Tag: Rodrigo Santoro

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Movie Review: The 33 – A Grueling Watch, But In a Good Way

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Ok, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Antonio Banderas in a serious movie, not one that immediately comes to mind. But here’s something amazing.

Dude can act.

The 33 is the story of the 33 mine workers trapped 200 stories below the surface in a Chilean mine cave in during 2010. The men were down there for 69 torturous days. While an exciting premise, this is more of a movie about relationships than it is about the rescue effort.

I will admit it’s a grueling watch, but in a good way. Banderas brought a level this character that I didn’t even know he was capable of. I think the acting was quite well done in this movie, and Banderas really led the way with a strong performance.

One major problem I have with this is the score. While written by the late, great James Horner who performed amazing scores like the one for Titanic, this one was just too doggone overpowering for the movie. This isn’t a beautiful movie. It’s not about the visual effects of the scenery and I felt the score came on too strongly and really didn’t match the story.

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Also, despite the fact that the story is about the Chilean mine workers, it also brings in their families, showing their wives praying and fighting with politicians for their freedom. While the women in this film put forth a good effort, I feel as though they cut back to them a bit too much, when they really could have just gone with the stronger story going on underground.

Another thing that threw me…this was supposed to happen in Chile, right? Then why are there so many white people there? While again. the acting was good, I really felt they went a bit to heavy handed on the white actors getting crammed into the script.

While this is a strong effort, I felt like three narrative lines were two too many. I think the film should have centrally focused on the miners and allowed those additional stories to take more of a back seat. The three different narratives become unwieldy and make a relatively simple, clean plot, seem messy.

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Despite that, this movie does deliver on its message of hope. I feel that it really did capture the essence of the original mine collapse story and did credit to their source material.

It’s a very good effort and worth the watch for the acting alone, though I strongly recommend bringing some ear plugs to the over the top score. I’m pretty sure not every spot in Chile has someone playing the Spanish guitar, especially not 200 feet below the surface. In that, this was a case where silence would have spoken louder and been far more dramatic.

This is a more cerebral movie than you’d expect. Despite the fact that the actions were dramatic, the movie isn’t so much about the drama as it is the relationships forged through the drama. It’s a strong effort and one of Antonio Banderas’ best performance.
WE GAVE IT: 4 Stars – Watch the Official Trailer and Official Movie Poster below!

4 stars

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Will Smith and Margot Robbie featured in new sexier ‘Focus’ Trailer along with 2 New Movie Posters

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As avid movie goers we love Will Smith and it’s been way too long since we had a movie that we could really get the full “Smith-ness” out of him. You know what I mean. Smith does his best work playing down to earth relate-able characters; A role which we have not seen him perform in quite some time. Even as Hancock, he was a super relateable. ‘After Earth, I could care less about and ‘Men in Black 3’ was a cheap, sloppy obvious money grab.

His latest effort, ‘Focus’ promises to deliver a whole lotta Smith, in the exact way we love him. He is funny, smooth, slick and adorably handsome. He plays the role of a con man aside the beautiful Margot Robbie, in a movie half filmed in beautiful Buenos Aires. What more can we ask for? I know, how about a decent script?

The script is written by Crazy Stupid Love directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. This by no means guarantees a good script. The pair has written Cats & Dogs, Bad Santa and The Bad News Bears so basically they are 1 for 3 in that regard (you can choose the 1 from the three listed). If Ficarra and Requa can half deliver, Smith and Robbie should be able to take even a mediocre script and make a decent movie with their sex appeal alone.

Here are two new posters and a new trailer to hold you over until the movie’s February 27th release.

[toggle title=”Official Synopsis”]Will Smith stars as Nicky, a seasoned master of misdirection who becomes romantically involved with novice con artist Jess (Margot Robbie). As he’s teaching her the tricks of the trade, she gets too close for comfort and he abruptly breaks it off. Three years later, the former flame—now an accomplished femme fatale—shows up in Buenos Aires in the middle of the high stakes racecar circuit. In the midst of Nicky’s latest, very dangerous scheme, she throws his plans for a loop…and the consummate con man off his game.

“Focus” is written and directed by Glenn Ficarra & John Requa (“Crazy, Stupid, Love.”). Denise Di Novi (“Crazy, Stupid, Love.”) is the producer, with Charlie Gogolak and Stan Wlodkowski serving as executive producers.[/toggle]

Enjoy!

focus Will Smith Margot Robbie Official movie poster

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Watch the Trailer: Will Smith’s ‘Focus’ looks Smart and Edgy, and also stars super Hot Margot Robbie!

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Will Smith aka Mr. 4th of July hasn’t smashed the box office in a long time. Although I’m a huge fan of his, he hasn’t had his good stuff since 2008’s under-rated ‘Seven Pounds’. Although he would never say it, Smith has a lot riding on ‘Focus’. Does he have the career longevity of Denzel or is he just another rapper turned actor?

‘Focus’ will be Smith’s first R-rated effort since ‘Bad Boys II’. The movie is directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, the duo who did ‘Crazy, Stupid Love’, but more importantly they also wrote the classic ‘Bad Santa’.

We also see the ridiculously beautiful Margot Robbie, who we probably saw last in ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’. Smith plays a con man by the name of Nicky Spurgeon. He takes Robbie’s character under his wing and doing so falls for her all while trying to pull off the biggest con of his career. If the trailer is any indication and if the studio handles promotions correctly, Will Smith will be Back. However we won’t have to wait until July. ‘Focus’ is set to release on February 27, 2015.

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Movie Review: Rio 2 (2014)

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300px-Rio_2_poster_it's_on_in_the_amazonThis is no Frozen or Lego Movie

stars

I was really excited for the release of Rio 2, as I was such a big fan of the original. I was actually the creepy adult in the audience, who went to see it without a kid! But I’m very disappointed to say, Rio 2 fell short of expectations.

In Rio 2, we are reunited with Blu (Jesse Eisenberg), and Jewel (Anne Hathaway). The two now have children and have just moved to the wilds of the Amazon, where they discover a large group of endangered birds. As Blu struggles to fit in, he comes face to face with the movies first villain Big Boss (Miguel Ferrer), who apparently hates endangered species and tree huggers.

First, if a child’s movie is going to have an adult style agenda, then they need to make it fun for the adults to watch as well. In the first Rio, while the movie did seem to focus on the evils of endangered specials smuggling, they didn’t cram the agenda down our throats. Rio 2 plays out like a very poorly researched ‘save the planet’ documentary with musical numbers and talking birds.

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The movie is visually stunning and the animators took full advantage of the beautiful colors and adorable animals. I guess if you watched it on mute, it might be ok.

The plot is recycled from the first movie. In the original Rio, Blu was a fish out of water, a pampered house pet living in the suburbs. In Rio 2, he is a less pampered city bird, forced to move to the wild.

Also, I don’t remember quite as many musical numbers in the first one. While a song or two can help jazz up a movie, it really feels like the script was padded with musical numbers because they didn’t have enough material.

The movie did have its cute points, like Blu using a nerdy fanny pack with a GPS to travel, but it really isn’t anything new. The freshness and the humor in the last one is gone in this one, and the entire movie feels like a series of musical numbers.

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The movie runs about 1 hour and 41 minutes. By my estimation, about 1 hour and 20 minutes were musical numbers, while the rest was just a bunch of jumbled plot points. There are too many things going on, and no one stops singing long enough to explain it.

It’s cute, it’s sweet and kids will love it. But it by no means stands out. This is no Frozen or Lego Movie. This is a recycled movie, with recycled characters, fleshed out with musical numbers. This is the kind of movie that you watch because your kids make you, and then forget about it.

Expect to see a Rio 3, and a Rio 4 and a Rio 5…This movie is a clear money grab, with producers trying to squeeze as much revenue and merchandising as they can out of the franchise. My guess will be the next movie will be a fish out of water story where Blu leaves the Amazon to go live somewhere else, where everyone will think he is a nerd.  Watch the official trailer below:

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Movie Review: 300: Rise of an Empire (2014)

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300-Rise-of-an-Empire-2014-Movie-Poster-600x886Worth the wait

Star Ratings

It’s been 7 years since 300 was released. This follow up is the much anticipated sequel, so let’s see now if it was worth the wait.

In 300: Rise of an Empire, Themistokles (Sullivan Stapleton) tries to unite Greece against an army of invading Persian forces. Complications arise, as these forces are led by mortal-turned-god Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), and Artemisia (Eva Green), the vengeful, yet incredibly sexy, commander of the Persian navy.

First, much props for creating a kick-ass bad girl evil villain. Artemisia is one part Goth and two parts Amazon, as she storms around, looking broody and crazy. At one point, she has a guy beheaded, then kisses the head, and then flings it away like it’s garbage. Eva Green is so much more than just a Bond girl, and she proved that in her bad assed interpretation of Artemisia. This girl villain was not just your standard leather wearing violent sex fantasy. She had a back-story and a good one at that. They developed the hell out of this character and made her truly three dimensional. No joke, she made the movie.

Ok, enough of my drooling over Eva Green.

Visually, the movie was gritty and gorgeous. The fight scenes were well choreographed and brutally gory, just the way I like them. The sepia-toning over the blood spilling was pure art in contrast and really captured the graphic novel feel of the movie.

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I don’t know if it was because Eva Green was so very good, or if the male characters weren’t fleshed out enough, but she really steals the show. In a ‘hero v villain’ war movie, I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to root for the hero.

But I was team Artemisia all the way.

Stapleton was no match for Green’s acting prowess and he came across as a cardboard advertisement for masculinity. He was hard to sympathize with as he really had no outstanding characteristics as far as I remember.

I also didn’t see the point of Xerxes’ character. He mainly just stood on the sidelines and watched Artemisia do all the work. The scene where he obtains his god like powers in a spa (not making this up) is just plain laughable.

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300 Rise of an Empire

The movie is a bloodbath that is a little bit gorier than it needed to be. I mean, I really don’t need slow motion blood spilling to let me know someone is dead. I’m pretty sure I could have worked that conclusion out on my own, especially considering the sword sticking out of their chest.

Weirdly, I actually liked the sequel way more than I liked 300. Of course, I probably liked it more due to the addition of Eva Green as Artemisia. I don’t know if you could tell this from reading the review, but I really, really thought she was fantastic.

Regardless, this is one hell of an entertaining movie. It’s currently sitting at number 1 in the box office, and I think it earned its spot. It’s not smart, it’s a little over the top gory, and it’s certainly not art. But it’s highly entertaining and is guaranteed to keep any action lover glued to the screen.  Watch the official trailer below.

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