nomination for his work in this film. The film has a much more artistic feeling to it than most other blockbuster Bond movies and much credit has to be given to all these new additions. The film has a nostalgic feeling to it as we finally begin to see how the inevitability of time can catch up to even the greatest spy on Earth. Like we saw in the Dark Knight Rises with Batman, James Bond too has begun to feel the weight of time over his shoulders and he is much more vulnerable in this picture. Sam Mendes also does another thing very well in this film: he pays homage to some of the earlier Bond films near the end. Skyfall was a great film and definitely among the best Bond movies. However I would still rank Casino Royale as the best one so far.

Unlike with Quantum of Solace that picked up right where Casino Royale left out, Skyfall takes place several years later as we see an aged Bond (Daniel Craig) chasing yet another foe who has stolen a computer drive which contains all the names of the MI6 British agents and their locations. Bond is not on his own; his partner Eve (Naomie Harris) is also following the evasive man who is getting away with the drive. Bond chases him to the top of the train and Eve is waiting for the perfect moment to take the shot but time is running out. M (Judi Dench) orders Eve to take the shot before they get out of her reach and the bullet hits Bond. The man disappears with the drive, and Bond is declared death after he falls wounded into a river. A few months go by and M is in trouble for having lost the drive and putting all the MI6 agents in harm way. Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes) insists it is her moment to retire, but she refuses since she wants to solve the problem. An explosion takes place inside the headquarters and several other agents die. M receives a threat claiming that the name of 5 agents will be revealed and that she should pay for her sins. Bond, who of course hasn’t been dead but enjoying of his early retirement decides to return to England after hearing about the explosion and enlists once again as 007, although a bit more rusty. M sends him on a mission to find the man who has the drive and retrieve it before more harm is done. Here we are introduced to some other characters like Q (Ben Whishaw), Severine (Berenice Marlohe), and Silva (Javier Bardem) and the spy games begin.

I must say that Javier Bardem portrays one of the best Bond villains I´ve seen. He steals the show from the minute he walks in. I think another Oscar nomination is on the way for his supporting performance here. It is a villain unlike most other ones. Silva is seeking revenge but in a much more calculated and methodic way. Skyfall is much better thanks to him. Daniel Craig is in my opinion the best Bond and he had a lot more depth in this film as well. The Bond girls were also perfectly cast. You can´t have a Bond film without them. Berenice Marlohe and Naomie Harris were both great in their roles. Judi Dench is marvelous as M. She has been playing this role for nearly two decades and here we see her making a lot more difficult decisions. She is portrayed in a much darker light here. The film works extremely well, I loved the new characters, the nostalgic feeling to the film, and the beautiful cinematography. This is a different kind of Bond film, but one you will want to see.

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My Review: Ninja Assassin (4/10)

¨Weakness compels strength, betrayer begets blood; this is the Law of the Nine Clans¨

I haven´t seen a bloodier movie than Ninja Assassin since Kill Bill. The problem with this movie is that it doesn`t have the great dialogue and character development that Tarantino`s film did. The action sequences aren`t as good either because the camera work isn`t very well done, everything happens so fast that all you can really see is red. There are very few positive things from this film which has a poor story, poor dialogue, and relies too much on the action scenes which aren`t satisfying either. Rain might not be a great actor, but he does know his martial arts and that is perhaps the best thing about Ninja Assassin which was directed by James McTeigue who has worked mostly with the Wachowski brothers (who produced this movie) as an assistant director in some of their films such as The Matrix trilogy and Speed Racer. This is a huge step down from his first movie, V for Vendetta, which had a good amount of action balanced well with a great story. I was expecting this movie to be something like that one, but it fails by miles. The main problem is that the story is predictable. It was written by newcomer Matthew Sand who was helped with the screenplay by a more experienced writer like Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5 creator and screenplay writer of Changeling).  Ninja Assassin is just another example that only by showing blood and gore you can`t go anywhere unless you have a decent story.

Raizo (Rain) is the main protagonist and he is a ninja assassin who was trained by the Ozunu clan. The clan raised him when he was a little orphan boy and they specialize in training these young kids and turning them into cold blooded assassins. The ¨father¨ of the clan is Lord Ozunu (Sho Kosugi) and he raises these kids with a very stern hand and whips them whenever they fail to obey. They are also encouraged to hurt their brothers whenever they show weakness as well. Raizo grows close to one of the girls in the clan who is different from the rest, Kiriko (Anna Sawai), and one day when she plans to escape the ninjas trap her and bring her back only to execute her in front of the rest  of the clan.  Raizo decides to abandon the clan and barely escapes after hurting Ozunu in the face and jumping into a river.  The movie actually begins with Raizo grown up living on his own waiting for vengeance on the clan, but his past is told in flashbacks during the film. Raizo is living in Berlin and here he decides to protect a Europol agent named Mika Coretti (Naomie Harris) who is doing some research on the existence of this clan that is being payed millions of dollars by government officials for political assassinations. He protects her from the Ozunu clan and in return he uses her in order to get close to them and avenge Kiriko`s death. The plot is pretty simple, and the whole movie is an excuse to use violence for no reason.

The actors were pretty dull in this movie. Rain is good doing his thing, but he is not a very good actor. The rest of the cast is also pretty bad since they don`t have a good story to work with. The main focus of the film was on the action scenes which were pretty gory, but just too fast paced and blurry for my taste. I really didn`t care too much for any of the characters, as they were all one dimensional and I really was disappointed with this movie since director James McTeigue had done such a good job with V for Vendetta. Violence on its own doesn`t work or satisfy anyone; you need a decent plot or at least some good dialogue in order to care for the characters. I would definitely recommend everyone to skip this movie. If you like violent films, then check out Kill Bill which is a much better made movie than this and has some real good dialogue and interesting characters.

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