Ed's Review Dot Com

Movie Rentals Releasing Tuesday August 13, 2013

• Emperor
• The Muppet Movie
• A Band Called Death
• Hatchet 3
• Olympus Has Fallen

Cross Creek Pictures, Dragonfly Entertainment, Sobras.com Producciones,

Eli Roth, Andrea Osvárt, Ariel Levy, Nicolás Martínez, Lorenza Izzo, Natasha Yarovenko, Selena Gomez

A group of tourists are partying at a local nightclub, and decide stay another day to travel to a different town to visit an underground party that is “the real Chile”. While there, an earthquake happens, pretty much destroying the town. Now Tsunami warnings are given, and the group decides to head to higher ground, but during the earthquake the walls of the local prison came down, and the inmates were able to escape. The group is torn apart by the continued aftershocks and the violence of the escaped prisoners who are just out to cause trouble.

This movie was inspired by a real major earthquake in Chile, which gave the director/producer the idea of making a horror film based on the aftermath of the quake. This is a fairly low budget film, and it’s a bit corny from time to time, but all in all it did have an awful lot of suspense. There are a sequence of disasters that make the initial quake seem minor as these events pick off the party one by one. It’s cleverly done, with real stunts, not CGI and special effects. This makes the horror and suspense even greater. Eli Roth does a pretty good job considering he directed himself in this film as well. The movie is done mostly in English, by the main characters, but when the locals are speaking Spanish, we need subtitles to understand. I have heard that some copies of this film did not include English subtitles, so unless you’re fluent in Spanish, be sure your copy has the subtitles if you need them. You would really miss a lot if you didn’t understand the Spanish dialogue.

This is a horrific disaster film, full of violence, suspense, and real terror. It earns it’s R rating, and in fact, originally came out as NC-17, but had to be re-cut to earn the R rating. Even so, the gore is pretty intense, and there’s a lot of pain and suffering. There’s some double crosses, and some just plain dirty tricks. So this is not a Hollywood Blockbuster, nor is it an extremely cerebral film. But it is what it sets out to be, a chilling horror film with plenty of edge of your seat excitement. I did enjoy it.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Braven Films, Killer Films, Rip Cord Productions,

Juno Temple, Emily Browning, Michael Cera, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Agustin Silva

Alicia (Juno Temple) is an American girl, visiting her cousin Sarah (Emily Browning) in Chile. Shortly after arrival, they take of on a trip, but Sarah is called away, and leaves Alicia with her friends to watch over her. We quickly gather that Alicia is not totally stable to begin with, but typical of a bunch of young guys, they start teasing and tormenting Alicia which drives her deeper and deeper into insanity. Eventually plagued by night terrors and other fears, Alicia slips more and more into psychiatric frenzy as the friends try, but maybe a bit too late, to get her some help.

This is a screwed up movie. Really. It’s hard to put a category on this. The DVD box would like you to think it’s a horror film, or a psychological thriller, but it’s neither of those. The characters are really not that well developed, and the chaos that this movie shows makes little sense, really. One of the friends is Brink, played by Michael Cera, which has to be one of the most annoying characters I have ever seen in a movie. It’s not what he does that’s so bad, although that’s bad enough, but it’s the voice and mannerisms which he uses to portray this guy. I wanted someone to either kill him or send him away as I could not stand to hear him talk. The story is disjointed, I guess in an artsy way to make us feel the insanity, but nothing was done very effectively. There stuff with dogs, and witch doctors, and molestation stuff, but none of it made much sense or fit together in any way that I could make sense of. So I didn’t enjoy this movie in the least. It wasn’t any one thing in particular that turned me away, but it’s just that none of it seems to have any purpose at all. I see that some people absolutely love this movie. I’m not sure how, but I guess everything will resonate with someone somehow, but I have to say that it just did not work for me, and I do not recommend this. It seemed like a waste of time for me.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Chockstone Pictures, Nick Wechsler Productions, Silver Reel

Saoirse Ronan, Diane Kruger, William Hurt, Frances Fisher, Jake Abel, Max Irons, Boyd Holbrook, Marcus Lyle Brown, Bokeem Woodbine, Chandler Canterbury, Scott Lawrence, David House, Phil Austin

The Earth has been taken over by aliens who take over human bodies and control them. Most all humans except for a few small holdouts are gone, and those left are on the run. Meolanie Stryder (Saoirse Ronan) would rather kill herself than herself to be captured and the whereabouts of her loved ones would be compromised, but her attempt at suicide fails when she doesn’t die. She is taken over by one alien called Wander, but Melanie is strong and fights her. The two inside one body are reluctant allies in attempting to reach the ones they love.

This is a really well done sci-fi thriller. With a lot of suspense, yet with a lot of thought behind it. But at the same time, it has it’s weaknesses too. Saoirse’s performance is spectacular, and of course William Hurt puts in a great performance as always as the leader of the rebel group. But I guess the most surprising performance was Max Irons as little brother Jared. He does a fabulous job. All in all, the script is one of the best sci-fi stories I’ve seen in a long, long time. But what are the problems? Well, many folks like to put the blame on Stephanie Meyer, author of the Twilight series, and perhaps that’s the problem. But, although I haven’t read the book, I hear it’s really good. Perhaps there’s a little too much cheese in the second half of the film for true sci-fi fans. But what I think is that perhaps we have a sci-fi adventure for girls? The focus of the last half of the movie, like Twilight, is a lot about the romance, and somehow the ending does not live up to the rest of the story. But it is a worthwhile movie, and is a very interesting concept. If you can look past the weenie kissing parts, and the love conquers all parts, the story is still very much worth watching.

So the bottom line is that I really enjoyed the story, and I suspect 15 year old girls will like it too. Finally a girls movie that Dad’s can watch with their daughters.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Marvel Entertainment, Dune Entertainment,

Hugh Jackman, Will Yun Lee, Tao Okamoto, Brian Tee, Hiroyuki Sanada, Rila Fukushima, Hal Yamanouchi

Logan, aka The Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is hiding out, running away from who he is, and from his role in life. Suddenly his life is turned upside down when he receives a visit from a representative of an old friend in Japan who asks a favor of him. Next he’s in the middle of a battle for power and for right and honor against some very traitorous people and some extraordinary characters. Before he knows it The Wolverine is deep into the fray again, but this time it might end up differently.

As I’ve said many times, I’m not typically a fan of comic book movies. Never a huge fan of the likes of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and all the rest, there are a few exceptions. The Iron Man series, is really good, and The Avengers did me pretty well. Thor also has appeared in some really good films. But I went halfheartedly to watch this in 3-D and I have to admit, I was duly impressed. Coming of a bit of disappointment in the last pure Wolverine film, the 2009 ill conceived X-Men Origins: Wolverine, this one had a great story. It picks up right after the X-Men: The Last Stand, we’re treated to an flashback to WWII to give us the background for this one. Then we pick up the story where it left off. Hugh Jackman was given really good material this go round, and he plays Wolverine with real skill. He is awesome. Unlike the Robert Downey, Iron Man films with the cheeky smart ass comedy, Jackman play it serious with a great deal of heart. Being vulnerable in this one, and not understanding anything, he suffers psychologically and psychically. Filmed mostly in Japan, the locations are stunning, and the mostly Japanese cast is really awesome. This is not non-stop action, but contains a lot of meaning, and many parts are really deep and philosophical. But the action is intense. There are several really great battle sequences, and a wonderful chase scene that was unfortunately spoiled in a way by the frequent clips shown during the promotional tour. Still, this is edge of your seat excitement mixed with lots of heart, and a twist of Asian philosophy thrown in for good measure. Needless to say, I was quite pleased with this movie, and it was a very enjoyable film. I recommend this one to action film fans, as it’s a very good one.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog