I haven’t kept up with Gerard Butler’s action vehicles since being disappointed by 2013’s Olympus Has Fallen. A grudge hadn’t kept me away from Butler. In fact, his action flicks have looked appealing by the promotional material as I find myself distracted with other titles. After missing this year’s Plane, I didn’t want to miss the boat on his second outing of the year. I sat down for Mission Kandahar with excitement running through my…
The How to Train Your Dragon series receives a fulfilling finale with The Hidden World, a sensational sequel that not only ties its saga back to the creation of legendary stories, but also features the best visuals DreamWorks Animation has ever produced.
By: Nick van Dinther From the very first scene in Den of Thieves, it becomes fairly obvious that this is not going to be your typical shoot ‘em up popcorn flick. It’s actually a smart, well written, edge-of-your-seat thriller that defies all expectations.
In 2013, audiences were treated to two movies involving hostage situations in the White House: Antoine Fuqua’s Olympus Has Fallen and Roland Emmerich’s White House Down. The former performed well enough at the box office to merit a sequel, while the other languished in obscurity, likely due to its director’s notorious incompetence. And yet, much like its predecessor, London Has Fallen shows that in terms of quality, White House Down triumphed where Olympus had fallen.
Australian filmmaker Alex Proyas had a terrific output in the 1990’s: the gothic comic book adaptation, The Crow, and the superlative neo-noir/sci-fi film Dark City. Since then, however, Proyas has made few noteworthy cinematic contributions, and his latest, the 3D fantasy/adventure film Gods of Egypt, is abundant in imagination but lacking in novelty.
By: Addison Wylie This year’s first “save the President” action yarn, Olympus Has Fallen, is a D movie trying to fill B movie shoes. It’s a movie that should buckle audiences in for ecstatic escapist entertainment. Unfortunately, it’s trying too hard to have its cake and eat it too by becoming too emotionally involved. We’ve all seen mindless action flicks that centre around a terrorist attack. We may have also seen one of these action films…
By: Addison Wylie Gerard Butler needs that “right” vehicle. He’s shown that he has a striking presence when he’s battling Persians and kicking messengers down wells in 300, but the actor has yet to play a charming post-300 role. The only references I have to cite are the awful comedies The Bounty Hunter and The Ugly Truth. Butler tried way too hard to get laughs while working with scripts that were MIA already and had…