Ed's Review Dot Com

Translux, Working Title Films,

Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy, Lydia Wilson, Lindsay Duncan, Richard Cordery, Josh McGuire, Tom Hollander, Margot Robbie, Vanessa Kirby

When Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) turns 21, his Dad pulls him aside and informs him that the men in their family have always had the ability to time travel to the past. When he finds this unbelievable, He gives it a try and find out it is true. As he proceeds through his life he meets a young woman played by Rachel McAdams. He’s immediately smitten by her, so travels back in time many times to try to win her heart. But he finds there are some events which you cannot go back before without changing things too much. There are limitations in this very quirky little time travel film.

First of all, I must say that I am a sucker for time travel films. I’ve always been fascinated with the paradoxes of time travel and typically enjoy these kinds of films. This one is unlike any I’ve ever seen. There is deference given to the method in which they travel back, nor is there any mention of the quandaries of traveling in time. We just accept it as a fact. This is, after all, mostly a love story. But I think it’s more of a love story between Tim and his father, even more than his love for his wife and children. It is certainly a quirky film, but it was very powerful to me. I was deeply moved by this story and enjoyed it way more than I thought it would. This movie has a feel to it much more like Somewhere in Time or Tuck Everlasting, or even Lake House. The character that Rachel McAdams plays is kind of unlike her other roles. She’s much less the centerpiece of this film than she usually is, but she gives a splendid performance. She’s one of the newer actresses who doesn’t disappoint with her ability to really sink her teeth into whatever role you give her. She adds a lot to the film. The only complaints I might have is that a lot of the wonder of how he can go back in time is wasted when they just kind of throw it aside. There’s not much purpose in his repeated jumps back and forth. But if you stick through the movie, it really gets to the meat of the story and the things that are very important to him. He finds the things that he really needs and the movie turns very touching. It’s deep and it’s soul searching, and not near as novelty driven as most time travel adventures. This movie just slipped in out of left field and shocked me with it’s impact. I was impressed and it has definitely been a quirky week.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Paramount Pictures, Regency Enterprises, Protozoa Pictures,

Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Emma Watson, Anthony Hopkins

Noah (Russell Crowe) lives in a world where Cain’s descendants have taken over most of that land and killed off most of Seth’s descendants. Only Noah’s family, his wife (Jennifer Connelly) and his 3 sons, Shem, Ham, and Japeth are living in terror of the descendants of Cain. After Noah has a dream about the destruction of the earth by flood, he visits his grandfather, Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins) to seek guidance in his path of building the ark and saving the animals, two by two in a blockbuster retelling of the Noah’s Ark story that has a lot of poetic license!

Christian people are all up in arms about this movie! Boy do they hate it. For that reason you’re going to find a LOT of hate reviews. This is because it is very, very loosely based on the commonly known Biblical story of Noah and the Ark. There are many things that don’t even come close to the Bible version, although there is a lot more going on in the Bible version that is commonly discussed. After the ark lands, and some time has passed there is a very cryptic event told (Genesis Chapter 9) about Noah and Ham. I would assume that if you are one that takes the Biblical story literally, it was written a thousand or more years later, and most likely the verbal version of the story was well known among the descendants of Abraham. For that reason, and for sensibility it may not have all been written down. Likewise, if you, like some, want to write that whole chapter off as allegorical and having a totally different meaning, then why not the rest of the story? So my complaint would not be so much based upon this point of the story, but many other points that are seeming way off base. But if you take the historical telling of the story aside and just watch the movie as just one take on the story, it really is a beautiful movie. The character of Noah aside, Russell Crowe does a masterful job of playing the role. The rest of the main characters are also very well done. There are some strange rock monsters that have a major portion of the movie, and goodness knows where that came from, but I thought they were nicely done. Many people hated them as well, but they have a purpose and I thought they played it pretty well. Granted it was a strange choice to add them to this story, but hey, in a fantasy I guess anything goes. It’s LONG. Very long! Going on 3 hours long, but it wasn’t too long for me. Turn to the religion channel on your TV for a cartoon version of Noah, not this, but as a major film, it was beautiful. The locations were spectacular, the CGI was amazing, and the idea of putting all the animals to sleep surely saved a lot of effort in dealing with the sanitation issues neatly.

Basically if you take the words of the Bible as fact, avoid this film like the plague. But if you’re willing to put aside the Biblical story and want to watch a really beautiful fantasy movie, like me, you’ll probably enjoy this film. It’s fantasy, but not for everyone.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Movie Rentals Releasing Tuesday April 8, 2014

• August: Osage County
• Back in the Day
• Best Night Ever
• Grudge Match
• The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug [Click Here for Ed’s Review]
• Justin Bieber’s Believe
• Lizzie Borden Took an Ax
• Nurse
• Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones [Click here for Ed’s review]
• Snake and Mongoose

ABS-CBN Film Productions, Reality Entertainment, Star Cinema Productions,

Gerald Anderson, Joel Torre, Joey Marquez, Angel Aquino, Shaina Magdayao, Empress Schuck, Leo Martinez, Michael De Mesa, Vivian Velez, Rayver Cruz, Piolo Pascual

This gritty Filipino crime drama is the story of four men and their struggle to survive in their individual lives. Two are former prisoners who act as hired killers to wipe out the enemies of corrupt politicians, and the other two are law enforcement trying to enforce the law all the while being caught up in the web of corrupt politicians who will do anything to get what they want. This crime thriller is based on true events in the Philippines and is in Tagalog with English subtitles.

In the Philippines they basically make three movies. One is the romantic comedy or tragedy, usually with the poor girl who is swept off her feet by the rich boy. The second is the fantastic adventure films with superheroes that can fly, fight darkness, and so on. The third is the gritty crime thriller action type movie like this one. Basically there are action stars and romantic stars (and the comedy sidekicks and token gay guy thrown in). This is one of the few films that got released here on video in the mainstream, and it is actually a pretty strong film. A lot of the quickly ground out action movies are pretty silly, but this one has a deep and desperate story with a lot of twists and turns along the way. We fell the desperation from all the characters as they struggle to survive a hard life that has been thrust upon them. The action is really good, and the actors do a very good job. All in all, as an introduction to Philippine action movies, this is an excellent choice. If you don’t mind reading subtitles, and can deal with the hard core action and violence in a really good corruption story, then this will be an exciting and enlightening film that I think you would probably enjoy.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

DreamWorks SKG, Reliance Entertainment, Participant Media,

Benedict Cumberbatch, Daniel Brühl, Laura Linney, Anthony Mackie, David Thewlis, Peter Capaldi, Dan Stevens, Alicia Vikander, Carice van Houten

The biographical story of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and Daniel Berg, partner and usually the spokesman for Wikileaks and perhaps one of those who most tried to limit and control Julian without much luck. These folks started out disturbed by the way mainstream media repeated what they were fed, and didn’t really seek out the truth most of the time. The internet brought the idea of citizen news rather than big corporate news organizations, and Julian was fascinated with the idea of getting his hands on top secret documents and publishing them to the world without censorship of any kind. Others tried to limit that, as many names and addresses were published without blacking them out, causing a lot of dangerous situations for a lot of people. Some people praise him as a genius innovator, and others as a threat to humanity. The truth lies somewhere in between.

Is this movie a Documentary? Certainly not. It’s based on several books about Wikileaks, and is played by actors and dramatized. Is it true? I have no way to know that as I have no knowledge of what really happened. Julian Assange himself said it was lie upon lie and not much of it’s true. I don’t suspect that’s exactly the case, especially because he liked the way he was portrayed. What I figured out was that he was a very strange character, and rather creepy. As for the movie, I learned very little about the story that isn’t common knowledge, and I found it very difficult to sit through more than two hours of this stuff. I don’t think the story was done very well, and it certainly wasn’t very interesting. I think it probably could have been a lot better and is another of those lost opportunities. Perhaps there’s just not much to the story, but in that case, a totally fictionalized version would have been far more enjoyable than this movie. The phrase “watching paint dry” really describes how I felt watching this. I really didn’t get into the story, and I was relieved when it was finally over. I don’t recommend this story unless you’re really interested in the story, although a visit to Wikipedia might give you more information than this movie did.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog