It’s 2009 and Fast and Furious is back. The cars, the music, the racing is all back including Dom Toretto. This Fast and Furious could well be called an interquel as it’s set 5 years after the first movie but before the Tokyo Drift movie. Apparently Vin Diesel wanted to make a proper movie and the best time to set it was after the first movie instead of faffing around with the story lines from the latter two movies.

The movie starts how it means to go on with a high octane snatch and grab of fuel. Dom and Letty are still together with a new group containing some new characters and Brian isn’t far behind. After the snatch and grab Dom realises he needs to cut away before the whole team are taken down by the cops and leaves Letty with the gang.

Dom and Brian end up crossing paths in LA and briefly fight each other before realising they are about to fight a common enemy. During the explosive plot the duo are together till the end with plenty of woah and holy crap high speed moments. I had heard there was a lack of cars in the film however I believe there were just enough to keep the story on track and the film entertaining unlike some of the previous films where they dragged.

An all round good movie if you’re into the Fast and Furious series.

If you’d like to see the trailer before buying your tickets, head over to Moovees (one of my sites where I collate film trailers).

The Fast & Furious OST is pretty good and the tracks are featured below;

1. Rye Rye – Bang (feat. M.I.A.)
2. Busta Rhymes – G-Stro
3. Kenna – Loose Wires
4. Pitbull – Blanco (feat. Pharrell)
5. Pitbull – Krazy (feat. Lil Jon)
6. Pitbull – You Slip, She Grip (feat. Tego Calderon)
7. Shark City Click – Head Bust
8. Pitbull – Bad Girls (feat. Robin Thicke)
9. Don Omar – Virtual Diva
10. Tasha – La Isla Bonita
11. Pitbull – Blanco (feat. Pharrell)

Operation Valkyrie or (Operation Walküre)  as it was also known was an operation developed for the Reserve Army of the German Army. The plan was approved by Adolf Hitler himself unknowing that it was in fact a plan against himself. The original Operation Valkyrie before Claus Von Stauffenberg rewrote it was intended to be used in the event that Allied bombing of German cities resulted in a breakdown in law and order or an uprising from the millions of forced laborers working in the German factories.

FROM THE OUTSET

The first six minutes of the movie which you can watch courtesy of Apple make you sit back in your seat for what you expect to be an intense 1hr 30 minutes of your life. There is nothing better than secret wartime plans, plots and assassination attempts to get the heart racing but when it boiled down to it my heart didn’t race nor was I sat back in my seat for long.

Whilst this was a blockbuster movie it was more of a history lesson for the people in the audience who didn’t know much about this particular poignant piece of our history. It was after all the last ditch attempt to oust Hitler from power and stop the rest of the SS and Hitler loyalists from taking over and carrying on where Hitler had been.

IT WAS OK… JUST

The movie was just ok, it didn’t particularly go much further than OK. The cast were very good and every member had been specifically placed and suited to each character. Tom Cruise was very good and definitely suited his role best, and further reading on Claus von Stauffenberg shows just how much Cruise had likened himself.

What more can I say? I’m looking forward to Underworld: Rise of the Lykans.

Will Smith plays Ben Thomas, an IRS Agent with a secret who starts a journey of redemption by changing the lives of others.

Listening to Radio 1 a few mornings ago, the whole team were stating that Seven Pounds would have you crying like a small girl even if you were the manliest of men. Whilst there were a lot of people leaving the movie in tears (mostly middle aged women I might add) I just couldn’t understand why people thought it was so sad. I thought it was a pretty boring movie, I nearly fell asleep in parts and to glorify a subject which the movie follows thoroughly annoys me!

Factually I am not sure if half of the things in the movie could medically happen, it’s increasingly difficult to like a film when you can’t actually believe the story never mind agree with the subject matter.

I hope Will Smith gets back on track soon with his movies as the past 3 or 4 have not been worth the money spent on them.

I’M NOT GOING TO SPOIL IT FOR YOU

I’m certainly not about to create a spoiler as it could be so easily done and you’ll probably know the outcome of the movie within ten minutes of sitting down but I’d like you to make your own judgement. The review could have been so much better if the movie wasn’t so obvious in its plot.

Valkyrie is the movie I am looking forward to and fingers crossed its a whole lot better than some of the movies I have seen recently.

A film by Baz Luhrmann, the guy I knew best for creating a song about sun cream…

Starring Nicola Kidman and Hugh Jackman, Australia is an epic movie with a romantic twist yet with action and adventure throughout. Set in the time that Australia was about to feel World War 2 at home, a posh Lady from England (Nicole Kidman) travelled thousands of miles to find out what her Husband had been doing with their foreign business.

Arriving she finds out some tragic news and needs the help of a local man called Drover (Hugh Jackman) to keep the business afloat and out of reach of the largest cattle company profiteer in Australia. Together with her new family and new found love, they travel across Australia to Darwin just as the Japanese Air Force are bombing Pearl Harbour. Their journey is treacherous but the adventure doesn’t stop as the Japanese then head towards Australia and launch a bombing campaign on Darwin. It’s an extensive adventure in the land of Oz!

SURPRISED

I hadn’t rushed to the cinema to go and see Australia, in fact it was purely pot luck that I ended up seeing it at all. Typically there was nothing else on at the time that I wanted to go. I checked out a couple of reviews which said that Australia was an epic fail rather than an epic which didn’t have me rushing off my seat anymore to get there. It was the only movie on so I wasn’t going to see anything else and the real movies I want to see aren’t out for a week or so. Jennifer really didn’t want to see it.

It started at 1pm, we walked out at 3:55pm almost 3 hours later. Granted I moved around in my seat a little just so I didn’t turn to stone but I wasn’t bored. Not once. I thought the movie was going to end a couple of times but it carried on going. It seemed to add on chapters of a story where you would usually find the movie stopped and followed up in a years time. It was a terrific story from beginning to end, it was a moving story even if it was partially a love story.

HISTORY

There is a lot of history in the movie, a lot of it I didn’t know much about. Being a bit of a history geek I enjoyed learning more than the normal cinema gower but putting that to one side the story wasn’t affected by it.

It’s a long story but I’d watch it again and may possibly hit my DVD list.

The beginning of the movie is somewhat unclear as it starts in the 1920′s with Keanu Reeves climbing in the Indian Mountains where an “orb” lands. Some kind of  abduction takes place, and Keanu Reeves is left on earth. The next scene sees Helen Benson, the scientist, receiving a phone call from the government where she is then transported to the local HQ for what the government think is going to be the end of the world. They enlist her help to try and find a way to aid them however quickly realising the end of the world is not so near as an “orb” lands and the real story starts.

THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT

Klaatu arrives back on Earth to help it, which through 75% of the movie is hard to believe. Gort, a giant indestructible robot walks from the “Orb” at the beginning of the movie and shuts down the entire gathering of the US Forces on the ground, he then proceeds throughout the movie to deliver a dust storm which eats through anything and everything.

To rid the world and start afresh is the only way to save it. Gort and Klaatu are on Earth to save it from the human race who in their eyes are intent on destroying it. John Cleese has a short role in the film as a Nobel Prize Winner who understands and reasons with Klaatu to give the human race a chance and help us/them to change and save planet Earth.

WAY BETTER

I had mixed feelings on going to see the movie. I had a feeling it was going to be an all looks and no show movie whereby its a lot worse when you put your butt on a seat. How wrong I was, the entirety of the movie was intriguing with awesome visuals throughout. Reeves and Connolly play very good parts however I believe the star of the show was Jaden Smith who played Jacob. For a small kid he certainly put in a massive effort with the movie adding emotion where it wouldn’t have been.

It’s definitely a must see movie this December.

Lakeview Terrace is the new home for two new home buyers, Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington. They become the target of their deranged new neighbour played by Samuel L. Jackson, an LAPD officer who is so odd he should be in a padded cell.

Jackson takes it upon himself to be the all seeing eye of the neighbourhood and involves himself way to much in the daily running of peoples lives and especially his new next door neighbours. A constant pain in the newlyweds lives with constant harrasment and directed hate to them being a mixed race couple. In the end Wilson and Washington fight back.

I WANT MY TWO HOURS BACK

I should have known from booking the movie which was the smallest showing room that this wasn’t going to be exciting. The most painful thing apart from losing a good 2 hours of my life to an awful movie is that now I feel let down by Samuel L. Jackson. When actors take part in rubbish movies which aren’t going to take the world by storm they’re clearly needing some extra cash for Christmas. I never thought Jackson would have done this but he clearly has. The movie seemed utterly pointless and is a MUCH worse version of Denzel Washingtons ‘Training Day’.

There isn’t much to say really, it was quite possibly one of the worst movies I have ever seen.

Following on from my christmas movie list for 2008 I had a number of concerns that the one Christmas orientated movie had Vince Vaughan in it considering that Fred Claus was such a let down. I’m not a massive Vince Vaughan fan to start with and only class his movies as mediocre to say the least. Reese Witherspoon wasn’t the first actress to come to mind for a comedy Christmas movie but ho hum, you can’t get everything.

I had to go into the movie with an open mind as Four Christmases couldn’t possibly be worse than the Fred Claus Movie.

FOUR CHRISTMASES?

Vince Vaughan and Reese Witherspoon are an unmarried couple who like nothing better than getting away at Christmas. This Christmas they find themselves shacked up with all of their divorced parents having to go through four different Christmas celebrations.

Within 5 minutes of the movie starting I was literally rolling around my seat laughing my ass off and so was the rest of the cinema. If anyone didn’t break out in laughter in the opening thirty minutes of the movie they either lost their personality at birth, were asleep or completely dead. It was opposite to everything I thought it would be, it wasn’t one of those corny Christmas comedies where you feel like you have to laugh just to get you through it, it actually made my sides hurt on multiple occasions.

A BIT DIFFERENT

I’m not usually one for comedy movies to start with and usually go for the more serious action styled movies but I am honestly glad I went to see Four Christmases. Somehow Vaughan and Witherspoon managed to pull off a movie together, in fact Witherspoon should get as much credit for the humor as much as Vaughan as they were both superb.

For comedy value the movie gets 9/10 in my opinion and its a must see for a good laugh this Christmas.

I Am Legend was different, it was a 1/2 and 1/2 in my eyes. It wasn’t fantastic but it wasn’t bad either. I never reviewed Cloverfield in the end as I simply didn’t know what to say, it was all a bit strange.

Christmas 2008 is going to have some great movies. I’ll be reviewing as many as I can as I’ve started booking tickets now.

Four Christmases

Four Christmases is another movie with Vince Vaughan in it, god help us all! There is a possibly chance this might be a bit better than the Fred Claus movie or at least I’d like to think so.

Vince Vaughan and Reese Witherspoon are an unmarried couple who like nothing better than getting away at Christmas. This Christmas they find themselves shacked up with all of their divorced parents.

The Day The Earth Stood Still

A remake of the 1951 classic film stars Keanu Reeves as an alien who comes to warn humankind of its imminent destruction. The trailers for this have me intrigued as I’ve never see the original or know what it’s really about. The effect in the movie look terrific. Definitely one to look out for. It’s apparently out in the UK on the 12th December.

Australia

Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman in wartime Australia. I saw the trailer the first time and thought it was a load of rubbish. I’ve seen 2 further trailers and my mind is changed, I can’t wait for boxing day to see how this one turns out. It does seem a bit Pearl Harbourish, hopefully it’ll get past that and be an awesome Christmas movie.

Seven Pounds

Will Smith and the rest of the Pursuit of Happyness team get back together to make another movie. This time around Will Smith is an IRS agent with a fateful secret who embarks on an extraordinary journey of redemption by forever changing the lives of seven strangers. Will Smiths last movie “Hancock” was a bit of a let down, but if this follows the same quality of Pursuit of Happyness I’ll be over the moon!

Looking Forward

So there we have it, in comparison to last Christmas it is a big change. We’re going to have some much better quality movies to look forward to. Look out for January though as we’re going to be in for some way better movies then. Two that I am definitely looking forward to next year are Valkyrie and Angels and Demons.