Movie Review: Olympus Has Fallen

The President of United States(Aaron Eckhart) and a group of high officials are held hostage in this action movie directed by Antoine Fuqua. When the White House is under siege, the duty to protect the president falls on the shoulders of a guilt-ridden ex-Secret Service agent Mike Banning(Gerard Butler). He has a desk job in the US Treasury overlooking the White House. The job and the office makes it convenient for him make a dash across the road to engage in the rescue operation. While kidnappers pushes US into brink of creating chaos in the world, the speaker of the house(Morgan Freeman) dons the cap of the President of United States of America during troubled times.

Die Hard in the White House. This will be the easiest way to relate to the movie. Antoine Fuqua creates the White House elsewhere and beautifully merge it with real thing using computer graphics to make it believable. He almost succeeds. The "almost" part because we know the carnage on the screen cannot be shot on real location and we are unable to suspend disbelief. As a regular moviegoer, we are easily able to overlook this fact. The visuals are stunning and the action choreography is good especially the scenes involving the takeover of the White House. But is the White House so poorly guarded? As a symbol of power, it is strongly etched into the brain that most of us will refuse to answer affirmative on the question.

Gerard Butler looks ill at ease in a stereotypical role of a fallen hero plagued with guilt. He gets to do action and also mouth one-liners. The one-liners generates chuckles not for the fun quotient instead for the stupidity quotient. They end up as forced instead of being natural and funny. Morgan Freeman and Aaron Eckhart are very comfortable in their roles although they have nothing much to contribute in this enterprise. The familiar faces of Angela Bassett and Robert Forster are wasted in a one-dimensional and predictable roles associated with this genre.

At the end of the day, the action and CG effects are good. The idea is to awe the audience. The movie is able to do in couple of sequences. You can watch it if you love this genre or if you do not have any other option.

Language: English

Genre: Action

Rating: **

For trailer, click here.

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Movie Review: This is 40

Turning 40 strains the relationship between a married couple, Debbie(Leslie Mann) and Pete(Paul Rudd). Bringing up two kids, struggling with their business and quirky parents add to their challenges. Their 13 year old is no longer adolescent with dramatic outbursts while their 8 year old is still a kid. Pete's record label is not successful while Debbie's boutique is losing money. Pete's dad(Albert Brooks) is dependent on him for money while Debbie's dad(John Lithgow) distances himself away from his daughter. All these factors comes in a collision path as Pete and Debbie turns 40.

Judd Apatow is adept at making comedies by building a script around a single issue. He concentrates on the humorous part of the issue. Turning older has been treated as the issue here. I like to call this a spin-off as the characters appeared in his earlier movie about accidental pregnancy, Knocked up. It is always fun to watch a dysfunctional family because we all connect to such families in our way. But Judd Apatow gives a mixed bag experience primarily because of the length of the movie. At 133 minutes, the movie is long. We may forgive the length if the script is built in such a way that events are smoothly transitioned forward. Instead, the movie ends up still, refusing to move forward at times, while it is filled with many funny scenes.

Still there are entertaining factors namely the performances of Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann. Their expressions are natural. They make a funny line into a hilarious one. They have great chemistry. All these factors actually make us overlook the slow pace and also make a serious scene into a comic one. Albert Brooks plays the role he has played many times before. John Lithgow has nothing much to add. Jason Segel and Megan Fox adds to the star quotient on the screen.

If you have nothing else to do, this provides a good escape.

Language: English 

Genre: Comedy

Rating: ***

For trailer, click here.

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Movie Review: Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

Chances are you have already read or heard about the German folklore involving brother-sister duo Hansel and Gretel. Tommy Wirkola takes the German folk-lore by slightly modifying the origin while keeping the essence and extends the story many years into the future. In the adapted or retold (depending on your viewpoint) version of the folklore, Hansel(Jeremy Renner) and Gretel(Gemma Arterton) are witch hunters as the name suggest. They are hired by a mayor of a small village plagued with disappearance of children. Here, they have to battle an evil witch(Famke Janssen) and also find out the truth about their past.

In the past few months, we have a lot of retelling of many stories. It was in last summer we had one of the influential and charismatic leader being portrayed as vampire slayer. So when a folklore is retold with the backdrop of witches and black magic, it is not much of a surprise. Unfortunately, the preposterous scenario fails to hold our interest in the opening reels itself. Ideally, a film like this should shock the viewers in the opening sequences. This shock helps the viewers to orient themselves into a new mode of story telling of a story they have heard many times. This never happens and the movie runs out of steam! Since the movie is in 3d, there are many tricks employed by the director like hurling objects right into your face. The director also tries to avert our attention by showing comically graphic scenes. Overall, these techniques do not help the movie.

Jeremy Renner, who usually is a dependable actor, is choosing the wrong scripts. This is one movie which he can neither salvage nor can make a difference. Famke Janssen has done similar role many times in the past. It is only Gemma Arterton who makes us smile in this boring enterprise. The smile is because of the foul language she uses. Here is someone who can be unlady-like.

Stay away.

Language: English 

Genre: Action

Rating: *

For trailer, click here.

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