Ed's Review Dot Com

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

Roth Films, Universal Pictures,

Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Sam Claflin, Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Nick Frost, Toby Jones

The king is fighting to save his kingdom and enjoying his beautiful wife and his even more beautiful daughter Snow White. But when the queen suddenly dies, the King is inconsolable. Meanwhile a mysterious band attacks the castle and though they are defeated, it brings a mysterious princess Ravenna (Charlize Theron) to the castle who instantly bewitches the King with her beauty, but she promptly kills him and steals the throne. She then locks up Snow White (Kristen Stewart) in a tower cell, and the kingdom turns dark and ugly. Ravenna takes the throne and along with her brother rules with terror throughout the land. Ravenna has ageless beauty due to a spell, but in order to obtain eternal life, she must kill Snow White and steal her heart. Snow White has escaped, and with the help of the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth), who was supposed to capture her and bring her to the queen, but instead teaches her to fight, a group of dwarves and some other friends, Snow makes it through the dark wood to her Uncle’s Castle to lead the fight for her rightful place.

This is based on the original Snow White story. It’s been called “dark” and I guess that is a fair assessment. This is certainly not Disney’s version of the story. It is PG-13 because there is some fairly scary stuff, and so it’s not good for very small children. It might scare the daylights out of them! But this is a throwback to adventures of old. There are so many great things about this version of the tale, and not much at all bad. Though it’s very long, it seems like some areas are not well enough developed and you’ll probably want more. But there are long periods of no dialog, but the views on the screen tell more than pages of script could. The views and the music tell a lot of the story. Yes, special effects are wonderful here, but the creepy dark wood, and the beautiful land of the fairies are both excellent in their own way. All in all this is a wonderful film, just right for the big screen and spectacular sound systems.

I highly recommend this for anyone mid-teens and up. This is a great throwback to the adventures of old, with wonderful rich special effects that add to the story, but help, not hinder the adventure. This is an awesome screenplay, and I hope this does very well as this film really deserves it. If you want awesome battles, spooky locations, danger, and excitement, go out an watch this film. I really loved it.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

GK Films, Infinitum Nihil

Asa Butterfield, Chloe Moretz, Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen, Ray Winstone, Emily Mortimer, Jude Law, Christopher Lee, Helen McCrory, Michael Stuhlbarg

Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) is an orphan. He lived with his dad who was a clock maker and worked in a museum who was suddenly killed in a fire at the museum. Hugo was taken to live with his Uncle Claude (Ray Winstone) who was a drunkard but had the job of living inside the walls of the Paris train station in the 1930’s and wind the clocks. He took in Hugo, but kept him hidden to do all the work while he relaxed. Then he went missing. Hugo’s Dad had a broken little mechanical man that they were trying to repair. Hugo took on the part of restoring the robot. Hiding from the station guard (Sacha Baron Cohen) and scavenging for the parts to fix the little automatron. He makes a few friends and gets involved with the daughter of a famous person and gets into one adventure after another in attempting to survive inside the walls and solve the mystery that his father left to him.

This very unique and wonderfully done film by Martin Scorsese has the feel of a true story. In fact, it’s not, however the background info of a famous Parisian cinematographer Georges Melies (Ben Kingsley) is basically all true. The history of him and his films, and the running of the toy shop in the station is factual. Much of Melies work is shown in the film. You can read info from Wikipedia on George Melies by clicking here.

But this film is a fabulous story. It has the look and feel of a great adventure film, with the historical background to make it plausible and feel real. The young actors who play Hugo and Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz) are very, very good. They pull this off splendidly. Of course Ben Kingsley is absolutely awesome as always and adds a great deal to the story. Sacha Baron Cohen plays a funny but dedicated security guard who is really annoying, but he’s perfect for the character. He is as dedicated to catching Hugo as Gargamel is to catching the Smurfs!!!

All in all, this is a wonderful film for the whole family. I saw it in 3D and that part of it was excellent as well. This is probably because of the genius of Martin Scorsese and his experience with CinemaScope in the past. It’s doing very well in the box office, as it should, and is probably the most original story we’ve seen in many years. I highly recommend this film for the whole family. The kids will love the action and wonderful world inside the clocks, and the adults will love the mystery and solving the problem of who has done what. This is a fantastic movie for sure.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Blind Wink Productions, GK Films, Nickelodeon Movies

Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Abigail Breslin, Ned Beatty, Alfred Molina, Bill Nighy, Stephen Root, Harry Dean Stanton, Timothy Olyphant, Ray Winstone

Rango (Johnny Depp) is a Chameleon who, being able to shift to his surroundings, naturally wants to be an actor. He performs his plays in the terrarium in which he lives along with such friends as a wind up fish and half a kids doll. Needless to say because these are lifeless objects, they do not perform up to the standards of Rango. But a sudden accident finds Rango stranded all alone out on the highway in the middle of the Mojave Desert until he meets Beans (Isla Fisher). Walking to find water brings him to the town of Dirt, a failing town full of reptiles and the like with no water. One by one the residents are giving up, selling off their land and moving out of Dirt. Rango finds many opportunities to carry on his craft of acting, and becomes the Mayor and sets out to save Dirt. But there are some really evil outlaws waiting to see that Rango doesn’t make it through the day.

This is a successful animated film. Rango is such a lovable character, that we feel for him as he lies and bluffs his way into the minds and hearts of the people of Dirt, making them believe that he alone can find water and save the town. But he’s bit off a bit more than he can chew, and it looks like curtains for poor Rango and the end of Dirt. Rango works because the story is so clever and the character is very fun to watch. We know Rango’s a buffoon and has no idea what he’s doing, but he’s so intent on helping the town and the people he has come to care very much for that he wants to do it so bad. This film is as good as any live action western, and has a lot of good values and reasons to keep you interested in what happens. I was expecting to be disappointed, but I wasn’t. Try as I might, I couldn’t look away and the movie pulled me in right away and kept me riveted throughout the film to the closing credits. Nickelodeon has done a fine job with this film, and should be commended. I recommend Rango for adults and children alike, as it’s a good story, sure to keep everyone’s interest.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Warner Brothers

Mel Gibson, Ray Winstone, Danny Huston, Bojana Novakovic, Shawn Roberts

It’s easy to take shots at Mel Gibson these days.  He’s been in the news a lot lately.  But it was nice to see the old Mel in this movie.  He is great in these kinds of roles.

Mel’s an old cop, Thomas Craven, and very jaded on life, but very anxious for a visit from his daughter.  She has a secret and was looking for a chance to get it off her chest, when suddenly she’s killed.  The assumption is that it’s revenge on Craven, but in investigating who’s out to kill him, Thomas starts to learn that his daughter led a secret life.   Lot of things he didn’t know.  The more he unravels the more he is shocked to learn what it’s all about.  Now he may be in over his head trying to figure out what really happened.

Now Craven just doesn’t care, and is able to do anything legal or not, to find out what’s behind the murder of his daughter.  This is where the old grumpy bad-ass Mel takes control and it’s an exiting trip.

This movie was a surprise.  I really didn’t expent much from it.  I was very pleasantly surprised.  Usually I find myself losing focus, and occassional rewinding to find out,  “Hey, what just happened”, but this DVD kept me riveted in the story.  It was refreshing to have Mel back and many compare this movie to Payback, and I think that’s a fair comparison.

The story is similar to others, but fresh enough to stay interesting.   And Craven can get the truth out of just about anybody!  This film is based on a popular English Mini-Series also called “Edge of Darkness”.

Nice police drama.  Glad to have you back Mel, keep up the good work.