Post X - Justice

Nicolas Cage has two different 'on-screen' persona's. One is the over-the-top highly entertaining Nicolas who we all love and enjoy watching, and the other is the proper Oscar-worthy(and let's not forget, Oscar-winning) actor who played in such movies as "Leaving Las Vegas, "Adaptation" and "Raising Arizona".

"Nic Cage looking good in a beard."

In Justice, Nicolas Cage starts by playing himself, but oddly enough, he makes a turn to a more serious approach. After the initial introduction and opening sequence, he is actually playing a character, and yes, you stop seeing Nicolas Cage in the screen but the character he is portraying. It has been a while to be honest, and it is a fun change I have to admit, plus you actually get to see Nicolas Cage's proper acting skills.

Anyhow, the film itself, is actually very good. Surprisingly good!

When I saw the DVD on Blockbuster I thought "Cage..." and like the zombie I am when it comes to taking my dose of Nicolas Cage, I decided to spend my precious(and few) pounds to rent the film. I got home, undressed and showed my beautifully sculptured body of a Greek God to the four walls of my room, put the DVD on my XBOX 360, lied on the bed to relax my hard-working legs, and pressed "Play" on the controller.

"Trivial Fact: In this scene the character is exercising, in the post they used this photo as if to show he was running from someone. Epic Photoshop is epic."

At first you see Nicolas Cage acting like Nicolas Cage, so all is good, exactly what I was expecting. Then the plot takes off and.... Nicolas Cage is gone. Where did he go? He was gone Ladies and Gentlemen, all that was left behind was the character struggling to escape from the bad people who are after him.

Who's the bad people? I will tell you!

You see Will Gerard(Nicolas Cage) goes through a lot when he finds his wife in the hospital after she was abused by some bastard, and in his wrong Judgment, he agrees to a group of vigilantes who are 'Seeking Justice', to take care of the guy who did this to her, but only if he agrees to do a favour for them sometime in the future. And he does. But then he welcomes a very nasty surprise when he realizes that this "Organization" now asks for him to become one of them, a vigilante and murderer.

And that is the plot.

The first act is great, same goes for the second act, and the third act is an alright conclusion, although it could have been done a bit better(There will be no spoilers do not worry my friends...Dumbledore dies).

As far as the acting goes, other than the very good job done by Nicolas Cage, the rest of the cast is able to stand face to face with 'The Cage' and deliver a more than decent job, and no one feels mis-casted. Also, Guy Pearce is a freakin nice villain in this film, and him against Nicolas Cage make a nice 'Nemesis Couple'.


Bottom line, Justice is a nice surprise, watch it.

Justice is a 7.5/10

Meme Rating

Official trailer of "Justice"

Post IX - The Raven

The Raven is a film based on the final days of Edgar Allan Poe. Of course since none of us have any idea why the great poet was found dead on a bench, Hollywood decided to give its own fictionalized tale as to what happened to him and how he met his end. The idea sounds great, the premise(a murderer becoming a copycat of fiction and killing his victims as described in murder stories written by the great author) sounds okay, nothing special, a bit redundant, but still a basis for a very good film.

In the end though, something went terribly wrong.

"You don't say?"

John Cusack plays Edgar Allan Poe himself, and he does a pretty decent job. His performance is enjoyable and he seems to have fun playing the role, and it is true, at times, he really tends to shine. So clearly, John Cusack was not the problem with this film, but I am afraid to say, he was the only good thing in it. 

Luke Evans plays Detective Emmet Fields, and he does an okay job, but at times he does end up overacting or just missing the mark when it comes on delivering his lines. At times he just seems to yell for no other reason but just to build up the tension in the scene, and not really because he has something to say. This reminds me specifically of a scene where Edgar Allan Poe(John Cusack) and Dec. Emmet Fields(Luke Evans) are having a tense conversation in a room, and at some point Allan Poe raises his voice which makes perfect sense considering the conversation going on, but Dec. Fields bursts as well and by the end of the scene you have two characters "barking" like dogs at each other and you are just sitting there in the theatre thinking "???????". 

Most of the rest of the cast did well though, like Kevin McNally, who's always a joy at the big screen wherever he plays, and Brendan Gleeson, but I must also admit before I move on from the Acting aspect of the film, that Emily(Played by Alice Eve), the other half of Edgar Allan Poe and romance vehicle for the film, was such a boring and uninteresting character. As if this character had no reason to be there, and this, brings me to the next failed aspect of the film.

 

"Any ideas?"

"Yes, I think she's dead."

 The story and plot of "The Raven". 

As I mentioned when I started this review, the concept of a copycat killer basing his murders on fiction work is a bit 'overdone' and just too generic for a film based on Edgar-Allan-Fucking-Poe!

Even so, I believed that the film would manage to make something out of this backbone of a story, but in the end it only managed to fail to a whole other level. The plot is badly written and given with unnecessary characters and situations all the way through until the very end credits. I know it sounds a bit harsh, but sadly for me and for all of us, it's true. The Raven is simply boring, uninteresting and with a very, very, very bad pace. I always say that even if a film has some negative aspects to it, if it has a good pace at least it goes on enjoyably until it's over. This one though, misses most marks as a movie and on top of that, is told in a very bad way, like a drunk missing his steps on his way home. Scene after scene with no rational connection, events just happening until the end credits roll.

The Raven was a disappointment, even more so because I was waiting for it to be released since I first saw the film being in pre-production. The problem is not that the film is not as good as it could have been, the real shame is that its just bad. 

The film was also directed by James McTeigue, the man who gave us 'V for Vendetta'. A film directed by the person responsible for one of the finest films of our generation, you "did" expect a much better work than what we got.

I could give it a 5/10 based on the efforts they put into it, and the good visual style and representation, which I did not mention earlier in the review. But if I have to rate this film based on how much I enjoyed watching it, I will have to go even lower than that.

The Raven is a 3/10

Meme Rating

Official trailer of "The Raven"