Was trying to make up for lost time this weekend so I went to two movies instead of the "former-usual" one. I took a look at Immortals (very enthusiastically recommended to me by my sister, although mainly for Henry Cavill's abs) and Tower Heist. Lets go in order shall we!
My sister, Liz, was very adamant that I should go see Immortals, because it had Henry Cavill staring in the role of Theseus, but more importantly, it had his abs in the role of bulging. Immortals follows young Theseus on his quest to avenge the death of his mother, who was killed at the hands of King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke). Its true, Mickey Rourke has an incredibly gruff persona, and physically fits the part very well. There is however, one drawback with casting him in a role where he has to wear a mask a lot. That drawback is that it is impossible to understand what he is saying. Its difficult when he's playing himself, and when you add in the muffling effects of a mask, it gets incredibly hard. Luckily though, for all intents and purposes, he just needs to stand there and look imposing.
There are also some Gods mucking about, the most important of which is Zeus (Luke Evans). I really like Luke Evans and he does a great job of being both menacing, and intriguingly tender when the situation calls for it. Plus he gets to kick quite a bit of Titan ass, and those scenes are incredible. It makes me excited to see Luke in the next two Hobbit movies, where he will be playing Bard the Bowman.
Immortals was done by the producers of 300, and was directed by Tarsem Singh, who is going to be directing Mirror Mirror, which is one 2012's two Snow White themed movies. He also has the honor of directing one of the movies that messed me up when I was a kid, the visually stunning and incredibly creepy "The Cell" with Jennifer Lopez and Vincent D'Onofrio.
Anyhow, Immortals was actually good fun, and unlike 300, which was 80/20 in action/plot ration, the breakdown here is closer to 60/40, which means you'll be getting some dialog and back story along with your bloody and visceral fight scenes.
This one gets a solid 4/5, go see it if you are in the mood for action, adventure, abs, and great effects.
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Tower Heist happened to be playing right after Immortals was over, and it was either go home and play Skyrim, or stay at the theater and take a look at another movie that I'd wanted to see for a while but didn't have the chance to go to.
Tower Heist is the story of Josh Kovacs (Ben Stiller), the manager of "The Tower", the most luxurious residence in New York City, as he tries to plot the theft of over $20Million to cover the losses of his hotel's pension plan which was invested and lost by Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda). Phew, that was a long run-on sentence. The movie is filled with an all-star cast, including Matthew Broderick, Michael Pena, Eddie Murphy, Téa Leoni, Gabourey Sidibe, and (my favorite in this one) Casey Affleck.
The plot is fairly simple, Arthur Shaw, fraudulently invested and blew through all his holdings and is being investigated by the FBI. When he gets arrested for one of the largest Ponzi Scheme's in history, The Tower's employees lose all their pensions. That's when Josh Kovacs and his rag-tag crew of a broke investor (Broderick), electrician (Pena), maid (Sidibe), and professional thief (Murphy) go after his fortune, hidden in his room atop one of the most secure buildings in New York.
Without giving away a lot of the plot, basically, wacky hi jinks ensue. One of my favorite scenes is when Téa Leoni's FBI agent is having a drink with Josh and having a back and forth about the last time she "got this drunk". I miss Téa, and have been a fan of hers since "The Naked Truth", a sitcom she did back in the mid-90's. Murphy is also back to his old self! After a few not-so-stellar films (Norbit, Pluto Nash), he's back to his old rude/crude hilarious self. Which is kind of nice and hopefully he will get back to making dirty jokes and having a good time like he did way back during all those fun Beverly Hills Cop movies.
Tower Heist is definitely worth taking a look at if you want a good laugh, some of Casey Afflecks lines and deliveries were hilarious and I actually laughed in the theater, which is fairly rare.
This one also gets a 4/5. Not a great comedy or heist movie, but its got heart and good laughs. Plus the actual heist is pretty impressive, and decently thought out, if not terribly believable.
That's all for now! Hopefully I'll get to Three Musketeers here soon so I can get a bit more Luke Evans actions (he plays Aramis). Yay!
