Six Degrees of Apple Movie Trailers.

Let's start with the new Darren Aronofsky movie...

The Fountain

now this stars Hugh Jackman who is also in the upcoming film from Christopher Nolan...

The Prestige

which is a movie about magicians much like the Edward Norton starrer...

The Illusionist

co-star fellow Academy Award nominee Paul Giamatti whose voice can be heard in...

The Ant Bully

Alongside the always fantastic Nicolas Cage who will be appearing in...

The Wicker Man

Which also features Ellen Burstyn who is in....

The Fountain

MOVIE REVIEW - Ultraviolet (2006)

Director: Kurt Wimmer
Starring: Milla Jovovich, Cameron Bright, Nick Chinlund, William Fichtner

With Equilibrium Kurt Wimmer gave us a fantastic vision of a fascist future where the government called all the emotional shots. With it he combined gunplay with martial arts creating a smooth flowing style of what can only be called GUNg-fu. Now four years later and seems to be trying to recreate his past success. Unfortunately for the majority he fails.

Gone is the cold hard concrete future of the clerics and it is replaced with a bright anime style. That is about the only part that wins through on this movie. It is beautiful to behold the cool CGI slips and turns through a sprawling metropolis, the residents of the city tend to wear bright primary colors in contrast to the government officials clad in black. A small nod must also goto the action, but some it does seem to have been transplanted directly over from Equilibrium.

Now we look beyond the visuals into the heart of the story and that’s where it loses the audience. There barely is one and of course what there is about a war between humans and the last Hemophages, vampire-like humans infected with a silly super-soldier virus and now there could be a cure for them, is just used to string together the action sequences. Shame.

Another thing I couldn’t get away from was how much Jovovich’s character just reminded me of The Bride (Uma Thurman) from Kill Bill. A motorcycle riding, tight fitting leather outfit wearing, kung-fu kicking and sword swinging bad ass bitch. At time it looked like Milla mist have watched Kill Bill repeatedly for inspiration. So instead of making the character here own it seemed like she was lifted from another movie. Shame.

The biggest shame is that this movie was made in Hollywood, if it had been made be the Japanese as the opening credits suggest, it would have probably been praised for it’s vision and style.

Overall: Like Jovovich herself, gorgeous visually but beyond that pretty much nothing. 3/10

MOVIE REVIEW - Infernal Affairs (2002)

aka Mou gaan dou

Directors: Andrew Lau, Alen Mak
Starring: Andy Lau, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Anthony Wong, Eric Tsang

Two dedicated men are working undercover on opposite sides of the law. The first is Inspector Lau (Andy Lau) a hard working police officer who is really a triad mole within the OCTB and then on the flipside there is Yan (Tony Leung) who is an undercover police officer working inside a triad gang. As their lives intersect they both begin their own investigations each trying to find on the other is.

Similar in ideals to Woo's Hard Boiled in how it looks into the dedication of men made to work undercover. How these two handle every day life whilst lying to everyone they know and the friendships they can develop with the people they are essentially spying on. But it is a thousand miles away from Hard Boiled when it comes to action. IA provides action through it's raw tension, it pulls you to edge of your seat as they come closer to finding out who is who. By the time a few bullets do start to fly it is short and all the more realistic in tone.

Andrew Lau's direction style is fantastic and is a perfect example of a stylised director who doesn't overload the screen with little flairs. It is subtle and brings you in closer to the characters. The acting is superb especially Tony Leung's wrought portayal of an almost burnt out undercover cop and Andy Lau is great as always.

I also what to give praise to the fact that Hong Kong filmmakers can let the film tell the story rather than lengthy exposistion. Making these movies a more cerebral experience then the majority of thrillers coming out of other countries.

Overall: A marvellous new addition to my top 100. 10/10