DREDD – REVIEW

DREDD – REVIEW

In 1994 Sylvester Stallone brought Judge Dredd to the big screen, in what was possibly one of the worst films in the decade. That film tarnished the name of Dredd, to the point that you wouldn’t believe that Dredd could actually be a good film. Well I’m glad to say that the 2012 reboot to this awesome franchise is DREDDFULLY… AWESOME!!

Dredd

Dredd was shot right here in South Africa, in both Cape Town and Johannesburg. The film smartly capitalized on the landscape merging both CGI and real aspects of the city to give us the gritty feel required for one awesome Mega City-One.

Dredd Mondo Poster

Now it goes without saying that Dredd wasn’t one of my most anticipated films for the year, but after watching it, it certainly looks like it will be in my Top Ten films for the year.

 Right now we live in a time that most films are getting rebooted or remade, and for the most part these sorts of films either succeed or straight fail. Dredd certainly proves to be one of those films that are a successful reboot, by giving us a us a awesome character, a good story and loads of blood and action.

With the comic book industry really flourishing at the moment, we have seen Hollywood really take these famous fictional characters and give them films that’s all about the characters origin story. We have seen it with Batman, Spider-Man, James Bond and soon Robocop, however Dredd goes against this overplayed fad and dives into its story headstrong giving us no inclination of Dredd’s past life.

Which was a breath of fresh air, the film dives straight into action, with unremorseful violence. In the first 10 minutes of the film we find out all we need to know about Dredd, which is that he is the law; his the police, the judge, the jury and the executioner, who can only live his life one way, and that way is THE LAW.

Dredd is a character that has no development, that doesn’t really make many wisecracks, he has one belief and he sticks to it, there is no swaying Dredd. For an actor it’s very easy to portray a character like Dredd wrong, but thankfully Karl Urban was a good solid choice for Dredd. Giving a very memorable performance for the actor even though his face was half covered for the entire film.

Urban certainly proves he has what it takes, as his versatility certainly shines through in this role. We would love to see him as Dredd once again in the future sometime.

Olvia Thirlby as Judge Cassandra Anderson and Karl Urban as Dredd

Olivia Thirlby plays Rookie Judge Cassandra Anderson, who is being assessed by Dredd as they have to battle for their survival in a 200-story slum against Ma-Ma’s (played by Lena Heady) gangs. Thirlby is a still a young actress, even though she has acted in a number of films already, albeit in smaller roles. This time in Dredd she is right alongside the star of the film, as Thirlby certainly holds her own. Thirlby proves to be the heartbeat of the film, as you run alongside Dredd and Anderson in this chase they in for their lives. Thirlby certainly does not get drowned out by a strong performance by Urban as she proves she has what it takes to be a solid pick for action films as well as provide a all round solid performance.

Lena Headey as Ma-Ma

Ma-Ma is the villain of the story played by seasoned actress Lena Headey, in a role that she could do with here hands tied behind her back. Headey is perfect in this role, which calls for a true villainous character that will push Dredd through out the film to his boiling points.

This film is truly the perfect way to re-introduce fans and general audience to Dredd in a big way, which will have you leave the cinema in sheer delight.

The film is kind of a love letter to real hardcore 80’s action films, like Robocop or the like. Dredd doesn’t pretend to be smarter than it is, all it does it play the story straight without over complicating it, and it keeps the film focused on one thing, Dredd and Anderson’s fight for survival. Its because of this straight played story that hits every turn and swerve just right, that makes Dredd truly worthwhile.

 Dredd is certainly not the perfect film but it hits all the right notes and it certainly is a blast to watch.

MY JUDGEMENT

8/10

SKYFALL (VLog)

SKYFALL VLOG: THE BOND WOMAN

Bérénice Marlohe, Daniel Craig and Naomi Harris

The 23rd James Bond movie, Skyfall, brings us new video blog as well featuring Naomi Harris and Bérénice Marlohe! You can watch it using the player below.

In Skyfall, Bond’s (Daniel Craig) loyalty to M (Dame Judi Dench) is tested as her past comes back to haunt her. As MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost.

Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Albert Finney, Ben Whishaw, Helen McCrory, Ola Rapace and Tonia Sotiropoulou co-star in the November 9 release.

Check out the newest, awesomest, sexiest VLog below!

ANT-MAN (Test Footage Re-created)

CHECK OUT THE ANT-MAN TEST FOOTAGE RE-CREATED BY AN ARTIST!!

For people who managed to get to Comic-Con, they would be the first to tell you how awesome the experience was. However this year Comic Con was a whole lot sweeteer as writer/director Edgar Wright finally gave audiences a little taste of his long gestating Ant-Man film, that he has been working on for Marvel for a number if years.

The clip the audience got to see, was basically test footage, with incomplete CG effects as such, which just illustrated how Ant-Man’s powers of shrinking and growing (we know what you thinking, those powers are pretty awesome!!) could be done effectively on the big screen.

The response from fans that have seen it was overwhelmingly good. As many described it, and spoke about how Wright actually managed to find a way to showcase Ant-man’s powers without making it look completely ridiculous.

Ewan McGregor as Ant Man facing off against Ultron - Fan Art

Now for the rest of us who were unable to attend this great event, the footage was never released to us. Instead we just had to read detailed descriptions of the footage and imagine just how awesome it was.

Now recently we have learnt that Marvel might be releasing the test footage soon with all the CG effects complete on the test reel.  However a fan and Deviant Artist (definitely the best site to find exceptionally good artist) has impressively put together a storyboard recreation of the footage that comes real close to what many described about the footage, and that a lucky few actually got to see!

The video was created by artist Samurai Jack:

Obviously this video lacks Wright’s effects, motion, and music, but for us fans that weren’t at Comic-Con it’s a bit better than reading a text description of the footage. 

Wright is currently gearing up to shoot The World’s End next month with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, but recent reports have suggested that the filmmaker may finally start production on Ant-Man in London next year for a possible 2014 release.  

THE BOURNE LEGACY - REVIEW

THE BOURNE LEGACY - REVIEW

The Bourne Legacy offers us life after Bourne, giving us a film that respects its predecessor while delving into a deeper conspiracy expanding on the foundations laid by Bourne.

Jeremy Renner and Ed Norton 

This film sees Jeremy Renner pick up where Matt Damon left off, as Aaron Cross, an Outcome agent, who finds himself on the run as part of the after math, that has occurred from Bourne’s adventures in the original trilogy.

The story certainly expands on the world of Bourne, raising interesting questions while taking us on quite an enjoyable ride throughout the film. However the film really suffers from an overindulgence of ideas, with unsatisfying story development.

The original Bourne trilogy did something beautiful in building a story that stretches over all three films, while each film brilliantly told a story that was indigenous to it. Each film stood extremely well on its own, while proving to be one of the best trilogies to date.

Legacy on the other hand feels like an introduction, with no real definitive climax

or end. The film does a lot to plant seeds about the direction the film could take but fails to take any direction.

Jeremy Renner's performance as Aaron Cross is quite different than what I expected, and in this case different was pretty good. Instead of playing Cross like a Bourne type assassin Renner brings his charm and charisma to the role, which makes him a easily likable character.

Rachel Weisz

Rachel Wiesz fills in as the love interest this time around as Dr. Marta Shearing, The film does well in setting up Shearing Cross as broken souls who need each other to keep each other alive. Calling her the love interest is somewhat of a wrong description of her character, as the film smartly keeps the story focused on the gravity of the situation these two characters find themselves in, instead of building up a romance.  Aided by a wonderful performance from Weisz, the biggest strength of this film is certainly the dynamic between Cross and Shearing, and their budding relationship.

Screenwriter Tony Gilroy, who penned the screenplay for every single film in the Bourne: Franchise, took over as the director this time around and his influence is certainly felt. Gilroy has certain panache when it comes theories, conspiracies and ideas in Legacy, but fails in steering the film into a satisfactory end. He shuffles the audience allowing at quite a comfortable pace, never losing the plot while throwing in a whole bunch of references to the larger picture.

This film certainly does well in character development, wonderful performances by an incredible cast, and expanding on the world of Bourne. Unfortunately the film fails in its ability to stand on its own, with a potential sequel on the horizon that just might include Bourne himself, this film might just be viewed as the perfect antidote before an exciting fifth entry.

Jeremy Renner and Rachel Weisz in Bourne: Legacy

With many questions left answered, and Cross's own personality, having Bourne back in the next film certainly seems as a no brainer. And if that film turns out to be a true classic as I expect it to be, Legacy might just be forgiven for all its shortcomings.

Legacy is clearly the calm before the storm, which is a promising fifth film.

Our Rating

6.5/10

VIN DIESEL’s MULTI-FACIAL

THERES MORE TO VIN DIESEL 

THEN JUST BEING A ACTION HERO

I recently came across this short film that Vin Diesel made a long time ago, before he was in any major film, called Multi Facial.

Multi Facial tells the story about the audition process that a guy is faced with in New York to try and land a gig.

Diesel as Riddick

This short-film was based on Vin’s own experience’s of the rough auditioning process he had to go through in New York, which ended with him NOT getting any major roles!

He took matters into his own hands and decided to make his own film, what he came up with was this Multi-Facial, which he produced, directed and starred in. He even provided the music for the film!

He made Multi-Facial with a meager budget of $3 000, shooting the film over three days.

This film would be screened at the Anthology Film Archives, where it received strong praise, Strong enough to get accepted into the 1995 Cannes Film Festival.

In 1997, Spielberg would receive a script by Robert Rodat, for a film called Saving Private Ryan (which released in ’98). Rodat first got the idea for the film in 1994 when he saw a monument memorializing those who were killed from the Civil War to Vietnam. Ever since then Rodat worked and reworked the script to get as close to perfect as he could.

Vin Diesel with Paul Walker and Dwayne Johnson in Fast and Furious 6

However in ’97 Spielberg watched Multi-Facial and liked Diesel so much, that he took the script and wrote a role specifically for Diesel.

Diesel would soon go on to voice the Iron Giant, a role originally intended for Peter Cullen the voice of Optimus Prime in Transformers (animated series as well as films). Something that still manages to surprise people today, and if you seen some of the behind the scenes footage of Diesel doing the Iron Giant voice, you certainly see that Diesel is capable of doing a lot more then just be your regular bad ass.

But in recent years with the success Diesel has gained thanks to his memorable characters Xander Cage, Riddick and Dominique Toretto, there are some that seem to think that Diesel is a one-trick action hero pony. But truthfully, Diesel is just servicing his fans at the moment giving us memorable stories of these characters that we love to see him in.

With what we seen and heard of Fast and Furious 6 as well as Riddick which both release next year, we excited to see Diesel in what he does best.

However I really want to see Diesel take on different type of character, and we might just see that happen sooner rather then later.  As not so long ago there was a rumor that has been floating around the Internet - which Diesel started himself - that has Diesel potentially playing Vision in the MCU. While many have voiced their approval, there have also been many that voiced their disapproval.

I for one think that Diesel gets cast as Vision that he could surprise a whole lot of people, as Multi-Facial, his own short film, still proves to be a convincing antidote to the nay-Sayers who believe Diesel can’t pull off.

With that take a look at Multi-Facial:

I’m excited to see what the Future holds for Diesel and the different type of roles he might pursue once the Fast and Furious franchise, Riddick franchise and the xXx franchise finally draws the curtain closed.

Let us know what you think of Diesel’s career and what would you like to see him in future, comment below!!

Should Vin Diesel Play Vision?

CLICK HERE TO SEE OUR STORY ON VIN DIESEL AS VISION