Tag: Thriller

Movie Review: Europa Report

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IMDB, Europa Report“Europa Report” on IMDB

Science-Fiction/Thiller, 90 Minutes, 2013

If you liked “Gravity” (my review) then you’re a smart, discerning and, if I may say, strikingly attractive individual. You’ll also love “Europa Report”. The movie presents a highly realistic space mission; in this case a multi-year, multi-national mission to Europa, Jupiter’s sixth moon. All our (actual) evidence indicates that Europa is home to massive, warm water-oceans under its geologically active crust of ice. It’s generally understood to be our best legitimate shot of finding extraterrestrial life in the solar system.

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Movie Review: Slasher House

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IMDB, Slasher House“Slasher House” on IMDB

Horror, 85 Minutes, 2012

[Wife and kids are away visiting for the holidays. I’m staying home with movies and am back to the blood bucketing.]

This is pretty good ultra-low-budget horror. It’s a pretty damn bad anything else, but with a budget less than most used cars you do have to set expectations accordingly.  There is often an undeniable charm to be found when literally every penny counts.

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Movie Review: Dredd

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IMDB, Dredd“Dredd” on IMDB

Action, 95 Minutes, 2013:

The original attempt at capturing “Britain’s Number One Comic Hero”, 1995’s “Judge Dredd” [IMDB] was, let’s be honest, not a terrible movie.  It was a bit ham-fisted and trite but also had a decent story, some great design work and lots of action.  It was not, however, a good Judge Dredd movie.  It tried, lord knows it tried.  In the final judgement (get it?!) it just didn’t capture the character very well.  While some fans considered the removal of the character’s helmet pure sacrilege the issues went deeper than that.  The movie ended up too light, to uneven and just plain too Hollywood.

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Movie Review: Taken 2

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IMDB, Taken 2“Taken 2” on IMDB

Thriller, 92 Minutes, 2012

The original “Taken” [IMDB] was something of an oddity among action movies.  In a genre split between biceps and explosions or massive conspiracies and lone-wolf operatives it was a simpler, smaller more intimate movie. Yes, Liam Neeson’s [IMDB] Bryan Mills commanded resources and skills out of scope for most but the story was universal: somebody took his daughter and he was going to get her back.  I enjoyed it immensely.

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Movie Review: Skyfall

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IMDB, Skyfall“Skyfall” on IMDB

Action, 143 Minutes, 2012

This is Daniel Craig’s [IMDB] third outing as a grittier, rougher-edged version of Ian Fleming’s tuxedoed MI6 agent with a license to kill.  Bond (like other persistently popular characters such as Batman or Superman) has successfully maintained relevance across several generations.  The character does this by merging  modern sensibilities with dependable, iconic traits.  This film marks the fiftieth anniversary of Bond in film.

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Movie Review: Looper

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IMDB, Looper“Looper” on IMDB

Sci-Fi/Action, 119 Minutes, 2012

H.G. Wells ushered in the modern era of time travel stories with “The Time Machine” and we’ve hardly slowed down since.  We’ll probably never stop making time-travel movies.  Some kick ass (“The Terminator” [IMDB]), some are silly (“Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel” [IMDB]) and others profound (“Twelve Monkeys [IMDB] – which, incidentally, also starred Bruce Willis [IMDB]).  Even those with a shoestring budget can get in on the fun as the mind-bending “Primer” [IMDB] ably demonstrated.  Time travel is the gift that keeps on giving.

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