Susan Hated Literature

The Transporter
Dir: Louis Leterrier & Corey Yuen
Writ: Luc Besson & Robert Mark Kamen
Starring:

• Jason Statham … Frank Martin
• Qi Shu … Lai
• Matt Schulze … Wall Street
• François Berléand … Tarconi
• Ric Young … Mr. Kwai

Transporter 2
Dir: Louis Leterrier
Writ: Luc Besson & Robert Mark Kamen
Starring:

• Jason Statham … Frank Martin
• Alessandro Gassman … Gianni
• Amber Valletta … Audrey Billings
• Kate Nauta … Lola
• François Berléand … Tarconi

First Bourne, now Frank, I must seriously be in the mood for action flicks, don’t you think? Of course The Transporter is a lot sillier than the Bourne films. But just as fun.

The first starts off with Frank, the Transporter of the title, driving the getaway car for a bank robbery. A scenario used to show us all just how cool, calm, and collected he is. Oh yeah, and what a great driver he is. And also to introduce us to “the rules” by which he transports.

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As in The Bourne Identity
Dir: Doug Liman
Writ: William Blake Herron & Tony Gilroy
Starring

• Matt Damon … Jason Bourne
• Franka Potente … Marie Helena Kreutz
• Chris Cooper … Alexander Conklin
• Clive Owen … The Professor
• Brian Cox … Ward Abbott
• Gabriel Mann … Danny Zorn
• Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje … Nykwana Wombosi

And The Bourne Supremacy
Dir: Paul Greengrass
Writ: Tony Gilroy
Staring:

• Matt Damon … Jason Bourne
• Franka Potente … Marie
• Brian Cox … Ward Abbott
• Julia Stiles … Nicky
• Karl Urban … Kirill
• Gabriel Mann … Danny Zorn
• Joan Allen … Pamela Landy

Both based on the novels by Robert Ludlum. No spoilers.

I remember really enjoying The Bourne Identity when I watched it first. But for some reason I never saw the sequel, but with the third out now in the cinemas I thought this is an ideal opportunity to catch up. And when I spotted the dvd set of the pair was only 18 euro I nabbed it.

I haven’t watched any of the extras yet, so can’t comment on those, but I really enjoyed the films. The are the perfect blend of reality and fantasy violence.

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Dir: John Maybury
Writ: Bruno Heller
The final episode. I’m going to miss Lamb and Chicken, and even scheming Caesar/Octavian, not to mention bitch-Atia and all the others. And Beeb watchers, let me tell you, Heroeswhile entertaining, is not even half as good as Rome.

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Dir: Marcus Nispel
Writ: Laeta Kalogridis based on Veiviseren by Nils Gaup

• Karl Urban … Ghost
• Russell Means … Pathfinder
• Moon Bloodgood … Starfire
• Jay Tavare … Blackwing
• Clancy Brown … Gunnar

Five hundred years before Columbus another European people journeyed to the Americas. These raiders left behind a young boy, who was taken in by The People of the Dawn, and when, many years later, the Vikings return, he is the one to fight back and save his adopted people.

Okay, so you know the way you see a really really bad trailer and think to yourself, well it might be fun in a no brain, mindless entertainment way. Well this didn’t even live up to my low expectations. There is nothing to redeem it. Nothing at all. Well unless you want to spend 99 minutes watching Karl Urban fight. Which may have some attraction I’ll admit. But a bit of sense would be nice. This child was left behind and yet despite how ever many years passed he is still a great fighter. This maybe they can get away with because he kept his sword and we see him practising it. But the horse-riding ability? Yeah, okay! I know, I know, I really shouldn’t be looking for any sort of sense, but come on writer, you need some sort of thread that’ll tie things together. And since I’m being all negative, can I also complain that the fighting scenes were actually crap. I mean they looked cool and atmospheric, but I couldn’t tell what was going on in them at all.

And I really don’t want to get into the historical bit of it, but why on earth were the Native Americans portrayed as totally peaceful? I don’t know a lot about pre-european invasion America, but I’m pretty sure they would’ve raided each other’s tribes. I really did think that this sort of “noble savage” shite had died out. Guess I was wrong. And while I’m well aware that films need good guys and bad guys, and in the case of this sort of action film, very simple definitions of good and bad, can I just say wtf was up with that version of the Vikings? Did someone really want to make an “orcs v the Indians” film but couldn’t sell it?

In conclusion, urgh

IMDb | Official Site | Fasthack | FlickFilosopher | MetaCritic | Slice of SciFi

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or Man cheng jin dai huang jin jia
Dir: Yimou Zhang Writ: Yimou Zhang & Yu Cao

• Yun-Fat Chow - Emperor Ping
• Li Gong - Empress Phoenix
• Jay Chou - Prince Jai
• Ye Liu - Crown Prince Wan
• Junjie Qin - Prince Yu

Set in the Tang dynasty in the 10th Century, this film tells the tale of the Emperor Ping and his cold war with his wife, Empress Phoenix, as well as both of their attempts to influence the three princes. The eldest, Crown Prince Wan’s mother was the Emperor’s first wife, has been raised by Phoenix as well as her two sons. But the emperor is not happy with his wife. As her father is an important neighbouring king he cannot do away with her in the open and instead decides that as she is “sick” she needs to take her medicine. Medicine that he has formulated, and which includes a poison that will slowly cause damage and leave her nothing but a vegetable. Obviously she doesn’t want this to happen and so makes other plans.

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Dir & Writ: Kevin Munroe
Comic characters created by Peter Laird & Kevin Eastman

• Mitchell Whitfield - Donatello (voice)
• James Arnold Taylor - Leonardo (voice)
• Mikey Kelley - Michelangelo (voice)
• Nolan North - Raphael
• Chris Evans - Casey Jones (voice)
• Sarah Michelle Gellar - April O’Neil (voice)
• Mako - Master Splinter (voice)
• Patrick Stewart - Max Winters (voice)
• Laurence Fishburne - Narrator (voice)
• Ziyi Zhang - Karai (voice)

Come on now, who doesn’t love the “heroes in a half-shell”? The main reason I went to see this was that is was on at the right time, and of course the nostalgia reason. Plus I haven’t been to see an animated film in a while. And this looks fantastic. Visually it is really great.

The plot, characters, and dialogue are less impressive, but still make for a fun trip to the cinema. We don’t get any origin story, just a voice over to bring us up to date on what is going on with the turtles. Leonardo is off in the jungles of South America, supposedly learning to be a leader, or at least that was the reason Splinter sent him off. Luckily enough April is poking around, looking for some statue, when she finds him and tells him that things aren’t going to well without him.

Don’t worry, he eventually makes a return to the sewers, and then discovers that the statue April brought back has come to life. Or back to life. See, 3,000 years ago there was this… ah, you don’t really want to know the plot do you? It’s the turtles, how involved could it possibly be?

Everything that fans remember is there; Splinter being all wise and kick-ass, Michelangelo stuffing his face with pizza, Donatello working with techy-type things and the constant conflict between Leo and Raphael^[1] So there is plenty to keep your attention, and it is exactly what it should be. A fun, entertaining film.

Official Site | IMDb | SciFiChick | | Cinematical | Film School Rejects

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Writ & Dir: Joe Carnahan

• Jeremy Piven - Buddy ‘Aces’ Israel
• Ryan Reynolds - Richard Messner
• Ray Liotta - Donald Carruthers
• Ben Affleck - Jack Dupree
• Andy Garcia - Stanley Locke
• Alicia Keys - Georgia Sykes

You know I really wanted to enjoy this film. The trailer promised gunfights and bullets and blood and gore, but all in a flashy, enjoyable way. The film didn’t deliver.

It was far too much of a muddle, and it seemed as though it wasn’t really sure what sort of a film it wanted to be. Was it a serious crime film? A buddy-cop film? A flashy film heaving with comedy and violence? It tried to be all of them, and failed, ending up as a mess of a wannabe stylish flick.

Don’t get me wrong, it had some good scenes, some laughs and some style, it just didn’t work as a whole. If only it had decided whether it wanted to go dark and serious or violence and fun.

The Aces of the title is Buddy ‘Aces’ Israel, who knows a hell of a lot about the workings of a crime family that the FBI would love to put away, so when they hear about a hit on him they go to work in an attempt to protect him and get him to give evidence. But agents Messener and Caruthers aren’t the only ones after Aces. There are the bail bondsmen determined to track him down, and then there is a whole host of assassins out to collect the bounty on his head. We all know this won’t end without a lot of bloodshed.

Blood there is in bucketloads, but very little else.

IMDb | Director’s blog | Moview reviews for greedy capitalist bastards | Confessions of a film critic

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