Iron Man is a superhero movie based on the fictional Marvel Comics character Iron Man directed by Jon Favreau. The film stars Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man, Terrence Howard as Lt. Colonel James Rhodes, Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane a.k.a. Iron Monger and Gwyneth Paltrow as Tony Stark’s hot personal assistant, Pepper Potts.
Iron Man stars Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) as a billionaire industrialist whose core business is making weapons. While testing Stark Industries’ latest missile creation called "The Jericho" in Afghanistan, he is kidnapped by a ruthless Middle Eastern terrorist organization who called themselves "Ten Rings".
The film then goes back 36 hours earlier to show what happens before Stark’s journey in Afghanistan, which includes a one-night stand with a reporter named Christine Everhart (Leslie Bibb).
Back to the future, though critically injured and almost die, Stark is saved by Yinsen (Shaun Toub), a mysterious stranger who comes to his rescue. Miraculously, Yinsen is multilingual and knows many languages, from Arab to Urdu to Mongolian. Yinsen uses an electromagnet which keeps the shrapnel from piercing Stark’s heart.
As the terrorists of "Ten Rings" enters the cave Stark and Yinsen are hiding, they both surrender and Stark is forced to create "The Jericho" missile for them. As Yinsen persuades Stark to find a way out of there, Stark first creates a very technologically-advanced heart for himself before building the rest of Iron Man. When the leader of Ten Rings suspects Stark is not working on "The Jericho" missile, he almost kills Yinsen whose life is only spared as Stark undoubtedly tells the terrorist leader that he needs Yinsen as he is a good assistant. Stark manages to create the ultimate bulletproof suit of power armor, complete with pacemaker and flamethrowers and releases himself from his captor but Yinsen dies in the process while trying to help Stark to buy time.
However, since the Iron Man suit is the first creation, it fails after flying in midair and crashed onto a desert with the Iron Man suit fall apart into a thousand pieces only to have Lt. Colonel James Rhodes (Terrence Howard) to rescue Stark.
Now back at the States, his partner Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) and especially his personal assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) is extremely happy to see him alive and kicking. When Potts insists to bring Stark to the hospital for checkup, all Stark wants is a Burger King’s Cheeseburger and to call for an immediate press conference. In the press conference, Stark requests all the reporters to sit down while he eats his cheeseburger. He immediately announces the shut down of Stark Industries weapon manufacturing to which his partner, Stane strongly disapproves.
Back at home, Stark builds a more advanced heart for himself and gets Potts to replace his "old" heart which he tells Potts to throw and burn it. Stark improves his armor and becomes the technologically advanced superhero Iron Man. After numerous testings, his advanced armor suit ends up in gold with red paint. Almost immediately, Stark puts in his latest Iron Man suit, flies to Gulmira, Afghanistan and kills the terrorists who at that point of time are kidnapping women and children and killing men.
The improved Iron Man in gold and red
Meanwhile, the Ten Rings terrorists manage to find pieces of armor left by Stark. The leader of Ten Rings, Raza (Faran Tahir) is seen meeting Stane in discussion of the remained of the armor suits found in the desert. Despite being the man who sells weapons to Ten Rings, Stane orders his men to finish off the remainders of the terrorists and left the place with the armor suit.
Back in United States, Stane gathers a group of scientists to build a more advanced Iron Man called Iron Monger. The only thing missing is the way too technological-advanced heart that Stark has built for himself. So, Stane uses a disapproved highly-advanced sound wave weapon to temporarily immobilize Stark in order to grab his heart.
Stark is lucky as his assistant, Potts has kept his "old" heart in a properly framed glass which simply says “Stark has a heart”. He struggles to reach the framed glass but his robotic assistant lends him a hand.
The fight between Iron Man and Iron Monger then pursues but not for long before the film ends with Tony Stark at a press conference revealing himself as the Iron Man.
Overall, the movie is awesome and is possibly the best-ever film adapted from a comic book. Funny, smart and properly plotted, this is probably the best movie so far for the 2008 movies.
My ratings: 8 out of 10.
P/S: Do look out for Stan Lee’s cameo appearance in the movie.
An accountant Jonathan (Ewan McGregor) is introduced to a mysterious sex club known as The List by his lawyer friend Wyatt (Hugh Jackman). But in this new world, he soon becomes the prime suspect in a woman’s disappearance and a multi-million dollar heist.
No Country for Old Men is an academy-winning movie written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen and starring Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, and Javier Bardem. The film has 8 Oscar nominations and won 4 — Best Director (Joel and Ethan Coen), Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem).
The movie shows scenes of desolated, wide-opened country in West Texas in June 1980. In a voiceover, the local sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) tells of the changing times as the region becomes increasingly violent. The antagonist, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) is arrested on the road as he possesses some kind of strange weapon. In the police station, Chigurh strangles a sheriff’s deputy with his handcuffs to escape custody. He uses his unique weapon, a captive bolt pistol to steal a car by killing the driver.
Meanwhile, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) comes across a collection of corpses and one dying Mexican during his hunting of pronghorn near the Rio Grande river. He also a stash of heroin and two million dollars in a satchel a short distance from the massacre.
Initially taking the money and leaving the Mexican to die, at night, Moss returns with his conscience with water for the dying man. Detected by returning Mexican gangsters, this good deed sets off a cat-and-mouse game in which the hunter and hunted frequently switch roles, as the gang of Mexicans, Moss, Chigurh and Bell chase each other and the money across the Texas and Mexico landscapes.
Chigurh is a professional hitman who has been hired to retrieve the satchel of money. The Mexicans track Moss to a motel room where Moss has hidden the satchel inside an air vent. They wait inside the room to ambush him. Moss, however, sees them and rents an adjacent room to retrieve the satchel through the common vent. Using the receiver, Chigurh tracks the money to Moss’s room, bursts in, and slaughters the Mexicans. Searching for the satchel, Chigurh removes the vent cover with a dime and realizes Moss has escaped with the money. Using the receiver again, Chigurh tracks Moss to a border town hotel, his pursuit climaxing in a firefight that spills onto the streets. Narrowly escaping death by crossing the border, Moss wakes up, is transported to a Mexican hospital, and meets Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson), another operative hired by the drug buyer (Stephen Root). After Moss rejects Wells’s offer to save his life, Wells returns to his hotel where he is captured and killed by Chigurh, just as Moss calls Wells. Picking up the phone, Chigurh offers to spare Moss’s wife Carla Jean (though he would still kill Moss) if Moss forfeits the money, an offer that Moss angrily rejects. The drug buyer who hire Wells, the Mexicans and Chigurh is later killed by Chigurh as well.
Moss arranges a meeting with Carla in El Paso to give her the money and send her out of harm’s way. The characters all converge on a seedy hotel in El Paso, but not simultaneously: Sheriff Bell and Carla Jean do not arrive until after Moss has been killed by the Mexicans in a shootout.
Chigurh manages to escape after killing Moss’ wife, Carla.
Overall, this is one of the best films in 2007. After winning the best picture in Oscar, it is no doubt that you must not miss this movie. Javier Bardem shows us why he deserves the best supporting actor at the Oscar.
Gone Baby Gone is a movie directed by first-time Ben Affleck and adapted by Affleck and Aaron Stockard from a novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane. The film stars Casey Affleck (Ben’s brother) and Michelle Monaghan as Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, two private investigators hunting for an abducted four-year-old girl in the Boston neighborhood of Dorchester.
Morgan Freeman, Michelle Monaghan and Casey Affleck in "Gone Baby Gone"
When a 4-year-old Amanda goes missing in Boston, the case attracts widespread media attention. Private investigator Kenzie (Casey Affleck) with his partner and girlfriend Angie (Michelle Monaghan) are hired by the child’s aunt, Beatrice ‘Bea’ McCready (Amy Madigan) to find her. Initially, they do not want to take up the case due to the little experience they have with this type of case and the dangers involved. But, after seeing Amanda’s mother, Helene McCready (Amy Ryan), a drug addict who cares very little about her own daughter, Kenzie and Angie decides to open an investigation that will probably risk everything including their lives. Kenzie and Angie bump into Capt. Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman) while investigating the case. Doyle reveals that his 12-year-old daughter was abducted and killed as the reason he opens up the police’s missing children’s unit. Kenzie and Angie also meet up with Det. Nick Poole (John Ashton) and Det. Remy Bressant (Ed Harris), the detectives investigating the case.
Later on, Kenzie and Angie have discovered that Amanda’s mother, Helene, and her boyfriend, “Skinny Ray”, had stolen $130,000 from a local drug lord named Cheese (Edi Gathegi). Helene reveals the location of the money after Ray is murdered by Cheese. Nick and Remy arrange to trade the money with Cheese for Amanda at a nearby quarry in Quincy. While at the quarry, shots are fired, Cheese ends up dead and it is believed Amanda drowned. Captain Doyle takes full responsibility for the detectives’ actions and goes into early retirement.
A seven-year-old boy is abducted a couple months after Amanda’s death. Kenzie receives information from his buddy, Bubba Rogowski (Slaine) on the whereabouts of a known pedophile, Corwin Earle (Matthew Maher) and his accomplices of two drug addicts in Everett. They go to the house posing as drug dealers in order to find evidence of the presence of Corwin. Once they have, they flee and Kenzie later returns to the house with Nick and Remy. A shoot-out occurs and Nick is shot in the neck while Kenzie daringly enters the house and find one of the accomplices is dead. When ther other accomplice gives him a chase with a shotgun, Kenzie is forced to retreat into the pedophile’s room. Corwin is seen sitting on the floor and telling Kenzie that it was an accident before Kenzie shoots Corwin in the back of his head after he finds the boy’s dead body.
Nick later dies in a hospital. At Nick’s funeral, Kenzie recognizes a police officer Devin (Michael K. Williams) and questions him. Devin tells Kenzie to buy him lunch as a return. Devin tells Kenzie that Remy had been asking about the stolen money before Cheese knew it was missing. Kenzie questions Amanda’s uncle, Lionel (Titus Welliver), and finally discovers that Lionel and Remy have conspired in a fake kidnapping in order to take the money for themselves and to punish Amanda’s mother for her poor parenting.
Lionel speaks to Kenzie in a local bar, telling him that Amanda’s death was an accident and that the phony trade was arranged with the help of the drug lord’s associate. Remy enters the bar and stages a robbery while wearing a latex mask and holding a shotgun in order to kill Lionel before he can confess. Despite the latex mask, Lionel and Kenzie know it was Remy through his blue eyes. Lionel then tells Remy what he has already told Kenzie while Kenzie keeps on shouting “Amanda McCready was taken by Remy Bressant!” daringly. Remy tries to back away, but not before the barkeeper shoots Remy twice in the chest. Remy flees and is pursued by Kenzie to the rooftop of a nearby building. Kenzie asks Remy why he did it. Remy only replies that he loves kids before he dies.
Kenzie is later questioned about Remy’s death only to discover that an earlier call transcript which led to the quarry meeting was forged — this simply means Doyle was also involved in setting up the exchange. He is not satisfied with what he knows about Amanda’s abduction and drives with Angie to Captain Doyle’s home. He discovers Amanda (Madeline O’Brien) is alive and living with Doyle and his wife. Kenzie threatens to call the authorities but Doyle attempts to convince him that Amanda is better off living with them than with her drug-addict mother who couldn’t care less. Kenzie departs to discuss the choice with Angie, who says she will leave him if he calls the police. The police arrive and Doyle is arrested. Amanda is reunited with her mother, but Kenzie and Angie break up. Kenzie later visits Amanda and her mother, Helene, who is just about to leave on a date. He volunteers to watch over Amanda while she is out and they sit on a couch to watch television.
Overall, Ben Affleck’s directional debut is better than expected despite the many twists in the film, the truth in the end is just sad and depressing.
Awake is about a rich young man Clay Beresford (Hayden Christensen) who needs a life-saving heart transplant. Though the movie was released in the USA on November 30, 2007, the film is only released in Russia (January 10, 2008), Portugal (January 28, 2008) and Brazil (March 21, 2008), and will only be released on March 27, 2008 for Malaysia and South Korea, Spain (March 28, 2008), UK (April 4, 2008), Singapore (April 17, 2008).
Hayden Christensen and Jessica Alba in the movie "Awake"
Clay Beresford (Hayden Christensen) has everything. He’s a capital-investment firm chief and a great career awaits him. He also has a beautiful woman named Sam Lockwood (Jessica Alba) waiting for him to marry her. The only problem he is he needs a heart transplant, really fast.
Though Clay is in love with Sam, he is unwilling to tell his mother (Lena Olin) of their relationship due to the fact Sam is the personal assistant of Clay’s mom. Clay suffers from a heart condition that requires a heart transplant.
Clay wants the transplant to be carried out by Dr. Jack Harper (Terrance Howard) who had previously saved his life and is now his good friend. His mother whose boyfriend is a famous surgeon, try to discourage him from going through the operation, due to Dr. Harper’s spotty medical history.
When Clay discloses his relationship with his fiancé, Sam, Clay’s mother does not take kindly to Clay’s haste and asks him to wait until he is older. Clay becomes upset and leaves with Sam, and asks Dr. Harper to arrange a wedding. They marry privately at midnight. Clay then goes to the hospital for the operation. His mother tries to dissuade him again and refers him to a better clinic and a better doctor. She also refers to Dr. Harper as second class doctor. Clay brushes aside her concerns as attempts to interfere with his life and continues with his original plans. During surgery, Clay encounters “anesthetic awareness” and finds himself awake and aware, but paralyzed. The movie mentions 1 out of 700 patients suffer anesthetic awakeness. But the actual fact is 1 to 2 out of 1,000 patients suffer awakeness in US annual surgeries.
To escape the pain, Clay’s soul gets out of his body and uncovers a murder plot against him. Clay manages to find out that Dr. Harper and two others are planning to inject his transplanted heart with a chemical that will cause rejection upon transplantation. Dr. Harper is having second thoughts when Sam comes in to encourage him to go ahead with the plan. Meanwhile, Clay’s mother anxiously awaits for the results of the operation.
When the malpractice doctors tell Clay’s mother of Clay’s heart rejection, she becomes dejected. In the end, she intentionally overdoses and calls her boyfriend to return and save her son. Her boyfriend returns to remove Dr. Harper and his malpractice surgeons and transplants the mother’s heart into Clay. Dr. Harper locks himself in his office awaiting his inevitable arrest. Meanwhile, Sam claims her innocence in the matter but since Dr. Harper holds the syringe with her fingerprints all over it, she becomes helpless and tries to escape when the authority arrives. Harper expresses remorse for his actions and does not try to stop being arrested. It is revealed that all of this was Sam’s idea in order to get Clay’s money to pay for all of the malpractice suits against the team.
Although the transplant is a success, Clay refuses to leave limbo believing he has nothing left in the outside world after his mother’s death and fiancé’s betrayal. His mother comes to him and reminds Clay that limbo with his mother and an afterlife with his father is worthless as his father was an abusive drug addict. During a quarrel she accidentally murdered him to prevent him from harming her son. Clay decides that his life is worth living, and the movie ends with the words, “He is awake.”
My ratings: 6 out of 10. Sex, Lies, Murder, Attempted Murder and Heart Surgery — what’s more heart-pumping than these?
The Ruins is a film based on the novel of the same name by Scott Smith and is about a group of friends who become entangled in a brutal struggle for survival after visiting a remote archaeological dig in the Mexican jungle, where they discover something deadly living among the ruins.
Vantage Point is a non-stop action packed film that takes the audience back in time with eight different points of view in order to unravel an assassination attempt on a President of the United States. Unlike Hitman (2007), Vantage Point is largely dependent on the judgment of the audience as the story slowly unfolds.
Angie Jones (Zoe Saldana) is GNN’s television reporter covering on site during a summit in Spain on the war on terror, in which President of the United States (William Hurt) has managed to gather the leaders of seven continents to address the issue on the global war on terror. Meanwhile, Secret Service Special Agents Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid) and Kent Taylor (Matthew Fox) are assigned to protect U.S. President Ashton (William Hurt). Moments after the President’s arrival, a couple of shots are fired and the President is injured. In the mist of chaos and disorder, an American tourist Howard Lewis (Forest Whitaker) comes forward with his HDV camcorder, which he believes he has recorded the image of the shooter.
As Angie Jones and her producer Rex Brooks (Signourney Weaver) is covering the tragic event on television, another bomb explodes and instantly claims many lives including Angie. While the movie unfolds, it will take us to eight different points of view, 23 minutes before the shooting occurs.
The main characters include Javier (Edgar Ramirez), Veronica (Ayelet Zurer) former lover of Enrique, Suarez (Said Taghmaoui) a possible terrorist, Enrique (Eduardo Noriega) an undercover police who protects the mayor and a young Spanish girl named Anna (Alicia Zapien).
Special Agents Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid) and Holden (Richard T. Jones) thought Enrique (Eduardo Noriega) is the main suspect
Right at the end as the story is finally revealed through all eight different angles, Howard Lewis, the American tourist is a real hero as he has saved Anna from a near accident while Special Agent Thomas Barnes manages to escape death despite having his car entirely damaged by a huge truck and after an impressive car chase on his partner Kent Taylor, of whom has betrayed the Americans and finally manages to save President of the United States. Suarez is the mastermind behind the assassination attempt, he even knows since the beginning that the Americans uses a double for the summit after the NSA has received threats but he’s killed in the end by the invincible Agent Barnes.
Really ingenious play of different camera angles, different point of views from different people of different background, this movie is surely innovative in terms of cinematography. Despite the mysterious fact that Agent Barnes can’t die (he has managed to dodge a bullet in an earlier assassination attempt on the US President previously), the little girl is saved and her mother is alive, the American tourist is also alive and kicking and is seen talking to his family on the phone in the end, and the US President is somewhat, kidnapped instead of being shot when there’s a point blank opportunity, the movie is otherwise, awesome.
Starring Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox and Sigourney Weaver, Vantage Point is a thriller about the attempted assassination of the president told from five different perspectives.
Eastern Promises is no ordinary crime thriller, with award-winning director David Cronenberg and superb performance by Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises is simply exceptional. In this film, Viggo Mortensen finally shows the world he’s not just Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Though the movie was shot in London, Eastern Promises is a Canadian film directed by acclaimed director David Cronenberg and since the movie is filled with Russian mobs and family, there is hardly anyone speak English with a British ascent.
Anna Khitrova (Naomi Watts), a midwife at a London hospital, finds a diary on the body of Tatiana, a fourteen-year-old girl who dies after giving birth to Christine. She also finds a card for the Trans-Siberian restaurant, which is owned by Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl). Anna decides to meet Semyon in order to track down the girl’s family so that she can find a home for the dead mother’s baby girl. Little did she knows that Semyon is a boss in the Russian Mafia or vory v zakone (”thieves in law”). Semyon calls Anna by the name of Anna Ivanovna, using the patronymic. Anna realizes she makes a big mistake when she utters about Tatiana’s Russian-language diary to Semyon, who generously offers to translate the diary for Anna.
Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts in Eastern Promises
Anna’s mother Helen (Sinéad Cusack) and her Russian-born uncle Stepan (Jerzy Skolimowski) realize trouble after they come to learn that Semyon and his unstable son, Kirill (Vincent Cassel), had abused Tatiana and forced her into prostitution, and that Semyon had raped the girl. Meanwhile, Semyon realizes that Anna’s uncle has read the diary and sends Kirill’s driver, Nikolai Luzhin (Viggo Mortensen) to finish off the old man.
Nikolai, who also serves as the family’s “undertaker”, dumping dead bodies in the River Thames has his star rises within the vory, due in part to Nikolai’s protection of Kirill, who has authorized a hit on a rival Chechen vory leader. The hit was not approved by Semyon and was ill-advised, with the Chechen’s brothers coming to London to seek vengeance.
Semyon, afraid the Chechen’s brothers might come for his son, arranges to give “Kirill” up to the Chechens, which involves making Nikolai a full member of the vory, so he gets the same distinctive tattoos. A meeting is arranged at the Russian baths, and the Chechens are told that the tattooed Nikolai is actually Kirill. The Chechens attack Nikolai, but Nikolai is able to finish them both, ending up in the hospital with serious injuries.
Near the end of the film, It is revealed that Nikolai is actually a member of the Russian Security Services (FSB) and a Scotland Yard informer on the Russian mafia. As part of his undercover duties, Nikolai was able to read Anna’s diary before Semyon destroyed it and has sent Anna’s uncle to a 5-star hotel in Scotland instead of killing him.
His plan to bring Semyon down for statutory rape against Tatiana works making Kirill the most powerful member of the London branch of the mob, but with Nikolai as the one who is really in charge. Meanwhile, Anna gains custody of the baby and Nikolai ends up becoming the crime boss.
Definitely a great crime thriller that has nothing short of promises. The film has received numerous nomination at Genie Award nominations and Golden Globe Award nominations and Virgo Mortensen has been nominated for Best Actor at the 80th Academy Awards. RottenTomatoes.com gave the film 88% while Metacritic gave the film 82%. With positive reviews from critics, watching this film can never go wrong.
Right at the end as the story is finally revealed through all eight different angles, Howard Lewis, the American tourist is a real hero as he has saved Anna from a near accident while Special Agent Thomas Barnes manages to escape death despite having his car entirely damaged by a huge truck and after an impressive car chase on his partner Kent Taylor, of whom has betrayed the Americans and finally manages to save President of the United States. Suarez is the mastermind behind the assassination attempt, he even knows since the beginning that the Americans uses a double for the summit after the NSA has received threats but he’s killed in the end by the invincible Agent Barnes.
