In the Theatre with Kevin Murphy - Arthur - Warner Bros.

What does the word remake mean? It means a piece of work that was made a long time ago has been upgraded with different materials to suit todays standards. The tale of Arthur was the story of a billionaire playboy from the 1980s with a good sense of humour but a bad sense of morals. Dudley Moore one of the United Kingdoms funniest comedians portrayed this lovable idiot Arthur in 1981, which he received an oscar nomination for the roll. 30 years have passed and Dudley Moore's classic character has been reincarnated into a little accident tI like to call Russell Brand.

Arthur is a billionaire play boy who has no sense of self discipline or common intelligence and can't do anything without the help of his nanny and surrogate mother figure (Helen Mirren). When his real mother blackmails him into the engagement to a wealthy but bitter eyries (Jennifer Garner) Arthur decides to prove himself as a common human being by doing what everyone else is supposed to do once they turn 13 (he's 30) get a job. As time goes by Arthur meets and falls for a local leaving Arthur with the life that was handed to him on a golden platter and a life he can carve out on his own.

Booze and Babies are a dangerous combination. Wait let me re-phrase that Booze and thirty year olds who wont wake up and feel the coffee. There are three types of movies I hate; 1) Remakes that are second or third rate compared to the original, 2) Pointless sequels that never needed to be made. 3) Movies that make references to better movies in an attempt to be either stupid or make a quick buck (Friedburg and Seltzer Im watching you). The new Arthur is #1, It was immature childish, bold and boring, and It was one of the few times I actually wanted to walk out halfway through a movie, before I thought of how my rival Jesse would think of me if I took the cowards way out and walk out halfway through, so i stayed and much to my dismay HATED this movie.

I feel as though I am wasting my time writing a review about a movie I hated so I will make this one quick. Russell Brand was awful in this movie; everything I ever loved about Dudley Moore has been choked out as leftovers for this piece of mouldy uneatable bread. Jennifer Garner on the other hand I found to be a queen of all dominatrixes and although she did scare me a bit like any good villain should do I still thought she bored me to death because she never gives up and doesn't come up with any new dastardly plans.

The only thing I really liked about this movie was the great Helen Mirren. She has a very dry sense of humour that manages to keep this movie from hitting a complete rock bottom. If it wasn't for her I would have died watching this movie do to its sheer boredom.

If you wanna see this cheap unnecessary remake thats your call to make, but please watch the original first, it will be much more enjoyable.

My Rating: 1/4 Shamrocks.  

In the Theatre with Kevin Murphy - Source Code - Summit Entertainment

What happens when you combine thomas the tank engine with terrorist plans and a touch of some very bizarre time travel? You get Source Code, the high tech train ride that has you on the edge of your seat from when you get your ticket to when you get off at your station. I found this movie to be a mind bending adventure from start to finish and was not disappointed when I walked out while the credits rolled.

A decorated army pilot who served in Afghanistan awakens to find himself on a train heading for Chicago that is going to blow. After the blow Captain Colter Stevens wakes up inside a bitter cold chamber to find himself under there service of Source Code; a project that allows him to enter the last eight minuets of someone else's mind to prevent the accident. As he keeps going back to the 8 min he keeps learning more and that prepares him for the final confrontation.

It defiantly is an action and science fiction fusion that is in a class by itself. When these two genres meet, the action almost always overtakes the science causing the smart people in the audience to walk out expecting a movie with brains when what they got was explosions going off for two hours without a good enough explanation. Source Code, is actually a much better blend of the two because it is able to balance itself out without becoming overproduced or turning into a dull lifeless science documentary starring my old science teacher from high school.

The theme of Source Code is repetition. Most of the time whenever repetition happens in fiction and sometimes non-fiction it wears itself out and people loose attention/interest very quickly. With a movie like this they do repeat themselves bu they do it in a way that it doesnt become boring or cheesy. Whenever they do it in this movie they showcase it so that the main character played by Jake Gyllenhaal is given a new motivation in the mystery ever time he makes a mistake and has to go back.

Speaking Jake Gyllenhaal, I really like him as an action star. He is very smart, young and full of energy. His intelligence makes him very gifted in crafting together something smart and suspenseful for the audience to see without turning it into a boring two hour Tom Cruise movie.

My only complaint about source code was that I found it to go a bit under the line for an action/science fiction film when it came to the length. An action movie usually runs for at least two hours (more or less) and I thought they could have added a bit more to the story but I still thought it was a good enough movie.

Source Code is a great movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. I enjoyed it, my fellow critics enjoyed it, my friends enjoyed it, my dad enjoyed. So see it its a really good action film.

My Rating: 3.5/4 Shamrocks

In the Theatre with Kevin Murphy - Sucker Punch - Warner Bros.

Hot babes with ammunition. Is this how I wanted to spend my tuesday night when all my homework was finished. Maybe on a friday night at a club down in Clifton Hills, but for tuesday cheap nights at the movies, sure why not. Sucker Punch, from the high head that brought us 300. It's about girls trapped in the harsh prison that calls itself a mans world or reality as some extremists would put it. Did I hate Sucker Punch; No. Did I love Sucker Punch; No. While some of my rival critics have disliked it to a high degree I on the other hand went into this movie with high hopes but came out neutrally.

A girl with no name known only as baby doll played by Emily Browning is sent to a mental institute for girls by her tyrannical step-father so he can get all her money after the death of her mother. The asylum is run by a corrupt business man who exploits the girls in the institute to wealthily and vile fat cats, for extra money. When her therapist tells her to that her mind can escape to its own world she meets a mysterious man in her mind who tells her of 5 things that will allow her to escape her physical prison, Baby Doll teams up with her cell mates to escape their living atrocity that is reality.

Coming out of this movie from a mans point of view you get the feeling that they are being very sexist towards men, when the movie was in itself directed by a man. This man Zach Snyder seems to be a metaphor for a very overproduced movie that has no end to its pointlessness and no beginning for its raw confusion to start with. Pretty much all of the females characters in this movie didn't really convince me as characters until or before a moment of severer crisis, the prime example being the lead female. Our collection of male characters on the other hand I found to be far too brutal and dark for a PG13 movie and their attitude (especially from the main antagonist) is far more suited for something like a NC17 movie. I found this battle of the sexes to be a very dull and unconvincing war with no clear winner in sight.

The first fantasy scene of the movie made my brain feel very numb and once it was finished I was like “how much more is my mind going to rot, I gotta find a good book.” So although my mind did rot at each of these fantasy sequences they did get progressively better. The best one being with a ferocious dragon who I wouldn't want to mess with.

On the positive side their were a few things i did like about it. Item 1: It has incredible visual effects such as the dragon I mentioned in the last paragraph, but the problem is they seem to rely on this a bit too much in favour of a visually appealing film instead of a film with a good story. On the subject of man vs woman this is the showcase of the film and thats how it goes from start to finish and the movie plays the message of man vs woman good but it seems to play it a bit too well for fiction. Perhaps my favourite character in this movie is the one man who is on the side of good. He's smart, funny and a great deal of help to anyone in need in the movie and his wisdom is what saves this movie from getting less than a 1/4 shamrocks.

So a movie like Sucker Punch is not a horrible movie in my opinion, its ok. My main rival in movie reviewing on the other hand hated Sucker Punch with a capital H, but I was a bit for merciful with it by giving it a small chance to prove itself. To me it didn't prove itself but I still thought it was satisfying to rent from the video store but not enough to see on the big screen and defiantly not enough to see in Digital 3D. Its worth a trip to the video store that all i have left to say.

My Rating: 1.5/4 Shamrocks.  

In the Theatre with Kevin Murphy - Limitless - Relativity Media

Bradley Cooper looks like he came out of nowhere with the 2009 blockbuster hit the Hangover. True he was in a lot of movies before that but a movie like the Hangover is what really caught peoples attention. And now we are introduced to something as divine and abstract as Limitless. The tale of a man who tries a new type of drug that makes him feel like he is on top of the world only for him to go so high, he hits rock bottom.

A struggling writer Eddie (Bradley Cooper) is having a hard time focusing by not meeting his deadlines for his novel and missing out on rent. When his ex-brother in-law presents him with a new type of drug that lets him access every corner of his brain. At first this is really good for him as be becomes smarter and richer at the same time. However the side effects quickly kick in and it appears to be more than Eddie can handle.

For decades now we have seen movies, tv shows and read books about the cautions of doing drugs and the dangers of over using them. Sometimes its too much of a good thing and it backfires on you at some point in the future or its too much of a bad thing and it back fires on you from day one. To me you have to watch this movie all the way through to decide whether trying this drug or not good or bad for a person. Personally I don't do drugs and the only drug I evan bother to try is alcohol when Im relaxing. Eddie our centre of attention proves this drug is bad but the only way to really prove if something is bad is to do it yourself and acknowledge what you've done.

Bradley Cooper makes a really convincing addict, so much that If you watched one of those reality shows on A&E you would have a hard time telling which is real and which is fake. I actually found his performance so convincing that it makes some of the drug jokes on Family Guy look evan more cartoonish and childish than they actually are. Apart from Cooper the supporting cast consists of the poised, profound and powerful Robert DeNiro. As always DeNiro comes off as a smooth talking professional in whatever he does; from loan sharking to stiller stalking. This makes him very convincing character in Limitless as he himself both helps and destroys Eddie as the drug sinks deeper into him.

The movie is a bit too fast paced and at the same time you feel as though it will never end. At about one hundred minuets into the movie I was just hoping for it to end so I could get home, write my review and then go to bed so I could wake up, cook some eggs for breakfast and then off to class. Despite this I still liked Limitless for its intensity, action and message for too much of something. Its not my favourite movie of the year but its still enjoyable enough to see on the big screen.

My Rating: 3/4 Shamrocks.  

In the Theatre with Kevin Murphy - Red Riding Hood - Warner Bros.

In todays modern world there are two types of fairy tales; there are the ones that were read to us at bedtime every night by our parents, featuring lovable characters that little kids would love. The other is the one teenage girls can't get enough of, the one featuring hot young bad guys/anti heros fighting Wight some other guy to win the heart of the either not so pretty or pretty dumb heroine. Can you guess which one Red Riding Hood is? If you guessed the first one you are correct; A hundred years ago. The new Red Riding Hood is another pale, dry and childish teenage girl dream that makes me evan more anticipated for something much better.

In the retelling of the famous folk tale young Valerie (Amanda Seyfried) is constantly stalked by the mysterious “Big Bad Wolf” who plagues the town. In every attempt to capture and kill the wolf he is always able to escape and take at least one taste of human blood. However the presence of Valerie gives the witch hunter Father Solomon (Gary Oldman) the idea of unmasking the wolf as she does not scream in terror in the wolfs presence.

I am not a teenage girl and Im glad Im not because evan if i was i wouldn't enjoy this movie because Im too smart and too manly for it. Red Riding Hood is a disgrace to our childhoods because it takes every good and care free memory of all those stories we loved and warps them into a teenage girl fantasy about sex, darkness and more winey unlovable teenage sappiness. The reason they made this movie seems to be very clear. Its not about going to visit grandma and getting attacked by a wolf. Its about getting the ultimate thrill with the bad guy which is what I thought, but when I saw the ending I was about too throw up and vomit on the movie theatre floor. Im not going to tell you why because its just too sickening

For most of this movie I wasn't on the edge of my seat because I knew bluntly well what was going to happen next and for most of it I was bored out of my wits until the climax when I suddenly gained more interest. On the plus side though the movie does have a good opening sequence that is beautifully shot with great cinematography and as said before the ending has a good twist.

But still this movie is just plain awful, that is all I can say. Its a sappy retelling of a classic children's tale that made me want to cry out in pain. Tis movie (as they say on tv) sucks.

My Rating: 1/4 Shamrocks. 

In the Theatre with Kevin Murphy - Rango -Paramount Pictures/Nickelodean Films

Fuzzy bunnies, cute duckies talking ponies subliminal messages targeted towards teenagers; maybe you'd find those in a magical disney movie but in Rango defiantly not. The new Johnny Depp dark comedy animated film directed by Pirates of the Caribbean's Gore Verbinski that hit wit, humour, adventure and heart and a solid thumbs up from me.

A lizard with no name is abandoned in the desert and travels to a small town inhabited by talking animals like himself. Upon entering a bar he makes himself out as a rough traveler with the allies Rango through his talent of improving. When he accidentally kills a hawk that threatens the natives Rango is appointed town sheriff and his number one priority is to find out why the town has been without water for so long and protect it from outside bandits before the public and two native girls that like him find out that he is not all he is cracked up to be.

An instant A, Kids and Adults
will love this witty film

For the first wee bit of the movie i was bored and the movie got on my nerves because it had bad acting but once Rango arrived at the main setting of the film I warmed up to it since we got to see more of who this character is and who he is trying to turn into. Once the movie maid a better leap in story i got to know Rango and Johnny Depp's position as the reluctant reptile who is trying to make himself as a someone in a town of strangers when he is to the outside a nobody. His sense of improve gets him out of every situation, yet at the same time can get hims tuck back into a bigger problem. Isla Fisher and Ned Beaty were also really good to the story as they added much more development to a dry story that was filled with conflict and made it spring into a puddle of boiling water that I loved.

Bill Nighy who worked with Depp in Dead Man's Chest (2006) and at Worlds End (2007) showcases the same chemistry he showed with Depp in the Pirates series, in fact it's almost the same with Nighy on top and Depp on the bottom. Although Rattle Snake Jake was really cool i still thought the chemistry was a rip on Verbinski's last series.

The animation for Rango is incredible. And what makes it really incredible is its realism that Pixar is still trying to get closer to everyday and Dreamworks isn't evan close to getting. The backgrounds of the movie are very authentic and the scenery of the village evan captures a live-action western. Evan the animal characters themselves have great realism in them because they look so much like their real life counterparts. But the problem is sometimes this realism takes you away from the fact that you are supposed to be watching a animated film, especially when they showed humans, which i think they should have shown from the waste down only or not include humans at all in the film. But still the realism of the animation makes the movie evan more worthwhile to see.

The western film is perhaps the birthplace of action films starting with the Great Train Robbery (1905) moving up to a piece of garbage like Jonah Hex (2010) This isn't primarily an action film but it is still a good example of western film because it implies what a western is about; courage, adventure and getting the girl away from the big threat to the town. It's also not afraid to show the gore of the film since it showcases the dead and injured and gets away with real firearms in the movie (something computer films arnt well known for doing).

Rango is a good film. Its a lot darker than your average animated films but thats ok, sometimes kids need something dark to teach them how tough it is out there in the real world. And Rango has a lot more maturity and realism than most animated films these days. Rango you are one cool lizard.

My Rating: 3/4 Shamrocks

In the Theatre with Kevin Murphy - Unknown - Warner Bros.

Liam Neeson is one of my favourite british actors, and one of my favourites that isn't in the Harry Potter films that is still alive. He's been in a lot from Schindler's List (1993) to becoming a master of the force in the Phantom Menace (1999). Well in Unknown you can call him a phantom menace as he plays a Doctor in a country where nobody he knows, knows who he is and I say that this phantom makes a really good film.

Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) and his wife Liz goes to Berlin, Germany for an important conference. After realizing he forgot his brief case at the airport he returns to get it but on the way he gets in a brutal car crash causing him to lose his identity. When he finds his wife four days later she is with another man who assumes his identity. His anger collides with his confusion to discover what is wrong with him and this leads him on a wild chase across Berlin to find out what the hecks wrong with him.

You will be on the edge of your seat
 from start to finish. Its really cool. 

I really liked this movie, the plot had many twists to it and it kept you guessing up till at least 20 min before the climax which in itself is pretty epic. The opening to the film is really good and when compared to the ending proves that Liam Neeson is a great actor, since he really gives you a run for your money. As I said in the opening of this review he has been a lot; from his academy award winning performance in Schindlers List, his role as Qui Gon Jinn in Star Wars episode 1 and evan brief guest appearances on the Simpsons and Sesame Street, Liam Neeson has proven himself to be an actor who can step into any shoes and take on a new challenge regardless of its size. Evan though he has done thriller films before the shoes he's in are new and fresh for audiences to see.

If a movie is set in a non-fictional place it has to be filmed in that non-fictional place. In this case its Berlin, one of the worlds most famous cities and the capital of one of the worlds leading powers.Berlin having been the site of some of the epic moments in European history is the setting for this very epic movie. The way the director captures Berlin is really incredible from its unground, to its nightclubs and its war memorials this movie showcases the very best of Germany and how they use the city to their advantage in the movie is really incredible. Speaking of the director this is arguably Jaume Collet – Serra best movie he has ever made compared to the god awful horror movies he has made such as House of Wax and the Orphan. Unknown is arguably a much better film.

Their were two things I didn't like about this movie. The first is that this movie doesn't really seem to know when to give it a rest. Once the mystery is solved it seems the director keeps going with material that the audience doesn't need to know yet and would be better saved for later evan though that material is good. The other thing I didn't like about this movie was that they never give Liam Neeson a moment of one of his famous pause and think moments and this causes him to spit out his anger like an angry dog and I don't like that quality of Neeson when he is acting, he's much better when he's calm and thinking.

However I still liked Unknown. Liam Neeson has some really good moments in it, the acting from the rest of the cast is good and I thought Berlin was captured beautifully in this film. Unknown is a solid contender for a good action/mystery film.

My Rating: 3.5/4 Shamrocks