All You Need Is...

Glib Reviews of Recent DVD/Blu Ray releases

Edge Of Tomorrow, aka Live Die Repeat, aka All You Need Is Kill. 
- Directed by Doug Liman

Apparently the book is called All You Need Is Kill, The movie in the theatre was called Edge Of Tomorrow, the Disc release is Live Die repeat: Edge Of Tomorrow. I am not sure why there is a lack of confidence in any of the whacky titles, It’s a pretty solid sci-fi action flick, with a good sense of humour as well.

All the Groundhog Day comparisons are pretty spot on, right down to the tacked on cheeseball ending, which works better in Groundhog Day. Cruise is very well cast in these Sci-Fi action flicks, Like in Oblivion, he gets to ride at least one motorcycle, and fly a copter, there are few surprises in the film, except the solid sense of when to cut, when to let the story progress. 

Director Doug Liman, maybe most famous for Swingers, or The Bourne Identity is at the top of his game here. Bam bam bam, the show moves along like an action movie should.

Scenes are not repeated so often as to slog the story down, as the two leads eventually find each other and figure out how to keep eking a few more minutes out of the day, until finally they have the big confrontation with the ‘Boss alien’. having a sort of hive mind, bacterial villain works well in this very much what it would be like to live in a video game where you keep ‘dying’ over and over, til you figure out how to move forward in the story.

A very good ensemble of soldier types, including a great unrecognizable Bill Paxton as the sergeant major who is not American, rather, but from Kentucky, who likes to march up and down the square. And Brendan Gleeson as the general in charge of everyone.

The only real beef I have with this very entertaining, and gorgeously designed film is the Top Gun/Officer & A Gentleman ending that you can see coming, once the film passes the ‘natural ending’ by. Emily Blunt’s freaking Kick Ass character does not need a boyfriend, formerly smarmy or otherwise. Oh Hollywood, Love is not all you need, all you need is Kill.




8.88888 convenient mad scientists and their almost forgotten super weapons outta 10




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nerd-Sploitation Weekend continues

Image
Glib Reviews of New Releases NerdFest Day 2 Continuing my Nerd-Sploitation festival with the almost traditional tale of of the out of control Game Master. Earlier examples of this sort of the tiny Nerdsploitation genre includes Gamers, (and it’s sequel) or any of those movies that I don't watch, that involve video games. Zero Charisma - Directed by Katie Graham , Andrew Matthews Is a surprising solid portrayal of the aging Nerd, or Fan. The main character is in many ways a painful reminder of what its like to be so obsessed with a game (or any fantasy) that it ruins the rest of your life.  Scott The GM in question ( Sam Eidson ), may in fact be a triggering presence for many gamers, or ex gamers. Be warned, the interplay of the players and GM struggling through a ridiculously overlong campaign is more realistic than the things the players do ‘in game.’ People being talked over, outside noise causing havoc with the flow of the game, the omnipresence of snack
Read more

Review of Tangerine!

Image
Glib Reviews Of Recent DVD Releases Tangerine - Directed By Sean Baker Tangerine is one of those films that ‘feels like’ it was shot chronologically. The first few scenes are a bit rough, the acting is a bit iffy, but as the characters of Sin-Dee and Alexandra walk endlessly through their drama filled Christmas Eve Day in L.A. The picture gets more gripping, the cinematography, the acting and the script all get better, more polished in a low budget way. The locations give a nice grimy seventies feel to the whole thing. Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) is especially unlikeable at the beginning of the film, her single mindedness in finding her pimp/boyfriend and the girl he ‘cheated on her’ with while she was doing a month in jail, is not terribly nuanced. The buffer of the her best friend Alexandra (Mya Taylor) trying to keep her from all the drama she is creating, while trying to hustle tickets for a show she is doing that night keeps the whole thing from being one note.
Read more

My middling review of "Night Moves" by Kelly Reichardt

Image
Glib reviews of recent DVD/Blu Ray releases. Night Moves - Directed by Kelly Reichardt This is not your father’s ‘Night Moves,’ that one is an under appreciated Arthur Penn flick with Gene Hackman. Both do crucially involve boats though. I wanted to like this film a bit more than I did. As a big fan of Reichardt’s films in general, I was looking forward to this quite a bit. It may be though my least favourite of the bunch, but that by no means says it’s a bad film, just not quite as good as the previous three films. If you like creepy atmospheric slow paced gorgeously shot in Oregon kind of movies, you will dig this. Jesse Eisenberg is at his broodingest best, here, you barely ever see under his hooded eyes, he only ever really expresses emotions over the things he perceives with horror, like the dead deer he moves from the edge of the highway to save the dead doe the dignity of not getting run over again and again, at least. The basic plot has Jesse (as Josh, commu
Read more