Movies releasing for the long weekend

-
It's a public holiday in South Africa tomorrow, and many cinemas around the country are actually screening the weekend's new releases from today. Given the glut of debuts last week, today there are only 2 notables... and they're both sequels of sequels.

1) Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol: Ghost Protocol is the fourth entry in in the Mission: Impossible film series that kicked off back in 1996 - and is based on the popular, 60s TV series. Once again Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his teammates (Simon Pegg, Paula Patton) from the Impossible Missions Force are the victim of high level political intrigue and betrayal. Forced to go rogue to uncover the truth behind a deadly terrorist bombing, Ethan and co. struggle to decide if they can trust fellow agent Jeremy Renner. Acclaimed animator Brad (The Incredibles) Bird is in the director's chair for this espionage action thriller.

Internationally, Ghost Protocol is screening in conventional cinemas and IMAX - to really maximise the impact of the Dubai skyscraper scenes - but of course IMAX is long dead in South Africa. *sniff*

Anyway, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol is currently sitting with an aggregated Rotten Tomatoes rating of 92% Fresh. Apparently the film is the best in the series so far, but then again they say that for EVERY sequel. A more balanced assessment is that Ghot Protocol is far from perfect, but the unrelenting, and sometimes very inventive action scenes, really deliver the adrenaline goods.


2) Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked: Unbelievably, they're still churning out these critically reviled monstrosities, and here we are on movie number 3. Based on the cartoon characters and fictional music group, Alvin and the Chipmunks 3 is a family comedy mixing live-action and CGI-animation. This time the obnoxious singing vermin - and their female counterparts, the Chipettes - are swept from a cruise liner and stranded on a desert island. Meanwhile, for some unfathomable reason, the boys' long-suffering adoptive father, Dave (Jason Lee) sets out to rescue them.

At the time of writing this post, the surprisingly 2D-only Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked was 11% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Apparently the film is punny and full of slapstick and should be amusing enough for under 10s. Everyone else, beware... or get very, very drunk before entering the cinema.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is the rebooted Lara Croft gay? Evidence for and against...

-
Image
As some of you know, I’ve been fangirling hard over the new Tomb Raider , the first entry in the video game series since 2008, and ostensibly a reboot for the entire franchise . Taking the form of an origin story, Tomb Raider 2013 depicts the events that transformed a beautiful, if bookish, archaeology graduate into a pistol-packing adventurer with a devil-may-care attitude. We meet Lara Croft as a pretty, fairly ordinary 21 year old, brooding over her work notes, listening to her mp3 player and very much confined to the shadow of her male mentors. By the end of the game, however, she’s taken charge – she’s had to! – and, battered, bruised and bloody, she’s both a survivor and hero, right down to rescuing the princess and carrying her away in her arms. Yeah, this is probably the best point to mention that there will be some Tomb Raider 2013 spoilers in this post, so read ahead with caution. Anyway, I loved the game. Technically it’s near faultless, it looks beautiful, the ov...
Read more

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Queer Icon (Part 4)

-
Image
Part 4: The mystery of Lara Croft’s sexuality “Now what’s a man gotta do to get that kind of attention from ya?” – Larson Conway (Tomb Raider, 1996) Despite being an icon for many queer pop culture consumers, Lara Croft’s own sexual orientation remains ambiguous. Outside of the Top Cow comics and live-action films – where Lara is blatantly heterosexual, with a fondness for slightly scruffy bad boys (who keep betraying and hurting her) – the character comes across as primarily asexual. Kurtis Trent is the only male figure who even comes close to being a love interest in the game series. Lara's apparent sexual disinterest is despite the adventurer appearing very sexually attractive herself; a figure of desire with bee-stung lips, voluptuous breasts, toned stomach and impossibly long, athlete’s legs. Yet Lara is never dominated by sexual yearnings or romantic affections. She is very much in control of herself at all times. It’s worth noting, however, that over time th...
Read more

Ladies I Love: Part 2 - Rhona Mitra

-
Image
Following on from the first post in this series , you may realise that I have a very definite type. Anyway, today we profile model-turned-actress Rhona Mitra . This 36 year old Briton is of English, Irish and Indian descent. You'll have seen her pop up on the big and small screen multiple over the past decade and a half, although Mitra's claim to fame is that she was the second ever model (some say first if you rule out "unofficial"  Nathalie Cook ) to play iconic video game character Lara Croft . From 1997-1998, Mitra could be found in PR material, as well as at trade shows, events and conventions as a flesh-and-blood embodiment of Tomb Raider 's kick-ass archeologist lead. There have been many official Lara Croft models over the years , but as far as I'm concerned Mitra remains the best. In my mind, of all of them, she most closely resembles the video game character in terms of facial features. Plus she comes from money and had a rebellious boarding...
Read more