The Naked gun 33 1/3

The Naked gun 33 1/3 (released 1994) is the final movie of The Naked gun series. It was directed by Peter Segal. The movie is an exhilarating comedy which contains lots of humour in all forms. Leslie Nielsen as officer Frank Drebin has retired from the forces just when he is most needed. A rumour is spreading that a terrorist act will occur in the near future, but no one knows for certain who is going to perform it and where.There are quite few special effects in this movie but it is also good because this movie doesn’t require much special effects.

The movie starts off with a short and humorous intro which is typical for The Naked gun movies. The plot of the movie was pretty simple but not in a boring way. First Frank retires from the police forces, but keeps investigating this one case. His wife Jane finds out that he haven’t quit his job which enrages her and causes her to move out of the town. After his wife gone Frank is sent to infiltrate a prison, because the rumour tells that the terrorist attack will be controlled from prison. In prison Frank ends up to the same cell as Rocco Dillon the mastermind behind the terrorist’s plan. After gaining the trust of this crook Frank escapes from the prison with him. Rocco’s mother is also involved in their scheme and she transports Frank and Rocco to their hideout. When they’re in Rocco’s hideout Frank finds out that the target of the terrorist act is the academy awards ceremony. In the meantime after ”a slight misunderstanding” Jane realizes that she was wrong and rushes to find Frank. When Jane finally finds Frank she is captured and forced to be involved in the scheme. Their plan is to blow the ceremony up with a bomb hidden to the anvalope of the greatest film award. Once the bomb is pulled form the anvalope it will detonate. Frank turns the ceremony into one big chaos but manages to get the anvalope without detonating it. The movie ends to a scene where Jane gives birth to their first-born.

Leslie Nielsen as Frank Drebin, the main character. Nielsen suits to his role perfectly. A little absent-minded but a decent police officer who tries his best to fight against crime even when he is retired. His age however remains a mystery in this movie.

Priscilla Presley as Jane Drebin, who is Franks wife. She would want to have a baby with Frank but he isn’t so excited about this idea.

George Kennedy as Ed Hockey, Franks good old friend from the police department. He was devastated when Frank had to retire.

O.J.Simpson as officer Nordberg, also Franks good friend from the police department. A rather silly character.

Fred Ward as Rocco Dillon, the bad guy of the movie. A somewhat skilled bomber who works for Papshmir.

There are also very hilarious parables e.g. ”I had to stand on my toes, like a midget on a urinal.” which of course meant that he had to be very careful. In my opinion it is delightful to watch the movie over and over again because of the little things you might and will not notice on the first time you watch it. All in all it was also very easy to follow beacause of the relaxed and smooth tempo of events in the movie. I would recommend this movie to anyone who has anykind sense of humour. References to other movies can also be seen for example:The scene where Jane and her men-hater friend leaves the town is referated from a movie.

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Sherlock Holmes is a British-American action film based on a fictional detective created by Scottish writer Arthur Conan Doyle. The film was directed by Guy Ritchie and it was released in December 2009. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, but it lost both of them. First one, Best Original Score it lost to “Up” and other one to “Avatar”.A sequel of the movie, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows was released two years later on 16th December. The sequel was also directed by Guy Ritchie.

American actor Robert Downey Jr. won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his brilliant performance as Sherlock Holmes. Downey fits to his role almost perfectly and gives to Holmes nice, finished touch. British actor and director Jude Law portray Holmes’ friend and assistant Dr. Watson. I think he is right person to the role of Watson and managed it very well. In action movies must be an evil person too, of course. This part has been given to Mark Strong who acts Holmes’ enemy Lord Blackwood.

Incidents of the movie are placed in London in 1891. Sherlock Holmes stops the ritual murder by Lord Blackwood, who get arrested and hanged. Blackwood rises from the death and tries to overthrow the British government with black magic and cheating.  Holmes finds out his plan and prevents it saving the members of the parliament. In the end of the movie Holmes gives away secrets of Blackwood’s magic.

I think entirety of the film is very successful. Director Guy Ritchie changed old, classic picture of Sherlock Holmes as a gentleman to modern action hero with a phenomenal ability to draw conclusions. I liked specially the boxing scene where Holmes’ line of thoughts and conclusions are showed before real action. In my opinion, whole movie is very successful and I recommend it to everybody who likes good action movies.

The Thing (1982)

In the year 1982 a movie named ”The Thing” was released. The Thing is a horror/scifi- movie from the freezing Antarctic. It tells the story of 12 men stranded in an isolated science station. The film was directed by John Carpenter. The writer of the original story which the movie is based on is John W. Campbell Jr. and the screenplay adjustment was made by Bill Lancaster. The most notable actor in the film is Kurt Russell who also stars the film.

Camerawork in the film is marvelous. There’s a simple indicator of this: At no point in the movie you take note of it. After all the purpose of cameras is to take you into the film’s world and show the characters perspectives. It’s smooth and helps build tension in long still scenes.

Plot-wise the movies shines. Horror films have a tendency to be boring and not that scary at least from a personal perspective. The Thing doesn’t scare you right of the bat either but the idea of the film is very scary: The monster could be any one of us, even a person you know closely. How can you trust anyone? The sci-fi plot is simple enough and easy to follow and understand. The plot avoids the mistake of explaining everything too elaborately so you won’t get caught criticizing the scientific explanation behind it. Instead you focus on the plot itself. The beginning is rather slow but the movie starts building tension slowly from the very beginning and you will get grasped by the plot from the beginning till the very end by plot twists and characters. The characters in the movie all have a certain role which you can expect in a scientific research center in the middle of the Antarctic. They all have their own personalities but the movie doesn’t delve into them and they stay a bit shallow, except for the main character. Kurt Russell does a good job acting the personality of the main character during moments of fear and chaos.

From the audiovisual perspective it’s everything you can expect from an 80s film. The enhanced version looks sharp and good even from an HD television or display. Animating technology was still in it’s baby steps in the 80s so you can expect some scenes to look rather ”raw” from a modern day perspective. The soundtrack is very good for a horror film and helps build up the tension especially in the beginning of the film. Sound effects are good but are nothing shocking. The alien sounds effects are kinda odd but maybe that’s the point of them. They are ”alien” sound effects after all. All the sounds from the real world counterparts sound realistic like the flamethrowers and helicopters. The sound of the desolate Antarctic is also great with wind blowing the whole time outside. The constant snowing and big piles of snow covering the buildings also create a great impression of the icy Antarctic.

Overall the film is solid on all fronts from the music to the plot. The movie still holds it’s charm even though it was made 30 years ago. It’s said to be one of the best horror films of all time and has influenced modern day horror and sci-fi genres by a lot. A prequel of the film was made in 2011 telling the story of the alien’s origin but it failed to keep up to the high standards left by the original.

 

Life of Pi

Life of Pi is an american-chienese movie.The film is directed by Ang Lee. The movie based on same termed novel which Yann Martel released in 2001. Life of Pi is an adventure and a drama movie with 3D effects. In Finland the movie was published in 21st December 2012. In the United States it was already released at 28th September. The movie has Indian actors: Suraj Sharma, who plays the young version of Pi, and Irrfan Khan playing the old Pi.

Pi Patel and his family live in India. Father of the family is a zoo keeper and his has decided to sell the animals foward. Because they don’t have money they hitchhike in the same boat where the animals are. On their way to Canada the boat sinks and Pi find himself out in a boat with zeepra, hyena, orangutan and a tiger in the middle of the Pasific Ocean! This is where the adventure starts. Pi has to  learn how to integrade with these animals especially with the tiger. Luckily Pi forms unexpected connection with the tiger and they both survive. The journey has a bit drama when Pi fight with the tiger to survive alive and when he starts to loose his hope for saving. And at the end of the movie it seems like nobody don’t believe his story of the tiger because his the only one who survived.

Special effects have a huge part in this movie. Whole movie is filmed in the sea but in the reality they weren’t there at all. It is all of the special effects. And also the tiger and Pi never be in the boat at the same time. Special effects are amazingly used. You don’t even know where they have used those. Of cource when the storms come you can see it’s not real but otherwise they have used the effects in a great way.

In my opinion it’s amazing to use Indian actors in an american movie. Actors speak english well and how they show their feelings is tangible. Suraj Sharma plays his role of a survivor very well when you take into account that the tiger weren’t even the boat so he has to imagine the tiger and play with it.

When I went to see the movie I didn’t even know what I was going to look at. It was the kind of movie that I won’t watch again. In my opinion it was oppressive but there were funny moment too. And 3D- classes didn’t eve bothered me although the movie took almost 3 hours. If you like adventure films and you don’t bothered the ’brutal’ side of them and you don’t scary easily and love ’happy’ endings you should go watch it!

 

Friends with Benefits

Friends with Benefits is a comedy directed by Will Gluck. It’s premiere in Finland was in 30th September 2012 but in America it was already in 22nd July. The movie is all about comedy but the further it gets on it shows pinch by pinch more its romantic side. The cast is amazingly the best: Justin Timberlake as Dylan and Mila Kunis as Jamie. Jamie is a head-hunter (actually an executive recruiter) from New York and her job is to recruite Dylan, who’s an art director from Los Angeles. When they meet each other, Jamie takes over to adapt Dylan to New York City lifestyle.

Jamie and Dylan are in their thirties and are both singles and their love life hasn’t been prosperous. Jamie’s been often told that she’s emotionally damaged and Dylan was told by his ex-girlfriend that he’s emotionally unavailable. At the beginning they just laugh about it and start hanging around together. One night after they watched a movie and hung out, they came up with an idea that they could have sex together without any emotions or commitments and no stings attached. At first it was awkward but soon they dealt with it just fine. For a while everything went ok but soon they both note that they are having feelings to each other. Both start having some doubts about their situation. And at some point Jamie starts seeing other guys and they won’t be anymore friends with benefits, just friends. At the end everything however turns ok and they confess their feelings to each other and everything’s smooth and easy and they have their happy ending.

Soundtrack of the movie were pretty good. Semisonics ”Closing time” plays in movie’s trailer but also in the movie. There’s also this scene where Dylan sings the song during the sex. Train’s ”Soulsister” appears also in the movie and is very matching. In the movie there’s a flashmob at Times Square and people dance in time the ”New York, New York” by Ray Quinn and Ultra Love. One mentionable song is Kriss Kross’s ”Jump”. It’s hilarious song from the ’90 and in the movie it’s Dylan’s favorite song from his childhood.

About the camerawork, there’s not much to say. Nowadays there’s pretty decent cameraplay and the quality is very high. You can’t see any microphones nor assistents. The view angle doesn’t vary so much (except most sex scenes are shot from above the characters). The movie has few special effects but not much. Lots of extra people were used especially in the flash mob scenes.

I personally liked the movie. It’s very hilarious and Timberlake and Kunis are great partners, they matched well. The movie was pretty similar as No Stings Attached (2011) but still so different on my opinion. Friends with Benefits won’t maybe fit everyone because of it’s ”naive” plot but many male and female friend of mine have praised the film, and so do I.

The Blues Brothers – The movie review

The Blues Brothers is a classic action-comedy film filled with music and famous musicians. It was released in 20th of June in 1980 by Universal Studios. The films budget was 30 million American dollars. The film has been released on VHS, DVD and Blu-Ray. There are two versions of the film: theatrical cut and an extended version.

The characters in the film are very memorable and their actors are very fitting to their respective roles. John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd are the actors of the main characters Jake and Elwood Blues. Their band called The Blues Brothers has 10 members. The other members include Steve Cropper, Donald Dunn, Murphy Dunne, Willie Hall, Tom Malone, Lou Marini, Matt Murphy and Alan Rubin. They appear in the movie with their real names. Most of the smaller roles are police officers and other authorities. The movie also features famous musicians such as Aretha Franklin, James Brown and Ray Charles.

The plot of the movie is simple yet it features some twists. The movie starts with Jake coming to pick Elwood up from prison, where he stayed for three years for armed robbery. They then go to visit their childhood home which is a Roman Catholic orphanage. They find out that they need to collect 5000 dollars in order to save the orphanage from being closed. The brothers then visit a baptist church and Elwood gets an idea to get the needed money by reforming the band they used to to have – The Blues Brothers. After the brothers have started to gather the band back together, they start to encounter all kinds of problems, for example, some of the members now have jobs with good salaries and because of that, they are a bit curious, whether or not they should quit their jobs and join the band. Despite the hardships, they manage to get the band back to the original composition. After that, they start trying to get a gig at a larger consert than before.

I think the movie is very good. It is made nicely from pretty much every aspect. I recommend the movie for everyone who like films with a lot of music but people who just want to watch a comedy film might also enjoy it.