SKYFALL

Bond begins in Istanbul trying to recover a hard disk with the names and  covert identity's of MI6 agents across the world .the mission goes awry and bond is injured presumed dead,bond take advantage of this and lives the life of a beach bum for a while,but is startled to discover MI6 headquarter has been coprimised in a terrorist attack ,bond reports back to m and is told he ll have to be tested before he can go back into the field,he struggles to pass once back on active service bond follows the lead to an assassin that then lead to silva a highly intelligent ex  employee of m from her days in charge on MI6 in hong kong .and so much cat and mousery begins between silva and bond ,this i felt was possibly the most serious of the bonds there r still touches of over the top stunt work a la Istanbul opening scene involving a train and an earth mover,the action feels a little more restrained but it makes it a better movie more about the characters and dialogue ,also being a bond fanatic i loved the nods to the old ,q branch etc all in a very satisfying entry it actually feels as if Sam mendes has givin the franchise his own reboot ,shaken not stirred,perfect.     

some where in the future...2044 to be precise Joe is a looper a hired assassin who waits for his victim to materialise from the future then blasts them with a crude scatter gun, Joe is living the high life hes rich and hes a drug addict until one day his future self appears in front of him,this is called closing the loop.needless to say things don't go smoothly from this point what follows is a paradoxical nightmare for Joe ,ironic you know how some people say if i could go back in time i would tell myself all the pitfall and mistakes etc ,well older Joe does just so and has it thrown back in his face ,which is actually the way it would happen! anyway both versions of Joe are driven towards a situation of emotionally fraught scenario's both with there separate agendas literally fighting his self's, this makes for great entertainment all of the actors are superb its a rare beast a sc-fi action movie with heart and brain it pulls off the wizard of oz hat trick,courage,heart,and intelligence.

DREDD

                                                                                               

set in the future in a dystopian America the capitol selects a boy and a girl from each of the 12 districts to fight to the death until only one stands on live television,OK went to this with an open mind as it is the new "young adult "franchise Ala twilight etc,clocking at roughly 2 and half hours it goes swiftly always a good sign not to much time spent on premise and the training montage ,all the performances r pretty good ,the 2 young leads hold there own,i liked woody harrelsons lush mentor,Stanley tucci puts in a good turn as the games mc a huge prancing tit and Elizabeth banks as an air headed socialite,the movie looks great we start of in district 12 a coal mining community wear the female protagonist lost her father and now takes care of her young sister and estranged mother,and then on to the capitol a vast rolling city of monuments and decadent society where the inhabitants look like some sort of cross between Victorians and Willie wonka ,although there is technology the whole game arena is controlled in a sort of virtual reality command centre,mag Lev train that does 200mph and yet everything looks old fashioned very art deco this movie says a lot about our society ,the ever widening poverty gap,the love of the celebrity ,reality television,decadent consumerism etc ,all in an engaging an entertaining movie ,however i felt that when the games segment of the film started you never really felt the danger or threat enough and a couple of gory deaths would've help you realise that more,but that's not the demographic its aimed at which is unfortunate because if this movie had that edge it would've risen from a good movie to a great one.

Drive

well so much for my commitment to reviewing in 2012!its march and this is only my second movie and its from last year! anyway drive is Nicholas winding refns 8th picture i have only seen drive and Bronson ,the rest are all danish language films i believe anyway i thoroughly enjoyed Bronson so i thought yeah il give drive a go,Ryan gosling seems to be in everything at the moment hes kind of perfect in the sense that hes good looking and fairly capable and adaptable actor ,so he play the unnamed driver the character loosely based on the driver of the 70,s movie of the same name,although refn said he was influenced by Halloween and the transporter and i can see those in his film the relentless pursuit of the antagonists much like myres pursuing his victims,and the methodical precision of the driver in his work,a mechanic and stunt driver by day and a getaway driver by night its very film noir and not hard to understand why its become such a cult hit ,that coupled with a soundtrack that matchs the mood of every scene perfectly ,the driver befriends a single mother from his apartment block and falls for her,soon the womans husband returns from jail with debt that needs to be repaid the driver agrees to help him ,soon things go awry the driver has to deal with the fallout,a great little movie that only gets better with repeated viewing good support from the rest of the cast Albert brooks as the not unlikable mobster Carey mulligan as the damaged mother and Ron perlman who is just Ron perlman .

well its been a while since iv done one of these ,to be honest 2011 wasn't the best year for film although i couldv made more of an effort,anyway i intend to approach 2012 with a more positive attitude,and so to the business at hand,Sherlock Holmes a game of shadows reunites Robert Downy Jr and Jude law as the titular tecs the plot is not really that important as it only serves as a backdrop for some spectacular set pieces and witty verbal jousting ,the ad campaign suggested bigger, better,funnier which i have to say in this case is true ,the pair have a great chemistry good support in general by the rest of the cast,although noomi rapace doesn't set the screen alight but this is more due to scripting and not performance.