Movies opening today, SA: RED Jackasses in 3D
Four notable new movies open in South Africa today. Only 2 really entice me to the point of earning my Pick of the Week tags; but the others do warrant a mention.
So if you’re in a “Local is Lekker” mood there’s Liefling: Die Movie, which is being marketed as the first full blown Afrikaans musical in over 30 years. By the looks of things, it’s a South African mix of Valentine’s Day and Mamma Mia! – populated with local actors and musical performers like Lika Berning, Bobby van Jaarsveld, Marlee van der Merwe, Sonja Herholdt, Elize Cawood, Rouel Beukes and Kurt Darren – who will all be belting out something like 25 beloved local love songs.
Battle for Terra, meanwhile, is a CGI-animated sci-fi adventure that has taken 3 years to reach our shores, mostly because in-between it was undergoing a 3D conversion. Anyway, reading its synopsis, Battle for Terra sounds very Avatar-ish, and maybe a little bit Titan A.E. – peaceful aliens living on an oxygen-free, but resource-rich, planet are attacked by militaristic human refugees who have already destroyed Earth. An encounter with a human pilot proves to alien heroine Mala that the 2 species aren’t that incompatible, but by then sinister plans are afoot to make the planet habitable for humans at the expense of the local population.
Battle for Terra features a surprisingly good voice cast, including Evan Rachel Wood, Justin Long, Brian Cox, Chris Evans, Danny Glover, Amanda Peet, Dennis Quaid and Luke Wilson. However, the little known indie animated film could only achieve a middling 48% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. This suggests that the film, like 9, doesn’t quite deliver on its aspirations of being an intense, tonally mature animated film with a serious message.
Battle for Terra isn’t the only 3D movie releasing this weekend locally. Although I won’t be watching it myself, I’m sure enough of you are excited about Jackass 3D – which has been specifically filmed for the multi-dimension format – to warrant it earning a Pick of the Week shout-out.
As in the other 2 movies and the MTV series that spawned them, Jackass 3D sees Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Bam Margera and friends performing all manner of pranks and stunts, which alternate between gross-out and downright dangerous. Jackass has always been juvenile love-it-or-hate-it stuff, and apparently this franchise entry is no different. Featuring a 62% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Jackass 3D’s supporters call it laugh out loud hilarious, enjoyably exuberant and anarchistic. Unsurprisingly the film’s detractors call it tedious, infantile and embarrassing given the obvious advancing age of its cast.
Finally this week there’s my must-see Pick of the Week, RED. Loosely based on the comic miniseries by Warren Ellis, RED stands for Retired, Extremely Dangerous and centres on an elite group of deadly CIA operatives (Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren) who are adapting to retirement with varying degrees of success. When they are suddenly targeted for extermination by their own former organisation, these black ops specialists band together to defeat the much younger agents hunting them, and break into CIA headquarters – where a conspiracy is brewing. Mary-Louise Parker, Karl Urban, Richard Dreyfuss, Brian Cox, Julian McMahon and Ernest Borgnine round out the excellent cast.
You can watch the trailer for RED, and read my initial thoughts on the action comedy, right here. In essence though, the film looks like a helluva lot of fun. And evidently critics agree. RED is 70% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, where it has been called witty and stylish, with the A-grade actors clearly, and infectiously, enjoying themselves as they unleash comic book chaos. At the same time though, it’s worth noting that for some reviewers RED’s cast is the best thing about the film – which is otherwise just average.
So if you’re in a “Local is Lekker” mood there’s Liefling: Die Movie, which is being marketed as the first full blown Afrikaans musical in over 30 years. By the looks of things, it’s a South African mix of Valentine’s Day and Mamma Mia! – populated with local actors and musical performers like Lika Berning, Bobby van Jaarsveld, Marlee van der Merwe, Sonja Herholdt, Elize Cawood, Rouel Beukes and Kurt Darren – who will all be belting out something like 25 beloved local love songs.
Battle for Terra, meanwhile, is a CGI-animated sci-fi adventure that has taken 3 years to reach our shores, mostly because in-between it was undergoing a 3D conversion. Anyway, reading its synopsis, Battle for Terra sounds very Avatar-ish, and maybe a little bit Titan A.E. – peaceful aliens living on an oxygen-free, but resource-rich, planet are attacked by militaristic human refugees who have already destroyed Earth. An encounter with a human pilot proves to alien heroine Mala that the 2 species aren’t that incompatible, but by then sinister plans are afoot to make the planet habitable for humans at the expense of the local population.
Battle for Terra features a surprisingly good voice cast, including Evan Rachel Wood, Justin Long, Brian Cox, Chris Evans, Danny Glover, Amanda Peet, Dennis Quaid and Luke Wilson. However, the little known indie animated film could only achieve a middling 48% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. This suggests that the film, like 9, doesn’t quite deliver on its aspirations of being an intense, tonally mature animated film with a serious message.
Battle for Terra isn’t the only 3D movie releasing this weekend locally. Although I won’t be watching it myself, I’m sure enough of you are excited about Jackass 3D – which has been specifically filmed for the multi-dimension format – to warrant it earning a Pick of the Week shout-out.
As in the other 2 movies and the MTV series that spawned them, Jackass 3D sees Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Bam Margera and friends performing all manner of pranks and stunts, which alternate between gross-out and downright dangerous. Jackass has always been juvenile love-it-or-hate-it stuff, and apparently this franchise entry is no different. Featuring a 62% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Jackass 3D’s supporters call it laugh out loud hilarious, enjoyably exuberant and anarchistic. Unsurprisingly the film’s detractors call it tedious, infantile and embarrassing given the obvious advancing age of its cast.
Finally this week there’s my must-see Pick of the Week, RED. Loosely based on the comic miniseries by Warren Ellis, RED stands for Retired, Extremely Dangerous and centres on an elite group of deadly CIA operatives (Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren) who are adapting to retirement with varying degrees of success. When they are suddenly targeted for extermination by their own former organisation, these black ops specialists band together to defeat the much younger agents hunting them, and break into CIA headquarters – where a conspiracy is brewing. Mary-Louise Parker, Karl Urban, Richard Dreyfuss, Brian Cox, Julian McMahon and Ernest Borgnine round out the excellent cast.
You can watch the trailer for RED, and read my initial thoughts on the action comedy, right here. In essence though, the film looks like a helluva lot of fun. And evidently critics agree. RED is 70% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, where it has been called witty and stylish, with the A-grade actors clearly, and infectiously, enjoying themselves as they unleash comic book chaos. At the same time though, it’s worth noting that for some reviewers RED’s cast is the best thing about the film – which is otherwise just average.
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