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Jack Reacher is a crime thriller feature film starring Tom Cruise and Richard Jenkins. Unfortunately Paramount gave themselves a harder fight than was needed by releasing this just before Christmas, so it’s by no surprise that Jack Reacher is a film that has gone under the radar.
Jack Reacher is a veteran who keeps himself quiet by moving around all the time and taking precautions. The film kicks off by a terrorist shooting where 5 people are shot and killed, the shooter who gets caught pleads for a man by the name Jack Reacher.
This is first and foremost an investigative film where Jack Reacher moves forward step by step (often illegally) into the investigation coming across peripeteias that well, aren’t that surprising or just lazy. By lazy I mean you can picture a producer sitting the writers down and pleading to them that they make a twist to keep the story interesting when in fact it actually gives the audience nothing.
So on that point lets take a look at where I think the film has lowered it’s quality. It’s evident from the first twenty minutes of this feature that we really know nothing about any of these characters in the film and never do, but worse than that, they never take any actions that provoke them into really expressing themselves so the audience can understand them and side with him on their journeys through the story. Therefore when they are faced with eminent danger, I honestly don’t care.
When watching this film it periodically loses it’s pace and seems to drift and there’s nothing worse than when a film does this because we lose our interest. Nothing proves this point better than when a group of nobody’s start a fight with Reacher who he deems to be hired by somebody to keep him quiet, but they have to be the worst ‘tough guys’ in the history of film. Baring in mind I’m not mentioning the fact that Reacher hunts these pathetic tough guys down through finding a woman who works at a repair shop for half an hour.
In short guys, Jack Reacher fails at the most basic levels which in turn produces a flat, meaningless feature that flopped at the box office.
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Over the past decade franchises has risen dramatically as filmgoers who are are low on money (thanks recession) want to know what they’re getting when they pay £10 for a ticket. Iron Man fits that bracket, and I didn’t dare set my hopes up for this film because they often disappoint and after Iron Man 2, I had right to.
Iron Man 3 is set shortly after The Avengers when Tony Stark saved the planet by retuning the missile into the ‘wormhole’ shall we say to defeat the aliens. However Tony has now started to go through anxiety attacks. You may squint but I was happy to see that Shane Black had written this into a mental flaw for Tony after taking the reigns as director from Favreau. Iron Man has utilised one liners to attract a bigger audience and it does so in this film far too often, but for once we really see that Tony has suffered from his battle scars, it was just a shame the comedy undermined it.
So in this sequel to the franchise, a mysterious man who seems to be hidden away in the Middle East under the name ‘Mandarin’ has been the culprit for many untraceable explosions that has been set off in the Middle East itself as well as the U.S. The Mandarin calls himself the teacher and wants to teach the U.S a lesson, one of which infuriates Tony into provoking the Mandarin to which he complies and destroys Tony’s house which we so kindly revel in in the trailers.
Iron Man 3 does touch on sensitive issues, including terrorism threats from the Middle East and loss of Fatherhood but once again manages to undermine them. This is where I felt they really lost their way, the film had a lot of potential, and it’s worth mentioning most of us all love to see the one liners Tony pulls out the bag as they’re often very funny, which not to mention are in this movie, but are used way too often making him look, well, a bit of a dick and undermining almost every serious situation in the film to the point where I was like, you know what, who gives a crap?
However the main antagonist in this film is that hidden treasure, Guy Pearce who plays Aldrich Killigan, a hugely talented man who works for ‘AIM’. We see him in a prologue where Tony revisits a memory from 1999 where he teased Aldrich when he was a cripple creap, but has now become the founder of a hugely powerful organisation as well as reaped the rewards of physical therapy.
Aldrich has developed a physically changing process called ‘Extermis’ which somehow makes the body reach temperatures of 3,000 degrees on and off, but when it doesn’t work on certain subjects, develops into these ‘untraceable explosions’.
I’ll leave it there for you guys as many of you would not have seen this movie yet, especially over in the U.S. But don’t be fooled, this is still a good movie to watch with twists and turns that will keep an audience excited.
Iron Man 3 is in theatres everywhere.
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Star Trek is looked upon as one of the best Sci-Fi T.V series to have ever graced the small screen and J.J Abrams re-boot as a feature film back in 2008 was a huge success pleasing Critics and filmgoers alike. However sequels are another thing all together.
As a Brit I was lucky enough to see it a week before fans in the US as I went on the opening day. So how did it stand up? in my opinion this sequel doesn’t come close to the first film in the franchise. I found myself confused in terms of the antagonist played very well by Benedict Cumberbatch. One thing that can be said is his character ‘Khan’ is a very smart super human who iced himself and slept for 300 years in hope that after his wake, a better world would await him and his people, but there wasn’t. The head of the Starfleet had used his superbrain to create weapons and to improve transportation for their ships to which he threatened him and his people if he didn’t comply. Therefore he rebelled and drew up war against the Starfleet.
With that being said, after the capture of Khan by James T. Kirk and his men they join together to fight the head of the starfleet. Therefore I didn’t really know who to side with and who I wanted to lose, and because of that I couldn’t really enjoy it like the first film.
However, nevertheless there is great acting all around from the cast as expected and the special effects are jaw widening. If your wondering whether you would like to see this film, I would definitely recommend it.
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Plays: 7
In my humble opinion, after years of studying film and loving the music scores that accompany them, I have come to the conclusion that this is one of my favourites. This item is from Raging Bull (1980)
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Just finished my portrait of Walter White
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Orson Wells, looked upon as one of the most recognised directors of film history celebrates his birthday posthumously today.
What’s your favourite Wells film?
A blog that is dedicated to the master craftsmanship of film, a blog that gives you the people the low down on the newest films coming to a theatre near you, and a blog that gives applause and praise for the greats that have blessed our screens.
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