Zero Dark Thirty

2 ½ pipes out of 4

Kathryn Bigelow has created another Hurt Locker only under a different name, more realistic and documentary style. She does a decent enough job chronicling the events that led to Osama Bin Laden’s Assassination, not in the thriller format that is advertised but in a scripted documentary that the audience already knows the ending of. The audience is introduced to the film with the audio of the final moment phone calls from the Twin Towers on September 11^th 2001; they are then thrust into a CIA torture scene 3 years later still trying to find Bin Laden. Zero Dark Thirty has taken many shots from the military in how it portrays torture, understandably so because the film appears to glorify torture and declare it a necessary evil to fight terrorism. Jessica Chastain plays Maya; a CIA agent who becomes hell bent on finding Bin Laden and somehow happens to be in every key meeting regarding him. She dedicates herself from her deployment into the field until she sees Bin Laden’s body on a gurney demonstrating the drive of one person and the political bureaucracy that governs the CIA. Even though being designated a thriller, Zero Dark Thirty is more of a drama until Seal Team 6 enters Bin Laden’s secret compound. There the audience becomes part of the team not knowing what to expect and anticipating that fateful moment of discovering Bin Laden. To close the film, Bigelow gives the audience a scene of relief, security and uncertainty on what direction to go next. While Zero Dark Thirty is being heavily favored for the best picture at the Oscars to me it failed to live up to such high expectations and is too similar to The Hurt Locker to get my vote but it remains a decent film.

Taken 2

½ pipe out of 4

Sometimes sequels don’t need to be made and when it comes to Taken 2, this is a definitely the case. When a movie like the original Taken sits on the movie company shelf for 2 years before being released, you can tell it’s not movie gold. That is what happened with Taken but it was released at the perfect time when there were no other action films in theaters and it did huge. You’d think that the movie company would count this as a win and move on. Oh no, not in this day and age. Any time movie companies see dollar signs they immediately think sequel, even if those dollar signs were just dumb luck. Don’t get me wrong; I loved Taken just as much as the next guy but Taken 2 is a whole other story. The movie looses all of the emotional edge from the first film and it looks like Liam Neeson has done this all before, which he has, and simply goes down a checklist of what to do when your wife and daughter are kidnapped. Throw in a number of other inconsistencies and the fact the Neeson rescues his family in less than 12 hours make this a forgettable movie.

The Bourne Legacy

1½ Pipes out of 4

The action remains but the heart is gone. With Matt Damon removed from the Bourne series the logic and investment held by the audience has disappeared as well. Jeremy Renner attempts to continue the franchise made famous by Damon and puts forth a good effort but is not given a whole lot to work with plot wise. Renner is in the difficult part of his career where he has been pigeon holed and type casted as the next action star so was the logical choice for Damon’s replacement. This is a problem when the Bourne films have developed into more than just action films but acting and action films. It also does not help that the audience has built an emotional attachment to Jason Bourne only to have a fourth film that has almost nothing to do with him. There is the occasional reference to Bourne as being in New York with a news clip about his exploits but little more than that. For the most part of the film the audience is following the exploits of Aaron Cross, a bioengineered super soldier who is betrayed by his government. He then must go and rescue a doctor (Rachel Weisz) who has been overseeing his bioengineering who coincidentally has also been betrayed by the government. This then leads to the main plot of the film which actually appeared to be a sub plot but turned into the main which leaves the viewer incredibly disappointed at the end of the film because they were expecting more. The rest of the film follows a government official (Edward Norton) who is never really explained, only that he has top security clearance and he is in charge of the numerous programs spawned from Treadstone and Blackbriar. He is attempting to clean up the mess left by Jason and that means killing both Renner and Wiesz’s characters. The writer and director Tony Gilroy who also wrote the previous 3 Bourne films stated he likes that being the director means he gets to do the film his way but maybe he needed that input to make the movies good because  The Bourne Legacy doesn’t even come close to the other three films.

The Expendables 2

1½ pipes out of 4

A sequel better than the original? Is that even possible? When it comes to The Expendables and The Expendables 2, it is definitely the case. With Sylvester Stallone staying in front of the camera as Barney Ross and not behind it, The Expendables 2 manages to have a somewhat decent plot as well as amazing action. The introductory fight scene, introduction of the newest member of the group Billy (Liam Hemsworth) and fellow mercenary Trench (Arnold Schwarzenegger) leaves something to be desired with plenty of blood, guts and gore. It is kind of disheartening when it is obvious that it has been CGI’d. What happened to the good old days when you could see a gun fight with fake blood instead of computer graphics, and you would think that it might even be a little cheaper. As the film progresses, the plot gets better as instead of CIA agent Church (Bruce Willis) hiring a group of mercenaries to perform a coup in a foreign country, he asks them to perform an extraction mission of highly sensitive material. Of course this material is stolen by villain Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme) and subsequent hatred is created between Stallone and Van Damme. For the mission a female is added to the team (Nan Yu) and when it all falls apart begins to kindle a relationship with Stallone creating the sub-plot of whether Barney can ever love without getting the people he loves killed. Chuck Norris makes his return to film stacking the cast to the point of toppling. It is interesting that with Norris being known as the complete BAMF of all action stars, the film actually portrays this persona in order to appease the audience even going so far as to including a Chuck Norris joke. The Expendables 2 manages to increase the comedy and action to ramp up this sequel to give it one a satisfactory feeling when leaving the film. This is definitely not the acting action film of old like Saving Private Ryan, The Dark Knight or even The Avengers but this is what you go to in order to reminisce about the good old days of the action heroes.  

Hanna

2 pipes out of 4

Get ready for action and depression. Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) is  a secret CIA project that went wrong and her father (Eric Bana) takes her to the Arctic. Once she is ready Hanna is on a mission to kill CIA operative Marissa (Cate Blanchett) and Marissa is trying to capture Hanna. Twists and turns abound with an emphasis on the Brothers Grimm fairy tales. The fairy tales are Hanna’s one grip on a real life because she was raised in the Arctic since early childhood. Hanna is a very depressing movie because whenever a speck of hope arises for Hanna it is immediately crushed by the relentless Marissa who will do anything and kill anyone to find her. The mood is brought up with all the action that takes place throughout the film but don’t go to this movie expecting an ending where it all works out because you will be in for a surprise. There are also a couple of plot holes that need explaining near the end but not important enough to deter you from the movie. Hanna is a good action film similar to Salt in that it has good action but not the everybody’s happy ending.