May 24
Steven Spielberg’s War Horse is essentially a fable. It is an adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s children’s novel of the same name. The book was turned into a play in 2007 and eventually reached Spielberg’s hands. Having already done several films with a World War II foundation, the director was game to work within a World War I framework. War Horse presented that opportunity.
When Guy Ritchie uncorked the bottle on Sherlock Holmes in the form of a 2009 blockbuster, I was surprised at how fun the whole shebang was. The sequel, released in December of 2011, attempts to capture the same energy and amusement but the pacing is off and the plot is beyond convoluted. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is, as a result, a messy bore of a detective film.
Based on the novel of the same name by Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games is essentially dystopic science fiction for the YA set. It is a hodgepodge of several other (and better) pictures and it is, in all honesty, rather weak sauce on its own merits. The film lacks impact and emotional scope, despite some rather compelling scenes, and remains a well-polished but relatively stale exercise.
Joe Carnahan’s The Grey is an astounding surprise of a film. There have been many man versus nature pictures, of course, and many quintessentially male films, but few have balanced the elements of the ridiculous and the deeply emotional to quite such an effective level as this one. While many can and probably will quibble with details such as the behaviour of the movie wolves and their relatively coarse appearance, my belief is that the elements are fantastical and the characters’ story is of more importance.
The Mission: Impossible film series leaps into its fourth installment with the brisk, exciting Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. This is the best movie in the series and it packs a wallop throughout, bristling with amazing set pieces, action scenes and mind-blowing scenery. The film’s central segment, involving the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, is astounding and exhilarating.
