Reviews

Liam Neeson managed to pull off the bad ass, tough guy father role in his previous blockbuster Taken and it looks like he’s trying to repeat its success in this movie, but can he do it again? Not really.

Unknown tells the story of Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) who gets involved in a car accident and forgets who he is. He then tries to recover his identity, and uncovers a conspiracy along the way.

Unknown has an unoriginal but interesting premise that is ultimately letdown by some simple flaws (unveiled really early in the movie). And when the mystery finally unravels, you somehow feel unsatisfied and wish there was more to it. But there isn’t. Other than that, the journey to the end is nothing to complain about, it is fast-paced and exciting but not enough to keep you glued to the edge of your seat from start to finish.

The actors do an alright job here, but unlike Taken, Liam Neeson’s age seems to be showing – maybe he really is getting older. Diane Kruger and January Jones provide the eye candy, and Bruno Ganz (the man who acts as Hitler in the widely parodied YouTube videos) does a good job of playing the role of an ex-Nazi spy.

Unknown doesn’t add anything new to the table, and in the realm of “memory recall” movies, there are many other movies you can enjoy more than this, but it’s not a bad film despite its flaws. That being said, it is entertaining and you won’t be disappointed as long as you’re not expecting too much. Unknown gets 6/10.

Alien invasion! Send in the military! Shoot out! Blam blam blam! Aliens die! The end. If there’s one thing that hasn’t changed in alien invasion movies since forever, it’s the predictable storyline – which is fine, because I’ve come to accept not to expect anything more. Plus I believe that it’s possible to reuse an overdone story and still make a good movie out of it. It’s all in the delivery – and Battle: Los Angeles fails to deliver.

The last alien movie that I actually remember truly enjoying was District 9 and that was two years ago and since then I’ve yet to find an alien movie that surpasses its standards. Anyway, Battle: LA is about aliens invading LA and killing everybody in sight. The military is sent in to rescue some survivors, before the Air Force bombs the shit out of the area.

Aaron Eckhart plays the about-to-be-retired-but-sent-back-into-battle Sergeant Michael Nantz, who is part of a squad of horribly overused, clichéd and stereotypical soldiers. Along the way they meet Technical Sergeant Elena Santos (Michelle Rodriguez) who joins the party because everyone else in her team died. There’s nothing terrible about anybody’s acting here – just nothing special either. The big named stars could’ve been easily replaced with lesser known actors of the same caliber and it wouldn’t have changed a thing.

If you like watching movies for eye candy, I guess you’re in for a treat. The special effects in the movie are pretty good, nothing cheesy or bad here, the aliens, weapons and ships all look pretty good. But if you want some semblance of a decent plot line or perhaps a twist or two, you’re out of luck. To me, Battle: LA feels like a typical adaptation of a video game turned into a movie – it’s rarely done right and you’d rather be playing the game instead. And since the Battle: LA game was inspired by the movie, we’re stuck in a conundrum here. Anyway, Battle: LA gets 4/10.

Walking into the cinema, I had high hopes for the movie knowing that it had quite a number of nominations to its name, and it was a boxing movie – usually boxing movies win awards right? Look at Rocky and Million Dollar Baby… anyway I digress.

The Fighter is a biopic about Dicky Eklund (Bale), an ex-superstar boxer who has to deal with drug problems and mould his brother, Micky Ward (Wahlberg) into a boxing champion. Despite the movie being about Micky Ward, supporting actor, Bale, stole the whole movie for me.

Christian Bale’s performance as a drug addict/boxing trainer, Dicky, was just brilliant. I knew he could act, but I had never seen this side of him before. Mark Wahlberg was just his usual self, and dished out nothing extraordinary. He is one fit guy though – you can really tell he worked his ass off to play the role of Micky Ward in this movie. Supporting actress Melissa Leo did a great job as the manipulative, power-hungry, over ambitious mother, Alice Ward.

Being based on a true story, I don’t know how accurate it was since I didn’t read up on it, but I heard that the final fight scene was a replica of the original fight that happened. Regardless, the movie was well shot, and I came out of the cinema feeling pumped and keen to pick up boxing as a sport. It was well paced, and there was not a low point in the movie. If I had to complain about anything, it would be there weren’t enough scenes with Christian Bale (for his acting) and Amy Adams (damn, she is fine). The Fighter deserves every award it won at the Oscars this year and it deserves to be on your list of movies to watch this year. The Fighter gets 8/10.