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Scorsese’s back on the meanstreets

When Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) joins the Boston State Police Force he is coaxed into an undercover operation that aims at bringing down Irish mob boss Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). Since Costigan’s family has loose ties to the mob he seems to be the perfect choice for this delicate undertaking. Once accepted into Costello’s inner circle, he learns that Costello has at least one mole within the specialinvestigations unit, therefore making him extremely difficult to put behind bars. When several operations are foiled by the respective undercover players, suspicion and paranoia arise within the mob as well as the police force. With lives hanging in the balance and time running out, Costigan as well as Costello’s mole Colin (Matt Damon) desperately try to reveal each others identities.

After a short excursion into the historic biopic with The Aviator, Scorsese is finally back in his milieu. That is to say the streets and R-rated movie making. Scorsese, who famously announced that he would never do a remake, rethinks the 2002 Hong Kong thriller Internal Affairs and makes it his own. The trademark visuals and the occasional bursts of violence give this movie its edge and its tense atmosphere which already made Goodfellas and Casino outstanding movies. In his third collaboration with Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio gets probably the most intense role and delivers an absolutely staggering (and very mature) performance. It goes without saying that Jack Nicholson as well hits it out of the park as the deliciously twisted Frank Costello. Only Matt Damon seems to be struggling (at times) with working in the shadows of such incredibly talented (and experienced) actors. But this does not really affect an otherwise perfect movie. Being snubbed by the academy during the previous years we say Scorsese really needs to be given some recognition. In the form of a little golden statue.

The Departed is rated R for some really nasty language.

Fire and Ice

Dwight ‘Bucky’ Bleichert (Josh Hartnett) and Leland ‘Lee’ Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart), nicknamed Mr. Ice and Mr. Fire, are the best the LAPD has to offer. While the one is a hothead the other is the thoughtful, introverted kind of guy. When Bucky is promoted and designated to become Lee’s partner, the two become Hollywoodland’s most notorious cop duo. While on a routine stakeout, the two men get involved in a gruesome murder case, when the mutilated body of a young woman is found in the nearby waste ground. It turns out that she was an up and coming actress, famous for her jet black hair and a certain seductive naivety. Lee, whose little sister was killed in a similar fashion several yeas ago, feels very strongly about solving the case no matter what the cost. Consumed by his determination to apprehend the killer, he gets entangled in a web of lies, finally alienating his girl (Scarlett Johansson) as well as his partner.

After a long hiatus, Brian de Palma has finally come out of hiding. With movies such as Scarface and Mission: Impossible on his résumé, it is no surprise that his new movie has been anticipated a lot. De Palma’s films are usually double-edged swords and The Black Dahlia is no exception. This period piece, adapted from a James Ellroy novel, highlights the (not so) golden era of Hollywood through the real-life murder of Elizabeth Short. While the main storyline is able to keep your attention (it’s a murder mystery after all), De Palma too often drifts off into scenes that do not really advance the plot, making especially the first half a little bit tedious. The emphasis on the love triangle between Bucky, Lee and Kay would have been interesting and probably even necessary but the overall emotional coldness reduces these and a bunch of other scenes to merely beautiful pictures. But it is exactly in the latter that the movie excels. Soaked in a gorgeous golden dust, The Black Dahlia looks amazing. You can almost feel the joy that De Palma apparently has with all the technical wizardry that 21st century movie making has to offer. Incredible crane shots and a stunning staircase shootout are probably the most remarkable things in the picture. Now whether this is what you want to get out of a movie is a whole different question.

The Black Dahlia is rated R for some grisly, film noir violence and smoking throughout.

What’s your poison?

Sit back. Relax. Enjoy the fright.

With a movie title like this, a summary becomes somewhat redundant. Apart from the obvious, the story involves an eye witness (Nathan Phillips) who can testify against one of the FBI’s most wanted and Nelville Flynn (Sam ‘the man’ Jackson) is tasked to escort him on the red eye flight from Hawaii to LA. Once boarded, the deadly cargo is unleashed onto the passengers in an attempt to bring the entire machine down. So, yeah, for most of the time it’s motherfucking snakes on a motherfucking plane.

Some say this is tremendously stupid, others say it’s genius. In all fairness, it’s probably a little bit of both. Fans from all over the globe created such a hype around this movie that director David R. Ellis (Final Destination 2, Cellular) went back and shot several additional scenes just to satisfy those who helped making this an instant cult classic. The ridiculous story, the cheesy acting as well as trashy special effects make this an homage to the B-movies that infested cineplexes in the 1980s. On top of that, Snakes on a Plane has something a lot of movies nowadays lack, a clear message from the makers. In the case of Snakes this message is made abundantly clear: bring the audience as much fun as you can possibly cram into 90 minutes of film. It goes without saying that this is not everybody’s cup of tea, but for a lot of us, Snakes on a Plane is the unadulterated, R-rated fare that only occasionally comes out of Tinseltown. Plus, it got Sam Jackson who apparently signed on after just reading the title of the script and we really can’t blame him for that. So give it a try and enjoy the in-flight entertainment.

Snakes on a Plane is rated R for joining the mile high club.

The Heat is on (Miami Vice)

No Rules.

While on an undercover operation, Miami Dade detectives Sonny Crockett (Colin Farrell) and Rico Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) learn that there is a security breach in the Joint Inter-Agency Task Force. In order to identify the mole and apprehend the mysterious drug kingpin Archángel de Jesús Montoya (Luis Tosar), Sonny and Rico will pose as offshore dope smugglers and try to gain the trust of everyone involved in this ring of high-caliber drug traffickers. But things start to get messy when Sonny falls for Montoya’s girl and banker (Gong Li) and one of Montoya’s pawns (John Ortiz) begins to question the integrity of the new guys and takes Rico’s girlfriend hostage.

Even though it is based on the ever-so-popular 1980’s TV show, the movie version of Miami Vice has (thank God) not very much in common with its predecessor. The pastel shirts and flip-flops are gone and have been exchanged for designer suits and suave footwear. And not only has the look of the protagonists been cranked up a notch or two but rather the look of the whole movie. The entire movie has been shot digitally which allows for breathtaking visuals and the city of Miami has never looked this good after dark. Accompanying Mann’s visual style is his ability to tell crime stories in a highly realistic fashion. We get to know the characters through their acting and through what they say throughout the movie rather than through an awkward 5 minute exposition scene right at the beginning. Gun shots sound like gun shots and the R-rated language and violence make this a gritty and utterly compelling ride. If, however, you will watch Miami Vice as a summer action movie you will probably be disappointed. For the exception of two incredibly executed shootouts (nearly rivaling Heat’s bank heist shootout), Miami Vice is more thriller than it is action movie. On top of that, its pace and its looks are more arthouse than mainstream. That being said, Miami Vice is probably the most grown-up summer flick there is this year. (3.5 out of 4 Bacardi Mojitos)

Captain Jack is back

The last time we saw Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) he had reclaimed the Black Pearl and was sailing out into the seas, but not without a heading. Several years ago, Jack made a pact with Davy Jones, king of the seas. Jones gave Jack the Black Pearl and in return Jack owes him his soul, if he is to remain captain of the Pearl for more than 13 years. This time has come now and Jack is desperately seeking for the mysterious Dead Man’s Chest, which the legend says, contains the means to kill the notorious Davy Jones (Bill Nighy). Meanwhile, William (Orlando Bloom) and Elisabeth’s (Keira Knightly) wedding gets postponed when they are arrested for their conspiring with a pirate. To regain their freedom, Will must find Sparrow and return his compass to the East Indian Trading Company. Will obviously accepts the mission and sets sail to retrace Sparrow’s steps, but of course nothing goes as planned.

Making a trilogy out of the immensely popular 2003 swash-buckler Pirates of the Caribbean: The Black Pearl was a no-brainer. But like micro-waved food, nothing tastes as good as the real deal. Dead Man’s Chest is longer, has huger sets, glossier locations and more frantic action set pieces but is only half as smart, funny and entertaining as his predecessor. The story is mediocre at best and is more of an excuse to get the protagonists into neck breaking chases and fights than anything else. As a result the movie lives and falls with the performance of Johnny Depp. Even though not many new facettes of his character are revealed he manages to carry the movie basically on his own. Despite this achievement, nothing is really fresh or original and instead of bringing nearly every character back from the first installment we would have liked to be introduced to some new memorable individuals rather than some CGI sea monsters. Since the production of next year’s At World’s End has already wrapped we are not setting our hopes to high for the last chapter in the trilogy either. Not a must-sea. (2.5. out 4 flying dutchmen)

Kate Bosworth has another Blue Crush

Five years ago, when astronomers discovered the remains of Superman’s home planet Krypton, the man of steel vanished from the face of the earth. Now, convinced that he is indeed the last son of Krypton, Superman (Brandon Routh) returns only to find out that the world has moved on without him. Fearless reporter Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth), the love of his life, has become a mommy and is engaged to Daily Planet owner Perry White’s nephew (X-Men’s James Marsden). She also won the Pulitzer for her article entitled ‘Why the world doesn’t need Superman’. On top of that, super-villain Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) has found Supes’ Fortress of Solitude and learned everything there is to know about our man of steel, including his aversion towards the little green radioactive pieces from his home planet, called Kryptonite.

After an even longer screen absence Superman finally returns to our theaters. Coming with hot anticipation from the fans and Bryan Singer trying to fill the shoes of original Superman helmer Richard Donner, Returns nearly casts a shadow on every comic book adaptation we have seen so far, at least in terms of scale. Epic in its proportions (at 154. minutes, it’s not exactly faster than a speeding bullet) and with a budget of over 200$ million, Superman Returns definitely exists in a league of its own. But packing so much talent (Singer, Spacey and an incredibly uncanny performance by newcomer Brandon Routh reminiscent of the late Christopher Reeve), we feel rather disappointed by a storyline that could have used some rewriting. Plus, we are not entirely sure if the fans will like the twisty ending which doesn’t necessarily beg for another installment. What does work however (inexplicably), is the old-school look, the kitsch and the cheesy lines, underlined by John Williams’ nearly unaltered original score, great main titles and spectacular action scenes that should probably be experienced in an IMAX cinema. When all is said and done, however, Superman Returns is still light-years away from last year’s excellent Batman Begins. (3 out of 4 outer-space vacations)

Mayday

It’s New Year’s Eve aboard of one of the biggest and must luxurious cruise liners the world has ever seen. For this special occasion, the Poseidon is filled with over 2000 passengers who all wanted to ring in the New Year in a very special way. The passenger list includes a former New York mayor (Kurt Russell) and his daughter (Emmy Rossum), a former Navy-Seal turned gambler (Josh Lucas), a single-mother (Jacinda Barrett) with her son (Jimmy Bennett) and architect Richard Nelson (Richard Dreyfuss) whose suicide plans will unfortunately be interrupted. As midnight draws close, the ballroom of the Poseidon gets crowded and Gloria (Stacey Ferguson) and her band get the party started. However, what the party-goers don’t know is that they will witness a natural phenomenon beyond anyone’s imagination. On the stroke of midnight a giant rogue wave capsizes the ocean liner. Now, with their world turned upside down, a group of survivors try to escape from this watery grave.

This 140$ million rehash of the 1972 original disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure, is nothing more than your usual summer movie fare. Running for only 90 minutes, Poseidon does not give you much time to breathe between its frantic set-pieces but neither does it leave room for anything like character development. The price we pay for nearly non-stop suspense is a bunch of stereotyped characters who are as one-dimensional as their billboard counterparts. What’s more is that for a movie relying that heavily on CGI, some effects just didn’t match our expectations. Despite the introduction in which the camera pans alongside the digitally created ocean liner, we can never be tricked into believing that these people are actually on that ship. That being said, we would have liked the movie to be half an hour longer. That would have allowed for showing off more of the much better interior set designs and should have included longer character expositions. The version we are left with, however, is deeply flawed and is struggling to stay afloat. (2 out of 4 black eyed peas)

Poseidon is rated PG-13. Does not include wet T-shirt contests.

Take a Stand.

Some time has passed since the events on Alkali Lake and Professor Charles Xavier’s (Patrick Stewart) School for the Gifted has once again become a safe harbor for all mutants. But the new found peace was not meant to last. Still grieving over the death of Dr. Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), the X-Men are faced with a new problem. Dr. Hank McCoy/Beast (Frasier’s Kelsey Grammar) arrives at the X-mansion saying that a pharmaceutical company has found a way to suppress the mutant X-gene permanently. For Magneto (Ian McKellen), whose radical ideologies heavily clash with those of his former ally Charles Xavier, this heralded cure is a potential weapon that if used by the government threatens the whole mutant community. In an attempt to save mutants from extinction, Magneto and his Brotherhood seek to destroy the source of the cure and risk a war in which both sides will suffer from casualties. The X-Men must stop Magneto, who is aided by a resurrected and omnipotent Jean Grey (aka Dark Phoenix), from wreaking havoc on the city of San Francisco and from killing everyone standing in his way.

If the rumors are true and X3 is indeed the last chapter in Marvel’s comic book saga, it definitely ends with a blast. The writers tried to cram enough X-Men mythology into this last installment to satisfy fanboys (and girls) while at the same time they managed to keep it fairly exciting for the non-initiated. For a summer action movie X3 is as good as it gets. With more action and battle scenes (the fight in Jean Grey’s house is jaw-dropping as is the finale on Alcatraz) than in any of the previous chapters, it certainly stays true to Hollywood’s bigger and louder sequel formula. That being said, we would have liked to see a bit more character development and some memorable dialogues. With a runtime of approximately 104 minutes, X3 is simply too short to focus on characters, tell a story and show us the X-Men in action. For a concluding chapter in a trilogy, this feels extremely rushed. But apart from that, director Brett Ratner (Rush Hour, Red Dragon) reproduces the feel and style of the previous installments and Simon Kinberg did not play it safe and wrote a bold and interesting script. Nevertheless, the departure of Bryan Singer (who went to direct Superman Returns) is felt, if only because of a lack of artistic creativity from behind the camera, which leaves us with the inevitable question of how The Last Stand compares to Singer’s excellent X2? Well it’s close but no cigar. (3 out of 4 fur balls)
P.S. If you haven’t already heard, stay until after the credits.

X-Men: The Last Stand is rated PG-13 for naked ladies covered in blue paint.

Seek the Truth.

Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) was to meet with the curator of the Louvre in Paris, but the latter never showed. Instead, his dead body is found in one of the Louvre’s galleries that same evening. It appears, however, that before his last breath the curator managed to leave behind hints and symbols that might point to his killer’s identity. Robert Langdon is called to the crime scene and with the help of French cryptologist Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou) tries to make sense of the clues that seem to hint at a secret message included in the works of Leonardo Da Vinci. With the French police on their trails (Langdon is a prime suspect in the murder case after all), Sophie and Langdon race from one clue to the other and get involved in a war between a secret society and a radical Catholic organization that stops at nothing. A war to protect a secret for which it is worth killing for. A secret so powerful that it could shake the very foundations of mankind.

Making a best-selling novel into a movie is double-edged sword, above all if the novel in question is Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. As far as the book goes, Brown’s annoying prose style couldn’t have challenged a 10-year old but on the other hand he managed to take a relatively exciting premise and turned it into the most fast-paced page-turner in recent years. With its cinematic feel, the novel (and without doubt Brown himself) literally begged for a movie adaptation. Seeing the final product then leaves you with the feeling that this could have been much better. Unlike in its written counterpart, you never get a sense of how fast the events actually unfold simply because usually there isn’t much going on on screen. The exposition and the solving of the riddles are represented in an extremely dull way and are often accompanied with incredibly awkward dialogues. The novel entertained its readers above all because it was meant to be fun. The movie, however, seems to take itself way too seriously and it is the actors who are predominately to blame for this. Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou (Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain) underplay to such a degree that you sometimes seriously question their interest in the unfolding events. Nevertheless, the movie is beautifully shot (due to a lot of on-location filming) and the appearance of Ian McKellen’s character, about half-way through the movie, really gives it a much needed adrenaline shot. (2.5 out of 4 boxes of chocolates)

The Da Vinci Code is rated PG-13 for blasphemy.

Superspy Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has resigned from active field duty. He is about to get married to his fiancée Julia (Michelle Monaghan) and is now training new recruits for the IMF (that is the Impossible Mission Force). But when his protégée Lindsey Ferris (Felicity’s Keri Russell) is compromised during a recon mission on arms dealer Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman), Ethan is talked into a rescue mission that goes terribly wrong. Ethan and his team (Ving Rhames, Maggie Q and Jonathan Rys Meyers) learn that Davian is about to acquire a device codenamed ‘the Rabbit’s Foot’ which is bound to bring utter desolation onto the world. Davian gets apprehended but manages to escape custody shortly after and kidnaps Julia in an attempt to blackmail Ethan into stealing the Rabbit’s Foot for him.Now, the IMF team must play by his rules, base-jump from skyscrapers and infiltrate the Vatican, while at the same time identifying a mole within the agency, in yet another apparently impossible mission.

The making of the third installment of the spy series did not come without difficulties. Several promising directors (among them David Fincher) left the project while the cast around Tom Cruise changed on a monthly basis. Despite all that, Mission three turns out to be the summer blockbuster we have been waiting for. Given an unprecedented high budget for a first time feature film director, J.J. Abrams breathes new air into the dusty action genre. While clearly being inspired from James Cameron’s True Lies and borrowing huge chunks from Abrams’s own TV show Alias, he manages to keep you on the edge of your seat for 2 hours straight. Launching in medias res, the movie keeps up the intensity of its pre-credit scene with huge action sequences set in Shanghai, Berlin and on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Certainly aware of its preposterous action set-pieces, Mission 3 does above all one thing: it puts the team back in teamwork. Unlike John Woo’s stylish bullet ballet that was Mission: Impossible 2, this is nearly free of the much dreaded Cruise control. As a result, the team’s break-in into the Vatican (which comes without the usual pyrotechnics) alone is worth the admission price. It looks like Hollywood’s summer big bang madness just got kick-started. This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds. (3.5 out of for 4 MacGuffins)

Mission: Impossible 3 is rated PG-13 for destruction and mayhem.