Blog Moved

Hey all,

To dovetail with my coursework this blog is going to be moved to http://andrewpd.wordpress.com/

Also a bit of a name change, to a slightly less cumbersome name from Apocalypse Now...

Still be doing the same types of posts so please check it out and as always I would love to hear your comments

- Andrew

Tom Hardy to play Bane in The Dark Knight Rises!

I'm so happy to hear that Tom Hardy will be playing Bane, the new villain in the next Batman movie - The Dark Knight Rises.

Bane was one of the best villains to be added to Batman’s collection of foes, primarily because he wasn’t like most of the others - no real superpowers, apart from using a uber steroid and a razor sharp criminal mind rather than being criminally insane (see Joker). He is a perfect character for Christopher Nolan to bring to life on the big screen, especially after the disappointing take on Bane from the horribly done Batman & Robin movie before the reboot of the series.

That movie took away everything that made Bane one of Batman’s toughest foes, and instead replaced him with a piss poor imitation of the hulk wearing a luchador mask. Since Nolan has been consistent in relying on the comics for inspiration I can only assume this version of Bane will be back to the super villain he was.

On top of a great director shaping a great character, you also have the man behind the mask (I apologize for the pun) being the incredibly talented Tom Hardy. Anyone who saw Inception, Bronson or RocknRolla knows how well he can perform on the big screen. Hell, he even made Star Trek: Nemesis a little bit tolerable.

I can’t tell you how excited this announcement has made me for the next film, and makes me think it might actually be possible for Nolan to make a sequel to The Dark Knight which can surpass Heath Ledgers amazing turn as the Joker.

O and apparently Anne Hathaway is playing Selena Kyle but who really cares about that…

News article below

http://ca.eonline.com/uberblog/b221418_purrr-fect_anne_hathaway_lands_dark.html

OK ladies and gentlemen, for the inaugural post I chose to go with a movie I watched this past week, a little film called…

The Tourist

So the tourist starts off with a little stage setting scene in which the main premise of Scotland Yard’s hunt for a mysterious wanted man who it seems has some sort of relationship with Angelina Jolie’s character. The rest of the movie unfolds in traditional fashion, introducing characters (we meet Johnny Depp on a train soon after) and laying on motivation and context for the events, but the movie never really does sucks you in.

Ricky Gervais joked about the two dimensional characters, but at the heart of it that is the main flaw of the movie. The rest of the characters dance around the main two, drifting in and out of the film with little individual time granted to them. This is especially true of Paul Bettany and Timothy Dalton, both great actors who have little detail or depth given to their characters. The storyline seems like it should be delving deeper into the two main characters, making us sympathise and identify with them, and actually create complex characters which you would expect in a romance and mystery laced drama like this.

Unfortunately this never happens. Angelina Jolie looks as beautiful as ever but she never really does anything of note… just stands there and looks pretty. Her character is supposed to have this burning passion for the mystery man, but this is never really explained nor did I find myself at all interested in it. Johnny Depp plays the somewhat naïve American quite well, but again his character never really develops much until the end where **spoiler alert** he has a complete personality shift and moves from awkward math teacher to calm, cool and confident hero in the space of a scene change.

I also feel like I need to point out this major problem I had with the film. If Scotland Yard didn’t know that their mystery man wasn’t a 5’5 Arab, what does it matter what the guy on the train that she picks looks like? This little addition into the script, along with a few other little noticeable flaws right off the bat, allowed me to figure out how the film would end before we had even hit the 20 min marker. Which to be blunt took away any sort of anticipation for the rest of the movie. I would imagine this is the case for quite a few, and even if you didn’t piece it together then you probably had before it got to the big end reveal anyways.

In a movie like this, where action and plot really don’t drive the picture, it falls to the characters. Unfortunately they couldn’t quite carry it. Combine this with uneven pacing and a rather boring plot full of huge holes which fail to hide the final surprise makes this film not all that memorable.  

It’s one of those movies where you’re very much aware you are watching a movie. In fact with the nice footage of Venice, this movie could be edited into a fun little travel advertisement for the city…

Overall Rating                     C