Angelina Jolie IS Salt

The Verdict:
GO SEE!


REVIEW:
Salt officially makes Angelina Jolie badass.

When she's not getting her guns (yes, plural) off every five seconds, she's jumping onto moving vehicles from other moving vehicles, blatantly disobeying the law and trying to (or not to...) assassinate presidents.

Hollywood superstar Angelina Jolie (Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Changeling) takes on her toughest role yet as Evelyn Salt, a CIA Agent (is she?) who is accused of being a Russian spy (is she?). She goes on the run and when her husband is killed, Salt goes into a murderous, vengeful rage.

Salt is filled with twists and turns at every turn making it one thrilling ride.

Jolie is without a doubt is the star of the film but co-stars Liev Schreiber (The Manchurian Candidate (remake 2004), X-Men Origins: Wolverine) as a colleague of Salt and Chiwetel Ejiofor (Redbelt, 2012) playing a relentless agent out to catch her---are great, Schreiber especially!

Prepare for your jaw to drop once everything about everyone is revealed (I'm so tempted to give out a hint of a spoiler for a character but I won't!).

Prepare for your jaw to drop twice during a well, jaw dropping scene involving handcuffs.

Only Jolie could pull off the character of Salt as well as she does.

Her last film before this action flick was the drama Changeling, where she beautifully plays a mother in the 1920's trying to find her missing son. Jolie is such a talented, chameleon actress, she can switch from a genre or character and make her role instantly believable.

She's no stranger to action films playing a girl who can kick butt better than the boys in films such as Lara Croft (2001) and Wanted (2007).

As Salt however, Jolie plays her most blood lusting role yet. She takes no prisoners in Salt, taking down so many men who are supposed to kill her, with the greatest of ease.

Is Salt the female Bond?

She seems to be.

And women moviegoers will be ready to embrace her.

At my showing, most of the audience were female (53% of women filled up theatres opening weekend) and afterwards, were pumped to see more (the bathroom talk was all about Salt/Jolie).

How the film marvelously ended (think: The Fugitive), the sequel to Salt is only inevitable.

~Trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810072508/trailer

*The Stars:

Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofer

~Director:

Philip Noyce

~Music:

James Newton Howard

~Rating:

PG-13

*But there is a lot of violence making it on the verge of R-Restricted

~How Long:

1 hr. 39 mins.

~Opening:

7/23/10

FUN FACTS:

~Tom Cruise was originally supposed to play the title character, but as Edwin Salt. However feeling the role was too similar to his Mission Impossible character, he declined and Edwin Salt was eventually rewritten as Evelyn Salt for Jolie. She always wanted to play a female James Bond type character.

~Jolie did most of her stunts for the film.

~The film title Salt in Russia's Cyrillic alphabet translates into "Coat."

Inception Perfection: Take 2

2

Of course I had to see Inception again.

The second time around, I was just as amazed as seeing it for the first time.

Things that confused me during the first viewing of it, make sense now (the roles of the characters and storyline were more clear). However I just couldn't wrap my head around other things still (how were all the series of dreams when Cobb's team started their inception job with Fischer seemingly taking place at the same time? Were they?).

I grasped the ending a lot more this time around, and I'm more sure of my answer to the questions, "Was it a dream? What it reality?"

The question that remains is, Will I see it again?

Yes!

I definitely want to see at least once more before it is taken from the theatres (and with how well the film is doing ($60.4 million made its first weekend) it should still be around until September, maybe even October I estimate).

One last question remains:

Will there be an Inception 2?!

Only Nolan knows for sure but Inception fans can certainly dream about it.

* http://www.worstpreviews.com/headline.php?id=18351

Inception Perfection

The Verdict: 

GO SEE!


REVIEW:

Every so often along comes a movie that is just so ingenious that you still think about it long after it's over because it was that mesmerizing.

Christopher Nolan's (The Dark Knight, Memento) brilliant Inception is one of those films. Inception is simply perfect with its mind-boggling storyline, excellent cast, gorgeous, powerful score (so loud in fact, after I left my auditorium, I could hear the music from another Inception's auditorium playing from the escalators) and incredible cinematography.

The wonderful Leonardo DiCaprio (Titanic, Shutter Island) plays Dom Cobb, the Extractor who is sent on an "inception" job --- to implant an idea into someone's mind through their dreams. Robert Fischer Jr. is that someone, the Mark, played by Cillian Murphy (Red Eye, Peacock), son of corporate adversary to the mysterious Saito, the Tourist (Ken Watanabe, The Last Samurai, Memoirs of a Geisha)--- the man who sends Cobb into Fischer's dreams. Accused of murdering his wife Mal, the Shade (Marion Cotillard, Public Enemies, Nine)--- who still is very much alive in Cobb's dreamworld, Cobb will be cleared of the charges from Saito and can return home to his two children if he successfully completes the job.

Cobb's colorful dream thieves team he recruits to help him include, Arthur the Point Man (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, The Lookout, Stop-Loss), Ariadne the Architect (Ellen Page, Juno, Hard Candy), Eames the Forger (Tom Hardy, RocknRolla) and Yusef the Chemist (Dileep Rao, Drag Me to Hell, Avatar). Together they amazingly share the same dream with Fischer.

Inception is sci-fi, action, a thriller--- with a bit of romance entangled.

The dream sequences are just breathtaking and some chase scenes (at the hotel in particular) are reminiscent of the marvel The Matrix brought.

At times things do get confusing--- what's the dream? What's reality? But that's what makes Inception so much fun.

I left the theatre in a dream-like state, awestruck. A movie hasn't done that to me in a long time.

Even leading up the release, the thrilling trailer and sensational theatrical posters are the best I've seen in awhile.

Inception is a rare film that has the three ingredients that make a movie great: fantastic plot, actors and director. It is exhilarating from beginning to end and is the movie of 2010. If you only see one movie this year, see this. You will be thinking and talking about it after it's over. Inception will leave you nothing short of breathless!

~Trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810099246/trailer

*Stars:
Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Cillian Murphy, Ken Watanabe, Tom Hardy, Dileep Rao, Marion Cotillard, Michael Caine, Tom Berenger

~Director:
Christopher Nolan

~Music:
Hans Zimmer

~Rating:
PG-13

~How Long:
2 hrs. & 28 mins.

~Opening:
7/16/2010


FUN FACTS:

~Brad Pitt and Will Smith were up for the role as Dom Cobb.
~In Nolan's first film Following (1998) the main character's name is Cobb.
~Nolan had the idea to make a movie set in the world of dreams since he was a kid.
~Inception took 10 years for Nolan to make.
~Inception is Nolan's third film revolving around memories, dreams, and sleep. His films Memento (2000) and Insomnia (2002) also deal with these themes.
~The music to Inception's trailer was done by Zack Hemsey and is entitled "Mind Heist."
~The real life definition of "inception" is: "the beginning of something" or "origin."

Predator vs. Predator

The Verdict:
GO SEE!


REVIEW:
Adrien Brody as a mercenary?

Kicking alien butt?

Yes.

In Predators, the third sequel in the Predator series, he does both.

And surprisingly he's believable.

Brody (The Pianist, Splice) plays Royce, a self-interested mercenary who falls from the sky and into a jungle.

He quickly finds out he's not alone. He's met by other people who have been brought to the jungle in the same way.

They soon find out that they are not on Earth but are on a alien planet and are hunted for game by inhumane aliens called Predators.

As personalities clash, the group struggles with leadership issues as they try to find a way off the alien planet.

Alice Braga (I Am Legend, Blindness) is great as Isabelle, the lone female, a sniper with heart.

Laurence Fisburne (What's Love Got to Do with it, The Matrix series) unexpectedly adds humor as Noland, a soldier who has managed to survive on the planet for years and as a result, has gone a little mad.

Topher Grace (Spider-Man 3, In Good Company) as Edwin the doctor, looks as out of place as Brody at first in an alien movie. His character is one to watch closely throughout the film.

The film has a dark feel to it and the alien world is so creepy, it makes you glad you're not one of the people trapped on it.

The aliens are merciless which is expected. They are huge, ugly and have some sort of glow in the dark vision where they can easily see and hunt their prey (humans). They can appear and disappear out of nowhere which makes them especially scary and have the ability to eradicate you if they mark one of their red dots on you.

By the unforeseen twist end of Predators, you will wonder who are the real predators, the Predators or the humans?

I call a tie.

~Trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810151629/trailer

*The Stars:

Adrien Brody, Laurence Fishburne, Topher Grace, Alice Braga, Danny Trejo, Mahershalalhashbaz Ali

~Director:

Nimrod Antal

~Music:

Alan Silvestri & John Debney

~Rating:

R

~How Long:

1 hr. & 47 mins.

~Opening:

7/9/10

Eclipse Shines

The Verdict:
GO SEE!

REVIEW:

*WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS*

The third installment in the highly popular teen oriented Twilight Saga films easily outshines its previous New Moon.
Eclipse is even heavier on the romance with loads of action compared to the first two Twilight movies.
Eclipse picks off where New Moon ended, with the charming, handsome vampire Edward (Robert Pattison, Remember Me) asking his one true love, stubborn, accident prone human Bella (Kristen Stewart, Into the Wild, The Runaways) to marry him.
But it doesn't start off with the two modern day Romeo and Juliet.
It begins ominously and dark (at first, I thought I was in the wrong movie) with an unidentified teen walking, then being chased by something unseen and superfast (by then I knew I was in the right movie).
He is bite by something (of course a vampire) and his transformation sets off the chain of events for Eclipse.
Eclipse focuses more on the Cullen clan again as it did in Twilight rather than the Quileute tribe as it did in New Moon.
Beautiful, bitchy (well to Bella at least) Rosalie (Nikki Reed, Thirteen) and quiet Jasper (Jackson Rathbone, The Last Airbender) have bigger parts and their origins of how they became vampires are revealed.
There is a new character, a girl werewolf, which is cool, Leah Clearwater (Julia Jones).
But it is all about vampires again although the wolves play a big part at the big battle toward the end.
Edward and Bella have their biggest intimate scene yet which fans should enjoy.
Afterwards he presents her with a engagement ring and properly proposes to her. It's a sweet scene.
Twilight fans ongoing battle, "Team Edward" or "Team Jacob" is probably split up the middle in Eclipse.
Edward definitely won in Twilight, Jacob clearly in New Moon. But in Eclipse it's a tie. Every girl's favorite werewolf, hunky, faithful Jacob (Taylor Lautner, The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D) wins on one hand for saving Bella in a scene where she's freezing cold in snow and he protects her with his body heat (the "hot" joke he makes here is the line of Eclipse) because Edward can't (he's a cold vampire remember).
But Edward wins on the other for saving Bella from Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard, Lady in the Water, The Village) once and for all (the scene where he takes out Victoria is very un-Edward like, as he shows how vicious he can be in order to save the one he loves).
The battle scene between the newbie vampire army Victoria creates with the help of Riley (the teen at the beginning, Xavier Samuel) is pretty cool but it was short. I expected it to be a longer. Still, it's great seeing the Cullen vampires kick butt together and the Quileute werewolves help them out.
The very ending of the film is moving as Bella tells Edward the whole reason why she really wants to become a vampire. Her reasoning actual is a good one.
Eclipse was the first Twilight film I saw via theatres (I saw the first two via DVD) so it was a treat.
I'm so excited for the last film in the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn to open.
It will be split in two parts, part one in November of 2011, part two, in November 2012.
Twilight is still my favorite of the series so far (I just love the origin), followed by New Moon then Eclipse.
I eagerly await to decide where I will place Breaking Dawn.

~Trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810074301/trailer

*The Stars:
Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Billy Burke, Bryce Dallas Howard, Xavier Samuel, Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Ashley Greene, Nikki Reed, Jackson Rathbone, Kellan Lutz, Dakota Fanning

~Director:
David Slade

~Music:
Howard Shore

~Rating:
PG-13

~How Long:
2 hrs. & 4 mins.

~Opening:
6/30/2010

New Spider

Tobey Maguire no longer will don Spider-Man's red and blue costume.
Relatively unheard of, 26 year old actor Andrew Garfield (The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus) is the new Peter Parker/Spidey.
I've never been a fan of the Spider-Man films, partly because I always thought Maguire was wrongly cast to play Spider-Man. He may have nailed nerdy Parker down, but I never believed he was strong enough in wearing the suit.
Maybe this Garfield will be convincing enough to make me want to see the next installment in the Spider-Man films (Out in July 2012.).

http://www.deadline.com/2010/07/soni-pictures-selects-new-spider-man/

Cyrus the Riot... Not!

The Verdict:

MAYBE SEE...

REVIEW:

Cyrus is an awkward little movie, filled with awkward characters and an awkward plot.

It centers on a loser named John (John C. Reilly, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant) who is forced to go to a party by his ex-wife (Katherine Keener, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Hamlet 2 ) in hopes of un-depressing him (he's still hung up after 6 years, that she left him). At the party, John gets drunk and makes a fool of himself. Enter Molly (Marisa Tomei, My Cousin Vinny), the beautiful girl who shows him sympathy and surprisingly ends up hooking up with him at the end of the night. The mismatched couple begin to get serious fast and just when John thinks his life is going good again, enter Cyrus, Molly's twenty-something year old adult son (Jonah Hill, Superbad) Cyrus is an overly eccentric young man who is the ultimate mama's boy who shares a superglue tight bond with Molly (who he calls her by just that). Cyrus is immediately threatened by John's relationship with Molly and vows to take John out of the picture. John catches on to Cyrus' distaste of him and the two try to comedically battle over who will end up with Molly in the end.

This adult comedy is anything but laughs galore.

You'll chuckle here and there if anything (Although in my auditorium a few people were guffawing it up. At what, I don't know.).

The trailer shows most of the best parts and gives you a sense of the whole movie in less than 5 minutes.

I was really tempted to walk out but somehow I made it through to the end (which ended as awkwardly as the entire film was).

See if you're a Tomei fan (as I did)--- she was the star--- and made this awkward film a little more bearable.

~Trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810066021/trailer

*Stars:

John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei, Jonah Hill, Catherine Keener

~Director:

Jay and Mark Duplass

~Music:

Michael Andrews

~Rating:

R

~How Long:

1 hr. 32 mins.

~Opening:

6/18/2010

Jonah's Spell

The Verdict:

GO SEE!

REVIEW:

 Jonah Hex put a spell on me.
I loved every minute of the comic book based movie.

Guns? Check. Good bad guys? Check. Megan Fox? Check.

Being a fan of the Western genre, may have had a lot to do why this film excited me so much.

Of all the comic book movies of summer 2010 so far (Iron Man 2 , The Losers) I declare Jonah Hex the winner.

Hex is different and daring.

Josh Brolin (W., No Country for Old Men) plays the badass, scar faced, super fast gunslinger Jonah Hex who can talk to the dead. Hex is hell bent on avenging the murder of his wife and child by villian Quentin Turnbull--- played excellently by John Malkovitch (Being John Malkovitch, Ripley's Game) and his crazed, blood thirty, tattooed faced side kick Burke (an actor to look out for, Michael Fassbender, Inglorious Basterds).

Sexpot Megan Fox (Transformers series, Jennifer's Body) is Hex's prostitute love interest who does surprisingly more than just service men. She's quick with a gun and helps Hex out when things get stickier than what he can even handle.

The film takes place during the period of the American Civil War, so there are horses, railroads and lots of open space giving the movie a real Western feel.

The backdrop may sound boring but it somehow works along with the plot and solid cast to make Jonah Hex a cool action (and Western) film.

~Trailer:
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810080165/trailer

*Stars:
Josh Brolin, Megan Fox, John Malkovitch, Michael Fassbender

~Director:
Jimmy Hayward

~Music:
Marco Beltrami and Mastodon

~Rating:
PG-13
*But there is enough violence to make it on the verge of R-Restricted

~How Long:
84 mins.

~Opening:
6/18/2010

Kung Fu Kid Wonder

The Verdict:

GO SEE!

REVIEW:

Jaden Smith (Pursuit of Happyness, The Day the Earth Stood Still) is the next big "it" kid. His outstanding performance in The Karate Kid remake (produced by his parents megastar Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith) is the reason.

Smith's charismatic personality shines all the way through in Karate Kid, making the film a delight watching him.

Smith plays 12 year old Dre Parker who stubbornly moves to China with his mother (the sassy Taraji P. Henson, Talk to Me, Baby Boy) due to a job transfer and to start over after the death of her husband. Dre doesn't fit in of course and is pestered and beat up by a group of bullies at school who don't think he belongs there. Dre befriends one friend, a girl, Mei Young, whose friendship and budding romance, infuriates the bullies even more.

Young Smith says he did all of his stunts in the martial arts movie, in which he showcases amazing, mind-blowing kung fu moves.

Martial arts master Jackie Chan (Rush Hour series, The Forbidden Kingdom) stars as Smith's trainer who prepares him for a kung fu tournament where Dre must prove himself to the gang of unrelenting bullies.

Karate Kid has the feel of a family movie but all ages will surely enjoy. It is a feel good, stand up and cheer film. And trust me, you will stand up and cheer for Dre.

Smith has proved himself to be a big star in the making. Karate Kid is only the beginning.

~Trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810127520/trailer

*Stars:
Jaden Smith, Jackie Chan, Taraji P. Henson

~Director:
Harald Zwart

~Music:
James Horner

~Rating:
PG

~How Long:
2 hrs. 6 mins.

~Opening:
6/11/2010