One word to sum it up: Awesome! Definitely one of those movies worth paying for.

I went to the cinema together with a few friends to watch Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law in action. Oh boy, Downey as Holmes was a really stellar performance. He managed to portray Holmes in a totally different way. I grew up thinking Sherlock Holmes was some kind of nerdy fellow with the huge cloak thing running around solving crimes. In the movie, Holmes was not nerdy at all. In fact, he is a fighter, a problem solver and an exceptional analyst. Same goes with Dr. Watson. A charming, bookish looking doctor who wields a cunningly concealed blade inside a walking stick beating the crap out of villains? Drool. They like, totally pawned it man.

The pair had such chemistry, it is hard to hold back from grinning at their snide commentaries and witty banters. That being said, the first 10 minutes of the movie was really confusing. The English accent was so thick, it was hard to make out what they were saying. Though that only contributed to the fun factor.

The sharp and funny remarks and dialogue aside, the movie offers some really good action scenes. Packed to the rim with intense encounters and fights, enough to hold you to your seats. No seriously, I just love watching the good doctor beat crap out of people. The moments where Holmes plan his sequence of attacks are just jaw-dropping. They give a glimpse of what goes through his head as he thinks out his exact moves to block, parry, strike and pummel a guy to submission in slow motion. Amazing.

Holmes’ famous deductive reasoning method is the most attractive point of the movie. From seemingly unconnected pieces of evidence, he can arrive very impossibly to conclusions. It is just fulfilling to watch as Holmes uncover one mystery after another, unveiling a clever ploy to disguise a power-hungry villain’s ambition as dark arts. It was one of the rare moments in movies when I went “Ooooh” and “Aaahh”.

Excellent plot, superb acting and witty banter. What more could one ask for? Two thumbs up, definitely.

I went to watch this movie with my friends last week. Directed by award-winning director James Cameron, we had high hopes. Of course, Avatar turned out to be even better than I expected it to be. The storyline and plot is not new – main themes of human greed, exploitation, disregard for nature and so on is typical in movies where conflicts between man and nature arise.

In this movie however, what is really incredible is the setting where it all takes place. The movie has managed to capture my imagination with the world of Pandora – an Earth-like world where curious and wonderful creatures and beasts live on. The whole time setting is set in the future, where man has achieved advanced technology of space travel and advanced weaponry.

As the storyline progresses, it is really good and satisfying to see how conscience finally beats submission to authority as is seen in the main character. He controls an avatar, which looks exactly like one of the natives called Na’Vi. Over time, as he learnt the ways of the natives, he becomes captivated by a girl, the daughter of the tribe he is infiltrating to obtain information for the operation commander that wants to destroy the natives’ home for financial gain.

Another amazing point about the movie is the incredible wealth of emotions that are expressed by the 3D characters. Even though many of the characters are computer generated images, still, the human emotions like anger, contempt, hatred, grief and fear can be clearly seen and are expressed very well. Take for example the tribe leader’s daughter. Even though sometimes I cannot understand what she is saying (because all the subtitles were in Czech), I could figure out what she means by her expressions in relative to the whole dialog.

The movie comes to a big climax which depicts a final showdown between the human and the natives. A really incredible battle ensued after which the natives gained victory and the humans had to leave the planet. As for the main character, he chose to become one of the native forever and leave his human body to go into his avatar, which of course provides for a really wonderful ending.

My verdict? Two thumbs up. One of the best movies I have watched in my entire life. Too bad we could not watch it in 3D.

I went to watch this movie at Star Cineplex the other day with Diyana. I thought with Denzel Washington and John Travolta starring, the movie could at least pack a punch. How wrong I was.

At best, it was mediocre. There was not any interesting subplots or moral issues to ponder about. What happened was that a group of lunatics decided to take a New York subway train and its occupants hostage in a bid to blackmail the city into giving the crooks $10 million. Along came an MTA train dispatcher Walter Garber (Washington) who was, to keep it short, at the wrong place at the wrong time.

I would say the only interesting part of the film was when the psycho leader ‘Ryder’ (Travolta) communicates with Walter via the subway radio link and forms a brief but sick friendship between them. Ryder is a really crazy guy (it was revealed he is a Catholic, omg) who kills for fun and demands that the ransom be paid within 60 minutes or he would kill 1 passenger with every passing minute. At times, he seems like a kind guy who does not want to kill just for the sake of it, but on the other hand, his insane demands make him more like a schizophrenic moron who acts like a baby. Then again he is smart enough to manipulate the situation by profiting massively from the rise of gold prices as New York stock market reacts adversely due to the hostage situation.

Then there was a brief moment where Ryder forces Walter to confess that he took the bribe (Walter was being investigated for alleged bribery). The emotions and highly-charged atmosphere was really good. In order to save the passenger’s life who was held at gunpoint and threatened to be killed by Ryder if he does not confess, Walter had to lie in front of the whole MTA office. That was one emotional scene, I had to admit. Being accused for something he did not do and being forced to admit it because he needed to save somebody’s life – that was a good one.

In a nutshell, The Taking of Pelham 123 is an average thriller. Watch it only if you really have nothing else to do, and you want to see John Travolta act as a lunatic.