Bill Paxton – Movies of the Soul

Vampire Owl :: So it is about going to the past again and again, right?

Vampire Bat :: No, there is also the thing about changing past and thus alter the present. Ask Wolverine.

Vampire Owl :: What about planting an idea in a dream which also alters the present? Or try it the H.G. Wells way?

Vampire Bat :: That would need scientific equipment. For now, I think the driver of this bus also thinks that he can go back to the past and start it over when he dies. This is too fast.

Vampire Owl :: As there is no alien invasion yet, we should be safe; unless the aliens started with his house this time instead of the United States of America.

Vampire Bat :: I can only hope that aliens look like mutated vampire bats.

Vampire Owl :: I would prefer demons.

[Reaches the destination].

What is it about? :: The humans and the alien forces called Mimics have been in war for quite a long time now. United Defence Forces (UDF) has been created for the same purpose, and with new inventions and some inspired leadership, the humans have been able to score some victories. William Cage (Tom Cruise) is also asked to join the fight, but when he disagrees and tried to get himself out of it, is deprived of his current military rank and is sent to the military base of the Heathrow Airport to take part in the upcoming battle against the aliens. But when the attack begins, he realizes that the creatures know about the attacks and the plans of the human opponents. He is also killed, but not before destroying a Mimic and getting coated in its blood. Then he wakes up at Heathrow Airport yet again and goes though the same things again. He goes through the same things and gets killed again only to wake up again at the same time. He tries to tell the soldiers that the invasion will be failure, and also tries to save a few of them, but the restart continues until he saves the life of Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt) who knows about it and asks him to find her when he wakes up. From here, he is turned into a weapon, and the objectives change.

The defence of Edge of Tomorrow :: The movie has absolutely no drag, as it keeps itself to action throughout. The action sequences are impressive, and so are the special effects. The aliens are nice creatures and are mostly a form of spider-octopus hybrid, closer to the creature from the water. The first few attempts in this reset are actually funny, and there are some indirect comedy that the movie has. The movie never losses its power to entertain and never does it get much emotional. The absence of the horrible emotions which comes in each and every alien movie actually becomes a plus point here. The movie has awesome electronic devices, not only with the stylish gadgets including weapons, but also the sight of the airbase which has lots of interesting stuff around. The movie also reminds us of the flick called Source Code, but in a nice way. Edge of Tomorrow has an idea, and it might not have been the most original ones, but it is surely interesting and the way in which they have presented it needs a lot of appreciation. This is a science fiction and an action thriller and remains so throughout, and now that is often more than enough.

The claws of flaw :: The movie is based on the Japanese All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka about which I know less about. I might just try to read a translated version some day, so as to know if it is any better than the movie itself. The movie has a better first half than the second, but the latter is not far behind. The climax fails to be special as the movie though, but that is mostly because the expectations were too high considering what kind of a ride the movie had provided us with. The ending is also less interesting, and it also leaves room for ambiguity. There is another awakening that happens in the end, and we are not sure why it actually happens or why it happens that way, but the bigger question will be about the state of aliens which is also kept in the dark. It was indeed on the weaker side, and the weakness of the movie comes in the end. There is a certain amount of laziness that comes in the end and leaves with a little less satisfaction. Didn’t this movie deserve more? A better ending could have made sure that the movie had started well and finished nicely too, but this one wants to win in a super over and lets see if they have made it so hoping to make a possible sequel in future. But that is just a minor thing.

Performers of the soul :: Tom Cruise comes up with a great performance right here. Well, he is surely the reason why most of the people actually decided to go into the theatre, and it is a fact that he is one of the popular Hollywood stars around here. We remember seeing him in the other alien invasion movie which was Oblivion, going back to 2013. It was rather emotional and slow while this one rarely has the time to work to work on such stuff as it goes on with all the action right from the beginning to end, and it is safe to say that he excels in both. He still seems to have the energy that he always had. The more interesting character here should be Emily Blunt as Sergeant Rita Vrataski or “the Angel of Verdun” and “the Full Metal Bitch” as she plays a very special soldier, a heroic figure in this one. Her character is not just strong, but also smart and selfless as the super-soldier who massacred a huge number of aliens and brought her people close to victory. She doesn’t just look like a beautiful soldier who goes on destroying the aliens, as she steals the show when she gets into the act. From that shot when she is taking push-ups, we can be sure that she means business.

Soul exploration :: Live; Die; Repeat – now that is something that reminds me of my golden age of computer gaming. It is what we all do, in a game as we load the saved game and go back to where we had that opportunity to save our progress. We can see the parallel in this movie also, as the protagonist go back to a certain point instead of a long way back, and he tries again and again to alter the situation doing different things or rather doing things in a different way. He is desperate to change the fate of the world each time he goes into battle only to die again, as we gamers attempt to clear a stage of the game. The one game which this movie reminds me of, should be Crysis and its expansion Crysis Warhead. It was the game in which I lived, killed aliens, died, came back and killed aliens more than any other. I can also recollect a certain amount of similarities in the looks of the aliens, especially of the alpha creature. So, it is indeed the game mode revisited without control over anything on screen. For me, it was Crysis, and even when it was not it, still there was the game element in it. Not everyone has a life to loss to regain it again, only a gamer does; unless you are one mythical creature.

How it finishes :: Edge of Tomorrow has already managed to get some nice opinion from the critics and the audience – I shall also agree to the same. This should also be a great time to release this one, with Maleficent weakening significantly, and the multiplexes having The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Godzilla and X-Men: Says of the Future Past giving the competition. Bollywood’s Holiday doesn’t seem to impress much, and the Malayalam flick Bangalore Days is not for the same kind of people. May be this is the science fiction movie you have been waiting for, and I have heard a lot of positive opinions about this one from the sources which I consider to be of great value. There is Tom Cruise who can bring a lot of audience to the theatres without playing a superhero or fairy tale character, and this support that he has, will be significant in its success here. I would recommend it as the movie of the weekend, as well as the second best of 2014 after Captain America II: The Winter Soldier. With a better climax and ending, Edge of Tomorrow could have got a clear lead.

Release date: 6th June 2014
Running time: 113 minutes
Directed by: Doug Liman
Starring: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, Brendan Gleeson, Charlotte Riley, Kick Gurry, Dragomir Mrsic, Jonas Armstrong, Franz Drameh, Masayoshi Haneda, Tony Way, Noah Taylor

@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.

There was the need for an oasis of action among the movies of this Onam, among which none of them was of the much needed action genre, even as at least half of the Malayalam movies of this Onam season were very good. Yes, 2 Guns released here yesterday only, and I have to say that it has been delayed quite a bit, and should be glad to have released this week, as a few others like Elysium are still waiting and waiting, and Grown Ups 2 had its chance only the last Friday. The winner of this weekend should still be the Malayalam movie Sringaravelan, and the word of mouth should be in completely in favour of North 24 Kaatham. As both this day and the next are public holidays, most of these movies should have a good time, also expecting the last days of Onam holidays to boost up the revenue a lot. 2 Guns is one of the five English movies still in the theatres this week, along with Rush, The Conjuring, Grown Ups 2 and Riddick. The advantage of 2 Guns is its star cast and the fact that none of these movies actually rival this one in its genre, even as Riddick is only partially a sci-fi movie.

Now we come to the idea of the buddy-cop comedy movies among which the most known and the most popular might be the Rush Hour series with Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker making the most out of it. I would still wonder if Men in Black can come into the same category, and R.I.P.D. and The Heat hasn’t landed here yet. I shall not look into the older movies either. 2 Guns has landed in this area, but still quite unsure if it is an action comedy or comedy action, as it gets quite serious on regular intervals unlike Rush Hour‘s ever-improving funny side. I would guess that this one won’t do that good business here, even as this is the festival-vacation season, with families, the strength of this season expected to pull out of it completely. The hope might be about The Conjuring scaring people out of the theatres and Rush confusing them away. It has the same certificate as Grown Ups 2 and Riddick, and it would depend on how much the star name of Mark Wahlberg will sell around here, with the recently popular R-rated comedy Ted and Max Payne of the computer gamers’ paradise, even as both of them hadn’t released here.

The movie tells the tale of two criminals who turn out to be on the other side of the law later; Robert Trench (Denzel Washington) and Michael Stigman (Mark Wahlberg) as the former is an undercover DEA agent and the latter an undercover Naval Intelligence Officer; both of them thinks that the other one is a criminal though. But their attempt to steal the money of Papi Greco (Edward James Olmos) from a bank ends them in trouble, as they end up losing both the money as well as blowing their cover. Trench’s lover Deb Rees (Paula Patton) who knew about all these also seems to be on another side which they are not aware about. They have to run from more than one group who is after them, which leaves them with no choice but to work together, this time knowing each other’s identity. They even try kidnapping the drug lord, but that too misfires. So the question will be on who will shoot whom, sided with which person and who will get the large amount of stolen money in a world of treachery and complete chaos which follows the fall of two men from their respective forces.

So what do we get? There is one thing we can be sure about, that is lots of fun and action. There are lots of gunshots involved as expected, but not that much of melee combat. The hand-to-hand combat takes the backseat as the guns take over. These kind of movies seem to make sure that there are also a good number of funny lines, and this one is no exception in that case, and one thing which this movie does by its own is making sure that Paula Patton is gorgeous, which is accomplished by just two scenes; that should be new as one wonders if she was there more for those two occasions only (not denying her character the double-crossing), as she doesn’t really get much screen presence compared to her tough role in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. But she is still our dazzling lady in the lead, with not many others around who are there for more than five minutes. What the movie does is nothing not too obvious, and nothing close to being a normal logical story. We still know what might happen next, even as what we know is not really what should be happening without a willing suspension of disbelief. There is not that much power to strengthen the plot either, even as there is the sincere effort to keep it not that simple.

Mark Wahlberg steals the show, and there is absolutely no reason why someone would think otherwise, unless Paula Patton’s moments which contributed to the movie’s rating steals the same for a few seconds. Even as the critics didn’t give that much to his Planet of the Apes and Max Payne, I would say that those were my favourites from him along with Ted, without denying The Italian Job and Shooter their due and this won’t add to it. He comes up with the funniest lines of the movie, and if a character was to bring cheers from the audience, it was his, as the chicken-eating, chicken-loving man who can’t bear to see the chickens being tortured. The last time I watched a Denzel Washington movie was Unstoppable, if not The Book of Eli. He is there for almost the same time as his partner, but a little lesser in impact compared to the Mark Wahlberg show. Even with their jokes as well as the seriousness, it has to be said that this movie goes to none of their top ten list, except for that of Paula Patton. The two cop characters won’t be in any all-time list, and that is one thing we can be pretty much confident about. They shall still stay alive and out of the coffin as long as the fans are concerned.

The movie is violent for sure, and there are lots of blood, along with some of the violence as well as the dialogues, nothing unexpected though. Well, this is one of those movies which you feel longer than what it really is, as the almost-two-hours of action comedy makes you feel like you have been in the theatre a little longer, and that is due to its moments of no fun which exists. But when Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington are together, there is more fun guaranteed, and luckily they stay together most of the time. They are surely not going to make you love this genre though. But not many of the regular movie watchers can avoid these two actors together, a rare combination which has such a huge potential which is only partially fulfilled. Based on a graphic novel series of the same name, the movie strives inside its limited scope, with the big names which it has associated with. This is a movie which you can watch without thinking, expecting or hoping.

By the end of the movie, there are only a few things that you are sure about, and the more sad side of it is that Paula Patton’s character is dead, and in the distant possibility of a sequel, she won’t be there, and the happy side is that there is the scope for sequel, not just because of the ending, but also due to the way in which the movie has progressed and also considering the fact that people in the theatre did seem to love it upto an extent. This entertainment is something which keeps you asking for more, and this “more” if delivered, can happen only in a sequel. The Seventy Three out of One Hundred, which I have provided the movie with, is not the exact rating for everyone, as a slightly lesser rating might make most of the common movie watchers happy, but I am going to stick with this one, being at my subjective side. This is a movie which you can watch prepared to take it as the entertainer starring two big names and a gorgeous leading actress, not to forget the typical villains. Yes, there are a few things reminding us of some of those Quentin Tarantino flicks, for this movie doesn’t belong to one category, not of comedy, action, adventure or thriller completely, but still qualifies as action comedy from a distance.

Release date: 20th September 2013 (India); 2nd August 2013 (United States)
Running time: 110 minutes
Directed by: Baltasar Kormákur
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Denzel Washington, Paula Patton, Bill Paxton, Fred Ward, James Marsden, Edward James Olmos, Allie DeBerry, Robert John Burke