Movie of the Week Catch Up: RIPD / Percy Jackson Sea f Monsters

Apologies, my movie blogs have been sparse. I had a few weeks when for one reason or another I missed my regulasr Wednesday movie trips with H, but I'm playing catch-up with these reviews, however brief.

Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters
Boring and formulaic despite having Nathan Fillion and Anthony Stewart Head doing just about as well as anyone could with their respective supporting roles. I quite enjoyed the first Percy Jacksion outing, so this was a bit of a disappointment, especiially since we went out of our way to find a movie theatre still showing it. Logan Lerman is personable enough but somehow failed to sparkle in this..

RIPD
Rest in Peace Department. A cop (Reynolds) makes a dangerous mistake, tries to correct it and the results are fatal. He finds himself assigned to the afterlife police department where his new partner is a crazy western lawman. Not as bad as it sounds. In fact, quite watchable for a Wednesday afternoon.outing, but the memory of it is fading fast. Ryan Reynolds is a bit forgettable, but Jeff Bridges adds a bit of sparkle to his role as the dead lawman. Kevin Bacon plays a convincing villain.

Movie of the Week: Ender's Game

Yes, I know some folks didn't see this movie because of Orson Scott Card's somewhar dubious politics, but I read the book before I knew anything about that and was curious - eager, even, to see the movie. It didn't disappoint.

Asa Butterfield, previously seen (by me at any rate) in Hugo, made an excellent Ender Wiggin. Fair enough the time span encompassed by the novel had to be compressed because 14 year old Butterfield essentially didn't age through the film, (though apparently he did grow two inches during shooting), but Ender learned his lessons, (life and tactical), essentially growing up through a series of lessons administered by Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford, who had a lot of screen time) and Mazer Rackham (Ben Kingsley). Briefly the Earth has had a very near miss, almost being wiped out by bug-like aliens (Buggers in the original books, but later changed to Formics.) and the current administration believes that the only way to defeat them if (and when) they return, is to raise a generation of children to be warriors and strategists. Is Ender the one they're looking for? Can they train him to be so ruthless that he'll put the fight before his humanity? Graff thinks he is. Ender is tested and pushed until he becomes what they need him to be and the film deals with the consequences.

If you've read the book you'll know where this leads. If not, no spoilers. Though it's thirty years since I tread the book it seemed to stick pretty closely to what I recall of it though the very end (I think) is taken from one of the later Ender books.

Well worth watching.

Movie of the Week: Gravity

Wow, despite not liking 3D, H and I decided to see this not only in 3D but at the Imax in Sheffield. Glad we had the Wednesday twofers, but even so it was fifteen quid with the 3D supplement and Imax prices. But it was well worth the money. Perhaps because of the size and proportion, the couple of 3D Imax movies I've seen have been much easier to watch than 3D on an ordinary sized screen.

This is a two-hander with Sandra Bullock playing the payload specialist on her first space mission and George Clooney the experienced pilot on his last. When when they are caught in a debris field from a satellite disintegration, the pair of them are left in a seemingly impossible get-out-of-this situation. The movie is all about what happens next. It's a linear story carried entirely by it's two excellent actors and the incredible third character - space itself. The conflict is in the human-versus-the environment scenario and if you think there's not enough plot to last for 91 minutes, then you'd be dead wrong. The time just flew by.

Only two actors appeared on screen (though there were some voices from Mission Control) however the art department and visual effects people were multitudinous. They did a fine job. It not only looked real, it felt real, too.

One of the best movies I've seen all year. Highly recommended. Go and see it while you still can.

Movie of the week: Thor - The Dark World

I've been looking forward to this for some time and it didn't disappoint. It's the second Thor movie, the third in which Thor has appeared and if I've counted correctly, the eighth in the Marvel Universe movies which converged with Avengers Assemble and are now diverging again to see various chareacters dealing with the aftermath.

Two years have passed since Thor's first outing to earth and Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) is somewhat pissed off that she missed out on his return during the fracas in New York (Avengers Assemble), but she's soon up to her ears in trouble when she discovers a gravitational anomaly, gets transported to another world and is infected by the Aether - super-weapon of the Dark Elf Malekith (an unrecognisable Christopher Eccleston) who intends to destroy the nine worlds so that the universe can return to its state of darkness. Thor, who has been busy pacifying the nine worlds since the rainbow bridge was destroyed and rebuilt is alerted to Janes disappearance and goes to the rescue, but no one knows how to part Jane and the Aether. The nine worlds will soon come together in a rare convergence and the boundaries between the worlds are becoming unstable. Malaketh makes his move and Jane is swept up into the fight as Thor goes head-to-head with the dark elves, recruiting Loki who has has been imprisoned since trying to take over earth

Chris Hemsworth makes Thor his own, (it's a role that suits him down to the ground), but Tom Hiddleston is superb as the untrustworthy and bitter Loki, driven by both sides of his nature.

Well worth seeing. Niote that there are two easter eggs in the credits, so you have to watch right to the very end.