Armageddon (1998)

Film of 2012 #50

The Michael Bay asteroid movie, written by J J Abrams and starring Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler, Billy Bob Thornton, Steve Buscemi and William Fichtner, A massive asteroid is heading towards the earth and the best plan is to send a band of unfit oil drillers up on two shuttles to drill and drop a Nuclear bomb. Now the science behind this film is ridiculous and is in no way plausible at all. It is however a roller coaster ride of emotions and action and does tug on your emotions and is really a paint by numbers emotion roller-coast trying to get a gut reaction from you.

The characters are very basic and for a long film they really do not focus on the characters that much, there are some nice touches but some that are ridiculous, like the kid remembering the salesman when he appears on TV. But to the meat of this film and what Michael Bay likes the most....Special Effects now he knows these and he gets them right this film is visually stunning and beautiful to look at. The set pieces especially when the mini asteroids hit are stunning and I found them very believable. The set pieces on the Asteroid itself whether they are plausible or not you do feel the tension of the situation and everybody knows how this film as a Summer blockbuster is going to end you don't know who is going to survive.

This is an enjoyable romp however if you have not seen it yet then you probably do not need to see it, I will re-watch it when I need some easy watching guff. This is a 3 star worth seeing for the visual effects but overall it really does not need to be seen in any real sense.

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Film of 2012 #49

The 1994 film from Quentin Tarantino that launched his career, that launched Uma Thurman and re-launched the career of John Travolta. This film is a genre setting film that showed what Tarantino wanted to show on film and made everybody think about what they could and should see in film. The film is non-linear which must have been quite jarring to see when it came out and it said "people you do not have to do what is expected in film."

The film is a series of vignets that inter link and cross over, you have The Coffee Shop scene, Jules Winnfield played by Samuel L Jackson, Vincent Vega played by John Travolta as gangsters who are going to collect something for Marsellus Wallace played by Ving Rhames. And you have the boxer storyline with Bruce Willis as Butch Coolidge. These storys cross over and you have some excellent smaller parts playe by Amanda Plummer, Tim Roth, Eric Stoltz, Rosanna Arquette and Harvey Keitel as the Wolf the ultimate cool Mofo. There are a lot of the scenes in this film that are iconic for their time from Uma Thurman and John Travolta dancing to the gimp in the shop.

I enjoy this film, I think it is a peice of cinema history and can almost be a landmark for 1994, it is however a very styilized film that will not appeal to everybody I would say that if you want to watch modern classics then this is definetley one that you should watch, I give this a solid 3 star film, worth seeing.

RED (2010)

This comic book adaptation sees Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman and Helen Mirren as retired operatives that come out or retirement when a Black-ops team invade Bruce Willis; home and try to kill him. It is a hilarious action comedy that brings together a stellar cast to romp through some serious explosions and action sequences.

I have to say that I was looking forward to seeing this film, as a non-comic book reader I had never heard of the series before the film and had not seen that much about it. I just thin that the cast alone was worth watching and seeing what they could do with a basically solid story idea. The action and acting did not disappoint me I have to say that there were some set ups and ideas that made me laugh out loud, the love stories are actually something special.

This is a solid recommend from me and I hope that if you have not seen it then you will give it the time it is well worth it and funny enough to pass the 2 hour running time, 4 shinning stars from me.