Movies releasing in South Africa today
Well, it's been a few weeks since I've done one of these new cinema release summaries.
As a catch-up, the past 2 weekends have seen the release in South Africa of highly anticipated sci-fi sequel Tron: Legacy (49% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) - which unfortunately didn't blow me away as I'd hoped - along with comedy three-quel Little Fockers (10% Fresh), real-life-meets-CGI cartoon adaptation Yogi Bear (13% Fresh), all-star bank heist movie (The Town94% Fresh, thank God!) and South Africa's first ever vampire movie, Eternity - an apparent mash-up of Twilight, Blade and Daybreakers that looks so awful I just can't stomach paying to watch it, even if it is for shits and giggles.
Anyway, 3 new movies release today, and they're of varying levels of quality.
Gulliver's Travels: I have fond memories of the 1996 Ted Danson miniseries, based quite faithfully on Jonathan Swift's timeless fantasy satire. So I was mildly curious at the thought of Jack Black donning breeches and a 18th Century English accent. However, as the trailer for the 2010 film revealed, I was way off track expecting fidelity to the literary source material. Black plays a modern day geek slacker, who via the Bermuda Triangle ends up in Lilliput, a country of tiny people (including Emily Blunt, Jason Segel and Billy Connolly), who he proceeds to impress by deflecting cannon balls with his belly and urinating on their castle to extinguish a fire.
Gulliver's Travels is 22% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Words like "junk", "juvenile," "crude" and "imbecilic" pop up time and time again in reviews. It's certainly a movie I'll be avoiding. Screening in conventional format and 3D.
The Tourist: Oh look, another action-espionage movie in which an unsuspecting civilian gets unknowingly caught up in the dangerous antics of a sexy government agent (see Killers, Knight and Day, Red). Except the twist this time is that the "norm" is the guy (Johnny Depp) and the spy is the girl (Angelina Jolie). The Tourist is a remake of a 2005 French film.
The Tourist is clearly all about star power, stunning locations (Paris and Venice) and sleek cinematic style. I can't say it really appealed to me though, seeing as I'm a bit tired of enigmatic Action Angie. Critics weren't fond of The Tourist either. The film is just 20% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, where it's been called pretty but sluggish. Criminally, there is also apparently no chemistry between Depp and Jolie.
The Concert: For anyone sick of predictable Hollywood production line entertainment, there's this award-winning foreign language film. Aleksei Guskov plays a brilliant Russian conductor who has been working as a concert hall cleaner since being disgraced under the Soviet regime 30 years previously. One day he intercepts an invite for the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra to perform at Paris's prestigious Théâtre du Châtelet. Defiantly, he races across Europe, assembling his washed up former orchestra, and recruiting Inglourious Basterd's Mélanie Laurent as a soloist - all in preparation for the greatest performance of their lives.
The Concert is 58% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Apparently the film's humour and drama doesn't always sit comfortably side by side, but the clumsiness is redeemed by the rousing finale, with its sincere and touching emotion.
As a catch-up, the past 2 weekends have seen the release in South Africa of highly anticipated sci-fi sequel Tron: Legacy (49% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) - which unfortunately didn't blow me away as I'd hoped - along with comedy three-quel Little Fockers (10% Fresh), real-life-meets-CGI cartoon adaptation Yogi Bear (13% Fresh), all-star bank heist movie (The Town94% Fresh, thank God!) and South Africa's first ever vampire movie, Eternity - an apparent mash-up of Twilight, Blade and Daybreakers that looks so awful I just can't stomach paying to watch it, even if it is for shits and giggles.
Anyway, 3 new movies release today, and they're of varying levels of quality.
Gulliver's Travels: I have fond memories of the 1996 Ted Danson miniseries, based quite faithfully on Jonathan Swift's timeless fantasy satire. So I was mildly curious at the thought of Jack Black donning breeches and a 18th Century English accent. However, as the trailer for the 2010 film revealed, I was way off track expecting fidelity to the literary source material. Black plays a modern day geek slacker, who via the Bermuda Triangle ends up in Lilliput, a country of tiny people (including Emily Blunt, Jason Segel and Billy Connolly), who he proceeds to impress by deflecting cannon balls with his belly and urinating on their castle to extinguish a fire.
Gulliver's Travels is 22% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Words like "junk", "juvenile," "crude" and "imbecilic" pop up time and time again in reviews. It's certainly a movie I'll be avoiding. Screening in conventional format and 3D.
The Tourist: Oh look, another action-espionage movie in which an unsuspecting civilian gets unknowingly caught up in the dangerous antics of a sexy government agent (see Killers, Knight and Day, Red). Except the twist this time is that the "norm" is the guy (Johnny Depp) and the spy is the girl (Angelina Jolie). The Tourist is a remake of a 2005 French film.
The Tourist is clearly all about star power, stunning locations (Paris and Venice) and sleek cinematic style. I can't say it really appealed to me though, seeing as I'm a bit tired of enigmatic Action Angie. Critics weren't fond of The Tourist either. The film is just 20% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, where it's been called pretty but sluggish. Criminally, there is also apparently no chemistry between Depp and Jolie.
The Concert: For anyone sick of predictable Hollywood production line entertainment, there's this award-winning foreign language film. Aleksei Guskov plays a brilliant Russian conductor who has been working as a concert hall cleaner since being disgraced under the Soviet regime 30 years previously. One day he intercepts an invite for the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra to perform at Paris's prestigious Théâtre du Châtelet. Defiantly, he races across Europe, assembling his washed up former orchestra, and recruiting Inglourious Basterd's Mélanie Laurent as a soloist - all in preparation for the greatest performance of their lives.
The Concert is 58% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Apparently the film's humour and drama doesn't always sit comfortably side by side, but the clumsiness is redeemed by the rousing finale, with its sincere and touching emotion.
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