My Review: Noah (6/10)

"My father said that one day, if man continued in his ways, the Creator would annihilate this world."

The trailers and the first half of Noah made me believe this was going to be a very different Darren Aronofsky film. Mostly known for his independent work as an art house director he centers his films on characters with strong obsessions that tend to lead them towards some form of self destruction. The first half of this film however has an epic tone with fantastic visual effects and a big scale production unlike what we've seem in his past films. That firs half reminded me a lot of other epic fantasy films like The Lord of the Rings. However midway through the film Aronofsky switches gears on us and returns to the themes he is known for. He centers the story around the psychological struggles Noah is going through and how his obsessive behavior begins leading him to self destruction. Kind of like what he did with the main characters in Black Swan and The Wrestler, Aronofsky tries to delve deep into the psyches of Noah and the delusions he might have been tormented by for the task he was given. This is Aronofsky's film and it is very loosely based on the Bible (Noah's story only has four short chapters in Genesis). Christians will be disappointed if they go into this expecting a film based on a biblical perspective, because Aronofsky takes many artistic liberties and creates a tormented and flawed character similar to the ones he's made in his past films. What he does different with Noah is that he begins telling the film on an epic scale and then he reduces it to a personal story centering on Noah and the struggles he faces with his family. The visuals are great and the performances are strong, but the film feels too long and it oversimplifies environmentalism to make the story relatable to modern audiences. One could even argue that Aronfosky wasn't telling a story of the past, but presenting a futuristic apocalyptic tale. 

Having read the story of Noah in Genesis I must say that this film isn't really an adaptation but more of an original screenplay written by Aronofsky and Ari Handel (who also wrote The Fountain and has produced three other Aronofsky films). The story introduces us to Noah (Russell Crowe) and his wife Naameh (Jennifer Connelly) who live with their three sons: Shem (Douglas Booth), Ham (Logan Lerman), and Japheth (Leo McHugh Carroll). They are the only descendants of Seth that remain, the rest of the world has become wicked and disrespectful towards nature and the Creator. In a dream Noah sees water covering the Earth, and in order to understand this strange message from the Creator he visits his grandfather, Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins), who is still alive. Along the way he discovers several dead humans who have been attacked, but their is a young girl named Ila (Emma Watson) who has survived and he decides to help her and take her with him. After meeting with his grandfather, Noah understands his calling and begins building a giant ark to make space for his family and a pair of animals of every species in order to preserve creation. He encounters difficulties along the way as a group of men led by Tubal-Cain (Ray Winstone) defy him, but Noah has the protection of Watchers (fallen angels who've taken the form of giant stone-like creatures). The flood is coming and Noah will stop at nothing to execute the Creator's plan.

Noah has some breathtaking scenes that work really well for an epic film like this. My favorites were the montage where Noah explains how the world has been created and the scene where he plants a seed and a spring of water comes out from Earth extending into an entire forest in a matter of seconds. The scenes involving the flood were also pretty well made. The scenery and cinematography is captured gorgeously. I also enjoyed the performances from Crowe, Watson, and Winstone. However, Noah is the only character that has depth as the rest of the cast play stereotypical characters that don't offer much to the story. The film centers on Noah's inner struggle and how he deals with the task given to him as he becomes obsessed and self destructive after seeing the wickedness of mankind. The film does become a bit heavy handed with the ecological message although it certainly simplifies it at times because what Aronofsky is really interested in exploring is the character of Noah. This might be his most ambitious film to date, but I still prefer his smaller films. The Wrestler continues to be my favorite film of his, although I still haven't seen Pi or The Fountain.

My Review: Snow White and the Huntsman (5/10)

¨Lips red as blood. Hair black as night. Bring me your heart my dear, dear Snow White.¨

This is as close of a Tim Burton version of Snow White then you`ll ever see (even if Tim Burton himself directs one). The visual style of the film is pretty dark, but fascinating. It stands out in the film, but what the movie has going for it visually, it lacks story wise. The movie dragged for very long periods of time and moved really slowly. If it weren’t for the great visuals I might have not made it through this original version of the classic story we`ve all seen hundreds of times before. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was Disney`s first feature length movie and one of my favorite classics. I recall the darkness of it involving the evil witch, but I also remember the sweetness of Snow White and the playfulness of the seven dwarfs. Director Rupert Sanders does a very good job at setting the dark mood thanks to the strong performance from Charlize Theron, but he fails to capture the sweetness and innocence that embodies Snow White. As much as I like Kirsten Stewart, she really never convinced me as Snow White and that is my greatest complaint along with a lack of a better or more engaging storyline. This film was written by Evan Daugherty, John Lee Hancock, and Hossein Amini (the screenplay writer of my favorite film last year: Drive), but despite being beautifully shot and having great visuals it lacked a bit more heart in the story and a better conclusion. Despite moving so slow during most of the story, it seems to finish rather quickly and abruptly at the end. The movie does have some positive things however, such as Chris Hemsworth`s performance and some of the great actors playing the dwarfs.

We are all familiar with Snow White, although this film does take several liberties and takes us different places (despite having several of the same characters and lines from the original like ¨Mirror, mirror on the wall who is fairest of them all? ¨).  Snow White is played by Kristen Stewart who`s a princess until the day her mother dies and her father remarries Ravenna (Charlize Theron). Once Ravenna becomes Queen she murders Snow White`s father and locks her in the towers. The evil Ravenna begins to rule and the kingdom grows very dark. She`s a witch with eternal beauty thanks to the hundreds of girls she`s killed. Their hearts are the secret to her youth and beauty. She rules along with her brother Finn (Sam Spruell) who is more like her servant. Once Ravenna discovers that Snow White`s beauty is a threat to her powers she sends Finn to bring her in order to kill her, but Snow White manages to escape and hides in the dark forest. That is when Ravenna hires the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) to go after her and bring her back, but once the Huntsman meets Snow White he decides to protect her instead. Snow White`s childhood friend, William (Sam Claflin), hears she`s still alive and also begins searching for her in order to protect her and overthrow the evil Queen. Along the way Snow White and the Huntsman run into some dwarfs (played by such great actors as Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Nick Frost, Eddie Marsan, Toby Jones, and Johnny Harris) who also decide to protect her from the evil powers of the Queen and so the journey continues.

 I actually enjoyed some of the supporting characters in this film. The actors that played the dwarfs brought a lot of comedy to an otherwise very dark and serious film. Chris Hemsworth was the other actor who brought some comedic relief to the table, and perhaps my favorite character of the film (reminding us as to why Thor was so good despite the ridiculous plot). The film had its entertaining moments, but I just felt it too dark of a picture for my enjoyment and really wished it would have had a better ending. Was it better than I expected it to be? Yes, but that doesn’t mean it was good either. Kristen Stewart is a beautiful actress, but she didn’t fit the role of Snow White, she is not the typical sweet actress, there is some darkness in her as well. This is not a kid’s version of Snow White and is mostly for adults, but I still was left with an empty feeling from the theater as if something were missing. I didn’t have a terrible time with this film; I would give it a 5.8, almost enjoyable.

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My Review: 13 (4/10)

¨13 didn`t pull the trigger. You have to pull the trigger.¨

13 is a remake of a 2005 Georgian film ¨13 Tzameti¨ which was also written and directed by Gela Babluani. Unlike the original film in which Babluani also stared, this time the film had a lot of known Hollywood actors and it was filmed in color. The film has an interesting concept and it could have worked for a short film, but not for a full length feature film. Even at 97 minutes long the movie feels stretched and the dialogue really didn’t help either. There are some interesting and thrilling moments, but not enough to save this film. I had no idea what 13 was about before watching it so at the beginning I was drawn and intrigued to what was going to happen, but after the suspense was over the film got lost in the narrative. I also was expecting more from the cast because there were some interesting actors involved in the project, but the only real one who stands out in this film was Sam Riley (who I loved in Control). Riley gave a great performance and he is probably the best thing about this film. Mickey Rourke, Jason Statham, Alexander Skarsgard, and Michael Shannon were all underused, and they had little screen time to truly shine. With a better script this movie could have been much better. I was also a little disappointed with the ending, but I don’t want to give anything away, so I won`t say anything more about it.  

The less you know about the plot probably the better, but since the movie isn’t really that good I will go ahead and tell you about it. If you don’t want to know anything about the story then just go ahead and skip this paragraph. Vince (Sam Riley) is an electrician who has to put his home on mortgage in order to pay for his father`s operations because he`s very ill. Apparently the operation isn’t successful and they have to operate him again, which means Vince is going to need more money. That same day while he is working at someone`s house named William (Michael Berry Jr.) he overhears him speaking to his wife about the opportunity he just got of making a lot of money, while holding an envelope he just opened in his hands. That same day, William overdoses, and Vince doesn’t hesitate in taking the envelope and trying to figure out if he can make some money in his place. In the envelope he finds a number of hints that will lead him to some sort of secret place. Once he arrives to the location indicated he is taken by a driver named Jack (Alexander Skarsgard) to an underground building where a lot of wealthy people are gathered together making bets. He is given a number, 13, and before he can back out he discovers that he is part of a deadly game where other men gamble on his life. There are others just like him such as Jefferson (Mickey Rourke), Ronald (Ray Winstone), and many more that are all given numbers and are forced to point guns at each other with one bullet. They all have to shoot, those who are lucky survive.

13 is really poorly developed. The concept was interesting at first, but it got really boring after a while thanks in most part to a terrible script and very little character development. There were so many characters that were just wasted in the film and some of the background stories that were told about them were useless. Mickey Rourke and Jason Statham are both great actors, but their roles in this film were absolutely pointless. I really don’t understand how a movie like this needed to be made. The only positive thing I can say about 13 is that Sam Riley had a lead role and he was great. He was the only character that was really developed, and he did a decent job with the poor material he had to work with. There were a couple of intense moments, but like I said before, it could have worked well in a short film, but not in a movie like this. I really wouldn’t recommend this movie, unless you are a fan of Sam Riley (in that case just watch Control all over again and skip this).

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My Review: Ray (9/10)

¨If you want to do something to make your mama proud, promise me. Promise me you won't let nobody turn you into no cripple, you won't become no charity case, and you'll stand on your own two feet.¨

Ray Charles kept his promise and stood on his own two feet on the road to becoming one of the most beloved music entertainer`s of our century. Sure, he had to battle blindness and several addictions that tried to cripple him for life, but he was able to rise above them and become part of music history by being the first to fusion rhythm and blues with gospel music, and he even made country and western music popular throughout the world. Taylor Hackford (The Devil`s Advocate and Proof of Life) did a great job with the direction of this movie focusing more on Ray`s early years and his rise to fame during which he had to battle drug addictions that almost crippled him for life. Hackford also co-wrote the story with James L. White. The film is very well produced, but the success of the movie relies heavily on the performance from Jamie Foxx. He really captured the essence of Ray Charles and mimicked his every movie. Thanks to the great amount of footage of Charles`s life Foxx was able to study him and also met him for a couple of weeks while shooting the film. Foxx`s Oscar winning performance was stunning and he made me believe I was actually seeing the real Ray Charles and not an actor. Foxx was mostly known for his comedic performance, but he had proved himself in dramatic roles before with Any Given Sunday and Collateral. The musical score of Ray was absolutely breathtaking and another reason why this biopic works so well. Ray runs for more than 150 minutes and the main focus of the movie is on his music. The movie doesn`t waste time diving in too deep on the psychological elements of his life and focuses mainly on his music, but it doesn´t leave out his personal fight with his addictions so it doesn`t try to make him look like an angel either. In other words, his life isn`t sugar-coated.

 The movie begins with a nineteen year old blind Ray (Jamie Foxx) who is travelling to Seattle in the late forty`s to audition for Gossie McGee (Terrence Howard). He plays at a small bar for a few people, but he shows his talent playing some Nat King Cole songs. Gossie loves his music and so does his manager Marlene (Denise Dowse) who decides to sign him to perform at her bar. I guess the movie opens in Seattle because it marked an important time for Ray where he met his friend Quincy Jones (Larenz Tate) and also was introduced to drugs. The movie also has several flashbacks of Ray`s childhood (young Ray was played by C.J. Sanders) in Florida where he grew up with his mother Aretha (Sharon Warren) and younger brother George (Terrone Bell). These flashbacks deal with his humble beginnings, the death of his brother George, the disease that left him blind at seven, and his mother`s impact on his life. Ray is taken advantage of in Seattle, but he is no dumb blind man and slowly works his way to the top signing deals with Jack Lauderdale (Robert Wisdom), executive of Swingtime Records where he meets his future band manager Jeff Brown (Clifton Powell), later on with Atlantic Records where he truly finds his own voice and is not taken advantage of for the first time in his life. The producers of Atlantic are Ahmet (Curtis Armstrong) and Jerry Wexler (Richard Schiff), but before signing with them Ray decides to get married with the lovely Della Bea (Kerry Washington). This is when Ray becomes a success and begins his love affairs with Mary Ann Fisher (Aunjanue Ellis) and Margie Hendricks (Regina King). The movie focuses on his career from the late fortys to the mid 60`s when Ray finally is able to end his battle with drugs and continue successfully making music for 40 more years.

I already mentioned Foxx`s great performance, but Regina King and Kerry Washington also give strong performances as secondary characters. The story works really well focusing on Ray`s achievement in the music industry showing he was not only a great musician, but a talented businessman as well. The film doesn`t portray Ray as a saint and isn`t afraid of pointing out his weaknesses as well. There are several memorable scenes in the movie that doesn`t drag at all beside the fact that it is two and a half hours long. There are just so many rich details that couldn`t be left out of Ray´s life. Some of the memorable scenes were when Ray defied racial discrimination in Georgia when the theater he was going to perform for wanted to segregate the audience and only open for white folks, the scene where he is recovering in the hospital from addiction and has a vision of his mother and brother, and the scene where Ray has to perform for twenty more minutes to honor a contract and comes up with the song ¨What`d I say¨, which truly prove his musical genius. This is one of the best biopics ever made and I highly recommend it.

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My Review: Edge of Darkness (8/10)

¨ Well you had better decide whether you're hanging on the cross or banging in the nails.¨

(8/0) Mel Gibson is back doing what he does best, revenge movies. When I watched the trailer for this film, I was excited because the man from Lethal Weapon, Payback, Braveheart and The Patriot was back doing action movies. Mel Gibson hadn`t starred in a movie since 2002 when he played the reverend who had lost his faith in Signs (one of my favorite films), but in that movie he didn`t have many action scenes. So it was great for me to see Mel Gibson back in action, although the film is not your typical revenge movie, it actually has a good plot and story which makes this a decent thriller. The main reason for this is that director Martin Campell (Casino Royale and The Mask of Zorro) had Oscar winning screenwriter, William Monahan (The Departed and Kingdom of Heaven) to adapt the screenplay for Edge of Darkness. Martin Campell had directed the BBC mini-series of the same name back in 1985 (which aired in England) and now he decided to make it a two hour movie so he needed the best writers in the business to make this possible. It was probably a lot of material to condense, but I think they did a good job of getting the main points across without leaving the action aside. The film reminded me a lot of last year`s State of Play which starred Russell Crowe and also dealt with corporate greed and cover-ups. This is probably not a better film, but it is much better and smarter than most movies out so far this year.

Thomas Craven (Mel Gibson) is a Boston detective who has dedicated his life with the police force. He lives alone in his traditional Boston home, and he has a 24 year old daughter named Emma (Bojana Novakovic) who lives in another city and doesn`t communicate very much with him. But she has decided to come visit her father in Boston and Thomas is very excited about receiving her. You can tell that despite not having good communication between each other they do love and respect each other and they have a good relationship. However the night she gets to her house Emma is killed in the front porch. At first it seemed as though the shooter intended to kill Thomas and that they had accidently shot her daughter, but as Thomas begins to investigate he discovers some revealing things about his daughter and her job. He begins to investigate her workplace and makes many people uncomfortable because they seem to be hiding some crucial information. Her daughter worked for a nuclear corporation sponsored by the government and every employee had security contracts that didn`t allow them to speak about their jobs. The manager of the corporation is Jack Bennett (Danny Huston who had a similar role in The Constant Gardner) and Thomas suspects he knows more about what happened to his daughter. The company sends Jedburgh (Ray Winstone) a British specialist who is good at not letting people find answers. He and Thomas share the best scenes of the movie together as they discuss the case. The movie begins to escalate as Thomas continues to discover more revealing things about his daughter`s secret past.

Edge of Darkness is a great thriller and I really enjoyed the plot and the dialogue of the film. I thought that the scenes Mel Gibson and Ray Winstone shared together were probably the best ones in the movie. As much as I liked Mel Gibson I have to admit that the true star of this film was Ray Winstone. He absolutely stole each scene he was in and hopefully he will get more and more roles in Hollywood. The cast in the film was great. There is a lot of dialogue in the movie and if you don`t pay attention you can miss on a lot of things that are going on. Edge of Darkness is not just a revenge movie where Mel Gibson kills off everyone involved in her killing; it is much more than that. I thought this was a clever thriller and I was drawn to the story from the beginning. I never had the chance to see the BBC miniseries which consisted of six episodes, but I think they did a great job anyway turning it into this two hour movie. Martin Campell is a great director, he proved it when he directed Casino Royale and revived the James Bond franchise. In this thriller he combines the drama with the action scenes very well to make this one of the best thrillers of the year. It is good to see Mel Gibson back starring in a main role as well so I recommend this film!