Cloverfield

Synopsis :

J.J. Abrams ("Star Trek," "Mission: Impossible III," "Lost," "Alias") produces this secret movie directed by Matt Reeves ("Felicity"). A teaser trailer for the movie is playing in theaters in front of "Transformers."

 

Reviews :

Even if there's nothing new going on here, the style and quality of this film injects a terrific sense of terror into the old monster movie formula.

We're watching a videotape found after a devastating incident in Manhattan that's been codenamed "Cloverfield". We see the young couple Rob and Beth (Stahl-David and Yustman) on an idyllic morning, then cut to a party a month later bidding farewell as Rob heads off to a new job in Japan. But just after midnight, the party is interrupted by the arrival of a massive creature on the streets, and Rob hits the streets with a handful of friends looking for a way out. Once they rescue Beth.

The overwhelming familiarity of the premise is actually rather clever, with the Godzilla-style destruction of New York filmed Blair Witch-style on home video. This makes the film look deceptively rough and cheap, when it's actually skilfully (and expensively) designed, with excellent effects that feel disarmingly offhanded and a strong cast that delivers its dialog and sprints through each scene as if it's all improv. As a result, we are thrown right into the story, and the scary bits actually make us jump and squirm in our seats.

There's not much more to it than that, although there are strong echoes of 9/11, plus a pointed jab at American military policy willing to lay waste to the city just to kill the marauding beast. And the double-layer videotape adds an emotional element as we see glimpses Rob and Beth's much happier day every time the camera stops filming. These touches, as well as the general urgency of the pace, help overcome the corny and contrived opening set-up sequences.

But it's the film's technical prowess that's the most impressive, as the staggering scope of events is captured in handheld footage that contains several big jolts and some truly haunting imagery. The sheer relentless horror of the story is thoroughly gripping, and the raucous chaos keeps us entertained right to the head-spinning finale. So in the end, if it's not much more than a guilty pleasure, that's fine with us. Just let us get back to our relatively quiet lives in a world where these kinds of things can't happen. Right?

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Untraceable

Synopsis :

The story of a technology-savvy serial killer who displays his graphic murders on his own website. The FBI Internet Crimes division must work quickly to track him down.

 

Reviews :

The Internet has become a major force in the lives of anyone who uses it. Although the net includes assets beyond measure, there are negative aspects as well – such as kids becoming victims on personal space pages, identity fraud and spam. That playing field provides the arena for the thriller "Untraceable," about a website where viewers watch someone get killed as it's actually happening.

Diane Lane plays Jennifer Marsh, an FBI agent and widow who lost her husband, also an agent, on the job. Jennifer lives in Portland, Oregon, with her mother (Mary Beth Hurt) and young daughter (Perla Haney-Jardine). She also works there at night in the Bureau's unit responsible for investigating and prosecuting cyber crime.

When Jennifer stumbles on a website where a baby kitten gets killed, she's alarmed. What disturbs her even more is that the webmaster has set the site to meter hits, and the faster the internet users log on, the faster the kitten dies.

Savvy enough to realize this will not be a one time thing, Jennifer alerts her boss (Peter Lewis) and agent Griffin Dowd (Colin Hanks). Sure enough the site goes up again, this time with a man in another contraption in which he will die a torturous death.

Griffin starts the task of tracing the site but mumbles one excuse after another about it being registered in another country and "untraceable." Soon the news media is alerted, and everyone watches as a man burns alive. The warning that anyone who logs on to the site is a conspirator to crime, goes unheeded and the hits continue to climb faster and faster after each killing. Things only go downhill and get more gruesome from this point on.

Diane Lane ("Unfaithful") is a wonderful actress, and Billy Burke ("Feast of Love") as Portland Police Detective Eric Box, is no slouch either. Colin Hanks (Tom Hank's son) is commendable as Griffin. Although I don't want to giveaway the actor who portrays the site perpetrator, I will say that while he looks like a looney who might attempt this feat, his voice is too passive when calling Jennifer to antagonize her. He never feels like a threat.

Unfortunately, none of these actor's performances can overcome the film's clichéd thriller elements, conspicuous missteps, and its focus on the familiar theme of a token single mother who must protect her daughter, plus its obvious assumption that Jennifer will herself end up a victim.

Several movies have tackled the subject of the Internet, and as it becomes more a part of our daily lives, it is rich fodder for ideas. Screenwriters Robert Fyvolent, Mark Brinker and Allison Burnett lack the experience to pen a thriller with twists that leave viewers in awe. Instead, we see plot-holes – which occur many times here – and think "that wouldn't happen or she wouldn't do that."

Even director Gregory Hoblit, who helmed "Fracture," an excellent example of a tight thriller with unexpected twists, couldn't transform "Untraceable" from a mediocre horror movie into a compelling thriller. "Fracture" was a cat and mouse game and a race against the clock to track down a criminal mastermind. That line is actually the tagline for "Untraceable," and while it might have been the original intention, the thriller aspect gets diluted when the focus stays on the gruesome bodies for long shots as the victims bleed, burn, or have their skin peeled off in acid.

If you're looking for great suspense or an edge-of-your-seat thriller, check out "Fracture" and forget "Untraceable."

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Rambo IV

Synopsis :

The next chapter finds Rambo recruited by a group of Christian human rights missionaries to protect them against pirates, during a humanitarian aid deliver to the persecuted Karen people of Burma. After some of the missionaries are taken prisoner by sadistic Burmese soldiers, Rambo gets a second impossible job: to assemble a team of mercenaries to rescue the surviving relief workers.

 

Reviews :

When you're trained to be a killing machine, it doesn't take much to nudge you back into action. At least that's what Rambo, Sylvester Stallone's fourth movie starring as John Rambo, makes clear to viewers. If you're Rambo, you might demur a bit, but when a pretty missionary goes missing -- and may be the victim of sadistic soldiers -- you take out that trusty bow and arrow as well as all the firepower you can muster, hoping to save the day. The result? One of the bloodiest action movies of all time -- or so I've been told. Because I closed my eyes during most of the gory scenes, I'm not sure about that last statement. However what I did see made me wonder if Quentin Tarantino, not Stallone, directed the film, and while on speed. I've always maintained violence should be depicted as graphically as possible on screen to show how horrible it really is. But now I wonder about that. Many people like me probably avoid looking at those kind of sequences anyway.

Director/co-writer Stallone, who claims he made this movie to draw attention to the need for aid in the war-torn country of Burma (Myanmar), sets the stage for all the action with a group of missionaries from a Colorado church asking Rambo to take them to a Burmese village. This means Rambo would have to leave Thailand, where he's been working as a longboat driver and selling cobra snakes. He would also have to sail his boat into dangerous territory in the midst of the Burmese/Karen civil war, so he turns down the request. Sarah (Julie Benz), one of the missionaries pleads with him, explaining that the supplies and medical help are needed by the Karen people. "Are you taking guns?" Rambo asks. No guns, of course, so Rambo declares, "Then you'll change nothing."

Still, the iconic Vietnam War veteran agrees to take the group up river to their disembarking point. Later, after Rambo learns these missionaries have been kidnapped, he leads a band of Dirty Dozen–type mercenaries on a daring mission to rescue the captives. And that's the bare-bones plot. Granted, it's not a bad plot, having been used in such films as Tears of the Sun (2003) and probably most successfully in The Sand Pebbles (1966).

The big problem here -- or the best part of the movie, depending on your point of view -- involves so much time spent showing how many ways a person can kill another and how much bloody carnage the big screen can take. Whatever happened to character development? The top Burmese bad guy just yells and screams as he wreaks havoc everywhere. Generally, whether playing a missionary or a mercenary, actors only have one or two lines to let us know something about the individuals they're portraying here. Naturally, Stallone needs little to say as the strong, silent John Rambo. After all, we know him from three previous films. But I wish Sarah's role had been expanded so that Julie Benz (the talented actress from TV's Dexter) had more camera time. Although Benz does a fine job as Sarah goes toe to toe with Rambo in the early part of the movie, she doesn't appear again until fairly close to the end.

Stallone fans will be happy to know he still looks terrific, and he even manages to engage us in Rambo's introspective moments. Also on the plus side, the music by Brian Tyler (The Greatest Game Ever Played ) and cinematography by Glen MacPherson (16 Blocks) add considerably to the movie's emotional and visual appeal. In addition, I appreciate the issues raised by this film concerning violence (when is it appropriate, how much should be used, etc.).

Here's hoping Rambo accomplishes Stallone's goal of raising awareness about the need for aid in Burma, but I can't help thinking it may frighten away many people who would like to help.

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Cassandra's Dream

Woody Allen's latest film, Cassandra's Dream, is yet another London set thriller that is nothing fresh, but acute and hinders on a strong performance by Colin Farrell. The story plays out like a Greek tragedy, but is not as ambitious as Allen's Match Point, but a step up from his last film, Scoop.

The film follows two enduring brothers who are both opposites, but share in financial woes and anticipation. Ian (Ewan McGregor) runs a family restaurant, but has his eyes set on opening hotels in California. He sometimes borrows flashy cars to express the lifestyle he wants from his mechanic brother Terry (Colin Farrell), who is a simple man, but a compulsive gambler. The two brothers have steady girlfriends (Hayley Atwell and Sally Hawkins); Terry is honest and lovable to his, while Ian puts up a rich image to his. After Terry wins a handsome some, the two buy a boat together and name it Cassandra's Dream. The boat is a symbol of their relationship as they enjoy weekends on the water with their significant others.

Things turn sour when Terry's gambling problems put him in a deep hole, along with crushing Ian's finances for his hotel endeavors. With no other place to turn, the brothers turn to their very wealthy Uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson) for support. After hearing both of the brothers' pleas, Howard agrees to help them out if the two conduct a horrible crime to save him from a fraud investigation. After first denying their uncle, the two agree to his deal.

Cassandra's Dream is something we have all seen before, but Allen's writing keeps it interesting. The script is nothing like his previous crime marvels, Crimes and Misdemeanors or Match Point, but the writing still has Woody Allen written all over it. The story is a tragedy about choice and family, that may come across as too talky to some, but favorable to fans of Woody Allen's dialogue.

The bright spot of the film is the work by Colin Farrell, which is his best in years. As Terry, Farrell transforms from a gambling addict to man filled with guilt and sorrow. Terry is the conscience of the Cassandra's Dream, and without Farrell's precision, this film would have been stale. Ewan McGregor is complementary as the other brother Ian, and Tom Wilkinson has a convincingly stellar speech of family when divulging his proposition to Terry and Ian.

Woody Allen struck gold with the London based crime film Match Point in 2005, which was unlike anything he has ever delivered. He followed it up with another London based thriller, Scoop, which struggled to find its rhythm. Now, with Cassandra's Dream, it is nothing stellar from Allen, but commendable. There are times where his dark humor style attempts to breakthrough in the film, but it might have been better to just deliver a straightforward thriller. The film hinges on the work by Farrell, who gives it an air when it starts to suffocate.

 

review written by: Bailey Henderson

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