War Horse (Movie Review)

Bring your tissues to this film! I’m speaking to the animal lovers in particular. This is such a beautiful story about perseverance, love, understanding and adventure. Steven Spielberg has managed once more to make a family film that will capture many. It is so difficult to make a living, breathing animal be the main character of a major motion picture, but it was pulled off majestically.

We are taken on a journey placed during WWI in England mainly but also France. A young boy, Albert Narracott (Jeremy Irvine) has the great challenge of raising a young horse that he names Joey. The two build an unbreakable bond thanks to the obstacles they go through such as plowing a hopeless piece of land. Since Albert’s family is poor they end up giving up the horse when the war hits their small village, Albert swears to Joey that they will meet again. Rose (Emily Watson), Albert’s mom tries to help her son be strong and understand his father’s (Peter Mullan) decision.

In his journey through war Joey gets various soldier owners both English and German, who instantly realize this horse is like no other. One of them, Captain Nicholls (Tom Hiddleston) swears to Albert he will return his horse after the war and cares for Joey like Albert would. We follow our main character, Joey, through an unbelievable story during the WWI, which was the last war where horses were used.

The horses used to play the character of Joey are gorgeous beasts that fulfilled Spielberg’s task of having an animal as a main character and will make the public to want to go out and immediately get a horse after the movie. This is Irvine’s first movie on the big screen and he plays his character very humbly with an easy to like attitude, which many pet owners can identify with.

War is the backdrop of the story and I really enjoyed the way it was perceived; most movies depict war as something so strategic; here we see how much the element of surprise has to do with it and how little the soldiers involved in it know about it, how clueless they are because of their youth and their fear and all they do is follow orders. One of the most beautiful scenes of the movie is played out in no-man’s-land, where Toby Kebbell’s character is united with the so-called enemy thanks to this amazing horse; this scene alone makes the whole film worth it.

Most of the shots in this film are beautiful, not only because of the countryside shots but even the ones in the war are so well done that they easily captivate the public. Even when corniness seems to overwhelm the screen one is easily distracted by the sunset and the imagery.

The film was adapted from a book and there’s also a play in Broadway on it, all the actors recommended the full experience in our interviews and none seemed to have felt overshadowed by the outstanding performance of the horses as it should be since they each contributed to what makes this movie as a whole what it is: a great family film. This movie will make you tear up but it will also make you smile and leave you with a content feeling, it’s no surprise its release date is Christmas day.

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (Movie Review)

The 3D images in ‘The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn’ are so crystal clear that everything looks so real, to the point that you forget you are watching a cartoon film. Director Steven Spielberg really used the latest image capture technology to its best, which can be expected since he did work with WETA, the special effects house that made movies like ‘Avatar’. As Spielberg told us, this has been a project that was 20 years in the making, but it sure was worth the wait.

This family film introduces us to a story that has been around since 1929, when the Belgian comic writer Hergé brought to life a journalist and his Indiana Jones like adventures and continued them until about 1983. The cartoon form of the comic has also delighted generations around the world for decades. In this particular chapter we follow Tintin (Jaime Bell) to try to find the secrets of a ship called the Unicorn, which is tied to his biggest obstacle Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis). Haddock is the last survivor in a long line of defeated Captains that drown their inherited sorrows in whiskey bottles. With Tintin’s journalistic skills as well as his clever sidekick and loyal dog Snowy, they help Haddock sober up or drink enough to help them find the secrets behind the ship and to try to beat the villain, Ivanovich Sakharine (Daniel Craig) in discovering the secrets first.  

The voice of the cast chosen for the film goes perfectly with the characters they represent, as it should since the crew worked off the comic books along with the actors’ appearance to give us a 360 view of Tintin’s world. The funniest scenes are played out by twin inspectors Thompson (Simon Pegg) & Thomson (Nick Frost). Tintin travels from London to the mighty sea and to Morocco. The best sequence is the one in Morocco. Unfortunately a whole imaginary town is destroyed; especially the poor part of the city but it gives us plenty of breath taking action shots in which Spielberg let’s us choose where to focus with a little guidance.

Various age ranges of people will surely enjoy this film; it will certainly keep children entertained for a good almost 2 hours. The only thing to question is if maybe Tintin is too sophisticated, which is a good and refreshing thing, to many children. The film has done wonderfully abroad, especially in Europe where it has been more popular than the USA. It definitely has a really good chance of doing in the USA what it has done in Europe for about 50 years. The best part of it all is that a sequel is soon in the making, so this is just the first bite of what will probably be a series of movies about Tintin’s adventures.   

And to read an interview with Steven Spielberg about Tintin, click here, plus follow Karen Posada via Twitter to @karenlpo

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Movie Review)

‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ is a movie anticipated by many: the book fans, the Swedish version of the film fans and everyone else that has gotten curious by the buzz around the book trilogy that hooked millions. This thriller will not disappoint any of the aforementioned, many might think there was no need to make an American version of the film, but the truth is that it combined all the good elements of the original one along with the book as a guide of course to make a great remake. This version makes the book and original more eye opening by bringing the action scenes to a higher standard.

 

The film is based on a book by the Swedish writer Stieg Larsson, it was published back in 2005 and was quickly made into a Swedish movie in 2009. It develops the story of a financial journalist, Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) who has legal troubles and is in the verge of loosing his entire career and taking the magazine he works for Millennium down with him. A rich millionaire Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), the kind of person he usually does his research about, decides to hire him for an unusual chore: to investigate the disappearance of his niece Harriet and odd 40 years ago. The story that develops at the same time on the screen is that of Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara); a social outcast that spends her time being the best investigator at a security firm, who uses any method she can to complete the tasks assigned to her. These two unite to make an unbeatable team that will try to solve a crime no one expects them to. This game of “Clue†gets more interesting as the film progresses.

 

Mara is fantastic as Lisbeth, her make up, her attitude; her whole persona is played out perfectly. Seeing Mr. Bond aka Craig in this role is quite interesting, he still is a ladies man but is way more human than Bond; it’s almost tough seeing him be so weak at times but he’s also fantastic. The images in Stockholm and the imaginary town of Hedestad are very similar to those of the original film; (despite of the fact that the filmmakers say they didn’t use the original to do this remake) although somehow they are more captivating. The film runs for 2hrs and 30mins, which gives justice to the lengthy book, but towards the end it gets so fast paced that it might be hard to follow for those not familiar with it. The sequence of the book is mainly followed except for some minor changes to the script, which are easy to adapt to. There are several scenes that are very hard to watch, so be prepared. Try to make it to see the beginning of the film; the title sequence is a treat in itself.

 

The Swedish film is the most watched Swedish film ever! That might not be the case in America but it will surely have high-ticket sales for a while after it comes out. If you’ve been waiting for this film since you heard they were doing an American remake of it you will surely be rewarded for the wait. Director David Fincher cooked up the perfect movie to honor the book and the writer’s memory and to keep us waiting patiently for the other 2 to follow.

 

And to read an interview with Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig , click here, plus follow Karen Posada via Twitter to @karenlpo

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (Movie Review)

This really is a treat for action lovers; ‘Mission: Impossible- Ghost Protocol’ is filled with relentless action almost all throughout the film. Seeing the film in IMAX made it even more enjoyable because a lot of the shots in the film are so thrilling that you feel like you are hanging on by a thread along with our main character Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise).  This film is one of the best action films of the year and it really lives up to the hype and fits in nicely with the phenomenon of all the ‘Mission Impossible’ flicks.

In this sequel Ethan gets some new team members from the IMF: Jane (Paula Patton), Brandt (Jeremy Renner) along with his old pal Benji (Simon Pegg). After a terrible misunderstanding between Russia and the U.S. the team is sent to try to stop a terrorist: Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist), from detonating a missile that will start a nuclear war. The trick is that the team must complete this task on their own without help from the IMF, since because of the misunderstanding the president has shut them down and so they begin what they call “Ghost Protocol”. If the team is not able to stop Hendricks intricate plan, which involves using a satellite, then Ethan’s team will be blamed for the terrorist act and everything they’ve worked for will go down the drain along with their entire lives.

Cruise is the exact same Ethan we’ve seen in the past, he still performs amazing stunts and has the same strong character that seems to be untouched by anything physically and emotionally. We travel to Hungary, Russia, Dubai and India. The Dubai sequence has some of the best scenes, my favorite is Ethan having to climb the tallest building in the world with some “spider-man” like gloves. There are some interesting twists in the movie but one of its biggest flaws is the plot. The whole Russian/American tension just like in the Cold War era has been overplayed.

If you are a fan of the past Mission Impossible movies this one will certainly not disappoint, it connects it to the rest nicely. Director Brad Bird certainly made his own version of the series while still respecting those that already exist; the combination of both of these elements is what made this film maybe the best out of the Mission Impossible series.