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.

x-men first class

in 1963 Charles Xavier starts up a school for and later forms a team,for humans with extraordinary abilities among them is Erik lensherr   his best friend and future nemesis,the film starts with lensherr pursing Sebastian Shaw a Nazi slave master who once held him captive and brought out his dark side,he then runs into charles and his step sister raven ,a loose collaboration with the CIA is formed lensherr and Xavier purse more mutants  train and assemble there team to fight for the greater good,the films 60,s setting is wonderfully conveyed through wardrobe, sets and make up there are quite a number of locations giving it that international spy thriller(bond)) feel also several languages spoken that are subtitled ,i loved the retro feel especially when you finally see the x-men in their blue and yellow uniforms very reminiscent of the original comic, and a wonderful climax that neatly dovetails the x-men into history ,the two leading men are fantastic real chemistry between the two of them although i think fassbender wins it due to more screen time ,the rest of the cast is equally good loved Kevin bacon s villain, Nicholas hoult,s beast and January jones Emma frost stand out.

Source Code

Chopper pilot capt colter Stevens wakes up in the body of an unknown man on a Chicago commuter train on a mission to find a bomber on the train ,the catch he only has 8 minutes then the bomb explodes and the time loop resets later he learns he is part of an advanced military mission to stop an much larger device killing millions in down town Chicago,the film opens giving you a good sense of space and geography with some good helicopter tracking shots showing you the path of the train going into Chicago, then were on the train for the time loop explosion sequences i think he travels through the same moment about 8 times roughly kind of reminiscent of ground hog day with each time he has a better knowledge of the events, iv said time loop but actually its more of a mind loop because its the last 8 minutes of this teachers consciousness  who capt  Stevens has jumped into, there's also times when he  jumps back to a pod with a flight seat and monitor where he is in instructed by beautiful air-force officer and a scientist, i found this movie fantastic . OK maybe the science was a bit dodgy but it had it all tension, suspense, laughter and enlightenment  a smart , exciting ,touching little and at the same time huge movie,great cast but its Jake gyllenhall  who holds the movie together id say his best yet, ground-hog day for super geeks!

Battle:Los Angeles

A  marine platoon faces off against an alien invasion of Los Angeles,first of all i did read a few reviews of this movie and i kinda of got the impression that it was one of those movies that critics were going to hate to be specific a lot of the reviews had the phrases : lack of plot, no character development first of all its an alien invasion film theres the plot Wright there, character development they are a platoon of marines they r not going to be that deep,i really enjoyed this film i will acknowledge the acting wasn't great but it was sufficient i mean its an action movie and aside a bit to much shaky cam work i felt the action scenes were amazing ,and your really felt as if the marines fought for every inch of road,also liked the aliens they were vaguely humanoid but completely alien i would say the best certainly most realistic alien invasion i have seen and a top action film to boot.

True Grit

A tough U.S. marshal helps a stubborn young woman track down her fathers killer well where do i start firstly iam a fan of the coens although i thought there last couple of films while being good films lack that certain sparkle of there earlier works this made me think maybe we had already seen there best work well iam  glad to say i was wrong this film blew me away OK the acting the three main players  Jeff bridges Matt Damon and new comer halle stienfield  all perform majestically the script is fantastic the dialogue is just mesmerising  the photography beautiful and atmospheric  i mean i felt that u could taste roosters whiskey smell the camp fire and at times stark showing how tough life was back then the music you know music is important to me in a film and i usually pay a great deal of attention to it but i have to say while i acknowledge there was music i was so wrapped up in the story i dint really notice but hell I'm sure it was fantastic just like the rest of the movie.

The Mechanic

Arthur bishop is a mechanic an elite assassin who is compromised when he is asked to eliminate his friend and mentor harry (Donald Sutherland) things become further complicated when harrys troubled son Steve(Ben foster) turns to him to become his apprentice Arthur grudgingly agrees then the mission seems clear find the real reason behind harry s death well another Jason Statham  action movie and yes i,am a fan this is a very slick violent action pic with a lot of gun play fighting which kinda reminded me of the Bourne series a few plot holes aside i throughly enjoyed this good performances from Statham and foster.