I wasn’t expecting Oscar-winning film, I wasn’t even expecting oscar-nominating material, but I appreciated this film for what it was: mindless violence. That’s all I was expecting The Expendables to be, and that’s all it was.

The performances were acceptable, wasn’t very impressed to be honest, there were few moments when I thought “Hey, this could be worth something…I think we might have something here..” NO. WRONG. There was NOTHING. It made me sick. It was pathetic. No, I kid. It wasn’t that bad, just nothing to write home about.

Action scenes were as expected, pretty effin’ badass, Statham perfoming his stunts, Steve Austin being a bodyguard beatin’ up people, explosions left and right, bullets and blood flying all over the damn place,  it was a massacre. A freakin’ massacre.

Like I said, for what it was(mindless violence), it was pretty cool in that respect, but as a film, not much happening in that department, it was incoherent at parts, the editing in certain parts of the film was below average- but, because the cast was as big as it was, that, in itself was pretty cool.

A fun, action-packed film, with a cast for the ages.

6.5, just because it was so freakin’ awesome.

Kazed

This has been on my ‘to watch’ list for a while now, and with the upcoming sequel due for release soon, I thought it’d be the perfect time to review Wall Street.

WS was a film which impressed me to the point where I wanted to be a stock broker. Or a rich greedy S.O.B.

No, seriously though, it was the performances in this film that drew me further into the film. The chemistry between Charlie Sheen and his father (in the film and real life) was unmatched; particularly the scene between Bud and his Father outside the elavator. the sheer aptitude both of these actors shown was just amazing. Most definitely the highlight of the film, it didn’t leave my head after watching.

Similarly, the dialogue had the same effect; leaving some of the most brilliant quotes I’ve heard in a film. It was Gekko, Michael Douglas’ character who had left the biggest impression on me. His charisma, his attitude, the way Douglas delivered the lines, the sheer tenacity he showed throughout the film was what made Douglas’ character work.

The story was another factor which upped the overall badass-ness of the film; stockbroker looks up to rich guy, rich guy takes him under his wing, stockbroker becomes rich, rich guy destroys stockbrokers’ fathers business, stockbroker destroys rich guy. Not as straightforward as that, but that’s the gist of it. Sort of.

Great film, not perfect though. Not everything is.

7/10

Kazed

Teaser:

Exclusive clips:

“The Right Question”:

“Start Calling Me Gordon”

Clips courtesy of Substance.

I’m really excited for this either way, I’m excited to see how it continues.

Kazed.

I observed, and now I’m reporting. There really isn’t a lot to report, it seemed as though the film was a cheaper knockoff of the 2006 Employee of The Month. There were striking similarities to the 2006 film, but still had a semblance of originality within the plot and some of the characters.

Speaking of originality, there was absolutely no originality in Anna Faris’ character, ‘Brandi’. Simply put, it is the same character she’s been playing countless times. Scary Movie, The House Bunny, Friends, Just Friends, to name just a few. It’s something that’s past redundant. It doesn’t even exist anymore. The whole idea of her playing a ‘typical’ blonde make my testicles shrivel up and implode.

Enough of that though, Seth Rogen, as expected was quite hilarious, but there was nothing that I haven’t seen before, although there were tears, something which I thought he pulled off well.

Ray Liotta’s character left a lot to be desired; he didn’t really standout to me.

There were a number of twists which I thought were pretty effin’ funny; taking on 50 cops and almost winning sounds like a helluva time to me.

Not the best film I’ve seen starring Seth Rogen, but still worth the watch.

5.5/10

I was eager to see Salt after hearing much buzz about it; after hearing that Angelina Jolie had performed most of the stunts herself, this was something I simply HAD to see.

It was an interesting premise to say the least, albeit a little predictable- until the conclusion of the film. Up until this moment, I was fairly confident that ‘Salt’ (Evelyn Salt played by Jolie) was about to decimate the living daylights out of everyone and anyone who got in her way. Obviously I was wrong. It was a shocking twist, actually. So shocking, that I had to by three more tickets just to see it again. No. No I didn’t do that, but it was still shocking.

So as I’m sitting there watching Jolie’s condiment-named-character killing these mother-effers, one thing springs to mind: “Who is Salt?” There wasn’t nearly enough explanation as to who the eff she was, leaving me with the same question the marketing for the film gives you.

Whatever, no biggie.

Putting that aside, the film itself was as exciting as I thought it’d be, with Jolie performing most of the stunts herself, it was pretty damn intriguing to see these in action.

Also, Sabretooth impressed me, but he could have jumped around a little more.

6/10

Kazed

★★

Jessica Lohse

Of the many rehashed 80’s films making a comeback this latter part of the decade, The (much-vaunted) A-Team is resuscitated; but is it the Second Coming or an unholy, shambling thing due for a double-tap?

Filmmaker Joe Carnahan of epic Oscar-winning fame for such titles as -nothing, attempts to hook younger audiences into the cult series.

The A-Team merch van rolls into Forbidden Planet hopefully plugging the $100 million hole it left in its wake. It begs the question: ‘How much of that money went to paying Liam Neeson to say “I love it when a plan comes together” 10 times?’ The DVD set of the old skool A-Team was a hit seller; but does that provide enough justification to make a film dominated by absurdly annoying Bradley Cooper? For some inexplicable reason he gets to skulk in for far more screen time than he deserves in the role where he doesn’t quite hit the mark as everyone’s favourite lovable rogue? Let’s Face it, they could do better. Of course, since the rumormill began running the Chinese Whispers game of an A-Team film, people have begun mentally building their own brand of dream cast to compare to the actual selections in the film itself. I have no idea who these actors are, but I think it’s safe to say Joe Carnahan might consider using a fan of the series for Casting Director if he ever gets the opportunity to excrete a sequel. In that regard, we can only hope there is no plan B.

This reminds one of the time X-Men 3: The Last Stand nearly won director Gavin Hood the honorific of being the man responsible for turning Hollywood into the next Lynchburg for the scores of angry fans clamouring for blood. This leads to my parting thoughts on The A-Team: You can’t please the all fans, but you can at least try to make an entertaining (and hopefully average) film.

Statham too. But we already knew that from his high speed marathon films (see Crank now if you haven’t see it already!!). The expendables story isn’t much deeper than what you get from the trailer. It’s a bunch of Harley riding mercs that get booked for a job that’s dirty and gets them into contrived, cheesy trouble with contrived, cheesy latin amercian soldiers on a contrived and cheesy made up South American island, that is strangely titled after the internet craze of picturing yourself naked with your bum in the air. (Google ‘Vilena’ and you’ll see what I mean.

Yes, granted there’s no depth, no real frills, no surprises, a bag of money, and a reasonably helpless damsel in distress. All ingredients for fairly lame action film. And really it should never have been made – if it was someone else that made it. Fortunately Mr Stallone still knows how to entertain. So to understand this ‘thing’ that he’s made, spare a thought for the evolution of the action film during the eighties:

The poor divorced cop in a vest stuck in the Nakatomi building;

The broke kung fu master stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time, probably in the wrong era;

The big black guy with the big black machine gun that always save the day with by blowing everything up;

The emotionally confused ex-soldier that takes mission after deadly mission in the urban jungles of the world to ‘find himself’;

And the traditionally European backstabbing anti-hero that never dies, no matter how many times you shoot, crash, ram, smack, shoot again and cut him;

Do this and you will start to appreciate what an entertaining and strangely humorous film this is. Don’t ask for more, don’t peel back the layers. Save that for the French Art-house independent experimentalists at Cannes. Just eat your nachos and pop corn, and sit back and watch every explosion, every fight (yes Lundgren vs Li,  Austin Vs Couture, and Sly vs Austin, Statham vs pretty-much-everyone-in-a-uniform…), every car chase, plane ride, and every macho standoff and let ham be ham.

Keep your expectables low and The Expendables will certainly entertain.

7/10

Kushal

Having seen the first two from the Saga, so far, this would be my breakdown of the three-

Twilight: easily the best of the bunch so far.

New Moon: Utter disappointment, from a Film standpoint, anyway.

Eclipse: a slight step up from New Moon, very impressed with many aspects, including the acting, surprisingly.

What a segway to begin the review.

I’ll also state again that this review will be written from a Film standpoint, so none of you hardcore Twi-Hards be hatin’ on me. So Eclipse.

Although a little slow at the beginning, it picked up a little when it delivered some intense fight scenes between some of the scenes.

I was impressed, but I wasn’t too thrilled about the CGI in the film. It just didn’t work, the scene where the ‘transfomed’ Jacob is comforting Bella looked pretty effing stupid.

There were some funny pieces of dialogue in Eclipse, which, quite surprisingly made me laugh. Kudos to the screenwriters, here.

I’ll be honest, I did enjoy this installment moreso than New Moon, but still not as good as the oh-so wonderful first film.

Lovely film, there were some really bad, stupid moments which made me want to murder everyone in the theatre.

5.5/10

Kazed.

Love it.

Kazed