Theme: Psychics

Dredd (2012) – Karl Urban and Olivia Thirlby

This movie is made to appear a bit less dated than the previous one. Unfortunately, there’s no Stallone in this movie — instead, Karl Urban plays the lead role, and his voice seems relatively timid and unconvincing at first, but it grows on you — he did alright in the end, but lacked personality — kind of reminiscent of Mandalorian style.

In-keeping with the original, it gets a bit gruesome, for example, people being drugged, skinned alive and thrown off a towerblock within the first 15 minutes. Quite distasteful, and typical of Hollywood. The movie continues to glorify drug-based highs and gory violence too. An automatic downgrade is warranted.

Negatives aside, it gets interesting by half an hour in, as Judge Dredd and his psychic rookie apprentice called Anderson (well played by Olivia Thirlby) get trapped in a tower block by the criminal gang that runs it. Unfortunately though, that pretty much spells the end of the movie already since they stay trapped in that building for the next hour.

I rate this movie roughly on a par with the original — a bit worse on story, but a bit better in terms of cinematography and modern effects. That makes it a Bang Average movie, which seems fair. It had far more potential off the back of its core concept & genre, but was never set up to achieve anywhere near its potential, it seems. Still, it wasn’t bad — it did alright in holding attention, if you can excuse a bunch of short distasteful patches that warrant a bit of fast-forwarding for anyone who’s seen this movie before and knows roughly what to expect.

The Mummy (2017) – Tom Cruise, Annabelle Wallis, Sofia Boutella and Russell Crowe

This is primarily a historical / sci-fi thriller movie, with good action, but it also verges on borderline horror, with zombies etc — similar to Blade in this regard; and like Blade, it just about qualifies for listing on this site due to its good action content and being not so unbearably horror.

The action and general production here is of a good standard, but the horror factor is a bit unpleasant to say the least. In a way it’s barely watchable, but I’m going to rate it Above Average in the end.

Tom, Annabelle, Sofia and Russell all deliver strong performances in this movie, as expected.

Edge Of Tomorrow (2014) – Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt

Edge Of Tomorrow (2014)

The first 10 minutes are cleverly designed to build a backstory to this movie, and while it starts off a bit messy, Tom Cruise‘s presence sharpens it up nicely. By 10 minutes in it’s clear Tom Cruise is playing Major William Cage, some top marketing guy for the military who doesn’t like to get his hands dirty, and upon attempting to blackmail a general, finds himself railroaded to the frontline with his rank stripped and nobody believing his story.

By 20 minutes in, the Major is getting his first taste of battle on the front line and it’s a bit of a nightmare, but it’s well executed, and it soon becomes something quite intriguing, when 5 minutes later he dies and his day restarts and everything becomes Déjà Vu. Then 5 minutes later still – now half an hour in – the day restarts again, so it’s now the third instance of the same day. This time he’s less confused, and tries very hard to prove himself and alert everyone what’s going on, but fails only ends up with a taped up mouth. He also tries fighting the aliens proactively using his limited foresight, but dies pretty quickly. Then we see him die quickly again. Then on the fifth attempt he tries talking to the lead female – the Angel of Verdun, Sergeant Rita Vrataski, played by Emily Blunt – and it’s already clear that he’s been here many times before, the movie’s just skipped several iterations. One the next full reset, we see him try a different tact. He subtly proves his strange abilities to predict the future, and assures everyone he’s not trying to avoid the war – he’s now acting enthusiastic and friendly but not controversial at all – this is of course a rouse to gain everyone’s trust so they all lower their guard and he’s free to do what he needs to do – this time it’s meeting up with the woman who told him to come find her when he wakes up. It seems she has the same ability as he does, and knows all about it. There’s a few nice touches of humour here too.

By 50 minutes in, William Cage (Tom Cruise) and Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt) have met Rita’s friend, a top scientist who understands how this alien enemy operates, and what’s causing the day to keep resetting, and everything becomes clear, or at least as clear as it ever will be. Rita starts training Tom in combat skills, which he’s gravely lacking, and she tells him he needs to make sure he dies every day, else he’s out of the game.

It gets a bit tense, gritty and uncomfortable towards the end of the first hour, and it’s safe to say, most of the fun is already gone now. But there’s still nearly an hour left to go. For this reason, although this movie showed great potential to be arguably the best action hero movie ever made, in the end I’m going to settle for a rating of Very Good, which is no mean feat of course.

After a solid 20 minutes of gritty drama and uncomfortable action, the mood picks up with half an hour to go as the Major & Sergeant come up with a new plan and head to HQ to get what they need. Unfortunately though, this refreshing uplift only lasts a few minutes before it gets gritty again and doesn’t let up till the very end. Nevertheless, we can’t discount the great entertainment value of the first hour, making this a Very Good action hero movie on a par with Denzel’s equally great movie The Equalizer from the same year.

Live And Let Die (1973) – Roger Moore and Jane Seymour

Live And Let Die (1973)

While this was Roger Moore‘s first outing as James Bond, he had plenty of experience starring in a similar role after his TV series The Saint which ran from 1962 to 1969. So Roger was well prepared for this role, and does a strong job here.

Live And Let Die opens with a highly memorable scene where an elaborate funeral walk turns out to be dedicated to the agent who asks “whose funeral is it?”. Shortly after that, we get the classic theme tune to this movie, which is one of the best James Bond theme tunes ever made.

This movie is quite memorable in how it features a card-reading psychic woman called Solitaire – she’s the main female in this movie and is played more than adequately by British actress Jane Seymour.

The second main female in this movie is a black woman called Rosie Carver, played quite well by Gloria Hendry.

The chief baddie, Mr Big aka Dr Kananga, is played adequately by Yaphet Kotto.

25 minutes in, we’re introduced to one of the bad guys’ main goons – a man called Tee Hee Johnson, played quite well by Julius Harris. He has a big scary metal pincer for a hand, and this probably inspired the future baddie called Jaws who has scary metal teeth and is probably the most memorable baddie in the whole James Bond movie saga. Jaws appears in two Bond movies in the late 70s – The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979) – in the middle of the Roger Moore era. Incidentally, those were the only two Moore-as-Bond movies directed by Lewis Gilbert, and those were also Moore’s most successful Bond movies at the box office (both before and after accounting for inflation). Just like Tee Hee surprised James on the train in this movie, Jaws also surprises James on the train in The Spy Who Loved Me.

The other main baddie in this movie is played quite well by Geoffrey Holder – he plays a 9-foot-tall voodoo magician called Baron Samedi.

Around half an hour before the end of Live And Let Die, we’re introduced to a man who is probably the funniest character in the whole James Bond saga: Sheriff JW Pepper, played very well by Clifton James. He takes stereotypes to the extreme in a humorous way. He makes his first appearance in this movie, and makes his second & last appearance in the subsequent Bond film: The Man With The Golden Gun.

Live And Let Die was directed by Guy Hamilton, who up until this point had only directed one Bond movie – that being Goldfinger, the best one from the Connery era (and the best one till this day, according to Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic – but what do they know – they also rate Daniel Craig above Roger Moore). So we can probably expect big things from this movie, and it doesn’t disappoint. This movie is not a boring one per se, but much of it can get a bit monotonously predictable for frequent rewatchers, as the storyline is quite a basic in extended patches. Nevertheless, considering its strengths, I have to rate this an Upper-OK movie, alongside Goldfinger, making it the joint best Bond movie so far.