5. February 2008 by Ria.

This is my kind of movie, a bunch of cute guys beating the crap out of each other. The movie starts out like the typical tale story, you know, the ones where they push the little kid out in the wilderness to fight the big bad wolf, then he comes back to town a man, and is crowned king. Fast forward several years when Leonidas (Gerard Butler), invites Persian messengers into Sparta, where they demand the whole city to submit to King Xerxes.

Then, out of nowhere comes this great pit, and Leonidas throw the messengers in it. What is wrong with these people, how can anyone be so blind? I’m always aware of my surroundings, and from a mile away, I can spot muggers, rapists, and even deep dark pits that I can be immediately thrown into. In fact, I wouldn’t have even been there, I would have trained one of those birds, you know, the ones that deliver messages, then I’d go hang out with my friends.

Nevertheless, the messengers die, and it’s on now. Leonidas gets desperate and goes to see Ephors, who have already been bribed. Too bad for you Leonidas, I guess you’ll have to stick to praying. So after an unnecessary sex scene, Leonidas sets off with 300 of his best warriors to go up against the Persians. So the 300 defeat the Immortals, the Mongolian Barbarians, and the war elephants, without a scratch. Okay, now I’m getting bored.

War isn’t usually this pretty, where is the bloodshed on the 300 side? My questions are finally answered when Astinos gets struck down, and his father who is part of the 300 is deeply devastated. His loss is my gain, as now I’m lured back into the movie with this sudden death in Leonidas’s posse.

While the 300 are off to kick some more butt, lets go back home to Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey) who is desperately trying to gather up support for Leonidas. She asks the help of Theron, who wants to have a little ‘fun’ first (if you know what I mean). You know, Lena looks a lot like Elizabeth (Keira Knightley from Pirates of the Caribbean fame).

But there’s a big difference, Gorgo is tough, and will mess someone up, while Elizabeth will just hide behind a bunch of pirates, swinging her sword, pretending that she can fight. Gorgo doesn’t play around with Theron, who betrayed her after he got his way, and she killed him. After Gorgo slays him, Persian coins fall from his purse, and now everyone knows Theron’s a trader.

What a dummy! Never carry bribery money around with you, he should have immediately deposited it in the First National B.C./A.D Greek Bank as soon as he got it. What? There were no banks around back then? Well, put it under a rock or something, what’s he carrying it around for?

The Council decides to help the 300, but its too late, they all die in the final battle. How sad, sometimes the hero must die, but it’s not over, well the movie is, but the battle rages on as over 40,000 soldiers gather together a year later to avenge the 300.

300 (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Posted in Action | Print | 1 Comment »

2. February 2008 by Ria.

Tough guy Mark Wahlberg is back as Bob Lee Swagger, a retired marine sniper, who finds himself in a hot mess after he is framed in the killing of a Ethiopian Archbishop, and an assassination attempt of the President of the United States. The movie starts off with Swagger on active duty in the Marines with a comrade who ends up getting killed. Too bad, okay now lets skip to the next scene where Colonel Isaac Johnson (Danny Glover) and his band of goons approach Swagger at his home in Wyoming and asks him if he can help him track down an assassin who plans to kill the President with a high powered rifle. Johnson also asks Swagger which of the three locations (that the President will be attending) will the hit take place.

Swagger has better things to do, like shooting Dinty Moore cans, and tells Johnson to leave. However, he thinks about it for a while, lets his patriotism win him over, then he accepts the job. First he travels to Washington DC, then to Baltimore, and finally Philadelphia to scope out the areas, and probably to give himself a much needed vacation. He then reports back  to Johnson to tell him that Philadelphia is probably the best place for the sniper to take out the President, and in response, Johnson asks Swagger to stay to be a spotter, which he agrees, then walks away in total slow motion coolness.

On the day of the supposed assassination, Swagger tells Johnson to take out the sniper, but ends up getting shot, while the Archbishop goes down too, only he won’t be getting up any time soon. Swagger is shot again and falls out of the window, and eventually limps to safety, after kung-fu-ing an FBI agent Memphis (Pena), and driving off with his car. Swagger temporarily stops the bleeding using marine tactics, and with nowhere else to go, winds up at Sarah’s (fallen comrade widow’s) home. She patches him up, and if I’m not mistaken, starts eyeing him. Sorry Sarah, he’s all mine, you’ll just have to go get someone else. Hey, I think McClaine from Die Hard is available. I’ll try to get his phone number for you.

Let’s switch gears and deal with Memphis, oh, I’m sorry, he’s already being dealt with, since he’s in a lot of hot water for letting Swagger escape. But Memphis realizes there’s something wrong with the whole picture. How is it that an experienced sharpshooting sniper fails to hit his target? Memphis starts doing his own investigation, and ends up getting kidnapped and almost killed, until Swagger comes to his rescue. Since they’re both in hot water, Memphis and Swagger team up to catch the real sniper, and take down Johnson and his posse at the same time.

Good movie, but I think that Swagger’s character was so bland. He needed more personality, like a Sergeant Dignam, the character that Wahlberg played in the movie “The Departed”. Just Imagine Bob Swagger with Dignam’s personality where he’s got curse words flying out of his mouth a mile a minute. Now let’s put the new Swagger into a scene from the movie.

Scene where Swagger meets up with Johnson to give him his analysis of where the sniper may strike.

Johnson: Okay Swagger, what did you find out?

Swagger: Listen, you dumb @##$@@%*! I spent all my money flying from DC to Philadelphia, paying for buses, taxis, and food!  You’d better pay me back for this before kick your @@*%@# ass!

Not bad, now lets try the new Swagger in the scene where he’s wounded and ends up at Sarah’s home.

Sarah: Hello, who’s there?. Swagger: Look you stupid ##%@^@@*!!, you’d better open up this damn door before I kick it open, and beat the living %^^##@@ out of you dumb @%%^##@!

Now, that’s better.

Shooter (Widescreen Edition)

Posted in Action | Print | No Comments »

21. January 2008 by Ria.

Usually when I don’t seem able to rent movies fast enough, I will turn to pay per view, or download a movie on the computer in order to make my quota, so this week I watched Shoot em Up, and I have only one thing to say………….I WANT MY $3.99 BACK! I’m seriously thinking of calling up Dish Network and saying this, “Hello, Dish Network? I’m just calling to let you know that there’s a mistake on my bill. I never watched a movie called Shoot Em Up, what is that supposed to be anyway?

I don’t even know how my TV ended up on the pay per view channel, ’cause I didn’t turn it there. Maybe my dog sat on the remote, and accidentally ordered the movie, I don’t know…………Can you please credit my account the $3.99?” You think that will work? No? Oh well, the least I can do is bring you this review.

This movie was incredibly stupid. The leading actor, what’s his name, Clive Owen? Who’s this guy? I guess Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg, and Nicholas Cage were too busy to be bothered with this mess, and I can’t blame them. First of all, I’m going to tell you that to have a baby in the midst of all of this violence is preposterous. Yes, I know they didn’t use a real baby for most of the scenes, but still, just the idea of it sounds ludicrous. I actually thought about putting this movie into my comedy archive, ’cause it’s so stupid, all you can do is laugh.

Smith (Clive Owen) is a bum who just happens to be superb with a gun, hangs out with Donna (Monica Bellucci), a lady of the evening, and together they are trying to protect a baby against a bunch of goons that want it dead. I call it an ‘it’, because its never revealed if the baby is a girl or boy. This movie is so unbelievable from the start. First, you got Smith, who was obviously trained in combat miraculously taking on twenty, maybe thirty hit men at one time, without even a scratch.

Did you know he can even do somersaults in the air, and back-flips with a baby in his arms? I wonder where he got the training for that? Okay, so Smith is highly skilled in combat, yet he’s not a police officer, a hit man, or a security guard. In fact, he doesn’t seem to have a job at all. He lives in a dump, and tries to buy a gun with food stamps. Smith is so highly skilled at fighting, did you know he can kill people with carrots? I saw it with my own eyes, Smith rammed a carrot into this guy’s throat, and it came out on the other side. Wow. Can someone teach me to do that with a piece of celery?

Then there is the sex scene. You see, whenever a movie has a weak plot, the writers will try to throw in a sex scene to balance everything out. Bad movie plot/Great sex scene, only this scene isn’t so great. Once again Smith seems to be able to take out all the bad guys while in the middle of a hot fling with Donna, who is so into it, she never realizes that the posse just busted in, and is trying to kill her. Now who in the hell is going to keep on having sex, while someone is trying to take them out?.

Don’t answer that, I don’t want to know. Then there is the parachute scene, where everyone jumps out of a plane, and start shooting at each other. Once again Smith is just so untouchable, as he is able to kill a fist full of hired hoodlums on his way down. His landing is not very pretty, and he stumbles, gets caught and is roughed up a bit.

So now he has a bad leg, and a couple of broken fingers. Somehow he is still able to take on these armed ruffians, while he’s physically a complete mess and possesses no weapon. I wasn’t going to give the movie any stars, but hey, at least they kept the kid from getting hurt, so I’ll be generous and give it one whole star.

Shoot ‘Em Up

CinemaNow Free Trial!

Posted in Action | Print | No Comments »