Boxing Day Bash – Movie Reviews from modmove

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Boxing Day Bash
The annual Boxing Day movie feast presents Hollywood approaching the season’s end like it was a big fairy tale wedding with something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is the forth edition of what was once quite the wobbly franchise. Director Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Iron Giant) comes from a past of animation and his approach this time out pays big dividends. He paints the action on a suitably huge canvas while Tom Cruise and company get to do, well the impossible, turning the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai into their playground. Cruise is really starting to show his age, as the shirtless scenes illustrate but he is surrounded by a quality cast that provides beauty, Paula Patton, humour, Simon Pegg and right now relevance, Jeremy Renner. The action is relentless, completely unbelievable and utterly enjoyable.
www.missionimpossible.com

The Adventures Of Tintin is Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson’s new take on one of Europe’s most long running serialized characters, Tintin and is based on the popular comic books by Hergé (Georges Remi). The film was created using performance capture 3D technology where they sample actual actors motions and facial expression and use that as the basis for computer generated imagery. The technology has come a long way since its inception and other than the occasional dead looking ocular image is quite convincing. The film is surprisingly engaging for a CGI project and it’s a bold and fun adventure from beginning to end.
www.us.movie.tintin.com

The Iron Lady borrows a living character from the pages of history to provide Meryl Streep with her latest shoe-in opportunity for an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The American actor is very convincing as the elder version of one of the world’s most powerful women. The film also courts controversy by playing Thatcher as suffering from the early onset of dementia and Streep’s imaginary scenes with her long dead husband Denis (played with authority by Jim Broadbent) provides the film’s most emotional moments. It’s all an acting tour de force but never forgets its humanity.
www.theironladymovie.co.uk

Tower Heist is framed by a subject that has left many people very blue, the global financial crisis and crafts an escapist adventure that is populist in almost every way. The bad guy in the piece, financier Arthur Shaw played by Alan Alda gets his comeuppance by a rag-tag group of would be thieves led by Josh Kovacs (Ben Stiller) and a resurgent Eddie Murphy as small time hustler Slide. There is minimal nuance in any of the characters or their actions but that matters little as this crisply placed action yarn unfolds.
www.towerheist.net

These four films couldn’t be more different in content or style but they all share one thing, they all provide a great way to spend a few hours in a cool dark place with family or friends with no clean up afterwards.
Rob Hudson


also featured
Contraband Contraband is a continuing response to the question of where does a superstar film career go when the matinee idol good looks start to fade? Read more >> The Vow A film about a guy, Leo (Channing Tatum), trying to make his amnesiac wife, Paige (Rachel McAdams), fall in love with him again after a horrific car accident has ‘weepy’ written all over it. Read more >> Safe House I'm not a fan of Denzel Washington. I find him a bland performer who either struggles (or is unable) to stretch himself beyond his stereotypical bland, amiable style. He's too... nice. Read more >> Shame How do you connect with the disconnected? Read more >> Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a characteristically British film. Read more >> The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo The best thing about this American version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is that this is Fincher's version of Dragon Tattoo. Read more >> Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol After cutting his teeth on Pixar's The Incredibles, Brad Bird applies his ample talent and requisite enthusiasm for spy thrillers to live action in this, the latest installment in the foundering Mission: Impossible franchise. Read more >> Boxing Day Bash The annual Boxing Day movie feast presents Hollywood approaching the season’s end like it was a big fairy tale wedding with something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. Read more >> Puss in Boots When a franchise runs out of steam there is always the spin-off. Read more >> Attack the Block The alien invasion genre has been hit particularly hard of late with the likes of Cloverfield, District 13, Battle: Los Angeles and Aliens vs Cowboys, each one more mediocre than the last and culminating in the downright awful Skyline. So kudos to director, Joe Cornish, for at least trying something a little different. Read more >>


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