Review - Marvel's The Avengers, Haywire, Safe

Check out my reviews for the movies I saw in the month of April and May. Feel free to comment and subscribe:)

Marvel's The Avengers (2012)

Starring Robert Downey Jr, Chris Hemsworth and Mark Ruffalo.

One of my must-see-films of 2012 has finally arrived and overall it didn't disappoint. Our favorite Marvel comic superheroes assembled: Thor, The Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, Hawkeye and Black Widow, spear-headed by Nick Fury. They team up to battle Thor's delusional brother Loki as he looks to take over the planet. The movie's humor will make it very likable to viewers, not to mention the action sequences. The humor was not corny or overdone and the action set-pieces were just awesome; not all over the place like in those Transformers films. In my opinion, the Hulk was pretty impressive and stole the show. What prevented me from giving this movie a perfect score was the fact that there was nothing really special in terms of the plot. It is pretty over-used but all in all, the characters were developed well. The Avengers is a great look for Marvel and the superheroes really held their own. Great popcorn film.
 Rating: 9/10

The Devil Inside (2012)

Starring Fernanda Andrade, Simon Quarterman and Evan Helmuth.

I didn't think I could have watched a worst movie than 'Gone' in 2012. Well... until I saw this piece of crap called 'The Devil Inside' The movie is filmed in a found-footage/documentary style and stars Fernanda Andrade as Isabella Rossi, the daughter of Maria Rossi (Susan Crowley), a woman who is supposedly possessed and killed three priests. Twenty years later, Maria is locked up in a psychiatric hospital in Rome and her daughter is filming a documentary about exorcisms. Isabella meets two priests, Ben (Simon Quarterman) and David (Evan Helmuth) who agrees to perform an exorcism on Maria. Something happens and it seems the demons were transferred from Maria to David to Isabella blah blah blah. 
I didn't think this movie would have gotten any worse until I saw how it ended. I'm praying that there is no SEQUEL because this was a joke. I thought "Isn't this suppose to be a HORROR movie?" This movie was not scary at all and there was no climax. The least they could have done was to make one of the exorcism scenes scary but no. The documentary idea sucked, the acting sucked, the film sucked. When the movie ended, I wondered if I was getting punk'd or something. Do not waste your time.
Rating: 0/10

Safe (2012)

Starring Jason Statham, Catherine Chan and Robert John Burke.

Nowadays when I hear a new Jason Statham film is out, I don't get too excited. Why? Just watch Killer Elite and Blitz and you'll understand. He's a cool actor and everything but he needs to come original. Anyways lets talk about this movie 'Safe'. It features Statham as Luke Wright, a former NYPD police officer, whose family was killed by the Russian Mafia. One day, he sees a frightened little Chinese girl being trailed by the same guys who killed his family and rescues her. How nice of him huh? However, the girl knows some secret information so now Luke has to battle the Chinese Triads, the Russian Mafia and corrupt cops as they seek to get the information she holds. 
The action scenes and camera angles were okay but honestly this movie felt like something I've seen a MILLION times before. Nothing original, just your regular cliched Statham flick. As a result I was very bored and not that impressed. 'Safe' felt like a watered-down 'Rush Hour' movie. If you like cliched action films, then this is for you. 
Rating: 5/10

Haywire (2012)

Starring Gina Carano, Ewen Mcgregor and Michael Fassbender.

If you wanna see a female star kick the crap out of everyone convincingly, then this is the movie for you. A star-studded action flick starring Gina Carano as secret agent Mallory Kane. Mallory works for a government security agency where they do covert operations worldwide. After successfully freeing a Chinese journalist held hostage in Barcelona, she is double crossed and left for dead by someone close to her in her own agency, who turns out to be ex-boyfriend and fellow agent Kenneth (Ewan Mcgregor). Mallory must now search for the truth as she fights and flees Kenneth and his assassins. 
The fight sequences in this film were commendable. Not a lot of fights but still enough to keep me entertained. The background music played a huge part in giving this film a somewhat suspense feeling and Gina Carano was awesome. The cinematography, the art direction, the entertaining fights and soundtrack provided a somewhat unique atmosphere in Haywire, different from your average cliched action flicks and it worked for me.

Rating: 7.5/10

This Means War (2012)

Starring Tom Hardy, Reese Witherspoon and Chris Pine.

From a somewhat decent start which later evolved into a HOT MESS; this statement can be used to describe 'This Means War'. This movie stars Pine and Hardy as two CIA agents and best friends who went to Hong Kong to stop a crime boss but the mission went wrong. So now they're back home and assigned to desk work for their own safety. In the meantime they both meet a girl (Reese Witherspoon), unaware at first and she also doesn't know that they're best friends. Both friends eventually discover that they're seeing the same woman and it becomes a uphill battle to see who can win her heart. Bleh! 
The transition from being super cops to suddenly battling over some random girl was just too weird for me. And to make matters worse, after all their silly gimmicks to impress her they start bitching that they don't wanna be best friends anymore and wanna be transferred to different departments. Like seriously? Too predictable. Furthermore, I did not see the relevance of the crime boss being re-introduced later down in the story. But then again, I guess he was re-introduced to give that very cliched and crappy ending. This movie was not funny and the acting was horrible. Watch when drunk.
Rating: 3/10

The Raid: Redemption (2012)

Starring Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim and Yahan Ruhian.

This movie is worth it. A vintage Jackie Chan movie mixed with the Expendables? Yes Sir. The movie features an elite special force-team sent to extradite a crime lord from his apartment building. But it aint as easy as it sounds because the squad must face every criminal residing in that building as they protect their boss. The road to capturing the crime boss and surviving becomes very challenging for Rama (Iko Uwais) as they are vastly outnumbered and his colleagues are killed left right and center. 
The ride was very entertaining. A martial arts movie mixed with pure action and gore is a WIN. The action was so good, I didn't even care about the plot or story but they did take a brief timeout from the action to develop the plot which was good. Not to mention a few twists are included in the story line. This is one engaging, kick-ass, action flick which will keep you on the edge of your seat. Not bad for an Indonesian film too.
Rating 8.5/10

Snowtown (2011)

Starring Lucas Pittaway, Daniel Henshall and Louise Harris. 

Based on a true story about the notorious Snowtown murders which occurred in Australia between 1992 to 1999. This film basically portrays an account of the murders or so I was led to believe. Jamie (Lucas Pittaway) becomes attached to his new father figure, John (Daniel Henshaw). In the movie John is the mastermind behind the murders aka the serial killer and eventually Jamie gets drawn into his little murder cycle. Let me cut right to the chase, at first this movie was all over the place. As in, it is switching from scene to scene and I don't know what the hell is going on. I had to go on Wikipedia and read up the movie's story line and that should never be the case. I'm here watching this movie and wondering why are they killing people? Not to mention, they BARELY showed any of the murders and the reasons for the murders are not brought forward. Strong points of this film include good acting. The characters were very serious. There were tense moments here and there but overall this film was bland and took too long to come together. Blah.
Rating: 5.5/10

A Thousand Words (2012)

Starring Eddie Murphy, Cliff Curtis and Kerry Washington.

Dear Eddie Murphy, we love you but your movies are very annoying now. The last two decent flicks you made were Dream Girls and Tower Heist and I somewhat tolerated 'Norbit' BUT it has got to stop. And then again you were not the star of those two movies SMH. Okay, so 'A Thousand Words' is a story about a witty, fast-talking agent Jack McCall (Murphy) who thinks he can close any deal, anytime, anywhere. He meets an author and influential guru name Sinja (Cliff Curtis) whom he wants to sign. Sinja however is not impressed with Jack's ways and curses him. A tree appears in his yard and with every word spoken, a leaf falls off. If all the leaves fall off then Jack will die so he has to resort to a more creative and silent way of communication. Blah blah blah. From start to finish, this film was stupid.  I mean I didn't see any reason for Jack to get cursed, he wasn't that awful of a character. Eddie Murphy's over-acting, even when he couldnt talk, overshadowed this movie. They tried to use a 'Bruce Almighty'/'Liar Liar' kind of concept in this film but it failed miserably. The script was poor, too predictable and the jokes did not connect. I don't need a thousand words to sum up this movie, just only one - AWFUL.
Rating: 1/10

Red Tails (2012)

Starring Terrence Howard, Cuba Gooding Jr and Neyo.

Usually World War II movies are good but I dont know what the hell happened with 'Red Tails'. This film is about African-American pilots in Italy who yearn for combat but their white superiors do not see them as good enough, mainly because they're BLACK. Col. A.J. Bullard (Terrence Howard), face a white military bureaucracy very resistant to accepting black flyers as equals. However as the film develops, the Tuskegee Airmen, as what they are called, are finally given the opportunity to prove their worth. They are given assignments to be bomber escorts in which they succeed, defeat the Germans and gain respect from their fellow white counterparts. FULL STOP. The only positives of this film is that we are able to see that black people did play a role in World War II. The negatives now, OMG, the acting was really bad and Neyo's accent was the worst. I wanted to stab Neyo. Being a movie based off a true event, the script was very poor and for a war movie, the action was next to nothing. I was so embarrassed for Lightning (David Oyelowo) in that scene where he died. Sigh. Red Tails never left its comfort zone and was pretty much boring. 

Rating: 4/10

The Skin I Live In (2011)

Starring Antonio Banderas, Elena Ayana and Jan Cornet.

Nothing I like more in a movie than an impressive script accompanied with twists. 'The Skin I Live In' provided that. This semi-dark Spanish tale features a plastic surgeon name Robert (Antonio Banderas) who lost his wife due to a car fire years ago and has worked effortlessly on creating a genetic skin which will shield against diseases and burns. Robert has an assistant Maralia (Marisa Paredes) who helps and takes care of his human guinea pig Vera (Elena Anaya). He develops the super skin but is shut down because of illegal trans-genetic experiments. The film goes on to highlight more of  Vera, of how she came about and more of Robert personal life. We eventually learn she was kidnapped and kept prisoner by Robert. Flashback techniques are incorporated into the movie to reveal its very impressive twists. Good acting and an unpredictable storyline are the main attributes of 'The Skin I Live In". It became a bit slow mid-way but definitely picked up and delivered a soothing ending. An interesting watch.
Rating: 8.5/10