We arrived at the cinema earlier than any other SMEx event, we were so early they were not even allowing people into the cinema and were forced to wait outside! The cinema itself was surprisingly empty for the opening weekend of this weeks summer blockbuster: Salt.

On the film itself, its your standard counter espionage thriller, Angelina Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, a CIA agent who is accuse of being a Russian spy, planted through a cold war scheme to embed soviet spies into key positions in the USA from childhood. Evelyn fears for the safety of her husband and must go on the run. Incidentally, the character of Evelyn Salt was original written as a male, and the part of Edwin Salt was offered to Tom Cruise.  He felt the part was too much like this mission impossible character Ethan Hunt, and the rest as they say, is history.

As you would expect from any self respecting summer blockbuster, there is a suitable amount of action in this movie, including some very entertaining car chase scenes. The fight scenes on the other hand seemed very tame, maybe we are just spoilt recently with choreography from films like The Expendables or Inception.. but I find it hard to watch realistic fight scenes as always seem weak. The president also commented on the sound effects in the fight scenes sounding like they were muffled. It reminded me that although Indiana Jones’ punches were actually a baseball bat hitting leather jackets and his pistol was actually a rifle sound, it does make everything a little more extreme; which is after all, what the cinema is about.

Overall, the film itself is exceptionally average, entertaining, containing some interesting twists, but for the most part standard. My one real gripe with the film, is the use of Russia as the bad guys.. we are a long way past the cold war, maybe they thought the Middle East or China would be too controversial.. or maybe given that this plan has to have been in place for 30+ years Russia is the obvious choice… Personally I no longer find the threat of Soviet Russia keeps me up at night.

The theater was full even with such a tiny SMEx contingent. I am not going to say so much about the movie except that we got what we expected. And when Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis all join up in the same film one does not have to guess that hard about the general theme of the movie.

This is the second movie we have seen with Sly as the Director. There were real bad guys, pretty bad guys, normal bad guys and pretty much innocent bad guys and they all ended up the same way at the wrong side of heavy armory and tools. All in all I think this movie had the second highest head count in SMEx history so far. Only beaten by Rambo whatever-number-it-was which Sly also directed with a dedicated and secure hand.

1. A certian Englishman, who is soon to be a Yank, was bragging he had more reviews than the president… well not anymore!
2. Apparently I was the only person who actually liked this movie.

So this week was just a small event, with just four attendees, but we found a couple of wannabe SMEx-ers in the cinema. We started back at the Park Lounge (apparently re-opened after yet another shut-down) in the last throws of a nice Oslo summer evening. Nice weather to take a beer.

So the movie. Being part of the Predator franchise this movie had some big shoes to fill, but quite frankly it has been all down hill since Dutch survived a nuclear explosion to kill the original Predator. Since then all manner of twists have been thrown in including, Predators in the city, or throw in some Aliens to get more bad guys. But this movie takes us all the way back to the beginning.

This movie is really just a remake of the original Predator with Arnie, right down to Arnie’s original quote telling you the plot… “So you cooked up a story and dropped the six of us in a meatgrinder?” So maybe there’s not six people this time, sure there are more predators (hence the “s”), maybe it’s not even on the same planet, but in the send it’s a similar story. To look at it another way, it’s the same type of remake as Escape from L.A., which was just a remake of Escape from New York.

If this movie did one thing bad it was too much like the original even down to the point where they used the same lines from the first movie, and the effect wasn’t quite the same when they weren’t said with an Austrian accent. But I still loved it! It had the original feel and atmosphere of the first one, suspense, action which was helped by having the exact same music. So if you love the first movie, I’m sure you’ll at least like this one! Best Predator since the original!

So this week we went back to the infamous Eldorado! We also ended up with very strange seats due to some glitches Oleg had while trying to buy the tickets, but they turned out ok and we did have exceptional leg room.

To the movie, well we were almost going to skip out this week because it looked like all we had to choose from was another Cage masterpiece, but instead, due to a lucky commercial viewing, we went to see Centurion. The trailer didn’t promise much, except it said it was from the same director and writer as Doomsday which I enjoyed so we thought what the hell! And it’s nice to have a break from the usual Hollywood stuff.

I enjoyed the movie, didn’t have to think to much, the plot wasn’t what I expected, and there was lots of blood. It’s kinda like gladiator but it isn’t. Had some nice scenery shots and I thought the actors were quite good, but I only knew a couple of them. I wouldn’t call this movie a must see but it was entertaining anyway and worth a look.

One nice highlight was at one point one of the female characters does something particularly nasty and some guy in the cinema yelled out “Bitch!” which made everyone laugh. But then that sums up Eldorado! Let’s hope it’s another long break before we visit that cinema again!

Speaking of trendy things – Inception is a trending topic on Twitter for a second week now. Trusting a community that keeps Justin Bieber as a trending topic for over 6 months is never a good idea, but since they predicted the awesomeness of Kick Ass, I was really expecting a lot from Inception.

On to the chase. The night started rainy and gloomy, while some of us had sunburn from the day before. While upside-down-burgers were being eaten again, we got to discuss “paratrooping” with our newest movie-goer, in his first homeland appearance. Apparently what we talked about was so deep and engaging someone had to try to walk trough a door, which didn’t prove to be successful. A few pats on the back later we were in a packed cinema, watching what the Matrix should have really been.

Dreamworld, in a dreamworld, in a dreamworld. It’s a game with the ultimate creative desire – to play God and shape the world at your whim. The same idea that got you thinking in the Matrix works here, only expanded in a whole different way. Especially fascinating are the moments where you see how recursion and paradoxes can work in a really creative way, one that you’ve never imagined. Call me geeky.

The movie had me interested at minute 5 and didn’t let go until the end. There was 1 moment where they could have messed it up, had they pushed the lame talk a minute longer. Good thing they know their timing right and stopped before this ruined an otherwise 100% immersed experience. It’s a rare thing when a movie gets me like this and given the plot of the movie, it’s quite fitting that you get out of the movie hall, wondering what happened.

The cast is something special. Leo DiCaprio has definitely learned how to act, a long time ago and it shows. Plus he’s not the cute kid from Titanic anymore so he doesn’t make me twitch just by looking at him. The typical Hollywood hotties were also missing, substituted with two slightly strange looking chicks.

Generally speaking, this is a movie with lack of cliché. It gives you a bit of everything that makes a decent movie stick out and tops it with great ideas and splendid execution. One of the movies you know you’ll watch again and mention as a reference a few years down the line.

I really wish they made more of those.

Yet another movie experience in which my pop corn was my best entertainment for the night.

I know that all Hollywood productions follow the good old money-making formula but somehow I expect the movies for which I move my butt off the couch on Sunday, to be worth it. Or maybe I just like throwing rotten tomatoes.

Then again there were some good points: I liked the actual top-secret object that everyone was after. For once someone came up with an original idea that is not a hair-loss shampoo (duplicity) or evil plans to bring down the USA. And it was nice to see some European destinations and familiar cities, liked the scenes from these places. And the Spanish spoken in the movie finally was authentic!

The actors did not do much for me – not a fan of Diaz, neither of Cruise.  Both fell in their clichéd characters in this movie. Obviously, the motor-riding idea was of Mr. Cruise, read somewhere he is a huge motor fan.

All in all, not the best on big screen but worth the 99 NOK for DVD renting.

P.S. Oh, yes, it was nice to have equal number of boys and girls for the movie. Next target – more girls than boys.

This was my most anticipated movie this year. After growing up with The A-Team, and watching crazy plans, bad guys that can’t shoot, randomly flipping and spinning cars, and a plan that always comes to together, this was always going to be a hard act to bring to the big screen.

This big screen version stars Liam Neeson as Col. John ‘Hannibal’ Smith, Bradley Cooper as Lt. Templeton ‘Faceman’ Peck, Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson as Cpl. Bosco ‘B.A.’ Baracus and Sharlto Copley as Captain H.M. “Howling Mad” Murdock with Jessica Biel thrown in as some eye candy. To start with Sharlto Copley fresh from his Distict 9 success was just fantastic as Murdock, Rampage Jackson was just cool as B.A. Baracus even without Mr T’s gold chains, and the rest of the cast just fitted like a glove.

Do I need to explain the actual story? You all know it…Ten years ago, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire… The A-Team… queue the theme song.

Before this movie I had Kick Ass as my favourite movie this year, but after a week of reflection, and The A-Team theme running though my head this is now my new favourite movie! So if you want to see some crazy over the top action in a fun action packed movie this movie is the movie for you.

What we didn’t really expect, but perhaps could have seen coming, was the bewildering amount of females out to watch Sex and the City 2 that night. We happened to arrive at the Colosseum right at the moment that movie had just ended, and it seemed like the Colosseum was being overrun by a flash mob of girls, and occasionally a very confused looking boyfriend.  It was like someone had opened the flood gates. Much like this commercial at 0:12.

After some problems getting the tickets we did manage to get in to the movie. Hot Tub Time Machine is a movie with a very simple plot line: Four friends go on vacation. They sit in a hot tub. It’s a time machine. They travel back into the eighties.  That’s pretty much all you need to know, and that doesn’t make it any less funny! The jokes are of the twelve-per-minute variety, and although not everything worked, there were so many nice references to eighties music culture, clothing, and everything else that was great then (right) to make this movie very, very entertaining. Don’t expect any Oscars for this one – but it’s worth watching again just to make sure you get everything happening in the background.

Obviously the trip wasn’t just a flight in and out to see the movie (unless you were Dutch), but most people took the time to have an extended break. Most of us met up on Friday afternoon at the hotel and promptly all left for a walk thought Hyde Park since the weather was so nice. It was mid 20s and sunny. We ended up at the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain, in which luckily enough for the big kids (Jeremy and myself), you are allowed to walk, so we cooled off in the fountain itself. After some more walking and thinking we weren’t going to find anywhere we ended up at a nice restaurant for dinner and then moved onto a pub later.

Day 2 was the day of the movie. In the morning people we doing various things but we all met up at the London Eye at 12.30pm. Not all of us made it to this meet point due to transport delays though. From here we headed to The Borough Market near London Bridge station, on the advice of Andy, and this market didn’t disappoint. Many different types of food to try for lunch! From here we all took a walk along the Thames to the IMAX cinema. At this point we were only missing two people who were were hoping to meet at the cinema. Due to delays with the London underground Lissy and Tommy didn’t make it to the cinema, and thought they would be stuck with tickets to a movie they couldn’t see, but due to some quick talking, and luck we managed to scalp their two tickets to a nice couple who enjoyed the great seats at the discount group rate! After the movie we headed out to watch some soccer match a couple of people thought was important, but I don’t remember what that was, then on out to a couple more places… day 2 over

The next couple of days was a mixture of shopping, sightseeing and eating. Highlights were: Rodizio Rico, which is an all you can eat Brazilian BBQ restaurant, and wow that was a lot of good food. Maharani which is an Indian restaurant in Soho where the food was just amazing and plentiful. Madame Tussauds, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, London Eye, British Museum, Imperial War Museum, Science Museum, Natural History Museum, Oxford Street shopping, Buckingham Palace where a lucky few even got to see The Queen, and the list goes on and on! All in all it was a great trip with great friends with just fantastic weather. It could not have gone better if we had planned it! I’m looking forward to the next trip already!

Check out some of the pictures here

The story is based on the 2003 game of the same name, the plot revolves around prince Dastan, an orphan boy found on the street by the kind of Persia, his two brothers, a mystical dagger that has the ability to turn back time and prince Dastan’s relationship with princess Tamina. After leading a successful invasion of Tamina’s city everything starts to go downhill for Dastan. Soon he finds himself a fugitive from his own people and must go on run with Tamina.

The story is full of twists, treachery, fights, ostrich racing, sexy outfits and desert sand. Like all good adventure films there is a heavy dash of humour with a lot of one-liners and jokes, its also very fast paced with barely minutes between going from “everything is ok” to “run for your lives”. The action is good, with lots of chases, lots of fights and lots of killing. There was less elaborate parklour than I expected, which is a good thing, parklour seems to be the thing, like robots in the 80′s that directors add to their films to make them cool.

If you haven’t guessed yet, I really enjoyed this film, it was a very good addition to a genre I already enjoy, and is in my opinion the best video game film to be produced. Resident Evil was good but this was better. The cast was excellent, Jake Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton were very good in their roles and the prince and princess and seemed to have a good on-screen chemistry together. Although I don’t remember there being so many British people in accident Persia..

Overall a very entertaining summer blockbuster, don’t go in expecting a masterpiece because you are obviously not going to find one here, but you will find an enjoyable tale of romance and magic in the desert. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, the IMAX screen was huge!