Sweeny Todd, Valley of Elah and Rambo 4
John Rambo
The newest Rambo is nothing more and nothing less than the revival of a forgotten franchise, with some added special effects. The movie carries the simplest plot in the world. The first hour has nothing expect Rambo bonding with this girl as she talks to him and makes him believe that maybe, just maybe there is hope for humanity left (the movie’s full of cheesy lines like that) and then gets kidnapped. The movies goes overboard in making sure we hate the enemies so much that once Rambo goes on a kill spree we cheer him on. Which he does, of course.
The saving grace of the movie is the simple fact that this wasn’t suppose to be a good watch or a dramatic over-thought of film but just a hack n slash and that’s where Rambo really kicks off. The last half hour has him decapitating Burmese, shooting Burmese, spearing Burmese, stabbing Burmese and blowing some Burmese up. Stallone really doesn’t like Burmese people, does her? Doesn’t matter, it’s the last fifteen minutes that we all signed up to see and Stallone delivers at that. Here’s hoping for Rambo 5.
In the Valley of Elah
War movies seem to be the latest fad these days. I usually ignore them because their either preachy or not very good, but what you have to realize is, Haggis’s latest creation is not a war movie but more of a murder mystery. And a good murder mystery at that. Crash was a nice film with some truly great moments but Elah plays like a professional hit and run. The writing is nice, the acting is fantastic (what do you expect with a powerhouse cast like this. Jones and Theron are great and Sarandon is heart-wrenchingly good) and the scoring is nice and simple. Even when the films tarts preaching you don’t mind, it’s factually correct and it’s a small price to pay for the not-so-bad murder mystery preceding it. So if anyone out there is staying away from this because of the war-movie part, don’t worry, this isn’t really one.
Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
I love Burton’s work. Sleepy Hallow and Edward Sciccorhands were perhaps the greatest dreamdust movies that exist out there. It’s true that after his recent horrible disappointments (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, Planet of the Apes) I had learned to keep my expectations down. I was wrong though, because Burton is back with a bang and he reaches a whole new pinnacle of his creepy-beautiful vision with Sweeny Todd.
The visuals are dark and cutting edge, the acting creepily real and Burton’s vision of London is the same as it was in Hollow: dark, gothic and completely without mercy. I knew with a script like this and his perfect cast (who are we kidding? Depp and Bonham-Carter are his perfect cast) he would make nothing short of a masterpiece and he certainly did.
Tags: Johnny Depp, Oscar, Paul Haggis, Rambo 4, Review, Sweeny Todd, Sylvester Stallone, Tim Burton, Valley of Elah
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