Ed's Review Dot Com

Scion Films, Czech Anglo Productions, LD Entertainment,

Jessica Chastain, Daniel Brühl, Johan Heldenbergh, Michael McElhatton

Jan (Johan Heldenbergh) and his wife Antonina Zabinski (Jessica Chastain) and their son Ryszard (Val Maloku) are a happy family running the Warsaw Zoo, a popular attraction in the capitol of Poland. But when the Nazi’s came in, the zoo was nearly destroyed by the attack and the Jewish Poles are being rounded up and sent to the Warsaw slums until the Nazi’s can figure out what to do with them. Meanwhile, since the zoo is gone, the Zabinski’s develop a plan to turn the old zoo into a pig farm to provide food for the army, but only as a cover to the real plan of storing as many Jewish refugees, especially children, in the basement of their home. This is a true story of how the Zabinski Family was able to save over 300 Jewish people from certain death in the prison camps.

This is a touching and unique holocaust story, since it is centered in Poland where much of the hate and carnage took place throughout most of the war. It is a gray and dreary look at the place, and the beautiful party in the beginning is a stark contrast to the horrible conditions at the end. The sets are spectacularly done, and the horrors of the time is always in our faces as we can feel the real fear and terror in the faces of these kids who had to struggle to be alive. Everyone did a good job here, and I felt it was very well made and told the true story very well. In the first part of the film, there is a wide variety of animals in the zoo, and when the attack came and the destruction came to the zoo, many of the wild animals got away. Every animal in the movie is real. There was no CGI used at all. The director said that the original film was 3 1/2 hours long, and since they needed to cut it down to two hours, an hour and a half had to be cut. All in all, they put together a really good story, based on the diary that has never been published, it is a touching story that will help you understand how a single person can really make a difference.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Marvel Studios, Vita-Ray Dutch Productions (III), Studio Babelsberg,

Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Anthony Mackie, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Daniel Brühl, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Rudd, Emily VanCamp, Tom Holland, Frank Grillo, William Hurt

The government has determined that the Avengers are too dangerous to be left unchecked, and they set out to pass a law to limit their powers and only allow them to use superpowers upon the request of the government. Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) is determined to follow the new law as the mutants create fear, and as long as the run free, people will challenge them time after time. Captain America, (Chris Evans) on the other hand feels that protecting citizens is their ultimate goal, and the government cannot be trusted to make decisions for them. They all choose sides as Iron Man and Captain America become bitter enemies and try to destroy each other. But perhaps another person is afraid of challenging the Avengers on his own, but want to provoke them to wipe out each other.

This was a long awaited film, and brings back most of the Marvel characters, although I felt it was a bit of a disappointment. First of all, I can’t really keep all the different comic book superheroes straight and remembering who is with whom is too much for me. Not that I’m a fan of comic book superheroes in the first place. The battles were good, and it was nice to see all the different characters together. But the story was too hokey for my liking, and at over 2 1/2 hours, it still didn’t seem to really go anywhere. It seems that sometimes when there are too many characters, there is no way to pay justice to each of them fully. That may be the reason why I found it lacking in depth. All in all it seemed pointless to me. So I wasn’t a big fan of this particular film. This film was out at the same time as “X-Men: Apocalypse” and between two I chose to see the X-Men. I’m glad I did, as I felt it was the better of the two. However, since this film is now out on DVD, it’s worth watching since it was not all that bad, especially if you’re a fan of this genre.

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