Rurouni Kenshin | るろうに剣心 [ Coming Soon - 29th Nov 2012 ]

This Post has moved to A Deviant View

Colombiana [ Movie Review ]

The Pitch

After the recent Star Trek, Zoe Saldana career is on the roll. Appearing in popular movies like Avatar and etc. But however, there isn't a movie that rest solely on her shoulder yet.

Enter Luc Besson, Olivier Megaton and rest of the folks from EuropaCorp. Crafting a movie about a female assassin who is seeking revenge for her parents' death for her, Colombiana might just be that movie that showcase whether Zoe Saldana got the ability to carry a movie all by her own.

The Plot

After witnesses her parents death at a drug lord's hands and escaping the drug lord's clutches, Cataleya seek vengeance by deflecting to the American Ambassador with an important computer chip that her father left her. In exchange for the information on the chip, the Ambassador arranged her to be moved to America. Half way through, she escaped once again and made her way to Chicago to look for her Uncle Emilio.

Her Uncle Emilio took her in and wanted to give her a normal life but Cataleya asked her uncle to train her as an assassin. Conveniently her Uncle Emilio had ties with the underworld and years later, Cataleya became a top notch assassin for her Uncle. She started leaving trademarks of cataleya (orchid) on her victims to attract her parents' killer. What she didn't expect was that she was putting her love ones as risk as she seeks vengeance.


The Perspective - Colombiana Movie Review

Colombiana is filled with over the top action sequences and scenarios that were aesthetically nice to look at but emotionally hollow and a little too convenient plotting. This movie utilize Zoe Saladana's body and looks well but didn't give her much room to showcase her acting nor did it give her character more substance so that the viewers could better remember her and this movie after the credits rolled. It's a wasted chance as female actress seldom gets the chance to headline a movie on her own and this blotch up might just had screw her chance of getting another headlining gig in the future.

Let's head back to the movie review and dissect what went wrong for Colombiana. The whole leaving her calling card at the assassinated victims to get to her intended targets was rather pointless as it didn't achieve what it was intended. Conveniently, she got the information by threatening some top management at the FBI and CIA. She could have done without the numerous assassinations to get the information she needed in the first place. It's also baffling that someone with links to the underground groups had no way of getting the information in a safer manner.

Colombiana was not the Nikita and Léon that I hoped for. In fact, it was more akin to the soulless and forgettable action flick Transporter 3 that Olivier Megaton had also directed. There's lots of bing bam boom and Zoe Saladana looked pretty hot but it's a pity that the plot was so flimsily connected together. Instead of wowing with the over the top setups, it made me lookout for plotholes and what could have gone wrong in the elaborate schemes. Colombiana wilted with poor handling and excessive enrichment. It's a pity because it had the potential to blossom into a beautiful work of art.

Horrible Bosses [ Movie Review ] ★★1/2

The Plot

For Nick (Jason Bateman), Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) and Dale (Charlie Day), the only thing that would make the daily grind more tolerable would be to grind their intolerable bosses (Kevin Spacey, Colin Farrell, Jennifer Aniston) into dust.

Quitting is not an option, so, with the benefit of a few-too-many drinks and some dubious advice from a hustling ex-con (Jamie Foxx), the three friends devise a convoluted and seemingly foolproof plan to rid themselves of their respective employers…permanently. 

There’s only one problem: even the best laid plans are only as foolproof as the brains behind them. 

(Plot Outline from Horrible Bosses Facebook Info)

The Perspective 

The irony of Horrible Bosses was that there weren't enough Horrible Bosses. Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston and Colin Farrell were the better parts of the show and yet there wasn't enough of them nor were they effective in their limited screen time.  

Kevin Spacey who is replaying the role of a nasty boss wasn't in his A game here. He is still a psycho mean spirited boss but this rendition here really pales in comparison to his performance in Swimming with Sharks. Jennifer Aniston and Colin Farrell were commendable for taking on roles that were a departure of the types that we were used to see them in. But it wasn't really that good either and they got way too little screen time to expand on their roles.

It's a shame because the three bosses could have been funny as hell but were left under utilized and didn't have the time to shine.

Instead we get a movie that focus on three subordinates who were trying to kill their boss for a better life. Their madcap adventure felt like a desperate attempt to copy the success of The Hangover movie (the original one). There's the sensible one, the sex manic and the stupid one. It felt rather generic and predictable throughout.

Jason Bateman felt like he had not stepped out of his character from Arrested Development. Jason Sudeikis as the horny guy who gets laid easily felt like a desperate attempt to incite laughter. But they were bearable compared to Charlie Day.

Charlie Day was simply annoying as the stupid one to turn down the sex offer by his boss. I couldn't relate to his character and it felt like he is going against the law of nature on this one. It certainly made the matter worse when his voice was so whiny and it gets tiresome to watch him play dumb.

Well but humour is subjective. What might not be funny for me, might make people laugh out loud. There are some folks in my theater that were consistently laughing hysterically at bits that I thought wasn't that funny at all. In fact I found the humour rather formulaic, kinda forced and too juvenile to my liking. Horrible Bosses did cause me to chuckle once or twice (at most) but hey like I said, humour is  subjective so watch it at your own discretion.

The Mechanic [ Movie Review ] ***

The term for Mechanic here does not mean one who uses tools to repair cars or other form of machinery. It has a more sinister meaning to it. The Mechanic refers assassins who fix problem through killing people and Arthur Bishop ( Jason Statham ) is one of the best "mechanic" around. Arthur's method would be to  make the assassination look like an accident. In his own words, the best jobs are the one that no one even knows that you are there.


Jason Statham look like he is just right fit for the role of a meticulous assassin. His tough demeanor helps to build a credible determination to carry out the task in any extreme circumstances. He also build a career playing professionals who are at the top of it's field (eg. The Transporter series). The opening sequence of Arthur Bishop performing a secretive assassination of a heavily drug lord was pretty good and we are off to a good start.


Then the movie introduced Harry McKenna (Donald Sutherland) and his son, Steve McKenna (Ben Foster) into the mix. Harry was Arthur's contact in the hitman agency and probably one of the few real friends that Arthur has in his line of work. Steve is the wayward son who couldn't hold down his job due to his disruptive behavior. After Harry's apparent death in a carjacking incident, Steve started to randomly hunt down carjackers in a desperate bid to avenge his father's death. Arthur reluctantly took Steve under his wings and trained him as an assassin. The catch here is that Arthur is holding onto a secret that is detrimental to his new partnership.

Ben Foster brings a sinister aura to his character as the apprentice with a grudge. It was fun to watch his character cutting loose as a wild cannon. It brings an entertaining contrast to Arthur Bishop's cool restrain killer with a secret to keep. It was also engaging to find out if Steve managed to find out the secret that Arthur has been keeping from him and what sort of actions would he take.

But once Steve appeared, the movie changed it's tone and abandon the meticulous killer's stealthy assassination angle. It was filled with loud gunfights, explosion and devastating fights. The type of loud mindless movies that would satisfy the general action flicks goer. With the increase focus on one action setup to the next, the plot gets progressively dumb down. Arthur conveniently found out that he had be betrayed by his agency and Steve conveniently found out the truth behind his dad's death.

Another problem with this movie would be how morally righteous with the protagonist. All the assassinated subjects are immoral individuals that could be the antagonist in a movie of their own. It takes away a certain ambiguity of a killer's moral stance and that made Arthur's character a little too bland. This movie would also benefit from removing the numerous assassination in this movie to focus on Steve's training to be a professional hitman or the rising conflicts between them.