True Grit (2010)

The Coen Brothers have done it again. That being said, let’s start with the review.

This film is about a girl, Mattie Ross, who seeks revenge toward her father’s cold-blooded killer Tom Cheney.  She then finds Rooster Cogburn who is a one-eyed, soulless, drunkard.  LaBeouf, a by the book Texas Ranger, tags along because he is in pursuit of Cheney as well, because he killed the Texas senator. An adventure ensues as they cross miles and miles to find one man and make him pay with his blood.

This remake of the 1969 film stars Jeff Bridges as Cogburn, Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross, and Matt Damon as LeBeouf. This of course is a western and like most westerns, it takes a while to get started but once it does, it really gets started. Let me talk about the acting first. Steinfeld is fantastic as Mattie Ross. She makes her character cold and sharp. She doesn’t want anything other than her killer hanged. She does not smile, laugh, cry, or feel remorse. She just wants to kill Tom Cheney. What I love about her character is that she is so different than other leading women. That also brings me to another point: Why did the Academy make put her in the category as a “Best Supporting Actress?!?!” She was the main character and you know it!!! Oh, well.

Jeff Bridges as Cogburn is also fantastic. He is not just the good guy that likes to drink a little. It’s a little more complicated than that. If you didn’t know he was a marshal, you would probably think he is a villain. When you see him with Mattie and LaBeouf, you realize that he is an unpredictable drunk mess. You don’t know how he will respond to the sentence that you say. He might curse at you, or pop a bullet through your head. LaBeouf on the other hand is a no-nonsense, from the book type person. You can see that he wants to be taken seriously and with respect by others but they just don’t.

I really liked how they portrayed the villains too. Instead of a mastermind, Tom Cheney (played by Josh Brolin) is just a part of a posse that straggled off and killed others while he was drunk. He is not a leader. He is a pathetic part of a gang who make him carry horses, nothing more. While Ned Pepper (played by Barry Pepper) is the smart leader. I love how they make him seem like a guy from another movie, but he was just brought up by what one of his men did.

So in the end I thought this was a great movie. I love how dark and sad and different  this is to other films. This is a movie everyone should see. Not only because of the great characters, but great directing, screenplay, and great acting. The end though, left me empty and cold. After you see these characters go through hell and back, I asked myself was it worth it. And that’s the big unanswered question. Was it worth it?

9/10

Total Recall (THE REMAKE)

This is the remake of the movie with the same name. So it's safe to say if you saw the original, you will probably know everything that will happen. Now before I start this review I want to say that I did not watch the original.

Let me start of by saying that the CGI in this film is gorgeous! I swear this film looks AMAZING! I love the dis-utopian future. But I'll talk about this later. This movie stars Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Bryan Cranston, Bokeem Woodbine, Bill Nighy, and John Cho. The story is about a man named Doug Quiad who is married to Kate Beckinsale and works at a robot factory. And apparently he has a terrible life even though he is married to Kate Beckinsale. So he goes to REKALL which is supposed to change your "world." It's basically a good(or bad) dream but instead of waking up, you stay in that world. So he goes to REKALL and after that happens, his life basically goes to the deep depths of hell. That's pretty much the base. The story is pretty Inceptionish.

OKAY! Now that I finished with the plot I will gush out about how FANTASTIC the CGI is. The city is the highlight of the film. I love how they made huge cities. Since if it's the future, there is obviously going to be lots of overpopulation and so they make the city have lots of layers. The bottom being the toxic, dilapidated one, and the top being the high class skyscrapers. It looks gorgeous! The action in the film is also pretty good, but there are much more chases than there are gun fights which I quite like. You don't get nail biting scenes by a big shoot out scenes. You get nail biting scenes by the main character never being safe and always delayed by someone always chasing them. You know, in some movies the main character is being delayed. For example: The main character is planting a bomb on a fast moving truck and the driver is trying make him get off so the truck is swaying and the character drops the bomb to another part of the truck. That causes suspense. This movie had a bit of that.

Some problems are that some characters are just not shown or fleshed out as much as they should. His wife is a much, much bigger villain than what the movie says that it should. You see the "main" villain about 3(random guess) times and at the final fight. You see the wife chase him, and shoot him a LOT more. Also there are 2 characters that are pretty essential with the story and they get killed off a couple of scenes after Quaid meets him in person.

Overall this was a very fun movie. It has some obvious flaws but who cares!? I think the critics looked at this movie the wrong way. This isn't supposed to make you lose sleep over the story and it's characters, it's supposed to give you a simple storyline and give you great visuals. And at the end of the day That's what we all need.

7/10