‘Thriller’ Archives
Avatar
After almost 3 years, I went back to watching a movie in a movie theater, and what better movie than Avatar? It's definitely worth it, since we won't have 3D TVs for a while, at least at an affordable price. I pretty much knew what I was getting before I watched it. It's a cool looking movie with great effects, but a lame or unoriginal story. I [...]
District 9
This sci-fi movie is an action/horror story with clear social themes of racism. The aliens are clearly discriminated against due to their look. But this is not even a subtext, since it takes place in South Africa. Even though the politics are the basis for the premise of this story, this is mainly an action movie. The first part is all setup, [...]
Timecrimes
In another list of best sci-fi movies, Timecrimes was paired with Primer as the best time travel movies. Timecrimes' approach is different though, it doesn't try to explain the time machine, it only cares about what happens to the time traveler. What happens in this story is that there is only one story line happening, however we see it [...]
Taken
This is a fast paced action/thriller starring Liam Neeson, who is retired CIA agent Bryan Mills, whose daughter is kidnapped during a trip in Europe. At the beginning we meet the characters in a very awkward way, exposition is painful and feels forced. They ram the fact that his ex-wife hates him, but she and her daughter also think that he's [...]
Pandorum
After watching the sci-fi movie Moon, here's another sci-fi movie. This time it's the thriller/action/horror kind of sci-fi. Here's why you should watch it. It has good action scenes. It's very mysterious and tense throughout the story, so you will not be bored at all. The mystery is solved half-way through, and it's a very satisfying one. At [...]
High and Low
Akira Kurosawa is favorite director of mine, but I'm ashamed to admit that I have only watched 1/3 of his movies. Here's me trying to remedy that. High and Low is not a samurai movie, instead it is a contemporary crime story about the kidnapping of a boy. The first part is all about Toshiro Mifune's character struggling with his [...]
Inglourious Basterds
This is the latest Tarantino movie, which is always an event for me. I have to admit though, when I first heard that he was working on a war movie I was disappointed, since I'm not a huge fan of war movies. But if that's a reason why you're not watching this movie, don't worry about it. This is NOT a typical war movie. It's definitely a typical [...]
Duplicity
This is a nice spy-thriller/romance movie, light but at the same time clever. The two leads are very charismatic ones, so I think they did a good job in casting this movie. The spy plot is very interesting and has many twists and turns. First we think that Ray (Clive Owen) and Claire (Julia Roberts) meet by chance a few years after their first [...]
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Two Towers really increased the epic scale of this story. Not only we get a huge battle, more monsters and "good guys", but also get the best characterizations. Now that the fellowship is divided, we get to know each character better and better. My favorite is probable Frodo/Sam and Gollum. That has to be the highlight of the movie: a completely [...]
Tell No One
This latest foreign movie from France is probably my favorite of the bunch. This is a great thriller, on par with the best Hitchcock films. The mystery is presented almost immediately, and we slowly learn more and more about it. Alex is at the center of it, after losing his wife Margot. But then he receives an email which hints that she might [...]
Let the right one in
This is a Swedish vampire film unlike any other vampire movie. At the center of this story is Oskar, a frequently bullied 12 year old boy who meets Eli, a 12 year old looking girl, who's actually a vampire. They slowly develop a relationship which is not the usual Hollywood love story. Oskar is only 12 , and though we don't know Eli's real [...]
X-Files: I want to believe
I liked X-Files the show, I actually watched all episodes of that series. I admit there were a lot of problems with it, especially in the latter seasons. But I liked the characters and I was excited to watch it. The first movie happened during the good years, so I really liked it. I thought it made for a good entertaining movie, but it also [...]
30 Days of Night
I've read the comic this movie is based on and I loved the concept. But I didn't think there was more than that premise to the story. The same can be said about this movie. Apart from the clever concept (vampires in Alaska for 30 days without sun) this just feels like a zombie movie, with normal people hiding from the vampires. There is enough [...]
Cloverfield
This is a "modern" movie. I say that because the marketing for this movie was very different and took advantage of the current technology. Just the simple fact that a teaser trailer was shown when nobody had ever heard of this movie is an accomplishment. Not only that, but the title wasn't even shown. But let's forget about the brilliant [...]
Sweeney Todd
If it weren't for Johnny Depp's nomination for the Oscars, I wouldn't have watched this movie. Nothing against the Burton/Depp pairing, I've actually liked their work together, but I've had enough of musicals. After Once, I don't think any other musicals will compare. The problem with songs in movies is that I don't understand what they're [...]
In the Valley of Elah
I am not a big fan of writer/director Paul Haggis, his Crash was the most overrated movie of that year's Oscars. So I didn't expect much from this new movie. Luckily I had a good time. This is mainly a crime/mystery drama, where Hank (Tommy Lee Jones) is trying to find his son back from Iraq. We follow him investigating his disappearance, with [...]
The Good German
This is an experiment by director Steven Soderberg to emulate an old movie from the 50-60's. He actually created this movie with the same technology of that era (cameras, film, rear projection etc...), same type of story and even acting style. However he inserted some modern touches to contrast it, and that is the language. He can have a PG13 [...]
Michael Clayton
This promised to be a great thriller, with good building of tension and some good performances. With all the Oscar nominations behind it, I was eager to watch this. During the first half we are teased as to what the big corporal secret is, so much that we are supposed to be shocked by the truth. Unfortunately, this is not such a big reveal, [...]
I am Legend
Will Smith has always been entertaining to me, so I was mildly interested in this movie. The first 2/3 of it are well done. We get to see how Robert spends his time, what his daily routine is. Then there is the scene where we see the infected people for the first time. That's a very good scene, full of tension. Another great scene is when [...]
J.S.A.: Joint Security Area
J.S.A.: Joint Security Area (2000): In the DMZ separating North and South Korea, two North Korean soldiers have been killed, supposedly by one South Korean soldier.After watching the Vengeance Trilogy by Park I have been a fan of him. So I have now tracked down his earlier movie JSA. This is a great story about the two Koreas, that takes an [...]