Action Movies

Lone Survivor (2013) review

2014-01-16T21:43:00.000+06:00

Lone Survivor (2013)

Hollywood action movie Lone Survivor

Synopsis:

Lone Survivor could be a 2013 Yankee war film written and directed by Peter Berg and primal Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, fictitious character Hirsch, Ben Foster, and Eric Bana. The film is predicated on the 2007 non fictional prose book of identical name by Marcus Luttrell and Apostle Robinson. Set throughout the War in Islamic State of Afghanistan, the film dramatizes the unsuccessful US Navy SEALs mission Operation Red Wings, within which a four-man SEAL intelligence team was tasked to trace Taliban leader Ahmad Shah.

Development of the film began in 2007 once Berg initially learned of the book whereas motion-picture photography Hancock. He organized many conferences with Luttrell to debate adapting the book to

film. Universal photos secured the film rights in August 2007, once bidding against the alternative major film studios. In re-enacting the events of Operation Red Wings, Berg role player abundant of his book from Luttrell's spectator accounts within the book, likewise as autopsy and incident reports associated with the mission. Once leading battle wagon for Universal in 2012, Berg came to figure on Lone Survivor. Principal photography began in Gregorian calendar month 2012, and complete in November once forty two days; cinematography materialized on location in the Land of Enchantment, exploitation digital picture taking. Luttrell |and several other other sailor veterans acted as technical advisor, whereas multiple branches of the US defense force power-assisted the film's production. Additionally, the most actors had 3 weeks of training beforehand to organize for the physical demands of their roles.

Lone Survivor opened in restricted unharness within the US on Gregorian calendar month, twenty five, 2013, before a gap across North America on January ten, 2014, to crucial acclaim and robust money success. Crucial reaction to the film was principally positive, with commentators praiser Berg's direction, likewise because the acting, story, visuals, and battle sequences. Alternative reviewers, however, derided the film for focusing a lot of its action scenes than on characterization. Lone Survivor has grossed $43.7 million in box-office revenue worldwide – of that $41.5 million is from the US and Canada.

True story of a Lone Survivor

Box office:

Lone Survivor's restricted yank unharness saw it take $155,400—an average of $46,250 per theatre—in its 1st 5 days. Increasing to two, 875 screens within the U.S. and North American country, Lone Survivor grossed $14,400,000 on its 1st day of wide unharness. By the top of its gap weekend in wide release, the film had grossed $38,500,000, securing the amount one position at the domestic box office. Its gap weekend gross created it the second largest début for any film discharged in January after the 2008 film Cloverfield's gap weekend gross of $40.1 million. The Hollywood newsman noted that Lone Survivor's gap weekend box-office totals were "far over expected and also the best showing of any post-9/11 war film," surpassing the $28,544,157 total box workplace for Brothers (2009). As of January thirteen, 2014, the film has grossed $41,537,721 domestically and $2,195,482 in foreign countries, for a worldwide gross of $43,733,203.

Lone Survivor-top action movies

Critical response:

Lone Survivor has received "largely positive reviews" from film critics. The Los Angeles Times reported the critics' consensus was that "the film succeeds to bring the mission of a person's life, it avoids probing the deeper issues at hand as well." Rotten Tomatoes gave a 73 % rating. of 6.6/10.

Several reviewers, however, criticized Lone Survivor for focusing more on its action scenes than on characterization. Stephen Whitty gave negative review and wrote, "This is the sort of bare-bones story that well served plenty of World War II movies once, and it would work here, if Berg had the sense to develop these men as characters. " Rafer Guzman of Newsday wrote, "The movie seems more concerned with military-style action than by telling us who these fallen heroes really were."

IMDB rated top 250 action movie-Lone Survivor

Directed by Peter Berg

Produced by Peter Berg

Sarah Aubrey

Randall Emmett

Norton Herrick

Barry Spikings

Akiva Goldsman

Mark Wahlberg

Stephen Levinson

Vitaly Grigoriants

Written by Peter Berg

Based on Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell

Patrick Robinson

Starring:

Mark Wahlberg

Taylor Kitsch

Emile Hirsch

Ben Foster

Eric Bana

Music by Explosions in the Sky Steve Jablonsky

Cinematography: Tobias Schliessler

Editing by Colby Parker Jr.

Studio: Emmett/Furla Films

Film 44

Herrick Entertainment

Envision Entertainment

Spikings Entertainment

Weed Road Pictures

Closest to the Hole

Hollywood Studios Holdings (uncredited)

Distributed by Universal Pictures (United States)

Foresight Unlimited (International)

Release dates: December 25, 2013 (limited)

January 10, 2014 (wide)

Running time: 121 minutes

IMDB rating: 7.6/10

Genre: Action, Biography, Drama

Budget: $40 million

Box office: $43,733,203

Trailer:

Fast & Furious 6 (2013)

2013-12-26T17:19:00.000+06:00

Fast & Furious 6 (2013)

Synopsis:

Fast & Furious 6 (2013) is a Hollywood action movie. This movie was also included in the top 250 action movie on IMDB list. Actor Paul Walker is one of the central character of this movie. This is the sixth sequel of the movie Fast and Furious.

Two secret service agent was investigating on the destruction of a Russian military convoy. They came to know that the Russian soldiers were doing so because of money. Moreover, they were trying to build a nightshade device and sell it to the highest bidder. The secret service agents were able to destroy their plan.

Release:

Fast & Furious 6 (2013) was first released in London, UK. The movie was released in North America on May 17.

Box office:

Fast & Furious 6 (2013) earned total $238,679,850. The movie earned $550,000,000 from North America and $788,679,850 from the rest of the world. The earning was 43rd highest in the history and 3rd highest among the movie released in 2013.

Critical response:

Fast & Furious 6 (2013) received a warm reception from Hollywood action movie critics. The movie got 70% positive reply from Rotten Tomatoes and 7.2 out of 10 from IMDB. Almost every critic described the movie as wining blockbuster.

Home media:

Fast & Furious 6 (2013) was first released in DVD format in the UK on September 16, 2013 and then in Australia on October 3, 2013.

Music:

Fast & Furious 6 (2013) music was composed by Lucas Vidal. A music album of this movie was released on May 21, 2013. The album had many hip hop tracks.

Video game:

A video game was also released based on Fast & Furious 6 (2013). Players were allowed to customize a race and vehicles.

Sequel:

Fast & Furious 7 (2013) will be the sequel of Fast & Furious 6 (2013). This was announced in April 2013.

Directed by Justin Lin

Produced by Neal H. Moritz

Vin Diesel

Clayton Townsend

Written by Chris Morgan

Based on Characters by Gary Scott Thompson

Starring:

Vin Diesel

Paul Walker

Dwayne Johnson

Michelle Rodriguez

Jordana Brewster

Tyrese Gibson

Chris Bridges

Sung Kang

Luke Evans

Gina Carano

John Ortiz

Music by Lucas Vidal

Cinematography: Stephen F. Windon

Editing by Christian Wagner

Kelly Matsumoto

Studio: Original Film

One Race Films

Distributed by Universal Pictures

Release dates: May 7, 2013 (Premiere, London)

May 17, 2013 (United Kingdom)

May 24, 2013 (International)

Running time: 130 minutes

Budget: $160 million

Box office: $788.6 million

IMDB rating: 7.2/10

Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller

Trailer:

Fast & Furious 6 (2013) is one of the greatest blockbuster Hollywood action movie. Here is a trailer of this movie.

Thor: The Dark World (2013)

2013-11-02T02:36:00.000+06:00

Thor: The Dark World (2013)

Synopsis:

Thor: The Dark World (2013) is a Hollywood action movie. The superhero comic movie features the Marvel comic character Thor. This movie is the sequel of Thor released in 2011 and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

Thor battles to save the earth from the shadowy enemy that predates the universe itself. He must embark on his most perilous and personal journey to save all.

Critical reception:

Thor: The Dark World (2013) received a 83% rating from Rotten Tomatoes and 7.9 out of 10 from IMDB which is a very rare incident.

Box office:

Thor: The Dark World (2013) is successful at the Box Office, too. The movie earned $8.2 from 33 territories around the world.

Directed by Alan Taylor

Produced by Kevin Feige

Screenplay by Christopher Yost

Christopher Markus

Stephen McFeely

Story by Don Payne

Robert Rodat

Based on Thor by Stan Lee

Larry Lieber

Jack Kirby

Starring:

Chris Hemsworth

Natalie Portman

Tom Hiddleston

Anthony Hopkins

Stellan Skarsgård

Idris Elba

Christopher Eccleston

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje

Kat Dennings

Ray Stevenson

Zachary Levi

Tadanobu Asano

Jaimie Alexander

Rene Russo

Music by Brian Tyler

Cinematography Kramer Morgenthau

Editing by Dan Lebental

Wyatt Smith

Studio: Marvel Studios

Distributed by Walt Disney Studios

Motion Pictures

Release date: October 22, 2013 (London premiere)

November 8, 2013 (United States)

IMDB rating: 7.9/10

Genre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy

Running time: 112 minutes

Trailer:

Escape Plan (2013)

2013-10-29T18:51:00.000+06:00

Escape Plan (2013)

Synopsis:

Escape Plan (2013) is a Hollywood action thriller movie. Two main actors in this movie are-Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Former prosecutor Ray Breslin Co owns a Los Angels Based security firm specializing the reliability of maximum security prisons. He spends his life getting into prisons to study their designs and the guard's habits to find and exploit their weaknesses. Thus enabling him to escape without a hitch.

Once he found himself in a complex of glass cells with no outside windows to indicate the prison's location. He meets his fellow inmate and they both stage a fight for Breslin to study the solitary confinement cell which uses high powered halogen lights to disorient and dehydrate prisoners.

Breslin discovered that the prison is inside a cargo ship in the middle of an ocean making a simple escape impossible. His enemy Hobbs wanted that Breslin stay in the prison for the rest of his life. But he was able to escape after many incidents. But he was able to escape after many incidents and went to a Moroccan airfield for some reason. From there he went to Miami, Florida.

Reception:

Escape Plan (2013) received 48% in Rotten Tomatoes and scored 7.3 out of 10 in IMDB

rating. The movie is also in the top 250 action movie list of IMDB.

Directed by Mikael Håfström

Produced by Robbie Brenner

Mark Canton

Randall Emmett

George Furla

Kevin King Templeton

Screenplay by Miles Chapman

Jason Keller

Story by Miles Chapman

Starring:

Sylvester Stallone

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Jim Caviezel

Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson

Vinnie Jones

Vincent D'Onofrio

Amy Ryan

Music by Alex Heffes

Cinematography: Brendan Galvin

Editing by Elliot Greenberg

Studio: Atmosphere Entertainment

Emmett/Furla Films

Distributed by Summit Entertainment

Lionsgate

Release date: October 9, 2013 (Philippines)

October 18, 2013 (United States)

Running time: 115 minutes

Genre: Action, Mystery, Thriller

IMDB rating: 7.3/10

Budget: $50 million

Box office: $45,524,000

Trailer:

Machete Kills (2013)

2013-10-29T01:13:00.003+06:00

Machete Kills (2013)

Synopsis:

Machete Kills (2013) is a comedy action movie. The movie was directed by Robert Rodriguez-a famous Hollywood movie director.

Machete was attempting to capture weapon dealers who have been supplying the drug cartels. But the dealers are protected by mercenaries. He moved to San Antonio. There he came to know that Mendez has wired a missile's launch device to his heart. He launched the missile. But Machete was able to disarm it in

mid air.

Directed by Robert Rodriguez

Produced by Robert Rodriguez

Rick Schwartz

Sergei Bespalov

Alexander Rodnyansky

Aaron Kaufman

Iliana Nikolic

Screenplay by Kyle Ward

Story by Robert Rodriguez

Marcel Rodriguez

Starring:

Danny Trejo

Michelle Rodriguez

Sofía Vergara

Amber Heard

Antonio Banderas

Cuba Gooding, Jr.

Walt Goggins

William Sadler

Carlos Estévez

Demián Bichir

Mel Gibson

Music by Carl Thiel

Cinematography: Robert Rodriguez

Editing by Robert Rodriguez

Rebecca Rodriguez

Studio: Quick Draw Productions

Distributed by Open Road Films

Release date: October 11, 2013

Running time: 108 minutes

Budget: $20 million

Box office: $6,412,000

Captain Phillips (2013)

2013-10-28T23:45:00.000+06:00

Captain Phillips (2013)

Synopsis:

Captain Phillips (2013) is a top 250 Hollywood action movie starring Tom Hanks. The movie is based on a real life accident held in 2009 in the Indian Ocean.

A ship started its journey from a port of Oman to Mombasa. Captain of the ship was worried about the pirate's activity of Somalian cost. So he took security precautions. In spite of all security measures, the pirates attacked the ship. The crew members led by the captain succeeded to resist them first time. But the very next day they failed. Some crew was able to hide. On the other hand, the pirates were able to keep the captain and some other crew as hostage. They demanded ransom money from the shipping company. US navy's special team SEAL came and rescued them.

Directed by Paul Greengrass

Produced by Michael De Luca

Dana Brunetti

Scott Rudin

Kevin Spacey

Written by Billy Ray

Starring: Tom Hanks

Barkhad Abdi

Music by Henry Jackman

Cinematography: Barry Ackroyd

Editing by Christopher Rouse

Studio: Michael De Luca Productions

Scott Rudin Productions

Trigger Street Productions

Distributed by Columbia Pictures

Release date: October 11, 2013

Running time: 134 minutes

Genre: Action, Adventure, Biography

IMDB rating: 8.1/10

Budget: $55 million

Box office: $96,774,000

Rush (I) (2013)

2013-09-29T17:17:00.000+06:00

Captain Phillips (2013)

Synopsis:

Captain Phillips (2013) is a top 250 Hollywood action movie starring Tom Hanks. The movie is based on a real life accident held in 2009 in the Indian Ocean.

Directed by Paul Greengrass

Produced by Michael De Luca

Dana Brunetti

Scott Rudin

Kevin Spacey

Written by Billy Ray

Starring: Tom Hanks

Barkhad Abdi

Music by Henry Jackman

Cinematography: Barry Ackroyd

Editing by Christopher Rouse

Studio: Michael De Luca Productions

Scott Rudin Productions

Trigger Street Productions

Distributed by Columbia Pictures

Release date: October 11, 2013

Running time: 134 minutes

Genre: Action, Adventure, Biography

IMDB rating: 8.1/10

Budget: $55 million

Box office: $96,774,000

Elysium (I) (2013)

2013-09-08T18:22:00.000+06:00

Elysium (I) (2013)

Synopsis:

Elysium (I) (2013) is a Hollywood action, thriller and sci fi movie. Main attraction of this movie is actress Jodie Foster.

In 2154, there are two classes of people. One is very rich and live in a space station. The other is very poor who live in this overpopulated and devastated world.

A former car thief live in Los Angeles and work in a company that built the mentioned space station. Once he had an accident. The only way to save his life is to go to the space station. He even seek help from a notorious smuggler. But failed to do so.

After many incident he was able to have permission to enter the space station and live there legally.

Critical Response:

The movie received positive reviews from critics. Rotten tomatoes gave 6.5/10 and IMDB gave 7.0/10.

Directed by Neill Blomkamp

Produced by Neill Blomkamp

Bill Block

Simon Kinberg

Written by Neill Blomkamp

Starring: Matt Damon

Jodie Foster

Sharlto Copley

Alice Braga

Diego Luna

Wagner Moura

William Fichtner

Music by Ryan Amon

Cinematography: Trent Opaloch

Editing by Julian Clarke

Lee Smith

Studio: Alphacore

Media Rights Capital

QED International

Distributed by TriStar Pictures

Release date: August 9, 2013 (US)

August 21, 2013 (UK)

Running time: 109 minutes

IMDB rating: 7.0/10

Genre: Action, Drama, Sci fi

Budget: $115 million

Box office: $179,677,267

Kick-Ass 2 (2013)

2013-09-08T10:59:00.000+06:00

Kick-Ass 2 (2013)

Synopsis:

Kick-Ass 2 (2013) is a British American action comedy movie based on a comedy novel and a sequel of the movie Kick Ass. The movie was released in August 14, 2013 in the UK. In the USA and Canada, the movie was released in August 16, 2013.

The hero joins a group to clean up the street and fight against criminal. His girlfriend realized that the only way to survive is to fight back.

Critical Response:

Kick Ass 2 received mixed response from critics. The received 4.7/10 from Rotten Tomatoes and 7.1/10 from IMDB.

Box Office:

On the first weekend Kick Ass 2 was in fifth position. It was beyond expectation of any movie critic.

Sequel:

The sequel of the movie Kick Ass 2 is going to be released soon.

Directed by Jeff Wadlow

Produced by Adam Bohling

Tarquin Pack

Matthew Vaughn

Brad Pitt

David Reid

Screenplay by Jeff Wadlow

Based on Kick-Ass 2 and Hit-Girl by Mark Millar

John Romita, Jr.

Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson

Christopher Mintz-Plasse

Chloë Grace Moretz

Jim Carrey

Music by Henry Jackman

Matthew Margeson

Cinematography: Tim Maurice-Jones

Editing by Eddie Hamilton

Studio: Marv Films

Plan B Entertainment

Distributed by Universal Pictures

Release date: 14 August 2013 (United Kingdom)

16 August 2013 (North America)

Running time: 103 minutes

IMDB rating: 7.1/10

Genre: Action, Comedy, Crime

Budget: $28 million

Box office: $50,759,035

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013)

2013-09-07T20:52:00.000+06:00

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013)

Synopsis:

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013) is a German American action adventure movie based on a novel. In New York city a teenager begins to see some unusual symbols related to her mother. She realized that she is part of a long term plan and felt upset. The main location of this movie is Toronto and New York city. The first trailer of this movie was in November 2012 and the second trailer was released in March 2013.

The movie received a negative response from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gave 3.9 out of 10 and IMDB gave 6.8 out of 10. Executive producer of this movie announced that the movie earned $50 million worldwide till September, 2014.

The sequel of this movie will start shooting from 23rd September 2013 and will release in 2014. Sony Pictures released a game on August 15, 2013 based on this movie.

Directed by Harald Zwart

Produced by Don Carmody

Robert Kulzer

Screenplay by Jessica Postigo Paquette

Based on City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

Starring: Lily Collins

Jamie Campbell Bower

Robert Sheehan

Kevin Zegers

Lena Headey

Kevin Durand

Aidan Turner

Jemima West

Godfrey Gao

C. C. H. Pounder

Jared Harris

Jonathan Rhys Meyers

Music by Atli Örvarsson

Cinematography: Geir Hartly Andreassen

Editing by Michael Kahn

Studio: Constantin Film

Distributed by Screen Gems (US)

Entertainment One (UK)

Release date: August 21, 2013 (US, Canada, UK)

Running time: 130 minutes

Country: United States

Germany

Budget: $60 million

IMDB rating: 6.8/10

Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama

Box office: $50 million

Parker (2013)

2013-05-21T09:27:00.000+06:00

Parker (2013)

Synopsis:

Parker(2013) is IMDB top 250 Hollywood action movie. The movie is based on a 19th century novel. Jenifer Lopez is one of the main attraction of this movie.

Parker is a professional thief. Once his mentor assigned him a job with a team he doesn't know. After successful completion of this job he refused next job. His team members shoot him and left him to die. But a family found him and took him to the hospital. Parker was able to escape from the hospital by choaking a male nurse and stealing his uniform. He then promised to take revenge against his ex gang member.

Parker went to Palm Beach and discovered Jenifer Lopage - a depressed and unsuccessful real estate agent struggling financially after a divorce. Both Parker and Jenifer Lopez made a plan to steal $50 million jewellary from the ex gang member of Parker. But his gang members came to know about the plan. Parker was able to make his plan successful after a bloody fight against them. After six months Parker went to Chicago and meet the mafia boss who sent his ex gang members to kill him. He killed the mafia boss.

One year later Jenifer Lopez received a box containing thousands of dollars. The potato farmer also received lots of money who saved Parker's life one year ago. They were very happy because the money changed their lives.

Release:

Parker premiered in West Palm Beach on January 18, 2013

Critical response:

Parker (2013) received a mixed review. The movie received 41% positive review from Rotten Tomatoes.

Directed by Taylor Hackford

Produced by Les Alexander

Steven Chasman

Taylor Hackford

Sidney Kimmel

Jonathan Mitchell

Screenplay by John J. McLaughlin

Based on Flashfire by Donald E. Westlake

Starring:

Jason Statham

Jennifer Lopez

Music by David Buckley

Cinematography: J. Michael Muro

Editing by Andrew Weisblum

Studio: Incentive Filmed Entertainment

Sierra Pictures

Sidney Kimmel Entertainment

Distributed by FilmDistrict

Release date: January 25, 2013

Running time: 118 minutes

Box office: $46.3 million

300 (2006)

2013-04-22T13:20:00.000+06:00

300 (2006)

Synopsis:

300 (2006) is a Hollywood action movie action film based on the 1998 comic series of the same name by Frank Miller. Both are fictionalized retellings of the Battle of Thermopylae. The film was directed by Zack Snyder, while Miller served as executive producer and consultant. It was filmed mostly with a super-imposition chroma key technique, to help replicate the imagery of the original comic book.

Dilios, a Spartan soldier, narrates the story of Leonidas from his boyhood to becoming a king of Sparta. Years later, a Persian messenger arrives at the gates of Sparta, demanding the submission of Sparta to King Xerxes. In response to this demand, Leonidas kicks the messenger into a large well. Knowing this will prompt a Persian attack, Leonidas visits the Ephors—ancient leprosy-ridden priests whose blessing he needs
before the Spartan council will authorize going to war. He proposes they repel the numerically superior Persians by using the terrain of Thermopylae (the Hot Gates) and funneling the Persians into a narrow pass between the rocks and the sea. The Ephors consult the Oracle, who decrees that Sparta must not go to war during their religious festival Carnea. As Leonidas departs, two agents of Xerxes appear—one of them, Theron, a Spartan—who bribe the Ephors with concubines and money.

Leonidas follows his plan anyway, setting out with only 300 soldiers, whom he calls his personal guards to avoid needing the council's permission. Though he regards the mission as certain suicide, he hopes the sacrifice will spur the council to unite against Persia. On the way to Thermopylae, Arcadians join the Spartans. At Thermopylae they construct a wall to contain the approaching Persians. As construction goes on, Leonidas meets Ephialtes, a hunchbacked Spartan in exile whose parents fled Sparta to spare him certain
infanticide. Wanting to redeem his father's name, Ephialtes asks to join the fight; he warns Leonidas of a secret path the Persians could use to outflank and surround them. Though Leonidas sympathizes with Ephialtes's will to fight, he turns him down, as Ephialtes cannot properly hold a shield: this would compromise the Spartans' phalanx formation.

Before the battle, the Persian Captain demands that the Spartans lay down their weapons. Leonidas refuses, and with their tightly-knit phalanx formation, the Spartans use the narrow terrain to repeatedly rebuff the advancing Persian army. Xerxes personally parleys with Leonidas, offering him wealth and power in exchange for his loyalty and surrender. Leonidas declines, and Xerxes sends his elite guard, the formidable Immortals, to attack, but the Spartans successfully dispatch them, suffering a few casualties of their own. Xerxes then sends a number of exotic weapons at the Spartans, including black powder bombs and war elephants, but all of these attacks fail. During these attacks, Astinos is killed, which drives his father Captain Artemis into a fit of rage. Angered by Leonidas's rejection, Ephialtes defects to the Persians and informs them of the secret path.

When they realize Ephialtes's treachery, the Arcadians retreat, and Leonidas orders Dilios to return to Sparta to tell the Council of their sacrifice. Though Dilios had recently injured his left eye in combat, he is still fit for battle, but Leonidas decides to use Dilios's gift for storytelling to appeal to the Spartan council. Though reluctant to leave his brothers behind, Dilios leaves with the Arcadians.

In Sparta, Queen Gorgo (Leonidas' wife) agrees to a sexual encounter with Theron, before which he promises his help in persuading the Spartan council to send reinforcements to Leonidas. However, following her address to the Council, Theron publicly betrays the Queen by accusing her of adultery, prompting the councilmen to cry out in outrage and Gorgo to kill him in a fit of anger. The xiphos that Gorgo uses to kill Theron pierces his purse, spilling Persian coins from his robe, revealing his role as traitor, and the Council agrees to unite against Persia.

At Thermopylae, the Persians use the goat path to outflank the Spartans. Xerxes's general demands their surrender, again offering Leonidas titles and prestige. Leonidas seemingly bows in submission, allowing Stelios to leap over him and kill the general instead. Furious, Xerxes orders his troops to attack. Leonidas rises and hurls his spear at Xerxes, cutting the King on the cheek, thus fulfilling an earlier promise to "make the God-King bleed". Visibly disturbed by this reminder of his mortality, Xerxes watches as a massive barrage of arrows kills all the Spartans. Moments before his death, Leonidas pledges his undying love to Gorgo.

Concluding his tale before an audience of Spartans on the edge of the battlefield a year after Thermopylae, Dilios relates how the Persian army has suffered desertions, out of fear and the heavy casualties they suffered at the hands of a mere 300 Spartans. Word of their valiant resistance spread across Greece, inspiring the different city-states to unite against the Persians. Now, the Persians face 10,000 Spartans leading 30,000 free Greeks. Although still outnumbered three to one, Dilios declares that the Greeks shall be victorious and praises the sacrifice of the 300. He then leads the Greeks in a charge against the Persian army at the Battle of Plataea, the battle that would end Persia's invasion of Greece.

Production:

Producer Gianni Nunnari was not the only person planning a film about the Battle of Thermopylae; director Michael Mann already planned a film of the battle based on the book Gates of Fire. Nunnari discovered Frank Miller's graphic novel 300, which impressed him enough to acquire the film rights. 300 was jointly produced by Nunnari and Mark Canton, and Michael B. Gordon wrote the script. Director Zack Snyder was hired in June 2004 as he had attempted to make a film based on Miller's novel before making his debut with the remake of Dawn of the Dead. Snyder then had screenwriter Kurt Johnstad rewrite Gordon's script for production and Frank Miller was retained as consultant and executive producer.

Promotion and release:

The official 300 website was launched by Warner Bros. in December 2005. The "conceptual art" and Zack Snyder's production blog were the initial attractions of the site. Later, the website added video journals describing production details, including comic-to-screen shots and the creatures of 300. In January 2007, the studio launched a MySpace page for the film. The Art Institutes created a micro-site to promote the film.

At Comic-Con International in July 2006, the 300 panel aired a promotional teaser of the film, which was positively received. Despite stringent security, the trailer was subsequently leaked on the Internet. Warner Bros. released the official trailer for 300 on October 4, 2006, and later on it made its debut on Apple.com where it received considerable exposure. The background music used in the trailers was "Just Like You Imagined" by Nine Inch Nails. A second 300 trailer, which was attached to Apocalypto, was released in theaters on December 8, 2006, and online the day before. On January 22, 2007, an exclusive trailer for the film was broadcast during prime time television. The trailers have been credited with igniting interest in the film and contributing to its box-office success.

Box office:

300 was released in North America on March 9, 2007, in both conventional and IMAX theaters. It grossed $28,106,731 on its opening day and ended its North American opening weekend with $70,885,301, breaking the record held by Ice Age: The Meltdown for the biggest opening weekend in the month of March and for a Spring release. Since then 300's Spring release record was broken by Fast and Furious and 300's March record was broken by Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. 300's opening weekend gross is the 24th highest in box office history, coming slightly below The Lost World: Jurassic Park but higher than Transformers. It was the third biggest opening for an R-rated film ever, behind The Matrix Reloaded ($91.8 million) and The Passion of the Christ ($83.8 million). The film also set a record for IMAX cinemas with a $3.6 million opening weekend. The film grossed $456,068,181 worldwide.

Reviews:

Since its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 14, 2007, in front of 1,700 audience members, 300 has received generally mixed to positive reviews. While it received a standing ovation at the public premiere, it was reportedly panned at a press screening hours earlier, where many attendees left during the showing and those who remained booed at the end. Critics are divided on the film. Rotten Tomatoes reports that 60% of American, British and other critics gave the film a positive review, based upon a sample of 225, with an average score of 6.1 out of 10. Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, gave the film an average score of 51 based on 35 reviews.

Historical accuracy:

Since few records about the actual martial arts used by the Spartans survive aside from accounts of formations and tactics, the fight choreography led by Damon Caro and Chad Stahelski was a synthesis of different weapon arts with Filipino martial arts as the base. This can be seen in the blade work and the signature use of the off hand by Arnis/Kali/Eskrima in the offensive use of the shields. The Spartans' use of the narrow terrain, in those particular circumstances, is a military tactic known as "Defeat in detail".

Controversy:

Before the release of 300, Warner Bros. expressed concerns about the political point of view of the film's theme. Snyder relates that there was "a huge sensitivity about East versus West with the studio." Media speculation about a possible parallel between the Greco-Persian conflict and current events began in an interview with Snyder that was conducted before the Berlin Film Festival. The interviewer remarked that "everyone is sure to be translating this film into contemporary politics." Snyder replied that, while he was aware that people would read the film through the lens of contemporary events, no parallels between the film and the contemporary world were intended.

Prequel:

In June 2008, producers Mark Canton, Gianni Nunnari and Bernie Goldmann revealed that work had begun on a prequel to 300, 300: Rise of an Empire. Legendary Pictures has announced that Frank Miller has started writing the follow-up graphic novel, and Zack Snyder was interested in directing the adaptation, but has since moved on to develop and direct the Superman reboot Man of Steel. Noam Murro has signed as the director, while Zack Snyder is set to produce. The film will focus on the Athenian admiral, Themistocles, as portrayed by Australian actor Sullivan Stapleton.

Directed by Zack Snyder

Produced by Gianni Nunnari

Mark Canton

Bernie Goldmann

Jeffrey Silver

Screenplay by Zack Snyder

Kurt Johnstad

Michael B. Gordon

Based on 300 by Frank Miller

Narrated by David Wenham

Starring:

Gerard Butler

Lena Headey

David Wenham

Dominic West

Vincent Regan

Rodrigo Santoro

Michael Fassbender

Music by Tyler Bates

Cinematography: Larry Fong

Editing by William Hoy

Studio: Legendary Pictures

Virtual Studios

Cruel and Unusual Films

Atmosphere Pictures

Hollywood Gang

Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures

Release date: December 9, 2006 (Butt-Numb-A-Thon)

March 9, 2007 (United States)

Running time: 117 minutes

Genre: Action, Fantasy, History

IMDB rating: 7.7/10

Budget: $65 million

Box office: $456,068,181

Pain and Gain (2013)

2013-04-22T12:14:00.000+06:00

Pain & Gain (2013)

Synopsis:

Pain & Gain (2013) is a comedy action movie written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely and directed by Michael Bay. Story of this movie is based on Florida series crime 1999.

Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) is a regular bodybuilder who works at the Sun Gym along with his friend Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie). Sick of living the poor life, Lugo concocts a plan to kidnap Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub), a regular at the gym and a rich, spoiled businessman, and extort money from him by means of torture. With the help of recently released criminal Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson), the "Sun Gym Gang" successfully gets Kershaw to sign over all his finances. But when Kershaw survives an attempted murder by the gang, he hires private investigator Ed Du Bois (Ed Harris) to catch the criminals after the Miami Police Department fails to do so.

Production:

The film was first announced by Michael Bay after the release of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in which Bay stated he wanted to do the film between the second and third Transformers movies. However, the project was put on hold when Paramount gave the third film, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, a 2011 release date.

On February 13, 2012, it was confirmed that the budget for the film would be funded by Paramount Pictures as part of a two-picture deal with Michael Bay and the budget would be $25 million (making it the cheapest Michael Bay film since his first feature, Bad Boys) thanks in part to Bay, Johnson and Wahlberg not taking salaries. They are instead signing on in exchange for back ends on the film's profits. Bay later confirmed that production would begin in Miami the following April stating, "I'm extremely excited to simplify my film career this spring with a great character piece." On February 17, 2012, reports surfaced that Ed Harris had officially joined the cast and that Rob Corddry was rumored to play John Mese, a former competitive bodybuilder who now owns the gym where Wahlberg's character works as a personal trainer. On February 23, 2012, it was confirmed that Anthony Mackie had joined the cast as "a bodybuilder and workout partner of Wahlberg's character Adrian Doorbal, who has little to show for his time in the gym and decides to get involved with the twisted plan."

Controversy:

The Associated Press published an article interviewing survivors of those who investigated the Sun Gym gang. Miami-Dade Police Sgt. Felix Jimenez stated that "You are talking about real people. And in this particular case, especially when you're talking about the murder victims, these were innocent victims." Zsuzsanna Griga, whose brother and his girlfriend were dismembered by the gang, said she didn't want the American public to sympathize with the killers.

Directed by Michael Bay

Produced by Michael Bay

Ian Bryce

Donald De Line

Screenplay by Christopher Markus

Stephen McFeely

Based on "Pain & Gain" by Pete Collins

Starring:

Mark Wahlberg

Dwayne Johnson

Ed Harris

Rob Corddry

Anthony Mackie

Tony Shalhoub

Rebel Wilson

Ken Jeong

Jennifer Nicole Lee

Yolanthe Sneijder-Cabau

Bar Paly

Music by Steve Jablonsky

Cinematography: Ben Seresin

Editing by Thomas A. Muldoon

Joel Negron

Studio: De Line Pictures

Platinum Dunes

Distributed by Paramount Pictures

Release date: April 26, 2013

Genre: Action, Comedy, Crime

IMDB rating: 6.9/10

Budget: $25 million

The Matrix (1999)

2013-04-18T15:19:00.002+06:00

The Matrix (1999)

Synopsis:

The Matrix (1999) is a sci fi action movie written and directed by The Wachowski Brothers and starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, and Hugo Weaving. It depicts a dystopian future in which reality as perceived by most humans is actually a simulated reality or cyberspace called "the Matrix", created by sentient machines to pacify and subdue the human population, while their bodies' heat and electrical activity are used as an energy source. Computer programmer "Neo" learns this truth and is drawn into a rebellion against the machines, which involves other people who have been freed from the "dream world".

Thomas Anderson is a computer programmer who maintains a double life as the hacker "Neo". He is driven to learn the meaning of cryptic references to "the Matrix" that appear on his computer. Infamous hacker Trinity contacts Neo and informs him that a man named Morpheus can tell him what the Matrix is; however, three Agents, led by Agent Smith, arrest Neo to prevent this. Undeterred, Neo meets with Morpheus and confirms that he wants to learn more about the Matrix by choosing an offered red pill. After swallowing the pill, Neo abruptly awakens in a liquid-filled vessel. His body is pierced with cables that connect him, along with billions of other people, to an elaborate electrical network. He is rescued by Morpheus and brought aboard a levitating ship, the Nebuchadnezzar.

Morpheus tells Neo that humans are fighting against intelligent machines that were created in the 21st century and have since taken control of the Earth's surface. Humans polluted the sky to cut off the machines' solar power, but the machines adapted to using human bioelectricity as a power source. Enslaved humans are kept docile within the "Matrix" – a simulation of the world as it was in 1999. Neo has lived in this simulated world since birth; in reality, the year is closer to 2199. Morpheus explains that he and his crew belong to a group of free humans who "unplug" others from the Matrix and recruit them to their rebellion against the Machines. They can hack into the Matrix and re-enter the simulated reality, where their understanding of itstrue nature allows them to manipulate its physical laws, granting them superhuman abilities. Neo undergoes virtual combat training. He is warned that fatal injuries within the Matrix will also kill one's physical body, and that the Agents he encountered are powerful sentient programs that patrol the Matrix and eliminate threats to the system. Morpheus believes Neo is "the One", a man prophesied to end the war between humans and machines.

After Neo's training, the group enters the Matrix to visit the Oracle, a prophet who predicted the emergence

of the One. The Oracle implies that Neo is not the One, and warns he must soon choose between his own life and that of Morpheus.

As the group prepares to exit the Matrix, they are ambushed by Agents and tactical police, leading to the death of a crew member called Mouse. Morpheus allows himself to be captured to let Neo and the rest of the crew escape. As they prepare to leave the Matrix, they learn that a crew member named Cypher has betrayed them. Disillusioned with the real world, Cypher had arranged to hand Morpheus over to the Agents in exchange for being returned to a comfortable life within the Matrix. Aboard the Nebuchadnezzar, Cypher murders crew members Switch, Apoc and Dozer before he is killed by Dozer's brother Tank.

In the Matrix, the Agents interrogate Morpheus to learn his access codes to the mainframe computer in Zion, the humans' last refuge in the real world. Neo returns to the Matrix with Trinity and rescues Morpheus; in the process, Neo gains confidence in his ability to manipulate the Matrix, performing physical feats on a par with the Agents.

Morpheus and Trinity exit the Matrix, but Neo is ambushed by Smith before he can leave. In the real world, "sentinel" machines converge on the Nebuchadnezzar. In the Matrix, Smith kills Neo. In the real world, Trinity whispers to Neo that the Oracle told her she would fall in love with the One. She kisses Neo, and he revives in the Matrix. He displays the power to perceive and control the Matrix, effortlessly destroying Smith

before exiting the Matrix in time for the ship's EMP weapon to destroy the attacking sentinels. In the Matrix, Neo makes a telephone call, promising the Machines he will show their prisoners "a world where anything is possible". He ends the call and flies into the sky.

Visual effects:

The film is known for popularizing the use of a visual effect known as "bullet time", which allows a shot to progress in slow-motion while the camera appears to move through the scene at normal speed. Bullet time has been described as "a visual analogy for privileged moments of consciousness within the Matrix", and throughout the film, the effect is used to illustrate characters' exertion of control over time and space. The Wachowskis first imagined an action sequence that slowed time while the camera pivoted rapidly around the subjects, and proposed the effect in their screenplay for the film. When John Gaeta read the script, he pleaded with an effects producer at Manex Visual Effects to let him work on the project, and created a prototype that led to him becoming the film's visual effects supervisor.

Influences:

The Matrix draws from and makes reference to numerous cinematic and literary works, and concepts from mythology, religion and philosophy. The premise of The Matrix can be tied into Plato's Allegory of the Cave.

According to Plato's theory of Forms, the true essence of an object is not what we perceive with our senses, but rather its quality. Plato compares people uneducated in this theory to being chained in a cave. A fire glows behind them and they see the shadows of objects cast on the wall, but not the actual objects themselves. These people perceive the shadows as reality and thus do not know the true form of the objects, and therefore, are confined to this false perception.

The Matrix, or rather the AI that runs it, recalls Descartes' First Meditation, or evil demon, a hypothesis that the perceived world might be a comprehensive illusion created to deceive us. The same premise can be found in Hilary Putnam's brain in a vat scenario proposed in the 1980s.

Release:

The Matrix was released on March 31, 1999. After its DVD release, it was the first DVD to sell more than one million copies in the US, and went on to be the first to sell more than three million copies in the US. By November 10, 2003, one month after The Matrix Reloaded DVD was released, the sales of The Matrix DVD had exceeded 30 million copies. The Ultimate Matrix Collection was released on HD DVD on May 22, 2007 and on Blu-ray on October 14, 2008. The film was also released standalone in a 10th anniversary edition Blu-ray in the Digibook format on March 31, 2009, 10 years to the day after the film was released theatrically.

Box office:

The film earned $171,479,930 (37.0%) in North America and $292,037,453 (63.0%) elsewhere for a worldwide total of $463,517,383. In North America, it became the fifth highest grossing film of 1999 and the highest grossing R-rated film of 1999. Worldwide it was the fourth highest grossing film of the year. As of 2012 it is placed 122nd on the list of highest grossing films of all time, and the second highest grossing film in

the Matrix franchise after The Matrix Reloaded ($742.1 million).

Critical reception:

The Matrix received positive reviews from most critics, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest science

fiction films of all time. Entertainment Weekly called The Matrix "the most influential action movie of the generation". Rotten Tomatoes described it as an "ingenious" blend of Hong Kong action cinema, innovative visual effects and an imaginative vision. The site reported that 87% of critics gave the film positive reviews, with an average score of 7.4/10, based upon a sample of 129 reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns an average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 73 upon its DVD release, based on 35 reviews.

Franchise:

The film's mainstream success led to the making of two sequels, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, both directed by the Wachowskis. These were filmed back-to-back in one shoot and released in two parts in 2003. The first film's introductory tale is succeeded by the story of the impending attack on the human enclave of Zion by a vast machine army. The sequels also incorporate longer and more ambitious action scenes, as well as improvements in bullet time and other visual effects.

Also released was The Animatrix, a collection of nine animated short films, many of which were created in the same Japanese animation style that was a strong influence on the live trilogy. The Animatrix was overseen

and approved by the Wachowskis, who only wrote four of the segments themselves but did not direct any of them; much of the project was developed by notable figures from the world of anime.

The franchise also contains three video games: Enter the Matrix (2003), which contains footage shot specifically for the game and chronicles events taking place before and during The Matrix Reloaded; The Matrix Online (2004), an MMORPG which continued the story beyond The Matrix Revolutions; and The Matrix: Path of Neo (2005), which focuses on Neo's journey through the trilogy of films.

The franchise also includes The Matrix Comics, a series of comics and short stories set in the world of The Matrix, written and illustrated by figures from the comics industry. Most of the comics were originally presented for free on the official Matrix website; they were later republished, along with some new material, in two printed trade paperback volumes, called The Matrix Comics, Vol 1 and Vol 2.

Directed by Andy Wachowski

Larry Wachowski

Produced by Joel Silver

Written by Andy Wachowski

Larry Wachowski

Starring:

Keanu Reeves

Laurence Fishburne

Carrie-Anne Moss

Hugo Weaving

Joe Pantoliano

Music by Don Davis

Cinematography: Bill Pope

Editing by Zach Staenberg

Studio: Village Roadshow Pictures

Silver Pictures

Groucho II Film Partnership

Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures

Release date: March 31, 1999

Running time: 136 minutes

Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci fi

IMDB rating: 8.7/10

Budget: $63 million

Box office: $463,517,383

Jack Reacher (2012)

2013-04-16T15:15:00.000+06:00

Jack Reacher (2012)

Synopsis:

Jack Reacher (2012) is a Hollywood action thriller movie. It is an adaptation of Lee Child's 2005 novel One Shot. Written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie, the film stars Tom Cruise as the title character. The film entered production in October 2011, and concluded in January 2012. It was filmed entirely on location in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a man drives a van into a parking garage across the Allegheny River from PNC Park and, after paying for parking, readies a sniper rifle. He takes aim and appears to randomly kill five people around the stadium and on the river’s North Shore Trail before fleeing in the van.The police soon arrive, headed by Detective Emerson, and they discover a shell casing as well as the coin used to pay for parking. A fingerprint taken from the coin points to James Barr, a former U.S. Army sniper. When the police raid his house, they find the van, equipment for making bullets, the rifle in question, and Barr who they arrest.

During an interrogation by Emerson and the District Attorney, Alex Rodin, Barr writes "Get Jack Reacher" on a notepad. Reacher is a drifter and former U.S. Army Military Police Corps officer. Reacher later arrives in Pittsburgh after seeing a news report about Barr and the shooting. Emerson and Robin deny Reacher’s request to view the evidence, but agree to let him see Barr, who was brutally attacked by fellow inmates while being transported and is now in a coma. While there, he meets Barr’s defense attorney, counselor Helen Rodin, the DA’s daughter, who is trying to save Barr from the death penalty.

Helen says she can arrange for Reacher to see the evidence if he will become her lead investigator. Reacher

retorts that he is not interested in clearing Barr. He confidentially reveals that Barr previously had gone on a killing spree during his tour in Iraq, but was not prosecuted because the victims were under investigation for major crimes—and the U.S. Army wants them forgotten. Reacher then vowed that if Barr tried anything like this again, he would take him down.Reacher agrees to investigate if Helen visits the victims’ families to learn about the people murdered that day. Reacher goes to the crime scene and finds inconsistencies with this location, and thinking a trained shooter would have committed the killings from the cover of the van on the nearby Fort Duquesne Bridge. After Helen reports her findings about the victims to Reacher, he suggests that the owner of a local construction company was the intended victim, with the killing of other random victims intended to cover up that fact.

After a seemingly random bar fight, Reacher realizes that someone is attempting to strong-arm him into dropping his investigation. Reacher is later framed for the murder of the young woman who was paid to instigate that bar fight, but this only motivates him further. Reacher eventually follows a lead at a shooting range in the neighboring state of Ohio, owned by former U.S. Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant Cash, who will only talk if Reacher proves his sniping skills, which he does.

The real perpetrators are members of a Russian gang masquerading as legitimate businessmen. The gang's elderly leader spent much of his life in a Soviet Gulag and is known only as the Zec (prisoner). The gang kidnaps Helen with the aid of their accomplice Emerson, and holds her hostage at a construction site or mine. Reacher outwits the mob guards, killing them with Cash's help, before confronting the Zec about the conspiracy. The Zec is killed by Reacher after the Zec asserts that the other conspirators who were killed by Reacher were the only witnesses against the Zec, and that Reacher would more likely be the one to go to prison as a drifter accused of murdering a young woman.

Reacher and Cash flee the scene, making Reacher a wanted man, but with confidence that Helen will clear his name. When Barr awakens from his coma, he tells Helen that he has no recent memory but believes that he must be guilty of the shooting. Barr's mental reconstruction of how he would have committed the shootings confirms Reacher's theory was correct from the beginning to Helen's father. Still unknowing of all this, Barr is willing to confess and accept punishment, fearing that Reacher will mete out justice if the law does not.

Production:

The film was directed by Christopher McQuarrie, who previously worked with Cruise on the 2008 film Valkyrie. Josh Olson worked on the early screenplay and adapted it from Lee Child's original best seller, while McQuarrie worked on the finished script.

In July 2011, Cruise was in negotiations to play the role of Jack Reacher. Author Lee Child said that it would be impossible to find a suitable actor to play the giant Reacher and to recreate the feel of the book onscreen, and that Cruise had the talent to make an effective Reacher.

Marketing:

The trailer for Jack Reacher was officially released on Cruise's birthday, July 3, 2012.

Theatrical release:

Jack Reacher was originally slated to be released in February 2013. In March 2012, the release date was brought forward by Paramount Pictures to December 21, 2012, hoping to capitalize on the box office success of Cruise's Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, which was released at a similar point in 2011. The film's new release date displaced the release of World War Z back six months.

The film was released in North American markets on December 21, 2012, with a premiere initially planned for Pittsburgh's SouthSide Works megaplex on December 15, 2012, which was to be attended by the film's stars, and Mr. Child.

The film held its United Kingdom premiere on December 10, 2012 at London's Odeon Leicester Square. It was released on December 26, 2012 in the U.K.

Box office:

As of March 21, 2013, Jack Reacher has grossed $80,070,736 in North America and $136,497,530 in other countries for a worldwide total of $216,568,266, which is one of the lowest grossing Tom Cruise movies of the past decade and a third of the $694,713,380 his previous movie Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol grossed.

In North America, the film opened in 3,352 cinemas. CinemaScore polls reported that the average grade filmgoers gave the film was an "A-" on an A+ to F scale. Jack Reacher went on to gross $5.1 million on its opening day in the U.S. and Canada, and $15.6 million in its opening weekend. The film held well in its second weekend, dropping only -10.2% to a total of $14.1 million and ranking at No. 5.

Upon its opening five-day international start, making $5.5 million in the UK and $4.4 million in France, the film grossed a total of $18.1 million from 32 international markets. Throughout the following weeks, the film expanded to additional international markets and grossed a foreign total of $136,497,530.

Critical response:

Jack Reacher has received mixed to positive reviews from critics. The film has a "Certified Fresh" rating of 62% on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 159 reviews, with a rating average of 6.2 out of 10. The site's summary is that, "Jack Reacher is an above-average crime thriller with a smoothly charismatic performance from Tom Cruise." Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, gives the film a score of 49 based on 34 reviews.

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie

Produced by Tom Cruise

Paula Wagner

Gary Levinsohn

Dana Goldberg

Screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie

Based on One Shot by Lee Child

Starring:

Tom Cruise

Rosamund Pike

Richard Jenkins

Werner Herzog

David Oyelowo

Robert Duvall

Music by Joe Kraemer

Cinematography: Caleb Deschanel

Editing by Kevin Stitt

Studio: TC Productions

Skydance Productions

Distributed by Paramount Pictures

Release date: December 21, 2012

Running time: 130 minutes

Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller

IMDB rating: 7.1/10

Budget: $60,000,000

Box office: $216,568,266

End of Watch (2012)

2013-04-16T12:28:00.000+06:00

End of Watch(2012)

Synopsis:

Action drama movie End of Watch is written and directed by David Ayer. It stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña as Los Angeles Police Department officers who work in South Central Los Angeles. It was originally scheduled to be released on September 28, 2012,[4] but the release was moved up a week, to September 21.

Police officers Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (Michael Pena) are close friends and partners in the Los Angeles Police Department. Taylor is filming their police activities for a film project, attaching small cameras to he and Zavala's uniforms and carrying around a camcorder, much to the dismay of their peers and superiors. After shooting two suspects following a high speed chase, the officers are cleared and commended for their actions. Taylor and Zavala's antics are met with scorn by fellow officer Van Hauser

(David Harbour).

The officers respond to a call regarding a man scaring off a mailman while intoxicated. Upon arrival, the man hurls racist insults at the Hispanic Zavala, who responds by accepting a fight, to Taylor's approval. Zavala beats the man soundly and arrests him, but wins the man's respect for not mentioning the fight in the report.

Later that night, the man and his friends are shot at by a group of Latino gang members and one of his friends is killed. The officers find the now-burnt vehicle used in the drive-by the next day, but are shooed off the scene by homicide detectives.

Taylor begins dating Janet (Anna Kendrick), to Zavala's excitement, as he feels Janet is the only girl he's dated who can connect with him on an intellectual level. Zavala's wife Gabby (Natalie Martinez) is expecting a child soon. Taylor later marries Janet and, after a night of celebration, Zavala tells Taylor that, should anything happen to him, he will take care of her. Soon after, Gabby gives birth to the couple's first child, Mike Jr.

Investigating the South Central area, the two pull over a man in a truck, who draws a gun during a routinetraffic stop. After arresting him, the officers find an ornately decorated pistol, a gold plated AK-47, and a large amount of money in his truck. Unbeknownst to them, the money and firearms are connected to the mexican cartel operating in the South Central area. One night, the two receive an officer-in-distress call from Van Hauser's partner. Responding to the call, the two find Van Hauser calmly waiting in front with a knife in his right eye, warning the two of a large criminal around the corner. Taylor and Zavala investigate and find the man brutally beating a female police officer. Surrendering himself for arrest, the man is arrested by Zavala while Taylor attends to the woman, whose face has been badly damaged.

Responding to a missing persons report, the two officers discover the children bound and locked away in a closet, arresting the distressed parents. Days later, a fire is set to the house, prompting Zavala to rush to the aid of the children as Taylor reluctantly follows. The two are commended and receive the Medal of Valor for their actions, but Taylor has mixed emotions about his situation. Using the house fire incident as leverage, Taylor convinces Zavala to further investigate the South Central incident. Arriving at the house, Taylor and Zavala notice suspicious behavior from outside and enter. They arrest another man, who is also in possession of several ornate firearms. Investigating further, Taylor discovers a hidden stash of prisoners, indicating that they have just stumbled upon a human trafficking case. Upon exiting the building, they are reprimanded by superior officers and informed that the man had been a person of interest with possible leads to the cartel. Taylor is left confused and agitated. After deciding to respond to a more easygoing call the next day, the officers go to investigate a welfare check from an elderly woman. After receiving no response, the officers break down the door and discover a cache of decapitated corpses, tortured by cartel members. Following this, a bounty is placed on the heads of Taylor and Zavala and the gangsters from earlier begin plotting their assassinations.

After a short pursuit with a reckless minivan one night, the officers chase the driver into an apartment complex, where the gangsters have set up an ambush. The officers are fired upon with assault rifles and Officer Taylor is shot in the hand. Taking refuge in a small apartment, Taylor decides that they are going to have to gun their way out. Escaping the complex and awaiting backup, the two are fired upon once more and Taylor is shot in the chest. Zavala desperately attends to him and cries out for backup, but Taylor remains unresponsive. Realizing that the gangsters have snuck up behind him, Zavala intentionally reaches for his gun and is shot repeatedly in the back and killed. Backup arrives and the gangsters are gunned down violently.

It is revealed that Taylor survived the encounter, albeit heavily injured. A funeral is held for Officer Zavala, during which Taylor tearfully declares how close the two were. In an epilogue, a clip is shown fromthe day of the shooting during which Zavala details hiding under his wife's parents' bed while they had sex. Taylor and Zavala laugh heartily, before going off to "fight crime or some shit".

Production:

Writer-director David Ayer wrote End of Watch in six days. After Jake Gyllenhaal received the script, he read it in one hour and immediately contacted Ayer. Gyllenhall and Michael Peña underwent five months of training for their roles as officers of the Newton Division of the Los Angeles Police Department. The training included 12-hour ride-alongs with multiple Greater Los Angeles Area law enforcement agencies up to three times a week. Ayer said in September 2012, "I wrote the first draft in December of 2010, four months later I was in pre-production, and a few months later I was shooting the movie. We shot in August of last summer. It took 13 months to finish it, which is crazy quick. Normally it's not like that." End of Watch was filmed on location in South Central Los Angeles. Ayer had specific details about "photographic style" in the script "to help people involved in the movie to understand the photography and why we were seeing what we were seeing", explaining that "the script started as a pure found footage kind of thing. In pre-production, I gravitated very quickly towards augmenting that stuff with normal operating cameras. In editing, I had all this footage, which me and my editor built the movie out of, with never worrying about genre expectation."

Reception:

The film has received positive reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 86% based on reviews from 90 critics, and reports a rating average of 7.2 out of 10 with the consensus "End of Watch has the energy, devotion to characters, and charismatic performances to overcome the familiar pitfalls of its genre and handheld format". At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 70 based on 33 reviews.

Directed by David Ayer

Produced by John Lesher

David Ayer

Jake Gyllenhaal

Nigel Sinclair

Matt Jackson

Written by David Ayer

Starring:

Jake Gyllenhaal

Michael Peña

Music by David Sardy

Cinematography: Roman Vasyanov

Editing by Dody Dorn

Distributed by Open Road Films

Release date: September 8, 2012 (Toronto Film Festival)

September 21, 2012 (United States of America)

Running time: 109 minutes

Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller

IMDB rating: 7.6/10

Budget: $7 million

Box office: $18,168,633

Transformers (2007)

2013-04-15T18:25:00.001+06:00

Transformers (2007)

Synopsis:

Transformers (2007) is a Hollywood sci fi action movie based on the Transformers toy line. The film, which combines computer animation with live-action, is directed by Michael Bay, with Steven Spielberg serving as executive producer. It stars Shia LaBeouf as Sam Witwicky, a teenager involved in a war between the heroic Autobots and the evil Decepticons, two factions of alien robots who can disguise themselves by transforming into everyday machinery. The Decepticons desire control of the AllSpark, the object that created their robotic race, with the intention of using it to build an army by giving life to the machines of Earth. Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, Jon Voight, Anthony Anderson and John Turturro also star, while voice actors Peter Cullen and Hugo Weaving voice Optimus Prime and Megatron respectively.

Optimus Prime, leader of the benevolent Autobots, narrates the collapse of the Transformers' home world, Cybertron. It was destroyed by war between the Autobots and the malevolent Decepticons, led by Megatron in his quest to get hold of the AllSpark. The Autobots want to find the AllSpark so they can use it to rebuild Cybertron and end the war, while the Decepticons want to use it to defeat the Autobots and take over the universe. Megatron had managed to locate the AllSpark on Earth, but crash-landed in the Arctic Circle and froze in the ice. After stumbling upon his frozen body in 1897, explorer Captain Archibald Witwicky accidentally activated Megatron's navigational system and his eye glasses were imprinted with the coordinates of the AllSpark's location, an incident that left him blind and mentally unstable. Sector 7, a secret government organization created by President Herbert Hoover, discovered the AllSpark in the Colorado River and built the Hoover Dam around it to mask its energy emissions. The still-frozen Megatron was moved into this facility and was used to advance human technology through reverse engineering.

In the present day, the Decepticon known as Blackout arrives in a U.S. military base in Qatar to find the location of Megatron and the AllSpark. He tries to hack into the files of the computer base, but is stopped by Captain William Lennox and his team. Back in the United States, Captain Witwicky's descendant Sam Witwicky buys his first car which turns out to be the Autobot scout Bumblebee, who tries to help him woo his crush Mikaela Banes. Later, Sam catches a glimpse of Bumblebee's true form when he signals the other Autobots.

On Air Force One, another Decepticon named Frenzy infiltrates the plane and tries to hack into the network again, only this time is more successful until he is stopped by the US Security Defense before he can retrieve all of the file information. Frenzy is then picked up by his partner Barricade and they go after Sam after learning he has the glasses needed to find the AllSpark. Sam is rescued by Bumblebee and Mikaela also learns of the Transformers' existence. Bumblebee fights Barricade and manages to subdue him while Sam and Mikaela decapitate Frenzy, but he still survives.

Meanwhile, Scorponok, who was sent by Blackout, goes after Captain Lennox and his team, murdering one of them and injuring another. During the battle, Scorponok is forced to retreat when he gets injured by sabot rounds dropped on him by the Air Force. Sam and Mikaela soon meet Optimus Prime and his other Autobot partners Jazz, Ironhide, and Ratchet. They explain their origins to the two humans and insist on the urgency to get to the Allspark first before the Decepticons, knowing that the Decepticons plan to use it to turn all of Earth's technologies into a new army of Transformers and render humanity extinct. The Autobots bring the two humans back to Sam's house to find the glasses, and they nearly reveal their existence to Sam's

parents. However, Sector 7 agent Seymour Simmons and his team find Sam and take his family away to a classified location after learning Sam came into contact with the Autobots. However, Sam and Mikaela are rescued by Optimus and the Autobots, but Bumblebee ends up getting captured. The Autobots get the glasses and use them to find the AllSpark's location so they can destroy it so the Decepticons cannot get to it. Sam and Mikaela along with two hackers named Maggie and Glenn arrive at Hoover Dam, where Maggie and Glenn got arrested by the FBI for trying to decipher the information Frenzy stole.

Frenzy finds the AllSpark and gets his body back, then contacts the other Decepticons, Starscream, Bonecrusher, Brawl, Barricade, and Blackout. Starscream attacks the dam and Frenzy frees Megatron from his frozen prison, where he joins his cohorts into chasing down Sam and the Autobots, where Bumblebee has shrunk the cube to a reasonable size. They then get to Downtown Los Angeles, where a large battle ensues. Working together, the Autobots and human soldiers kill Bonecrusher, Blackout and Brawl. However the war causes Bumblebee to get crippled, and Jazz is killed by Megatron. Optimus urges Sam to put the AllSpark in his chest, which will destroy them both, but Sam instead inserts the cube into Megatron's chest, which kills him and destroys the AllSpark. The dead Transformer bodies are dumped into the Laurentian Abyss in the Atlantic Ocean to be hidden, the government orders the closure of Sector 7, and the Witwicky family are released from custody. Sam and Mikaela soon start a new relationship, and Optimus says that the Autobots' fates have given them a new home, Earth, and sends a message calling out all surviving Autobots to join them. In a mid-credits scene, Starscream escapes into space.

Marketing:

Hasbro's toy line for the film was created over two months in late 2005 and early 2006, in heavy collaboration with the filmmakers. Protoform Optimus Prime and Starscream were released in the United States on May 1, 2007, and the first wave of figures was released on June 2. The line featured characters not in the film, including Arcee. A second wave, titled "AllSpark Power", was set for release late 2007, which consisted of repaints and robotic versions of ordinary vehicles in the film. The toys feature "Automorph

Technology", where moving parts of the toy allow other parts to shift automatically. Merchandise for the film earned Hasbro $480 million in 2007.

Deals were made with 200 companies to promote the film in 70 countries. Michael Bay directed tie-in commercials for General Motors, Panasonic, Burger King and PepsiCo, while props – including the Camaro used for Bumblebee and the AllSpark – were put up for charity sale on eBay. A viral marketing alternate reality game was employed through the Sector 7 website, which presented the film and all previous Transformers toys and media as part of a cover-up operation called "Hungry Dragon," perpetrated by a "real life" Sector 7 to hide the existence of genuine Transformers. The site featured several videos presenting "evidence" of Transformers on Earth, including a cameo from the original Bumblebee.

Critical reception:

The film received mixed to positive reviews from film critics. At the website Metacritic the film has received a rating average of 61, based on 35 reviews, indicating that it is generally a favorably-reviewed film. Review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 57% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 220 reviews. IGN's Todd Gilchrist called it Michael Bay's best film, and "one of the few instances where it's OK to enjoy something for being smart and dumb at the same time, mostly because it's undeniably also a whole lot of fun". The Advertiser's Sean Fewster found the visual effects so seamless that "you may come to believe the studio somehow engineered artificial intelligence". The Denver Post's Lisa Kennedy praised the depiction of the robots as having "a believably rendered scale and intimacy", and ABC presenter Margaret Pomeranz was surprised "that a complete newcomer to the Transformers phenomenon like myself became involved in the fate of these mega-machines". Ain't It Cool News's Drew McWeeny felt most of the cast grounded the story, and that "it has a real sense of wonder, one of the things that's missing from so much of the big CGI lightshows released these days". Author Peter David found it ludicrous fun, and said that "Bay manages to hold on to his audience's suspension of disbelief long enough for us to segue into some truly spectacular battle scenes". Roger Ebert gave the film a positive review, giving it 3 stars out of four.

Box office:

Worldwide, the film was the highest grossing non-sequel movie in 2007. It grossed $709.7 million, making it Michael Bay's third highest grossing film to date, with only the two sequels surpassing this amount. It was also the fifth highest-grossing film of 2007 worldwide behind Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Spider-Man 3, and Shrek the Third. The film was released in ten international markets on June 28, 2007, including Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and the Philippines.

Transformers made $29.5 million in its first weekend, topping the box office in ten countries. It grossed $5.2 million in Malaysia, becoming the most successful film in the country's history. Transformers opened in China on July 11, and became the second highest-grossing foreign film in the country (behind Titanic), making $37.3 million. Its opening there set a record for a foreign language film, making $3 million. The film was officially released in the United Kingdom on July 27, making £8.7 million, and helped contribute to the biggest attendance record ever for that weekend. It was second at the UK box office, behind The Simpsons Movie. In South Korea, Transformers recorded the largest audience for a foreign film in 2007, and recorded highest foreign revenue of the movie.

Home media:

Transformers was released in Region 1 territories on October 16, 2007, on DVD and the now defunct HD DVD format. The Wal-Mart edition of the DVD included a shortened animated version of the prequel comic book, titled Transformers Beginnings and featuring the voices of Mark Ryan, Peter Cullen and Kevin Dunn, as well as Frank Welker as Megatron. The Target copy was packaged with a transforming Optimus Prime DVD case and a prequel comic book about the Decepticons. The DVD sold 8.3 million copies in its first week, making it the fastest-selling DVD of 2007, in North America, and it sold 190,000 copies on HD DVD, which was the biggest debut on the format. The DVDs sold 13.74 million copies, making the film the most popular DVD title of 2007.

It was released on Blu-ray on September 2, 2008. In the first week, the two-disc edition of the Blu-ray was number one in sales compared to other films on the format. The Blu-ray version accounted for two-thirds of the film's DVD sales that first week, selling the third most in overall DVD sales. On June 16, 2009, Paramount included a sticker on all new Transformers DVDs that contained a code to view exclusive content

online from the first film and get a sneak peek at Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The content includes three exclusive clips from Revenge of the Fallen, behind-the-scenes footage from both films, and never-before-seen deleted scenes from the first film. As of July 2012, in North America, the DVD of the film has sold 16.23 million copies, earning $292,144,274.

Directed by Michael Bay

Produced by Don Murphy

Tom DeSanto

Lorenzo di Bonaventura

Ian Bryce

Screenplay by Roberto Orci

Alex Kurtzman

Story by John Rogers

Roberto Orci

lex Kurtzman

Based on Transformers by Hasbro

Starring:

Shia LaBeouf

Megan Fox

Josh Duhamel

Tyrese Gibson

Rachael Taylor

Anthony Anderson

John Turturro

Jon Voight

Peter Cullen

Hugo Weaving

Music by Steve Jablonsky

Cinematography: Mitchell Amundsen

Editing by Paul Rubell

Glen Scantlebury

Studio: di Bonaventura Pictures

Hasbro

Distributed by DreamWorks Pictures

Paramount Pictures

Release date: June 28, 2007 (Australia)

July 4, 2007 (North America)

Running time: 144 minutes

Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci fi

IMDB rating: 7.1/10

Budget: $150 million

Box office: $709,709,780

Avatar (2009)

2013-04-15T15:23:00.000+06:00

Avatar (2009)

Synopsis:

Avatar (2009) is a fiction movie written and directed by James Cameron and starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Joel David Moore, Giovanni Ribisi and Sigourney Weaver. The film is set in the mid-22nd century, when humans are mining a precious mineral called unobtanium on Pandora, a lush habitable moon of a gas giant in the Alpha Centauri star system. The expansion of the mining colony threatens the continued existence of a local tribe of Na'vi – a humanoid species indigenous to Pandora. The film's title refers to a genetically engineered Na'vi body with the mind of a remotely located human, and is used to interact with the natives of Pandora.

By 2154, humans have severely depleted Earth's natural resources. The Resources Development Administration (RDA) mines for a valuable mineral – unobtanium – on Pandora, a densely forested habitable moon orbiting the gas giant Polyphemus in the Alpha Centauri star system. Pandora, whose atmosphere is poisonous to humans, is inhabited by the Na'vi, 10-foot tall (3.0 m), blue-skinned, sapient humanoids who live in harmony with nature and worship a mother goddess called Eywa.

To explore Pandora's biosphere, scientists use Na'vi-human hybrids called "avatars", operated by genetically matched humans; Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic former marine, replaces his deceased twin brother as an operator of one. Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), head of the Avatar Program, considers Sully an inadequate replacement but accepts his assignment as a bodyguard. While protecting the avatars of Grace and scientist Norm Spellman (Joel David Moore) as they collect biological data, Jake's avatar is attacked by a thanator and flees into the forest, where he is rescued by Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), a female Na'vi. Witnessing an auspicious portent, she takes him to her clan, whereupon Neytiri's mother Mo'at (C. C. H. Pounder), the clan's spiritual leader, orders her daughter to initiate Jake into their society.

Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), head of RDA's private security force, promises Jake that the company will restore his legs if he gathers intelligence about the Na'vi and the clan's gathering place, a giant arboreal called Hometree, on grounds that it stands above the richest deposit of unobtanium in the area.

When Grace learns of this, she transfers herself, Jake, and Norm to an outpost. Over three months, Jake grows to sympathize with the natives. After Jake is initiated into the tribe, he and Neytiri choose each other as mates, and soon afterward, Jake reveals his change of allegiance when he attempts to disable a bulldozer that threatens to destroy a sacred Na'vi site. When Quaritch shows a video recording of Jake's attack on the bulldozer to Administrator Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi), and another in which Jake admits that the Na'vi will never abandon Hometree, Selfridge orders Hometree destroyed.

Despite Grace's argument that destroying Hometree could damage the biological neural network native to Pandora, Selfridge gives Jake and Grace one final chance to convince the Na'vi to evacuate before commencing the attack. While trying to warn the Na'vi, Jake confesses to being a spy and the Na'vi take him and Grace captive. Seeing this, Quaritch's men destroy Hometree, killing Neytiri's father (the clan chief) and many others. Mo'at frees Jake and Grace, but they are detached from their avatars and imprisoned by Quaritch's forces. Pilot Trudy Chacón (Michelle Rodriguez), disgusted by Quaritch's brutality, carries them to Grace's outpost, but during the escape, Quaritch fires at them, hitting Grace.

To regain the Na'vi's trust, Jake connects his mind to that of Toruk, a dragon-like predator feared and honoured by the Na'vi. Jake finds the refugees at the sacred Tree of Souls and pleads with Mo'at to heal Grace. The clan attempts to transfer Grace from her human body into her avatar with the aid of the Tree of Souls, but she dies before the process can complete.

Supported by the new chief Tsu'tey (Laz Alonso), who acts as Jake's translator, Jake speaks to unite the clan and tells them to gather all of the clans to battle against the RDA. Noticing the impending gathering, Quaritch organizes a pre-emptive strike against the Tree of Souls, believing that its destruction will demoralize the natives. On the eve of battle, Jake prays to Eywa, via a neural connection to the Tree of Souls, to intercede on behalf of the Na'vi.

During the subsequent battle, the Na'vi suffer heavy casualties, including Tsu'tey and Trudy; but are rescued when Pandoran wildlife unexpectedly join the attack and overwhelm the humans, which Neytiri interprets as Eywa's answer to Jake's prayer. After Jake destroys a makeshift bomber before it can reach the Tree of Souls; Quaritch escapes from his own damaged aircraft, wearing an AMP suit and breaks open the avatar link unit containing Jake's human body, exposing it to Pandora's poisonous atmosphere. Quaritch then prepares to slit the throat of Jake's avatar, but Neytiri kills Quaritch and saves Jake from suffocation.

With the exceptions of Jake, Norm, Max and a few other scientists, all humans are expelled from Pandora and sent back to Earth, after which Jake is transferred permanently into his avatar with the aid of the Tree of Souls.

Promotions:

The first photo of the film was released on August 14, 2009, and Empire magazine released exclusive images

from the film in its October issue. Cameron, producer Jon Landau, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, and Sigourney Weaver appeared at a panel, moderated by Tom Rothman, at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con on July 23. Twenty-five minutes of footage was screened in Dolby 3D. Weaver and Cameron appeared at additional panels to promote the film, speaking on the 23rd and 24th respectively. James Cameron announced at the Comic-Con Avatar Panel that August 21 will be 'Avatar Day'. On this day the trailer for the film was released in all theatrical formats. The official game trailer and toy line of the film were also unveiled on this day.

The 129-second trailer was released online on August 20, 2009. The new 210-second trailer was premiered in theatres on October 23, 2009, then soon after premiered online on Yahoo! on October 29, 2009, to positive reviews. An extended version in IMAX 3D received overwhelmingly positive reviews. The Hollywood Reporter said that audience expectations were coloured by "the same establishment skepticism that preceded Titanic" and suggested the showing reflected the desire for original storytelling. The teaser has been among the most viewed trailers in the history of film marketing, reaching the first place of all trailers viewed on Apple.com with 4 million views. On October 30, to celebrate the opening of the first 3-D cinema in Vietnam, Fox allowed Megastar Cinema to screen exclusive 16 minutes of Avatar to a number of press.

The three-and-a-half-minute trailer of the film premiered live on November 1, 2009, during a Dallas Cowboys football game at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on the Diamond Vision screen, one of the world's largest video displays, and to TV audiences viewing the game on Fox. It is said to be the largest live motion picture trailer viewing in history.

Books:

Avatar: A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora, a 224-page book in the form

of a field guide to the film's fictional setting of the planet of Pandora, was released by Harper Entertainment on November 24, 2009. It is presented as a compilation of data collected by the humans about Pandora and the life on it, written by Maria Wilhelm and Dirk Mathison. HarperFestival also released Wilhelm's 48-page James Cameron's Avatar: The Reusable Scrapbook for children. The Art of Avatar: James Cameron's Epic Adventure was released on November 30, 2009, by Abrams Books. The book features detailed production artwork from the film, including production sketches, illustrations by Lisa Fitzpatrick, and film stills. Producer Jon Landau wrote the foreword, Cameron wrote the epilogue, and director Peter Jackson wrote the preface. In October 2010, Abrams Books also released The Making of Avatar, a 272-page book that detailed the film's production process and contains over 500 color photographs and illustrations.

In a 2009 interview, Cameron said that he planned to write a novel version of Avatar after the film was released. In February 2010, producer Jon Landau stated that Cameron plans a prequel novel for Avatar that will "lead up to telling the story of the movie, but it would go into much more depth about all the stories that we didn't have time to deal with", saying that "Jim wants to write a novel that is a big, epic story that fills in a lot of things".

Video games:

Cameron chose Ubisoft Montreal to create an Avatar game for the film in 2007. The filmmakers and game developers collaborated heavily, and Cameron decided to include some of Ubisoft's vehicle and creature designs into the film. James Cameron's Avatar: The Game was released on December 1, 2009, for most home video game consoles (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, Nintendo DS, iPhone), Microsoft Windows and December 8 for PSP.

Box office:

Avatar released internationally in more than 14,000 screens. Avatar earned $3,537,000 from midnight screenings domestically (United States and Canada), with the initial 3D release limited to 2,200 screens. The film earned $26,752,099 on its opening day, and $77,025,481 over its opening weekend, making it the second largest December opening ever behind I Am Legend, the largest domestic opening weekend for a film not based on a franchise (topping The Incredibles), the highest opening weekend for a film entirely in 3D (breaking Up's record), the highest opening weekend for an environmentalist film (breaking The Day After Tomorrow's record), and the 40th largest opening weekend in North America, despite a blizzard which blanketed the East Coast of the United States and reportedly hurt its opening weekend results. The film also set an IMAX opening weekend record, with 178 theaters generating approximately $9.5 million, 12% of the film's $77 million (at the time) North American gross on less than 3% of the screens.

Commercial analysis:

Before its release, various film critics and fan communities predicted the film would be a significant disappointment at the box office, in line with predictions made for Cameron's previous blockbuster Titanic.

This criticism ranged from Avatar's film budget, to its concept and use of 3-D "blue cat people". Slate magazine's Daniel Engber complimented the 3D effects, but criticized them for reminding him of certain CGI characters from the Star Wars prequel films and for having the "uncanny valley" effect. The New York Times noted that 20th Century Fox executives had decided to release Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel alongside Avatar, calling it a "secret weapon" to cover any unforeseeable losses at the box-office.

Critical reception:

The film received mostly positive reviews. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 83% of 286 professional critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 7.4 out of 10. The site's consensus is that "It might be more impressive on a technical level than as a piece of storytelling, but Avatar reaffirms James Cameron's singular gift for imaginative, absorbing filmmaking." On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 reviews from film critics, the film has a "universal acclaim" rating score of 83 based on 35 reviews. CinemaScore polls conducted during the opening weekend revealed the average grade cinemagoers gave Avatar was A on an A+ to F scale. Every demographic surveyed was reported to give this rating. These polls also indicated that the main draw of the film was its use of 3D.

Extended theatrical re-release:

In July 2010, Cameron confirmed that there would be an extended theatrical re-release of the film on August 27, 2010, exclusively in 3D theaters and IMAX 3D. Avatar: Special Edition includes an additional nine minutes of footage, all of which is CG, including an extension of the sex scene and various other scenes that were cut from the original theatrical film. This extended re-release resulted in the film's run time approaching the current IMAX platter maximum of 170 minutes, thereby leaving less time for the end credits. Cameron stated that the nine minutes of added scenes cost more than $1 million a minute to produce and finish. During its 12-week re-release, Avatar: Special Edition grossed an additional $10.74 million in North America and $22.46 million overseas for a worldwide total of $33.2 million.

Home media:

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released the film on DVD and Blu-ray in the US on April 22, 2010 and in the UK on April 26. The US release was not on a Tuesday as is the norm, but was done to coincide with Earth Day. The first DVD and Blu-ray release does not contain any supplemental features other than the theatrical film and the disc menu in favor of and to make space for optimal picture and sound. The release also preserves the film's native 1.78:1 (16:9) format as Cameron felt that was the best format to watch the film. The Blu-ray disc contains DRM (BD+ 5) which some Blu-ray players might not support without a firmware update.

3D Release:

Cameron initially stated that Avatar would be released in 3D around November 2010, but the studio issued a correction: "3-D is in the conceptual stage and Avatar will not be out on 3D Blu-ray in November." In May

2010, Fox stated that the 3D version would be released some time in 2011. It was later revealed that Fox had given Panasonic an exclusive license for the 3D Blu-ray version and only with the purchase of a Panasonic 3DTV. The length of Panasonic's exclusivity period is stated to last until February 2012. On October 2010, Cameron stated that the standalone 3D Blu-ray would be the final version of the film's home release and that it was, "maybe one, two years out". On Christmas Eve 2010, Avatar had its 3D television world premiere on Sky.

On August 13, 2012, Cameron announced on Facebook that Avatar would be released globally on Blu-ray 3D. The Blu-ray 3D version was finally released on October 16, 2012.

Sequels:

In 2006, Cameron stated that if Avatar was successful, he hoped to make two sequels to the film. In 2010, he said the film's widespread success confirmed that he will. The prospect of sequels was something he planned from the start, going so far as to include certain scenes in the film for future story followups. In August 2010, Cameron stated that his plans are to shoot both sequels in the planned trilogy back-to-back. He also mentioned, "what I'm working on primarily is the novel" and "presumably, once the novel is nailed down, work will begin in earnest on getting the sequel going."

Cameron stated that they are going to widen the universe while exploring other moons of Polyphemus. The first sequel will focus on the ocean of Pandora but will also feature more of the rainforest from the original movie. Later in 2010, Cameron announced his intention to capture footage for this sequel at the bottom of the Mariana Trench using a deepwater submersible. In December 2011, Cameron revealed that he is writing second and third films together, but that he is just starting to design the ocean ecosystem of Pandora and the other worlds to be included in story. The storyline, although continuing the environmental theme of the first film, will not be "strident", as the film will concentrate on entertainment.

The sequels will continue to follow the characters of Jake and Neytiri. Cameron implied that the humans would return as the antagonists of the story. "I expect that those nasty humans didn't go away forever," he said. Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana have signed on to reprise their roles in future sequels. In February 2010, Cameron confirmed that Sigourney Weaver, who played Dr. Grace Augustine, will also be appearing in Avatar 2, stating that "no one ever dies in science fiction."

The sequels, to be produced by Cameron's own Lightstorm Entertainment in partnership with 20th Century Fox, were originally scheduled to be released in December 2014 and December 2015. During the 2011 CinemaCon in Las Vegas, James Cameron stated his intention to film the two Avatar sequels at a higher frame rate than the industry standard 24 frames per second, in order to add a heightened sense of reality. In May 2012, Cameron said that "he was making Avatar 2, Avatar 3, maybe Avatar 4". In June 2012, actress Sigourney Weaver revealed that the three sequels were shooting simultaneously, and that she was not sure how long shooting for the movies was expected to take. In early September, 2012, Cameron told MTV he had a concept for a fourth movie. It would be a prequel, set 35 years before the events of the first film, that deals with the early colonisation of Pandora. That same month, while promoting the 3D Blu-ray release of Titanic, he stated that the scripts for the second and third Avatar parts are still being written, with both being "separate stories that have an overall arc inclusive of the first film", and the second having a clear conclusion instead of a cliffhanger to the third film. Cameron expects to start pre-production in January 2013 and release Avatar 2 in 2015.

Directed by James Cameron

Produced by James Cameron

Jon Landau

Written by James Cameron

Starring:

Sam Worthington

Zoe Saldana

Stephen Lang

Michelle Rodriguez

Joel David Moore

Giovanni Ribisi

Sigourney Weaver

Dileep Rao

Music by James Horner

Cinematography: Mauro Fiore

Editing by James Cameron

John Refoua

Stephen E. Rivkin

Studio: Lightstorm Entertainment

Dune Entertainment

Ingenious Film Partners

Distributed by Twentieth Century Fox

Release date: December 10, 2009 (London premiere)

December 18, 2009 (United States)

Running time: 162 minutes

171 minutes (re-release)

178 minutes (Extended Collector's Edition)

Genre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy

IMDB rating: 8.0/10

Budget: $237 million

$9 million+ (re-release)

Box office: $2,782,275,172

Oblivion (I) (2013)

2013-04-14T17:36:00.000+06:00

Oblivion (I) (2013)

Synopsis:

Oblivion (I) (2013) is a sci fi action movie co-written, produced and directed by Joseph Kosinski and based

on his unpublished graphic novel of the same name edited by Radical Comics. It stars Tom Cruise, Olga Kurylenko, Andrea Riseborough, Morgan Freeman, Melissa Leo, Zoë Bell, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. The film was initially scheduled to release on July 10, 2013. Since the 3D re-release of Jurassic Park was set for a July 19, 2013 release date, the US release date was moved forward to April 19, 2013. According to Kosinski, Oblivion pays homage to science fiction films of the 1970s.

Following an alien invasion 60 years earlier which nearly destroyed the Earth, former Marine commander Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) is drone mechanic 49, one of the last few humans stationed on the planet. Jack lives in a tower standing thousands of feet above the Earth where he and his colleague Victoria (Andrea Riseborough) are part of an operation to clean up the remaining forces of the invasion and extract the planet's remaining resources. Jack and Victoria maintain contact with civilization via a video link with their commander, Sally (Melissa Leo), and are due to join the rest of humanity on Saturn's moon Titan in two weeks. Jack suffers from recurring dreams and flashbacks, featuring images of New York before the invasion and an unknown female. Assisting Jack in his cleanup work are weaponised "drones", sophisticated

airborne machines that scour the landscape for, and destroy, alien lifeforms.

Near end of his mission, Jack rescues a female stranger (Olga Kurylenko) from a crashed spaceship. She is encased in a sleeping capsule, in a state of hibernation. Jack immediately recognises her as the woman in his flashbacks. Shortly after, Jack and the stranger are captured by an insurgency led by Malcolm Beech (Morgan Freeman). Inside the insurgent stronghold, the insurgents claim there are no aliens on the planet, and demand that he reprogram a recently captured drone. Meanwhile, Victoria sends a drone to scout the area for Jack, but it is soon disarmed by members of the resistance. Beech allows Jack and the stranger to venture into an area of the landscape ostensibly unapproachable due to high levels of radiation, advising Jack that it is in this place that he will find answers to his questions.

Jack and the stranger climb the remains of the Empire State Building, and the stranger reveals herself to be his wife, Julia. Despite his initial shock at this revelation, it allows Jack to reconcile his flashbacks, knowing it to be the truth. It is revealed that the ship in which Julia crash landed was a NASA shuttle that had been orbiting the Earth for 60 years. When Jack and Julia return to the tower, the heartbroken Victoria reports to Sally that Jack is unfit for service. Sally activates a drone that is under maintenance in the tower to exterminate everyone, but only manages to kill Victoria before Julia disables it with a gunshot from Jack's aircraft. The duo travel into the supposedly lethal radiation zone, where Jack is stunned to come face to face with drone mechanic 52, a clone of himself. Jack and the clone engage in combat that ends with Jack choking the clone unconscious.

Jack and Julia return to the resistance camp, where they help to repair the stolen drone. Beech reveals to Jack that the life form he encountered is only one of thousands of clones, including himself, resulting from cloning the real Jack Harper, who lived 60 years ago. These clones are used to repair drones and scout for "alien" presence. His colleague Victoria is also revealed to be a clone. The resistance is revealed to be the planet's last remaining human outpost, exposing the truth that Jack and Victoria's superiors, i.e. Sally, are the "aliens", using the clones to drain the Earth of its vital resources. The drones, it is revealed, are programmed to attack humans, not aliens.

During the repair process, Beech reveals that the resistance has a nuclear device and intends on using it to destroy the alien stronghold, an enormous space station orbiting Earth. Three drones pick up the DNA trail of Jack and attack the base, resulting in a prolonged firefight before the drones are finally overpowered. The resistance suffers many casualties, including Beech who appears to be mortally wounded. To his frustration, the captured drone has been damaged and is once again unfit for service; however, the nuclear device is still intact. With no other choice, Jack volunteers to fly the device to the station himself, delivering the "hibernating" Julia as an explanation for his presence.

Jack places her back into her sleeping capsule and sets off to the space station, telling Sally that he is bringing the survivor to her. During the flight Jack listens to the flight recorder recovered from Julia's crashed shuttle and, in a series of flashbacks, it is revealed that his original self was on board the samespaceship as his wife.

In 2017, with Victoria as his co-pilot, Jack navigates the ship to investigate a mysterious object orbiting Earth (revealed to be the alien space station), but on approaching, the ship is drawn towards the object. At that point, fearing the worst, Jack released the shuttle containing the sleeping capsules (one of which held Julia), as it would be able to break free from the object's gravitational pull.

Jack enters the space station and confronts "Sally", who is revealed to be a monolithic, amorphous being. Sally is disappointed when Jack opens the sleeping capsule, revealing that he has not brought Julia as promised, but a wounded Malcolm Beech, who had previously expressed his desire to be there at the moment the nuclear device was triggered. (Julia, unbeknownst to her, has been delivered to Jack's forest retreat; a lakeside cabin where he has stored keepsakes and mementos of human life, such as books and vinyl records.) With Sally growing hostile, Jack urgently recites stanza XXVII of Horatius (The Lay), a poem about Horatius' defense of a Roman bridge, and triggers the device, destroying the space station. By doing so, the remaining drones on the Earth are deactivated.

Three years later, Julia is living a peaceful life in Jack's forest retreat, and has given birth to a daughter, although she is still grief stricken by Jack's death. Through the surrounding forest, members of the former resistance appear, having visibly eschewed their armour and weaponry for more natural clothing. As Julia recognises them, "Jack", the clone of team 52, steps forward and the two hold each other's gaze.

Marketing:

Details about Oblivion were kept secret, though the studio was said to have been "very excited" about the film. Promotions began April 2012, with a part of the footage being screened at the 2012 CinemaCon despite the fact that filming had begun just one month prior to the event. The footage was described as "a combination of early concept art, rough animation, and unfinished dailies," showcasing a glimpse of the film's landscapes.

Release:

Oblivion premiered in Dublin on April 3, 2013 and in Hollywood on April 10 at the Dolby Theatre where Cruise himself announced before the screening that the film was actually the first feature to be mixed completely "from start to finish" in the latest state-of-the-art Dolby Atmos surround sound. On April 15, 2013, Joseph Kosinski and Tom Cruise will participate in a Q&A session that will be simulcast across the United States to a handful of IMAX venues. The film will be shown at 8:00 PM and 10:00 PM on April 18, 2013 in various IMAX venues ahead of its general release on April 19, 2013. The image's aspect ratio will shift during certain sequences to take advantage of IMAX's "large screen" format. The film was released on April 10 in the Philippines, UK, Morocco, France, Belgium, and a day later in Argentina, Australia, Denmark, Germany, India, Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland.

Reception:

As of April 13th, 2013, the film has a 66% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 44 reviews, with an average score of 5.8/10.

Directed by Joseph Kosinski

Produced by Joseph Kosinski

Peter Chernin

Ryan Kavanaugh

Dylan Clark

Barry Levine

Screenplay by Joseph Kosinski

William Monahan

Karl Gajdusek

Michael Arndt

Based on Oblivion by Joseph Kosinski

Arvid Nelson

Starring:

Tom Cruise

Olga Kurylenko

Andrea Riseborough

Morgan Freeman

Melissa Leo

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau

Music by Anthony Gonzalez

Joseph Trapanese

Cinematography: Claudio Miranda

Editing by Richard Francis-Bruce

Studio: Radical Studios

Chernin Entertainment

Relativity Media

Ironhead Studios

Truenorth Productions

Distributed by Universal Pictures

Release date: April 19, 2013(US release)

April 11, 2013(Australia)

April 10, 2013(France)[2]

April 10, 2013(UK)

April 11, 2013(Ukraine)

Running time: 124 minutes

Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci fi

IMDB rating: 7.3/10

Budget: $120 million

Welcome to the Punch (2013)

2013-04-14T16:01:00.000+06:00

Welcome to the Punch (2013)

Synopsis:

Welcome to the Punch (2013) is a British action thriller movie released on 15 March 2013 by Momentum Pictures in the UK and Ireland. Written by Eran Creevy, the script had been placed on the 2010 Brit List, a film-industry-compiled list of the best unproduced screenplays in British film. With seven votes, the film was honored with third place. The film is directed by Creevy, starring James McAvoy, Mark Strong, and Andrea Riseborough.

Welcome to the Punch presents the story of a former criminal, Jacob Sternwood (Strong) who is forced to return to London from his Icelandic hideaway when his son is involved in a heist gone wrong. This gives detective Max Lewinsky (McAvoy) one last chance to catch the man he has always been after. As they face off, they start to uncover a deeper conspiracy they both need to solve in order to survive.

Production:

The film was produced by Ben Pugh and Rory Aitken of Between the Eyes, who also produced Eran Creevy's debut feature SHIFTY. Brian Kavanaugh-Jones also served as a producer on the movie with Worldview Entertainment. Ridley Scott and Liza Marshall of Scott Free Executive Produced the film.

Some of the interior and exterior scenes were filmed at London College of Communication in Elephant and Castle in August 2011. City of Westminster College's Paddington Green Campus was used for the press conference scene.

Directed by Eran Creevy

Written by Eran Creevy

Starring:

James McAvoy

Mark Strong

Andrea Riseborough

Studio: Worldview Entertainment

Distributed by Momentum Pictures

Release date: 24 February 2013 (Glasgow Film Festival)

15 March 2013

Genre: Action, Adventure, Crime

IMDB rating: 6.2/10

Budget: $8.5 million

G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013)

2013-04-14T13:43:00.000+06:00

G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013)

Synopsis:

G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013) is a science fiction action movie. It is a sequel to 2009's G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. The film was written by Zombieland writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. G.I. Joe: Retaliation features an ensemble cast, starring Bruce Willis and Dwayne Johnson, with Channing Tatum, Arnold Vosloo, Ray Park, Jonathan Pryce, and Byung-hun Lee reprising their roles from the first film. The film was released in North America on March 28, 2013.

The Joes are framed for stealing nuclear warheads from Pakistan by Zartan (Arnold Vosloo) who is impersonating the President of the United States (Jonathan Pryce). The entire team is eliminated in a military strike, with Duke (Channing Tatum) as one of the casualties. Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson), Flint (D.J. Cotrona) and Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki) are the only survivors.

Meanwhile, Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee) and ex-Joe Firefly (Ray Stevenson) rescue Cobra Commander

(Luke Bracey) from an underground maximum-security prison in Germany. Storm Shadow is injured during the escape, and retreats to a temple in the Himalayas to recover. Upon learning that he is alive, the Blind Master (RZA), leader of the Arashikage Clan, sends Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and his apprentice Jinx (Elodie Yung), Storm Shadow's cousin, to capture Storm Shadow so he can answer for the murder of his uncle, the Hard Master.

Roadblock, Flint, and Lady Jaye return to the United States where they set up a base of operations in a rundown gym. After Zartan announces that Cobra will replace the Joes as America's main protective unit, Lady Jaye deduces that someone is impersonating the President, and Roadblock leads them to General Joseph Colton (Bruce Willis), who provides them with weapons and helps them infiltrate a fundraising event that the President will be attending. Lady Jaye steals a sample of the President's DNA and confirms that he is Zartan. They escape after a brief confrontation with Firefly and Zandar (Matt Gerald), the head of the Presidential Detail and a member of Cobra.

Snake Eyes and Jinx locate and capture Storm Shadow after a battle with ninjas and take him back to Japan, where Storm Shadow reveals that Zartan murdered the Hard Master and he joined Cobra to avenge his uncle. Storm Shadow then accompanies Snake Eyes and Jinx as they join the Joes' efforts to stop Cobra.

Zartan invites the world leaders to a summit, where he blackmails them into disabling their nuclear arsenals, and reveals that he has created Project Zeus: seven orbital kinetic bombardment weapons of mass destruction at his command. He destroys central London to prove his superiority, and threatens to destroy other capitals if the countries don't submit to Cobra. However, Storm Shadow betrays Cobra Commander and kills Zartan, revealing Cobra's deception to the world leaders. While Snake Eyes, Jinx, and Flint fight Cobra's soldiers, Cobra Commander activates the remaining six weapons and instructs Firefly to protect the launch device. Firefly is killed in combat by Roadblock, who deactivates and destroys the orbital weapons. Meanwhile, Colton and Lady Jaye rescue the President.

Cobra Commander escapes during the battle and Storm Shadow disappears after avenging his uncle. The real President addresses the nation at a ceremony where Roadblock, Jaye, Flint, Jinx, and Snake Eyes are commemorated as heroes. Colton thanks each of them, and presents Roadblock with the gun of General Patton, for when he finally finds Cobra Commander. Roadblock proudly raises the colt m1911 in the air and

lets out one shot.

Release:

Previously slated for release on June 29, 2012, Paramount announced in May 2012 that they were delaying the film's release until March 29, 2013 (but was later moved to March 28, 2013), in order to convert the movie to 3D and boost interest in international markets.

The delay "gobsmacked" the film industry, according to Deadline.com, because Paramount had already implemented a substantial advertising campaign beginning with a Super Bowl commercial, because "warehouses full of" toys were waiting for the film's launch, and because it was one of only three Paramount-produced films scheduled for Summer 2012 (along with The Dictator and Katy Perry: Part of Me). The studio also wanted to avoid competing with Tatum's Magic Mike, also scheduled for June 29, Deadline reported.

Promotion:

On December 12, 2011, the premiere trailer for the film was released on YouTube exclusively from Machinima.com. The trailer itself features a remix of the White Stripes' song "Seven Nation Army" by The Glitch Mob. Following the release of the trailer, Interview magazine featured G.I. Joe: Retaliation in "Thursday video Face-Off" against the indie film Alter Egos on January 12, 2012. A shorter teaser trailer for the film aired during Super Bowl XLVI, containing music by Jay-Z. A Japanese trailer focusing on actor Byung-hun Lee was released in April 2012. The second full trailer made its debut on April 24, 2012, containing a viral marketing initiative inviting viewers to interact with a website and Facebook application for the film. On December 13, 2012, a third trailer was released featuring more footage of London's destruction. In January 2013, a four-minute clip of the film featuring a ninja battle between Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow was attached with the screening of Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters.

Toy line:

A toy line for the film was confirmed by Hasbro in February 2012. Despite the movie's release being moved from June 2012 to March 2013, the initial assortments of figures, vehicles, and role-play items were shipped to retailers, and appeared on store shelves in May 2012. A Variety article was published stating that the already released figures had been pulled from the shelves and recalled by Hasbro, although the companies official statement indicated that existing product would be sold through. New product shipments were halted by Hasbro, but existing Retaliation figures were available in Target, Wal-Mart, and Toys R Us as late as December 2012. The toyline was re-released in the United States in February 2013.

Critical response:

Reviews of the film have been mostly negative. As of April 2013, it sits at 28% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 145 reviews with the consensus: "Though arguably superior to its predecessor, G.I. Joe: Retaliation is overwhelmed by its nonstop action and is too nonsensical and vapid to leave a lasting impression." At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 42%, considered to be "mixed or average reviews", based on 25 critics.

Box office:

G.I. Joe: Retaliation as of April 12, 2013, has grossed $91,625,698 in North America and $145,200,000 internationally for a worldwide total of $236,825,698.

In North America, the film grossed $10.5 million on its opening day at the top of the box office. The film retained the No. 1 spot over the three day weekend and grossed $40.5 million, which is the second-highest Easter debut ever behind Clash of the Titans. However, this was lower than it's predecessor's opening of 54.7 million.

Future:

On April 1, 2013, reports surfaced that there will be a third G.I. Joe film which is likely be in 3D. However, Paramount has yet to officially confirm this. The producer has stated he is open to doing a G.I. Joe/Transformers crossover.

Directed by Jon M. Chu

Produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura

Brian Goldner

Written by Rhett Reese

Paul Wernick

Based on G.I. Joe by Hasbro

Starring:

Dwayne Johnson

Bruce Willis

D.J. Cotrona

Byung-hun Lee

Adrianne Palicki

Ray Park

Jonathan Pryce

Ray Stevenson

Channing Tatum

Music by Henry Jackman

Cinematography: Stephen Windon

Editing by Roger Barton

Jim May

Studio: Skydance Productions

di Bonaventura Pictures

Hasbro

Distributed by Paramount Pictures

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Release date: March 28, 2013

Running time: 110 minutes

Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci fi

IMDB rating: 6.3/10

Budget: $130 million

Box office: $236,825,698

Gangster Squad (2013)

2013-04-13T17:24:00.000+06:00

Gangster Squad (2013)

Synopsis:

Gangster Squad (2013) is American action crime movie. The film is loosely based on the story of Los Angeles Police Department officers and detectives forming a group called the "Gangster Squad unit" who attempt to keep the city safe from Mickey Cohen and his gang during the 1940s and '50s. It was originally set to be released September 7, 2012, but in the wake of the 2012 Aurora shooting, the release date was changed to January 11, 2013 by Warner Bros. Pictures.

In 1949 post-WWII Los Angeles, gangster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) has become the most powerful figure in the California criminal underworld, and intends to continue to expand his criminal enterprise across the Western United States, forcing out his rivals in Chicago. The police have not been able to stop Cohen's

ruthless rise, as Cohen has eliminated witnesses and bribed both the courts and the police, controlling both illegal and legal sides of L.A.

After saving a young girl from Cohen's thugs, Sgt. John O'Mara (Josh Brolin) is personally selected by Chief Bill Parker (Nick Nolte) due to O'Mara's special operations background and training at Camp X during World War II to wage guerilla warfare on Cohen, dismantling his crime empire and forcing him out of Los Angeles. With the help of his reluctant and pregnant wife, Connie (Mireille Enos), O'Mara recruits fellow officers in his squad. Initially he is joined by hard-headed detective Coleman Harris (Anthony Mackie), wire-tapper Conway Keeler (Giovanni Ribisi), and legendary gangster-killer Max Kennard (Robert Patrick). Kennard's partner, Navidad Ramirez (Michael Peña), follows the squad and they reluctantly allow him to join. Sgt. Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling), O'Mara's close friend, turns down the offer, as he is disillusioned from the war and his time on the police force.

Wooters has been keeping close to his old friend Jack Whalen (Sullivan Stapleton), who is his informant from within Cohen's operations. After meeting for drinks, Wooters becomes infatuated with Cohen's etiquette coach and girlfriend Grace Faraday (Emma Stone). Wooters and Grace begin a secret romantic relationship. After Cohen orders a hit on rival Jack Dragna (Jon Polito) that results in the death of Pete (Austin Adams), an innocent boy Wooters knew, Wooters becomes motivated to take down Cohen. He saves O'Mara's squad after an unsuccessful hit on one of Cohen's casinos, and later joins them.

With organization and better planning the unit strikes several successful blows at the heart of Cohen's criminal organization. The media refers to them as "The Gangster Squad". After wire-tapping Cohen's house, Keeler deduces the central location of Cohen's wire gambling business, the heart of his empire. The squad successfully burns down the business, but Cohen's men inform him that they didn't take any of his money. Cohen believes they are a group of honest cops, and believes someone ratted him out and tapped his house. As his men sweep the house for bugs, Grace runs away, fearing Cohen knows of her relationship with Wooters.

The Gangster Squad is lured into a trap in Los Angeles' Chinatown by Cohen's head hitman Wrevock (Troy Garity), who was also responsible for Pete's death. Wooters interrupts the ambush just in time to save O'Mara, but Wrevock escapes. Karl Lennox (Holt McCallany), Cohen's right-hand man, kills Keeler in the unit's operation. Wooters asks Whalen to get Grace out of town, but Cohen reaches him first, looking for Grace, and kills him. O'Mara's house is later hit by a drive-by, and Connie gives birth to their son under the stress. Chief Parker tells O'Mara, as a result of their failure, that their careers with the LAPD are over. O'Mara gets Connie out of town, but refuses to leave with the job unfinished. Grace tells Wooters she is willing to testify against Cohen for Whalen's murder, prompting O'Mara, along with the remaining members of his unit, to go to the Park Plaza Hotel to arrest Cohen.

Cohen and his men engage in a firefight with the police unit, with Wooters being wounded in the process after killing Wrevock. Cohen and Lennox escape, but O'Mara pursues them, which results in their vehicle crashing into a fountain. Kennard gets shot by Lennox, but manages to kill him with help from Navidad, before dying from his wounds. O'Mara prepares to arrest Cohen, but Cohen tempts him into fighting each other in a bare-knuckle boxing match, while a crowd of onlookers and journalists gather. O'Mara finally beats Cohen and has him arrested, ending his reign as a crime boss and the spread of the mafia into the Los Angeles area. The Gangster Squad was never mentioned in taking down Cohen, their surviving members remaining a secret. Cohen is sentenced to 25 to life, and is welcomed violently by Whalen's friends. Grace and Wooters continue their relationship, while Navidad and Harris become partners on the force. O'Mara quits to live a quiet life with his wife and son.

Home media:

Gangster Squad will be available on DVD and Blu-ray on April 23, 2013.

Reception:

The film received mixed reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 32% based on reviews from 180 critics, with the site's consensus stating: "Though it's stylish and features a talented cast, Gangster Squad suffers from lackluster writing, underdeveloped characters and an excessive amount of violence". Another review aggregator, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated a score of 40% based on 30 reviews, or "Mixed or Average review."

The reviewers of Spill.com gave it a "Rental," praising the stylish approach but criticizing the dialogue, Emma

Stone's under-developed "damsel-in-distress" character, and Sean Penn's laughable makeup. Cyrus suggests

that the romantic subplot between Sergeant Jerry Wooters and Grace Faraday is "a story you would carenothing about if it wasn't Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone". IGN editor Chris Tilly wrote "Gangster Squad

looks great but frustrates because with the talent involved, it had the potential to be so much more." Thus rating the film 6.3 out of 10.

Directed by Ruben Fleischer

Produced by Bruce Berman

Ruben Fleischer

Dan Lin

Kevin McCormick

Jon Silk

Michael Tadross

Screenplay by Will Beall

Based on Tales from the Gangster Squad by Paul Lieberman

Starring:

Josh Brolin

Ryan Gosling

Sean Penn

Nick Nolte

Emma Stone

Anthony Mackie

Giovanni Ribisi

Michael Peña

Robert Patrick

Music by Steve Jablonsky

Cinematography: Dion Beebe

Editing by Alan Baumgarten

James Herbert

Studio: Village Roadshow Pictures

Lin Pictures

Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures

Release date: January 11, 2013

Running time: 113 minutes

Genre: Action, Crime, Drama

IMDB rating: 6.9/10

Budget: $60 million

Box office: $99,403,415

Olympus Has Fallen (2013)

2013-04-03T16:10:00.001+06:00

Olympus Has Fallen (2013)

Synopsis:

Olympus Has Fallen is a hollywood action movie. Former U.S. Army Ranger Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) is the lead Secret Service agent assigned to head the Presidential Detail. He maintains a personal, friendly relationship with President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart), First Lady Margaret Asher (Ashley Judd) and particularly their son Connor Asher (Finley Jacobsen). On a drive from Camp David, the car transporting the First Family crashes; Banning saves President Asher, but Margaret dies in the crash.

Eighteen months later, Banning works at the Treasury Department, within eyesight of the White House; he has been demoted from the Presidential Detail as he triggers Asher's memories of the night Margaret died. During a meeting between Asher and the prime minister of South Korea, Korean-led guerrilla forces, aided by treasonous members of the prime minister's own detail, which include Dave Forbes (Dylan McDermott), an ex-US Secret Service agent turned private contractor, mount an air and ground assault that results in the capture of the White House. Asher and several top officials are held hostage in the White House bunker, where the prime minister is killed. Before he is killed, Agent Roma (Cole Hauser) alerts head of Secret Service Lynne Jacobs (Angela Bassett) that "Olympus has fallen."

The attack has been masterminded by Kang Yeonsak (Rick Yune), an ex-North Korean terrorist who appears to be motivated by hope for a reunification of Korea. Kang seeks to use Asher's hostage status as leverage to force the U.S. military to withdraw from the Korean Peninsula, allowing the civil war to end. He also seeks to detonate all of America's nuclear weapons in their silos and destroy the country as revenge for the death of his parents. To accomplish this, he requires the access codes to a system in the bunker called Cerberus, which are held by three top government officials within the bunker, including the President. Asher orders the other two officials to reveal their codes to save their lives, certain that he will not give up his code.

During the assault by Kang's forces on the front lawn, Banning joins the side of the White House's combatants. He falls back into the White House, disables the internal surveillance and gains access to Asher's satellite ear phone, which he uses to maintain contact with Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman), the Speaker of the House who is now the Acting President. Authorized to proceed, Banning's first act is to save Connor, who Kang plans to use to force Asher to reveal his Cerberus code. Despite resistance, he finds Connor hiding in the walls, thanks to the training Banning had given him, and sneaks him out of the White House before beginning reconnaissance and reducing the terrorists' numbers one by one. This includes Forbes, but not before convincing the traitor to report to Kang that Banning is dead. Meanwhile, Trumbull orders an aerial SEAL assault on the White House, but Kang deploys an advanced anti-aircraft gun system in his possession. Discovering this, Banning advises his commanders to abort the mission, but it proceeds and the new defense annihilates the assault force before Banning can stop it. Kang retaliates for the attempted infiltration by killing Vice President Charlie Rodriguez (Phil Austin).

After Banning disables Kang's communications, the terrorist tries to execute Secretary of Defense Ruth McMillan (Melissa Leo) outside the front door in front of the media, but Banning rescues her and takes out several more of Kang's men in the process. With Kang's forces dwindling, he fakes his own death, as well as Asher's, by sacrificing several of his men and the remaining hostages. Kang, Asher, and the few remaining terrorists stay in the bunker, unknown to the outside world. Kang eventually cracks Asher's code and activates Cerberus as Banning realizes that his apparent suicide was faked. As Kang attempts to escape, Banning dispatches the remaining terrorists and kills Kang in a knife fight, ultimately disabling Cerberus with the assistance of Trumbull. Banning and Asher escape the White House. After the events, the U.S. begins to

heal from the attack, and Banning once again becomes head of the Presidential Detail.

Release:

Olympus Has Fallen was released in the United States on March 22, 2013. It was initially scheduled for an

April 5, 2013 release, but moved to avoid competition with The Heat, which was to open at the same time. FilmDistrict distributed the film.

Reception:

The film has received mixed reviews from critics. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives a score of 47% based on reviews from 128 critics, with a rating average of 5.4/10 with the site's consensus being "It's far from original, but Olympus Has Fallen benefits from Antoine Fuqua's tense direction and a strong performance from Gerard Butler -- which might be just enough for action junkies". Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, gives the film a score of 41% based on 29 reviews indicating "mixed or average reviews."

At the end of the first weekend, the film earned $30.5 million, and exceeded Hollywood experts' predictions

by $7 million. The film also was rated an "A-Minus" on CinemaScore.

Directed by Antoine Fuqua

Produced by Gerard Butler

Alan Siegel

Mark Gill

Written by Creighton Rothenberger

Katrin Benedikt

Starring:

Gerard Butler

Aaron Eckhart

Morgan Freeman

Angela Bassett

Robert Forster

Cole Hauser

Finley Jacobsen

Ashley Judd

Melissa Leo

Dylan McDermott

Radha Mitchell

Rick Yune

Music by Trevor Morris

Cinematography: Conrad W. Hall

Editing by John Refoua

Studio: Millennium Films

Distributed by FilmDistrict

Release date: March 22, 2013 (United States)

Running time: 120 minutes

Genre: Action, Thriller

IMDB rating: 7.1/10

Budget: $70 million

Box office: $60,190,085

The Host (2013)

2013-04-03T00:52:00.000+06:00

The Host (2013)

Synopsis:

The Host(2013) is a hollywood action movie adapted from Stephenie Meyer's novel. The novel also has the same name.

In the future, the human race has been assimilated by benevolent extraterrestrial psychic parasites called "Souls". Melanie Stryder (Saoirse Ronan), a human, is captured by the Seeker (Diane Kruger) and infused with a soul called "Wanderer", in order to discover the location of one of the last pockets of non-assimilated humans. However, Melanie survives the procedure and begins to struggle for control of her body.

Wanderer discovers that Melanie was captured while scavenging for food with her brother Jamie Stryder (Chandler Canterbury) and her boyfriend Jared Howe (Max Irons), and that they were looking for Melanie's uncle Jeb Stryder (William Hurt), who lives in a cabin in the desert. Wanderer loses control of Melanie and the Seeker decides to put Wanderer in a different body and be insterted into Melanie to get the information herself. With the help of Melanie, Wanderer escapes and makes her way to the desert, eventually found by a group of humans, including Jeb. She is taken to a series of underground caves, discovering that Jared and Jamie are living there too.Wanderer is kept isolated from the others, eventually interacting with the humans, and develops feelings for one of them, Ian O'Shea (Jake Abel), beginning to believe the Souls shouldn't steal other people's free will. Eventually, Jeb, Jamie and Ian realize Melanie is still alive, while The Seeker learns that the community is located somewhere in the desert and follows Wanderer there, but fails to locate them.

After nearly being captured by the Seeker, Ian's brother Kyle O'Shea (Boyd Holbrook) attempts to kill Wanderer but is stopped by Ian and another human, Wes, after which Jared also learns that Melanie is still alive. Wanderer is horrified to learn that Doc (Scott Lawrence), the community's medic, has been experimenting on people infused with Souls, removing the Souls from their bodies and killing them, and isolates herself from the group, but agrees to help Jared infiltrate a Soul medical facility to steal technology to cure the ill Jamie. In the process, they are attacked by the Seeker, who is then shot and captured by Jeb. The Seeker is taken to the caves, where she is removed from her host and contained in a pod stolen by Wanderer, who then sends the Seeker to a distant planet.

Wanderer teaches Doc how to remove the Souls from people's bodies without harming them, and asks to be

removed from Melanie's so Melanie can have her life back. Melanie protests, having bonded with Wanderer

but Doc goes through with the procedure. However, rather than letting Wanderer die, Doc inserts her into Pet (Emily Browning), a human who was left brain-dead after the Soul inside her was removed. Wanderer, now in Pet's body, begins a relationship with Ian, while Melanie reunites with Jared. A few months later, Wanderer and the others meet another group of humans who have been joined by Souls who have decided to live peacefully among them.

Directed by Andrew Niccol

Produced by Stephenie Meyer

Nick Wechsler

Steve Schwartz

Paula Mae Schwartz

Screenplay by Andrew Niccol Based on The Host by Stephenie Meyer

Starring:

Saoirse Ronan

Jake Abel

Max Irons

Chandler Canterbury

Frances Fisher

Diane Kruger

William Hurt

Music by Antonio Pinto

Cinematography: Roberto Schaefer

Editing by Thomas J. Nordberg

Studio: Metropolitan Filmexport

Distributed by Open Road Films

Release date: March 29, 2013

Running time: 125 minutes

Genre: Action, Adventure, Romance

IMDB rating: 5.9/10

Budget: $40 million

Box office: $10,600,112

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)

2013-04-02T21:11:00.001+06:00

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)

Synopsis:

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is a science fiction action film based on the G.I. Joe toy franchise. The movie was inspired from the comic book and cartoon series G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero.

In the near future, weapons master James McCullen (Christopher Eccleston) has created a nanotech-based weapon capable of destroying a city. His company M.A.R.S. (Military Armaments Research Syndicate) sells four warheads to NATO, and NATO troops led by American soldiers Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) are tasked with delivering the warheads. Their convoy is ambushed by the Baroness (Sienna Miller), whom Duke recognizes to be his ex-fiancee Ana Lewis. Duke and Ripcord are rescued by Scarlett (Rachel Nichols), Snake Eyes (Ray Park), Breaker (Saïd Taghmaoui) and Heavy Duty (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje). They take the warheads to The Pit, G.I. Joe's command center in Egypt, and upon arriving rendezvous with the head of the G.I. Joe Team, General Hawk (Dennis Quaid). Hawk takes command of the warheads and excuses Duke and Ripcord, only to be convinced to let them join his group, after Duke reveals that he knows the Baroness.

McCullen is revealed to be using the same nanotechnology to build an army of soldiers with the aid of the Doctor (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), planning on using the warheads to cause panic and bring about a new world

order. Using a tracking device, McCullen locates the G.I. Joe base and sends Storm Shadow (Byung-Hun Lee) and the Baroness to retrieve the warheads, with assistance from Zartan (Arnold Vosloo).

After a fight, Storm Shadow and the Baroness retrieve the warheads and take them to Baron DeCobray, the

Baroness's husband, for him to weaponize. Making their way to Paris, the Joes pursue the Baroness and Storm Shadow, but are unsuccessful in stopping them from launching one of the missiles. The missile hits the Eiffel Tower and releases the nanomites in it, destroying the tower and some of the surrounding area before Duke manages to hit the kill switch, but in doing so he is captured and taken to McCullen's base under the Arctic.

The Joes locate the secret base and fly there, as McCullen loads three missiles with nano-warheads which are aimed for Beijing, Moscow, and Washington, D.C., the world's three most important cities. He intends to do this to strike fear into the hearts of every man, woman, and child on the planet, after which they will turn to the person with the most power in the world, the President of the United States. After Snake Eyes takes out one missile, Ripcord destroys the remaining two using a stolen M.A.R.S. prototype Night Raven jet, while Scarlett, Breaker, and Snake Eyes infiltrate the base. Snake Eyes duels and prevails over Storm Shadow. Duke learns that the Doctor is Rex Lewis, Ana's brother believed to have been killed by a mistimed airstrike during a mission led by Duke (also the origin of the alienation between Duke and Ana). Rex had encountered Doctor Mindbender (Kevin J. O'Connor) in the bunker and was seduced by the nanomite technology, taking too long to retrieve the data and getting caught in the bombing, which disfigured him. After freeing Duke, the Baroness is subdued, as the Doctor reveals he has implanted her with nanomites, which has put her under his control for the past four years. Attempting to kill Duke, McCullen ends up being burned, so he and the Doctor flee to an escape vessel. Duke and the Baroness pursue him while the Joes fall back, when the Doctor activates the base's self-destruct sequence; which involves 'blowing the ice cap' to create blocks of ice which then nearly crush the Joes.

The Doctor assumes the identity of the Commander, having healed McCullen's burned face with nanomites,encasing it in silver and naming him "Destro", which places McCullen under the Commander's control. They are captured by G.I. Joe soon after. On the supercarrier USS Flagg, the Baroness is placed in protective custody until they can remove the nanomites from her body. Meanwhile, Zartan, having had his physical appearance altered by nanomites, infiltrates the White House during the missile crisis and assumes the identity of the President of the United States of America (Jonathan Pryce), thus completing a part of McCullen's plan to rule the world.

Box office:

During the opening weekend (August 7–9), G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra opened at number one of the North American box office with an estimated $54.7 million. It earned an additional $44 million internationally during the same weekend. In the following week, the film opened in 14 more territories and continued atop the international box office with $26 million. The film grossed US$302,543,074 worldwide, of which US$150,201,498 was from the United States, making it the fifth highest-grossing Hasbro film of all time, behind Transformers & Battleship.

Home media:

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra was released on November 3, 2009 on Blu-ray Disc and DVD, in regular and two-disc editions. Both editions include an audio commentary by Stephen Sommers and Bob Ducsay, and two making-of featurettes, with the second disk of the special edition holding a digital copy of the film. The film opened at #1 at the DVD sales chart, making $40.9m off 2,538,000 DVD units in the first week of release. The film sold over 3.8 million discs, 500,000 of them on Blu-ray, during its first week.

Critical reception:

Paramount decided to not screen the film for print critics before its release and wanted to focus on internet critics. The film had received generally mixed to negative reviews. Based on 157 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra has a "Rotten" 34% approval rating from critics, with an average score of 4.6/10. By comparison, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 32 out of 100, based on 25 reviews.

One of the many complaints made by fans was that the film failed to relate to the G.I. Joe franchise. G4tv.com stated that, "the studio actually went out of their way to butcher the G.I. Joe mythos in favor of derivative storyline devices." They cited the Baroness, who was changed from an East European noble in the comics to Duke's brainwashed ex-girlfriend in the film.

Sequel:

A sequel, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, was released on March 28, 2013. It is directed by Jon Chu.

Directed by Stephen Sommers

Produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura

Bob Ducsay

Brian Goldner

Screenplay by Stuart Beattie

David Elliot

Paul Lovett

Story by Michael B. Gordon

Stuart Beattie

Stephen Sommers

Based on G.I. Joe by Hasbro

Starring:

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje

Christopher Eccleston

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Lee Byung-hun

Sienna Miller

Rachel Nichols

Ray Park

Jonathan Pryce

Said Taghmaoui

Channing Tatum

Marlon Wayans

Dennis Quaid

Music by Alan Silvestri

Cinematography: Mitchell Amundsen

Editing by Bob Ducsay

Jim May

Studio: Spyglass Entertainment

Di Bonaventura Pictures

Hasbro

Distributed by Paramount Pictures

Release date: August 7, 2009

Running time: 118 minutes

Budget: $175 million

Box office: $302,469,017

Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci fi

IMDB rating: 5.7/10