Simon's Movie Reviews

Clint Eastwood’s Invictus features a politician who is smart enough to unite his people in spite of themselves and a rugby captain desperate to lead his team to the world cup. The politician is Nelson Mandela played by Morgan Freeman and the captain is Francois Pienaar, played by Matt Damon. All great names who all deliver to the best of their ability in a truly inspiring story based on true events. The movie begins by setting the stage in an unsubtle but effective way. White children in South Africa are seen playing soccer with their coach. The camera pans to the left side of the road and shows black children playing the same game but with shoddy equipment and no uniforms. Several important-looking cars then drive by and the black kids cheer at the car, while the white kids simply stare. One of the white players asks the coach who the man in the main car is and the coach answers “It is that terrorist Mandela.” This scene illustrates the difficult task that lay ahead of the newly ...

Give’Em Hell Malone plays out like a step-cousin of Robert Rodriguez’ Sin City. Both movies feature film noir characters, fedora hats, femmes fatale, old cars, menacing hitmen, and at the same time e-mail and cellphones. Of the two, Sin City is more visually creative and has a stronger story, but Malone is fun too if you like the genre. Thomas Jane plays Malone, a hired gun with only one name. His own mother only calls him Malone, but it’s not because she is so old she forgot his first name. She still has enough functioning brain matter to take bullets out of her son’s body in the relative privacy of her retirement home. After a particularly deadly shootout, Malone walks into the lobby of the home and the receptionist tells him to try to keep the screaming to a minimum this time. This particular shootout, the most violent of the whole movie, occurred over a suitcase that Malone was paid to recover. Here is a classic film noir object: a suitcase with a mysterious content that every...

There are many words that could be used to describe Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Micmacs. Chief among them would be creative, whimsical, old-fashioned, inventive, and visual. This is a movie that creates its own universe and finds a way to reference itself while the story is being told. It all begins when the father of the protagonist, Bazil (Danny Boon), dies while trying to disarm a land mine in Africa. Subsequently Bazil’s mother is sent to an asylum following a mental breakdown, forcing Bazil to be raised in a strict Catholic school, from which he eventually escapes. As an adult he can only get a job as a video store clerk, but he doesn’t mind since he loves old Bogart and Baccal movies and can even lip-synch the dialogue. Unfortunately, a drive-by shooting occurs outside the store one night and a stray bullet ends up lodged in Bazil’s head. He clearly cannot be described as lucky guy. At the hospital, the doctor flips a coin on whether or not to try to remove the bullet. If he tries t...

The title of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is similarly structured to that of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, though sadly not quite as entertaining. Still, it makes for a decent enough adventure movie set in the scorching desert featuring dastardly villains, a princess in peril and a sword wielding hero. Set in a time when Iraq and Iran were called Persia, the action begins when adopted Prince Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal) and his two brothers are about to invade the sacred city of Alamut that may or may not be providing dangerous weapons to the enemies of the Persian empire (sound familiar?). Dastan is an orphan from the streets who was adopted by the king (Ronald Pickup) who was impressed by the boys Parkour abilities while fending off his guards. His brothers Garsiv (Toby Kebbell) and Tus (Richard Coyle) accept him although sometimes disagree with his brash ways. Accompanying the three brothers on their journey is the family uncle Nizam (Ben Kingsley). Here is a clue t...

The theory is that Shrek Forever After is to be the last movie starring everyone’s favourite green ogre voiced by Mike Myers. The title sounds pretty finale, but then again there are five movies called Final Destination, so you know. Still, whether or not this is the end, the fact is that this is a pretty good chapter in the life of Shrek and company. Shrek is now living in his swamp with his wife Fiona (Cameron Diaz) and his three kids while his friends Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) drop in for a visit every day. On paper, he has a good life: a good house, nice kids, a great wife and a few pals. Yet, married life is getting to Shrek. He has no time for himself, Fiona keeps asking him to unclog a sewage pipe, the kids need their diapers changed, and Donkey keeps coming home uninvited with his half-donkey half-dragon mutant kids for play dates. (I still think these offsprings are the weirdest fairy tale creatures ever animated and quite frankly are a lit...

Origin stories are big these days. Recently studios have shown us how James became Bond, how Bruce Wayne became Batman, and how Captain Kirk met his crew. Now with Ridley Scott’s take on Robin Hood we get to see how an archer from the crusades called Robin Longstride would become an outlaw called Robin of the Hood and steal from the rich to give to the poor. His first crime is to steal seeds to give to farmers, but you have to start somewhere. All the usual suspects are there: Russell Crowe, an expert at playing mythological heroes who are great at both decapitating people with a sword and giving a great speech to fire up a crowd, plays the titular hero. His Robin Hood is a practical one. When he hears that King Richard the Lion Heart (Danny Huston) has died in battle, his first thought is to make for the coast and to hell with the wages. “Imagine how hard it will be to get paid now that he’s dead” he points out. His merry men are not so much merry as feisty and looking for a place...

“It’s good to be back!” Those are the first word uttered by Tony Stark, played with glee as ever by Robert Downey Jr., as he lands at Stark Expo after jumping from a plane, with AC/DC playing gloriously in the background. Man, what a great kickoff to the summer movie season. This is indeed Iron Man 2 in the sense that this time around Tony will have to share the spotlight with a second man in an armoured suit in the shape of his best friend James Rhodes (Don Cheadle, stepping in for Terence Howard). The introduction of this second iron man, or War Machine, is one of the many sources of conflicts in the story since the government does not trust Mr. Stark when he tells the government that his technology cannot be reproduced, putting him at odds with a senator (Gary Shandling) who wants him to turn over the technology to the military, for whom Rhodes works. Watching Tony bask in the glory of being a superhero is the movie’s main villain, Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), a brilliant Russia...