There hasn’t been a lot of Film & Entertainment posts of late here on our blog. Not because I haven’t been watching any, but only because I haven’t been writing about them! Most of them were pretty recent films from last year, so here are capsule reviews for each of them.
| Life As We Know It (2010). Romantic comedy with the always yummy to look at Katherine Heigl and also Michael Bay’s Transformers stalwart Josh Duhamel in a story that sees the two being given guardianship of a baby girl whose parents – their mutual best friends – have just been tragically killed in a vehicle accident. Only problem is that these two characters absolutely hate each other.
Heigl and Duhamel play off each other reasonably well, the baby is positively cute, and it’s sort of fun watching on screen onscreen parents first-timing it. Then again, the plot outlay is unsurprisingly predictable, and you know that despite the two of them being at bitter odds will eventually swoon and be together, with baby. Interesting nugget: the baby girl is played by three little girl actresses, all of whom are sisters to each other! |
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| Death Race 2 (2010): A straight to DVD prequel to the earlier film Death Race, blogged briefly here before. The film tells the story of how Death Race driver Frankenstein – who was killed in the first five minutes of the earlier film – came to be. Despite the inclusion of several familiar rough and knuckle Hollywood veterans in support roles, including Ving Rhames, Danny Trejo and Sean Beans, and a few returns from the first first film, this one’s just bad. Story’s not interesting, main character ‘Luke’ played by Luke Goss looks thoroughly uninterested, and the races aren’t nearly as visceral or interesting as the first film. Production distinctively looks cheaper too. Avoid. |  |
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| Jonah Hex (2010). A ‘Wild West’ anti-hero film based off the DC Comics character. Stars Josh Brolin as the title character, a Confederate officer, who is dishonorably discharged by his evil and corrupt commanding general (John Malkovich) who also then proceeds to kill his family. Hex goes off on vigilante rampage, dispensing violent justice as he sees fit to all manner of wrong doers, with the ultimate aim of avenging his family. Stars also Megan Fox as the potential romantic love-interest.This one’s all guilty pleasure, as the action scenes are at least reasonably interesting, if several of the expansive backdrops are clearly CGed. Story’s all crummy, and Malkovich hams it up as the bad guy. Fox struts around with those pouty lips of hers karate-chops when beating up bad guys all in those relatively tight-fitting clothes of hers. Watch and forget. |  |
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| Going the Distance (2010). Romantic drama starring Justin Long and Drew Barrymore. The two of them play Garret and Erin, a couple involved in a long distance relationship. And the sort of antics they engage in to keep their relationship alive are quite reminiscent of what Ling and I did during our courtship days too, and there are plenty of new media usage inclusions. Barrymore and Long look cute together too, though given Barrymore’s physically aged appearance next to the always youthful looking Long, the film at a few spots feel as though this is a film about a middle-age woman having it out with a young lover. So-so, but you’re not missing anything if you give this one a pass. |  |
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| More in the next post! |
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