Rush is a movie that I thought would be dumb based on the trailer. If produced n the early 80s, I would have been all about it. But with so many sports movies created since then, I honestly feel like there isn’t much that is able to make it feel original. So many sports movies have the “been there/done that” approach. They retell Rocky over and over and over again. On top of that, it’s a car racing movie, which is generally something that doesn’t interest me. Also, it is Formula 1 racing, which I find far less exciting than NASCAR. I’ve never seen a Formula 1 race live, and the experience certainly doesn’t translate on the screen for me…especially the road races. Finally, the name of the movie bothered me. There is already a fantastic movie called Rush that came out in 1991 and starred Jason Patric (he was born to play the roles of troubled police detectives) and Jennifer Jason Leigh. It’s a small thing, but something that I thought Ron Howard would respect. Despite these factors going against it before the opening titles even rolled, I found the movie to be a great story, quite enjoyable, and well directed.
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Category Archives: Action
2 Guns (2013)
2 Guns is not my type of movie because it isn’t sure what it wants to be. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, but it contains relationships between the characters that seem meaningful. At times, it’s a terrible drama. At times, it’s a comedy that isn’t funny. At times, it’s a lame attempt at a shoot ’em up in Quentin Tarantino style. Its lead actors are all over the place. In short, it’s a movie that doesn’t know what it wants to be. It’s also a movie that wastes the talents of two great actors, Denzel Washington (Training Day, American Gangster) and Mark Wahlberg (Shooter, The Italian Job). It’s a little ironic because this was Washington’s first movie since his outstanding performance in Flight and the last movie Wahlberg shot before his outstanding performance in Lone Survivor. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s a movie that either of these actors wishes they had not done, but it is a movie that I wish they hadn’t done.
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Lone Survivor (2013)
It took the entire year to find it, but the last must-see movie of 2013 proved to be the most emotional and tear-jerking movie of the year. With apologies to 12 Years A Slave, which was very gut-wrenching at times, Lone Survivor is the movie that plays with your heartstrings like no other. Mark Wahlberg (The Fighter, The Perfect Storm) gives the performance of his lifetime as Marcus Luttrell, the only surviving member of a four-person Navy SEALs team on the now infamous failed Operation Red Wings mission of 2005. The covert mission is simple enough. The four SEALs are to find notorious Taliban loyalist Ahmad Shah, a man currently residing in a village in Afghanistan who is responsible for killing 20 US marines a week earlier. Intel has informed him of his location, and the team knows what to look for because Shahd has no ear lobes. They are informed of the terrain, the mission’s dangers, and the engagement rules. The mission’s main goal was reconnaissance and surveillance of Shah and then informing the waiting military team, who had the authorization to launch an air strike on the village to take out Shah and his men.
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The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)
I suspended my beliefs at the door when I stepped into the theater to see Francis Lawrence’s (I Am Legend, Water For Elephants) sequel to The Hunger Games. I couldn’t do this for the first movie and was dissatisfied. I wanted the film to be more of a survival movie and less a fantasy/science fiction movie. When I wasn’t able to do that, I just started to question everything that was happening. I liked The Hunger Games but did not love it. I liked it enough to continue with the franchise, though. Every successful fantasy book franchise is being made into a movie these days. I have never read a word of a book or seen a second of the film in either the Harry Potter or Twilight series. I get the cult-like following to both of these movies, though. I do understand how you can be engrossed in a franchise like this. I have not read, nor will I read, any of The Hunger Game books, but I will continue to see the movies, even though I am upset about the franchise’s finale Mockingjay, split up into two movies. I am also lukewarm about the Insurgent franchise coming to the theaters. They showed a trailer for the first Insurgent movies before Catching Fire, and I was disappointed to see Kate Winslet on the screen. In these movies, you don’t need superstars outside the main character or two.
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World War Z (2013)
World War Z is, hands down, the best movie for the first half of 2013. For the longest time, the film was being compared to a movie like Waterworld, which had grand ideas but was hampered by extensive reshoots, long delays, and a ballooning budget. Reports have swirled that the movie cost over $170 million to make. If the movie had not been good, it would have been considered a colossal failure by all accounts. But with the film, at last count, grossing over $535 million worldwide, Paramount Pictures is getting the last laugh. I am disappointed that this movie only earned a 67% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I recently watched Aliens, a great movie. But the fact that Aliens gets a 98% positive rating and World War Z gets only a 67% positive rating is a bit of a joke.
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