Ed's Review Dot Com

Informant Europe SPRL, European Film Company, Umedia,

Jim Sturgess, Sam Worthington, Ryan Kwanten, Anthony Hopkins, Mark van Eeuwen, Tom Cocquerel, Jemima West

This docudrama is based on the real 1983 Kidnapping of Beer king Alfred Heineken, which in 1983 resulted in the largest ransom ever paid for a hostage. A group of buddies led by Cor Van Hout (Jim Sturgess) and Willem Holleeder (Sam Worthington). They planned this kidnapping for several years, and started off with a bank robbery to net them the money needed for the grandaddy of all heists, that of Belgian King of Hops himself and his chauffeur. Freddy is played by Anthony Hopkins They hold the captives for several weeks while they figure out a way to get off with all the money. This story follows the planning and execution of the kidnapping as well as the eventual outcomes and separation of the group.

This docudrama was hit pretty hard by the critics for a couple of reasons. I didn’t find it all that bad. The main complaints were how quickly the robbery and kidnapping happened. I think people were looking for a heist movie, which this wasn’t. Since this was a true story, they focused on the facts of the case. Most of the time is spent on the difficulty in keeping the hostages, and the trickiest part of the job, trying to pick up the ransom without being caught. Then after they have it, how to safely release the hostages and flee the country. Perhaps even more so, is the problem of keeping secrets from your family and friends. The extremes that these guys had to go through were ridiculous. This movie is a perfect mix between documentary and drama, but unlike a well written fictitious heist movie, this film goes deeper. They had real problems, and did not have a Hollywood screenwriter to bail them out. I felt the performances were pretty good, although I don’t know much about Alfred Heineken, but I must wonder if Anthony Hopkins was the right choice in casting to play him. He doesn’t seem a bit Belgian. Still, his role isn’t exactly minor ,but he doesn’t have a lot of screen time, and most of what he does is monologue since none of the kidnappers wanted to risk having him hear their voices. They kept silent around him. So certainly Mr. Hopkins has the chops to pull off the soliloquies. All in all, not a hit by any means, but at the same time, it was better than the average documentary on a subject. I enjoyed it, and I wasn’t disappointed, so if you are interested, give it a go.

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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.

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Summit Entertainment, Di Bonaventura Pictures, DC Entertainment,

Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Mary-Louise Parker, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Byung-hun Lee, Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren

Frank (Bruce Willis) is retired CIA, and happily married to Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker) and no longer interested in CIA matters. He’s been classified though as “Retired, Extremely Dangerous”. One day he’s met by Marvin (John Malkovich), his former partner in crime, in a supermarket. Marvin informs him of top secret data released by Wikileaks implementing them in the loss of a top secret portable nuclear device that was hidden in Russia. All the different spy agencies are after them to find out where the various parts of the device are hidden, and Frank is sucked back into the business as he and Marvin put the team back together and try to locate the device before someone else does.

The first “Red” movie was really hysterical. I was blown away by it when I watched it. This one was a letdown. It is nowhere near as good as the first. That being said, it does have some really funny moments. It’s also a relatively decent adventure spy story. Malkovich is really good as an effective agent, but is so inappropriate sometimes, it’s hysterical. He says anything he thinks. Half of Frank’s job is to keep Marvin out of trouble for his big mouth. These guys breaking into the Kremlin is a good adventure, but when you put it up beside the first film, it pales in comparison. If you’re in the mood for a decent action adventure spy story, then go ahead and watch this. It’s certainly very watchable. Just don’t expect it to be as hilarious as the first one was.

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Marvel Entertainment, Marvel Studios,

Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Christopher Eccleston, Jaimie Alexander, Zachary Levi, Ray Stevenson, Kat Dennings, Idris Elba, Stellan Skarsgård, Rene Russo, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje

In a flashback we learn that thousands of years ago a race called the Dark Elves were defeated by the forces of Asgard when they tried to turn the Nine Realms dark using a weapon called Aether. Because Aether cannot be destroyed, they hid it far from the Dark Elves who were banished, but they’ve found it again and plan to use it at the line of the line up of all nine realms and turn the realms dark this time. Odin (Anthony Hopkins) and the forces of Asgard do not have the power to defeat them this time, so Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Loki (Tom Hiddleston) must try to work together to try to turn the Dark Elves away and save all the realms. Meanwhile, Jane (Natalie Portman) has found an anomaly much like the one that originally brought Thor to Earth, and while investigating it, she disappears.

I really felt this was a great film. I thoroughly enjoyed the first Thor film, and I think I enjoyed this one just as much if not a bit more. We know the characters better this time, and we’ve seen Thor, Odin, and Loki in other films as well. So now that we know them, we find out about how the Nine Realms were saved originally, and we receive a very suspenseful battle between the Dark Elves and the forces for good. The cinematography is fantastic, and the sets are remarkable. But the action is intense, and it has great battle scenes that are very intense. I really enjoyed this second Thor film and I’m glad I got my lazy butt out to the theater to see this one on the big screen. The acting is good, and it was really a suspenseful roller-coaster ride all the way thorough. Obviously the action is intense in the last half, but the first half gives us so much background on what is happening without giving us all the secrets that it’s very intense and interesting to try to figure out what’s going on with the strange things that are happening. As many of you know, I’m typically not a big fan of comic book/superhero type movies, but this series really impressed me. I enjoyed it very much, and highly recommend it for action/adventure fans all over.

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Fox Searchlight Pictures, Cold Spring Pictures, The Montecito Picture Company,

Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, Scarlett Johansson, Danny Huston, Toni Collette, Michael Stuhlbarg, Michael Wincott, Jessica Biel, James D’Arcy, Ralph Macchio, Kurtwood Smith, Richard Portnow

This biopic is about Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) and his wife Alma (Helen Mirren) and is set in 1959. Alfred has run low on ideas, and the studios are trying to force him into directing pictures that are really way too mainstream for Hitch. Meantime, he hears about a new book, a work of fiction based upon the life of serial killer Ed Gein and decides this novel has to be his next picture. The studio disagrees, so Hitch sets out to do the picture on his own, waiving his director’s fee, and paying the entire $800,000 budget on his own.

Anthony Hopkins does a great job portraying Alfred Hitchcock, one of my favorite directors of all time. This is just a small slice of the life of Hitch, and hardly mentions all the stuff that happened before this, with his British career, which was awesome, and by the time period of this film, Hitch is old. Most people think he ought to just retire, but he’s having none of that. It also was a time when his wife and partner got really tired of his stubbornness and failure to listen to her, so it is also a bad time for their marriage. Psycho is arguably Hitch’s best film, and it is a very interesting time when he redefined himself and horror cinema at the same time. Since Paramount had no plans to promote this debacle, Hitch did the promotion himself and developed some interesting methods of setting the buzz for this film in motion. As such, lines were huge, and the film earned over 33 million despite it’s $800,000 budget and no studio help promoting this film.

Warning! If you haven’t seen Psycho, the DON’T watch this film until you’ve seen it. Psycho is a very unique film and definitely one not to miss, but watching Hitchcock first will completely spoil the film as it gives away huge spoilers in the plot. This film also debunks several of the myths that surrounded the making of the film. Helen Mirren’s role as Alma, Hitch’s wife, is very well done too. This woman was his muse and he could never have done what he did without her, but she must have had to endure a lot keeping him happy. We’re watching the making of Psycho, so several other key characters have a lot to do in this film. Janet Leigh is played by Scarlett Johansson, one of the weak point of the film. Hopkins is much more Hitchcock than Scarlett is Janet Leigh, but she does at least look a bit like her. Jessica Biel is here too, as actress Vera Miles who played Janet’s sister in Psycho.

All in all, this film shows us a lot of the genius that was Hitchcock, and it is very entertaining. I’ve always been a fan of his work, but now I feel like I know the man a lot better. He was a complex man who has many facets, and this helps us get to know a lot more about him. The scene of Hitchcock watching Psycho in a theater with a packed audience is very touching and one of my favorite moments of the film. Though he was a genius, like all of us, he was very insecure and just couldn’t risk joining the audience, though their reaction meant the world to him.

This is a beautiful movie, and captures Hollywood of 1959-60 perfectly. I really enjoyed this film, and recommend it for anyone who is at all interested in either Psycho or Alfred Hitchcock. It’s a wonderful movie.

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