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Funnily enough, that's basically the real life explanation of what would happen between Katie Holmes and Tom's marriage and Scientology years later. Kubrick was a prophetic genius!
Jackie Chan is incredible in this film.
Edited: Great performance by James McAvoy.
Some of the dialogue was poor in the latter half of the film... Cinema is not good.
The greatest film ever made, lucky you :)
Great movie! So many good scenes to choose from in this, particularly the market brawl and the fight inside the punk's hideout.
This is the first Doug Liman directed film to come out this year, the second being American Made with Tom Cruise coming in September. This film is about 2 american soldiers (Aaron Johnson and John Cena) pinned down in a remote location by an Iraqi sniper at an unknown vantage point. It is visibly a very low budget film, as Cena and Johnson are the only 2 actors in the film, and it the entire 80 minutes run time takes place in the same remote location in the middle of the desert. The tension does not let go for the entire film, and I was surprised that Aaron Johnson (who is very high in the 'block-of-wood'-meter by @bondjames) could carry an entire film almost solely on his shoulders. I was really, really impressed in how the film ended. As far as single-location thrillers go, I thought this one really kept my interest the whole distance, and one where the ending didn't disappoint.
What a fantastic film! Gal Gadot was amazing as Diana, extremely beautiful and a total badass. There were also very charismatic performances from Chris Pine, Said Taghmoui, Robin Wright, Connie Nielsen - and was very surprised and happy to see Ewan Bremner was in this film (I had seen him a few months ago in Trainspotting 2). The beginning of the film at Diana's birthplace was an utterly mesmerizing place to see - epic in scope and colours. The action sequences were just super badass - especially the big battle in the WW1 trenches that continued in that small town. And the epic finale was pretty damn entertaining too. I heard they already confirmed a 2nd Wonder Woman solo film, with the same director returning, so I can't wait to see it already! And bring on Justice League too later this year!
I was in the mood for some vintage Wesley Snipes badassery. This hit the spot. John Cutter (Snipes) is a newly appointed anti-terrorism official at Atlantic International Airlines. He's still recovering from the death of his wife, which he arguably caused inadvertently.
He becomes the 57th passenger on a flight to Los Angeles. Travelling on the same flight is international terrorist Charles Rane (Bruce Payne). Rane is in the custody of the FBI, but he has shadowy accomplices working on board the flight. Soon after takeoff, his colleagues kill the law enforcement officials and spring Lane. The plan seems to be coming off like a charm, but they failed to prepare for one man.
This is a great action thriller from the 90's. It's quite dated, but is full of 'B' movie charm. Snipes is his usual butt kicking self and Payne is superbly unnerving as Rane. The film has no CGI, some great fight sequences and a young Liz Hurley as a flight attendant. If that doesn't turn your crank, I don't know what (or who) will. Recommended.
"Always bet on black!"
Crossovers. Endless debates have been held over whether they're a good thing or not. FREDDY VS JASON, ALIEN VS PREDATOR, ... And then Marvel came; and then DC; and suddenly multiple movies led to major "getting together" events, giving many fanboys and geeks a kind of pleasure only they understand. I should probably say "we", because I'm one of those fanboys and geeks.
Few fanboys and geeks--and critics--are aware, however, that crossover events in films aren't a recent thing. They may never have been this successful before, but lest we forget, the Universal Studio's already squeezed out a few of those in the 1940s with films such as FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN, HOUSE OF DRACULA and HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN. Dracula, Frankenstein's monster and the Wolfman pulled a "Freddy versus Jason" nearly six decades earlier. Had Universal been truly ambitious, and audiences truly hungry for more, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Invisible Man, the Mummy, the Phantom Of The Opera, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and who knows which other symbol of Gothic horror might have been thrown in the mix too. A Universal Monster's Civil War ages before Iron Man and Captain America would duke it out? A Horror League of Transylvania? Who knows?
But that proved a few steps too far. Even Hammer Horror, redoing Universal's monster runs in the 50s, 60s and 70s, kept all separate monster series precisely that: separate. With the current success of the multidimensional franchise projects, including everything from reboots, sequels, sidequels, prequels, crossovers, team-ups and whatnot, Universal most likely felt the time was right to try and deliver another Karloff-Lugosi-Chaney type of monster crossovers and bring the crossover back home so to speak.
But when some of the more recent Dracula and Frankenstein films failed to spark audiences' interests, Universal realised that it wouldn't be a walk in the park. Hence, a clean starting-over was announced with Universal's DARK UNIVERSE brand which, according to Wiki, has a fairly ambitious line-up of movies already worked out until well into the 2020s.
Where to start? THE MUMMY was chosen, perhaps for the best, since it would have probably been very tempting and therefore also very predictable to kick things off with Dracula or at the very least Frankenstein. But, again, given the lack of success of such films as DRACULA UNTOLD and the 2015 FRANKENSTEIN, an unexpected opener was probably a bolder yet also wiser move.
But wait. Didn't Stephen Sommers do some Mummy films back in the 1990s and early 2000s? Yes he did, and with modest success too. I distinctly remember being very impressed with THE MUMMY RETURNS myself (and not so much with what came afterwards.) But those films were theme park rides, amusing and safe Sunday afternoon adventure flicks which, by all accounts, were as much in debt to the Indiana Jones films as they were to the Karloff or Cushing/Lee films of old.
This new Mummy film is different, though at first I was unsure. It took me a few minutes to figure out if the film was going to turn left or right so to speak. Cruise at first felt like he was channelling Brendan Frasier and Sofia Boutella had some Patricia Velasguez going on. Then, however, the film turned dark fast and even more than that, started including little things from other iconic horror sources too (and of course I won't spoil those so don't ask.) Suddenly, Boutella became her own thing and in fact one of the hottest scary chicks ever seen on film. Marvellous CGI paves the way for a few awesome moments, but didn't overstay its welcome in the climax. Though never truly frightening, THE MUMMY remained a lot darker than Sommer's films and much more visually impressive too.
Now, understand that I'm a fanboy; what that means is, I can easily overlook flaws in favour of the grander crossover event, which I desperately want to happen no matter what. I have little trouble making myself blind to some obvious errors. For example, THE MUMMY sometimes confusingly mixes predictable jokes with dark elements, achieving success in neither of these departments. I'm also still not sure if Cruise tried to be Frasier's character from Sommer's films or Ethan Hunt or both. The final scene, after the climax, made me cringe even. Anyone who's seen INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUISADE will understand why. On a bad day, I might actually accuse the film of not being quite as original as it wants to be.
That said, THE MUMMY is very entertaining and I am intrigued to see what might happen next. Russell Crowe--and please don't look up his character's name if you don't want to be spoiled--feels like the Nick Fury of this film; I'm sure he'll be back for the sequels. And I'd love that too. I'd love for both Crowe to return and sequels to be made. I'm particularly interested in seeing what sort of Dracula they can give us in this DARK UNIVERSE.
Overall, I'm a fan of this film, but please remember, I'm also a fanboy. And a geek. I'm therefore an apologist, and maybe far more forgiving than THE MUMMY deserves. So I'll be interested in hearing your comments. :)
I really want to read your thoughts on THE MUMMY.
Meanwhile, I am very much counting down to WONDER WOMAN. But I'm going to have to be patient for two more weeks.
I'll tell you what is frightening though. When asked whether anything had been borrowed or inspired from Bram Stoker's The Jewel of Seven Stars at a recent New York junket for The Mummy, Kurtzman (the director/writer that needs to be blacklisted) admited he never knew about the book, and he confessed, “Now I have something to read. I'm going to remember that.” Note to Kurtzman, in future, if you are to continue with this Dark Universe thing, then maybe you need to do some proper bloody research before putting pen to paper. Big clue for Dracula is that it's another novel written by Stoker. Now you have something further to read.