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Trailer for Hours (2013)
Hours (2013)
Paul Walker keeps making basically one-man independent movies. At least this one looks better than Vehicle 19 (2013).
The film is about a man (Walker) who desperately tries to keep his premature newborn baby daughter alive during Hurricane Katrina.
The movie was written and directed by Eric Heisserer and the rest of the noteworthy cast includes Genesis Rodriguez, and Nick Gomez.
The film is set to release on 12/13/13.
The Last Stand (2013)
The Last Stand (2013)
Arnold Schwarzenegger is back, again. He must have gone a little heavy on the spray tan and make-up because his face looks like a tanned piece of aged leather, but he’s back. I held off seeing this movie in the theatre because I was not sure if Ahnuld could pull this one off.
The Last Stand is about a drug lord that escapes from protective custody and heads for the Mexican border. The only thing standing in his way of freedom is small town Sheriff Ray Owen (Schwarzenegger) and his band of misfit deputies.
The film is directed by Kim Jee-Woon and the rest of the noteworthy cast includes Forest Whitaker, Johnny Knoxville, Luis Guzman, Peter Stormare, Eduardo Noriega, Jaimie Alexander, Zach Gilford, and Harry Dean Stanton, and Genesis Rodriguez.
The film does not have a lot of character development, but there is a bit of stupid comedy and tons of action. The special effects are actually quite good and they help to make the film enjoyable. There are endless car chases, bullets are flying, people and things are exploding, blood is spattering, and fans of 90s action movies are applauding.
Schwarzenegger, Knoxville, Guzman, and Stormare all make this action movie more of a comedy not to take too seriously.
Whitaker seems to be the only person in the film taking his part seriously and it fits his character like a glove.
Overall, the film was better than I expected it to be. It’s a bit predictable at times, but for the type of movie that it is, that is to be expected. It certainly seemed like they had fun making it. Even though Schwarzenegger looked a little goofy, he pulled his character off quite well and it was fun to see him acting again.
I rate this movie a 7 on a scale of 1-10.
Buy, rent, or run? Rent.
If you liked The Last Stand, then you will probably enjoy:
Identity Thief (2013)
Identity Thief (2013)
I cannot begin to comprehend how frustrating it would be if somebody stole my identity, my money, ruined my credit, and straight up destroyed my good name. I cannot fathom how angry and upset I would be. Besides wanting to physically hurt that person, I would probably want to do anything and everything in my power to get my identity back and my life back to normal.
Identity Thief is about an upstanding citizen and hardworking father named Sandy Patterson (Jason Bateman) who gets his identity stolen by a woman (Melissa McCarthy). She systematically destroys his life while running around town having fun on his dime. In order to try to fix the harm that she has caused, Sandy decides to travel across the country to track her down and bring her to justice; a task that proves much more difficult than he anticipated.
The movie was directed by Seth Gordon and written by Craig Mazin and Jerry Eeten.
The rest of the noteworthy cast includes Jon Favreau, Amanda Peet, Robert Patrick, John Cho, Jonathan Banks, Genesis Rodriguez, and T.I.
I thought that this film was going to be funnier. Don’t get me wrong, it had its moments of hilarity, but it just wasn’t as funny as it looked. However, it is still above average and funnier than a lot of comedies out there these days.
A number of events in the movie were a little too convenient and predictable. Given that it is in fact a movie, some of that is to be expected. However, when convenient things happen too often in movies, it tends to take away from the suspension of disbelief. When things are less believable, they are also less enjoyable. Identity Thief seemed to try a little bit too hard at times and as a result, the film was not as humorous as it otherwise could have been.
Bateman and McCarthy played their characters perfectly. He was a decent, easy going, stand up guy. She pulled off being not nearly as innocent as she looked. The two contrasted very well and the end result was a good amount of uncontrollable laughter.
Peet seemed to simply show up for the money. Her role was not major, but it seemed like she just read her lines without much effort at all.
At times the humor fell short, but I fault the writers for this. A couple of raunchy scenes were way over-the-top and seemed unnecessary. It felt like they were part of the movie simply for the shock value. Instead of those scenes being shocking or funny, they just came off as being cheap and stupid.
Overall Identity Thief is worth seeing and good for a number of laughs.
I rate this movie a 7 on a scale of 1-10.
Buy, rent, or run? Rent.
If you enjoyed Identity Thief, then you will probably like Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987) and Due Date (2010) even better.
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