Fast & Furious 6 uses the same recipe for success as the Fast 5, but they added a secret ingredient. A lot of it as well: ridiculous, crazy, unbelievable, mind-blowing, legendary, epic action that makes no sense, just like they have in The Expendables (2)! Actually, this movie could perhaps have been a sequel of The Expendables rather than The Fast & The Furous, because other than featuring the same crew it has little to do with the original movie. That is of course not a problem at all. I think I saw that they used Nos (Nitrous Oxide) only once or twice during the whole movie! But who cares!

Even though I am very against clapping at the cinema, I actually approved of it this time. Awesome fighting scenes with the Rock and Vin Diesel (and an even bigger bad guy), the epic runway scene, the lesson in how to bring down a tank and an Antonov 225 just by using cars make applauding OK at the cinema. But I don’t want to hear it today, while watching Hangover 3!

BTW, I am having crazy high expectations about Fast & Furious 7, with Jason Statham!

I dug thought the history of SMEx first to check out a suspicion that I had, and yes it turned out to be true, Iron Man 3 was the first trilogy where all the movies have been SMEx events! Transformers would have been first except for the fact that the original Transformers movie was an “unofficial” event, before SMEx got going.

Let’s turn back the clock to the original Iron Man in 2008. This movie was just great! Cocky billionaire saving the world in a cool metal suit. Plenty of action and just an all round kick ass movie. Then two years later came Iron Man 2. For me the only things that were the same was there was a guy in a metal suit and some action. All of a sudden Tony Stark was having some kind of mental break down and needed therapy or something. If I want to see a chick flick I’ll go and see one! So after that, I wasn’t so optimistic that Iron Man 3 would be much better, but then sometimes the best movies come when your expectations are at their lowest.

Overall I’d rate Iron Man 3 in between the original and the sequel, but the good news is that it’s closer to the original than the sequel. Robert Downey Jr. is great as Iron Man/Tony Stark again who thankfully seems to have fixed most of his psychological problems, and has got down to making lots of new kick ass Iron Man suits. There are some nice twists as you try and figure out who the bad guy really is, and the addition of Ben Kingsley to the cast brings in some class.

The climax of the film is just a crazy amount of cool action, just as there should be, even if I didn’t really like the bad guys so much, it was still fun. This movie brought SMEx back to it’s roots, it’s what a Sunday night movie should be about. If you have missed it so far I think there is a couple of sessions left in Oslo before you’ll have to wait for the blu-ray release.

Even with my efforts to catch up on reviews we are still one down with Belway yet to write his review for the completely ridiculous Fast and Furious 6!!!

This post is about Greg. Poor, friendly Greg.

Greg, who managed to be late for the party and bought his own ticket. Right next to us, as it is tradition.

Very, very non-traditionally, Greg bought a ticket for the wrong day. Not Saturday. Not Monday either. Greg bought a ticket for Friday. And never, for a second, it occurred to him to check the date on the ticket, at all. It was a ticket for Friday. I mean, ok. I understand what happened. The new oslokino site is retarded beyound belief. It is hard to find shit and it will actually change date when you refresh the page, even after you have selected the right day from the menu. It was a ticket for Friday. And no one paid any attention, not even the guy that was checking the tickets at the door. What a tough job, eh?

I was, to be honest with y’all, a bit disappointed. I went downtown, full speed, balls down, with the city bike. Got into Dr. Jekyll’s, a bit late – nothing too bad, and grabbed myself a brew. But there was nobody there, from 10 signed up people. I was afraid I am going to sit there alone, with a beer, on a Sunday evening – the very definition of a Norwegian Alcoholic. Thankfully, Adam had enough pure-hearted motivation to show up.

After we gathered the remaining Eight people, we got in the cinema like a breeze. And then hilarity ensued. Someone wasn’t in the right seat when 2 girls showed up. Damn Dutch and their politeness, sitting on their assigned seat instead of the one empty one between us. Mister unnamed Canadian here then realized he’s got the wrong ticket. By 2 days. The only wrong ticket. I mean … I’ve done a similar thing myself, for 10 people, but… It was really fun to see Greg twitch every single time someone passed by our row. And most of the times it was groups of people, which will obviously sit together. I’m pretty sure he never saw the trailers, jumping up and looking frightfully every time someone approached. I swear, I haven’t had that much for ages.

Everything went better than expected ™. So he got to stay and watch … the Great Gatsby. And I’ve got to tell you – there is no man greater than the Gatsby. He’s driving a custom-made, tuned monster of a yellow car. He’s throwing the wickedest parties of all time, dwarfing modern things with orders of magnitude. I mean … the Gatsby is a legend.

And it’s a great film. Not what we’re recently used to seeing, but that’s ok. In fact that is great. The Gatsby is a fantastic, colorful, emotional and quite philosophical movie overall. And who else to play the main role, except Leonardo Di Caprio. The guy is ridiculously good and he does the Gatsby great. Really, FFS someone *finally* give him a damn Oscar. But I digress. The movie is long, fairly slow and full of … pure art. It won’t make you think about the things in your life, but it’s definitely one of the movies that will stick out. The story, the twists, the acting of all of the cast was amazing. Well, no. One of the main roles is played by that whiny loser that was Spiderman before they rebooted it with someone more charming and capable. Tobey Maguire, as always, has the expression of a sad brick in a boring wall. He just can’t do the whole ‘playing’ thing, which I would imagine really sucks. For an Actor. He is the new Nicolas Cage, or at least has the potential to be as long his agent scores him roles in things. I really, really hope that he will do something else.

But enough with the bashing. The Great Gatsby is a different type of film, that surprises you. And amazes you. With the colorfulness and the greatness of the parties. With the realisation that you love the main character, despite who he is, why he’s like that and what he really tries to achieve. Which is a really cute thing. Trust me, your girlfriend will love it. Oddly enough, so will you.

It’s only fitting than in day we’re off to watch Fast and Furious 6 (six). A film with a trailer so ridiculous, it shatters my perception of insanity. What a chance it is that my GF is joining for the film requiring no brains at all and where all girls wear skirts with length of a standard-issue belt.

Life is weird. And very fun that way

I really enjoyed the multiple storyline plot of this movie. The plot follows the lives of Henry’s different patients and the inextricable and subtle connection they have to one another. Throughout the first half of the movie I really was taken by the struggle Henry faced when helping others. The flow of the movie was rather good as the movie was really well written. The dialogue was natural and was very well delivered by the actors. Robin Williams also makes a short appearance as an alcoholic, sex addicted, ageing movie star! The cinematography was also well done. Shots were pleasing to the eye and the editing from what I remember was spot on.

Overall this was a very enjoyable movie. I would recommend it to those who like medium to slower paced movies such as American Beauty or Lost in Translation. Also anyone who is a fan of Kevin Spacey’s acting and delivery will be very pleased with his role in the movie. I would give this movie an eight and a half or nine out of ten. I would watch it again.

“You don’t just kill a guy like that”
“I just did.”

These two lines, the latter delivered by Sylvester Stallone in his typical wooden way, really sum up this film: a lot of violence, not a whole lot of plot, but kind of fun in a B-movie way. Based on a French comic book, Stallone plays Jimmy Bobo, a bad-ass professional hitman with about 2 braincells but the reflexes of a cat. When his boss decides (for some reason which, if explained, I have forgotten) to send a hitman after him, succeeding only in taking out his partner, a blood-thirsty revenge ensues.

Bobo forms an uneasy alliance with an out-of-town federal policeman, and they go after the man at the top. Of course, because it wasn’t personal enough already, his daughter gets kidnapped along the way and so he has to save her as well as taking out the baddies. (Off topic, but is there ever a movie like this where the daughter *doesn’t* get kidnapped? Could we not make it the other way round for once, just to spice things up: he gets kidnapped, daughter rescues him? But I digress…).

The over-the-top violence and slightly twisted New Orleans world makes sense when you know about the comic-book origins. To my mind, the film would have done better if it had been shot in a a somewhat more stylised manner as well, a la Sin City. Embracing its B-movie inspirations would have made it more of a glorious pastiche, but instead we were left with a sub-standard action film with some wooden acting. Enjoyable enough on a Sunday night, but, like a bullet to the head, unlikely to be something you will experience twice.

(With apologies for the tardiness of this review. Jet-lag is a bitch.)

Since I wasn’t in town long, we decided to have a pre-film BBQ, it was at the BBQ that I found out that no one else was quite as excited about Oblivion as me. In fact, quite a few SMEx’ers had very low expectations for Tom Cruise’s first SciFi film since the 2005 War of the Worlds.  After some delicious food, we decided to play some arcade games to decide who gets to ride in the car down to the cinema, and who has to take the bus. It’s been a long while since I played Street Fighter 2, and I was surprised at how many special moves I managed to remember. I’m also proud to say that I achieved the highest score on Donkey Kong, earning me a cramped ride to Colosseum.

The one thing that has stuck with me the most from Oblivion has been the soundtrack from M83. I actually found myself going out and finding it on Spotify, and i’m listening to it now as I write this review. We don’t often thing about OST’s when writing these reviews, but a great soundtrack can really make a movie. This one adds atmosphere, really helping to build the deserted world.

Visually Oblivion was stunning, I recently learnt that a lot of the backdrops from the Sky Tower were actually real Hawaiian horizons, which were projected onto the set, rather than green-screened in during post production. Allowing for better, more accurate lighting and real reflections in the set environment, hopefully we’ll see more of these kind of techniques in the future.

Oblivion is set in a future where we’ve had to abandon the Earth after nuking the planet to save ourselves from an alien invasion. All the humans now live on Titan but a few remain to guard the machines farming the seas for hydrogen energy. Jack Harper is one of the engineers on the Earth who is tasked with maintaining and repairing the drones that remain.

The story has some unexpected twists and turns, which are revealed gradually rather than all at once. This kept the story engaging and interesting even for the people with the lowest expectations!

Overall Oblivion was a solid movie, which will put high expectations in my mind on the other new SciFi IPs, After Earth and Elysium which are both coming up later this year! Hopefully my next visit to Oslo will coincide with one of these releases.

Not having seen the first GI Joe, sometimes I felt like I wasn’t sure what was going on.  But after talking to others later, I don’t know if seeing the first one would have made all that much difference actually since the story line tended to jump around a bit.  The story about the martial arts dudes just kinda popped up randomly and for a minute, I wasn’t sure it was the same movie. Very odd. As was the new “grand master” dude with the really unbelievable and crappy voice. Who is that? But, that said, ninjas are basically way cool and one of my favorite parts was ninja’ing (if that’s a verb?) all over mountain cliff faces on bungy ropes. In 3D this looked spectacular and since it’s the closest I’ll ever get to doing something like that, I got a vicarious thrill from it.

I think I have used the term “rollicking fun” before and I hate to repeat myself, but – it just was. Damn rollicking damn fun.

And I want Bruce Willis’ kitchen.

Anyway, this movie was a masterpiece of giving the audience what they expect; the references to the 1939 The Wizard of Oz were numerous, starting with the opening.

For those who forgot, The Wizard of Oz opened, as any movie of its time, in classic black-and-white. This lasted until Judy Garland, er, I mean Dorothy, arrived in Oz. Then there was a true explosion of over-saturated colours. There was even this brief shot from inside the house (still in black-and-white) looking out to the land of Oz (in colours).

Needless to say, when this movie opened, not only in black-and-white, but in 4:3 aspect ratio, I was thrilled as a little child: I knew my expectations had been anticipated and would be met. And, without revealing too much of the plot, the movie delivered as it had promised. The child-like optimism from the ’39 classic are still here, but with special effects that L. Frank Baum couldn’t have dreamt of.

Everything from scarecrow to the poppy field gets an appearance, but one thing had me surprised, I must admit: I had temporarily forgotten that Disney had recently acquired LucasArts and the Star Wars franchise. I must admit that there was a certain special effect typically associated with StarWars that I had not seen coming in this flick. Not bad, but a bit unexpected.

All in all, it was everything you might expect from the poster, but not more.

Anyway, cut to the start of the movie. I immediately got that cheap movie feeling. The acting was bad (he really can’t act), some obvious hooks are thrown out (for instance the cool red car that the jerk parks in a firetruck zone only to be wrecked later on by Arnie) so I was thinking this was going to be a long hour and a half. And for the first 30 minutes or so I was right. The movie offers you nothing original or surprising. A convict gets busted out of jail, a police officer tries to catch him, boring.

But at some point, I don’t know exactly when (I think it was when the small Mexican deputy grabs a medieval sword and says: “You never know”) you realize that the makers of this movie are fully aware of their weak plot and decided to capitalize on this by making it a fun movie. And as soon as you look at the movie in that light your appreciation goes up from a mere 4 to at least a 7. The actor that deserves most of the credit for this is not Arnold but good old Johnny Knoxville. His retarded behavior completely lifts up the movie and will have you laughing on numerous occasions. Add to that a couple of cliche stunts and one-liners by Arnie and you are definitely good for the remaining hour of the movie.

So, in my eyes this movie was good, very unexpectedly good. And because of this element of surprise I might call this movie, dare I say it, the best one so far of this SMEX year.

Parker is a movie based on a series of books by Donald E. Westlake. They all revolve around the professional thief Parker. This isn’t the first time one of the novels has hit the big screen. Some of you may remember Payback with Mel Gibson from a few years ago. In that movie his name was Porter, and it was based on a different book, but it’s still same idea, a bad guy trying to set things right.

Jason Statham does an awful lot of movies, and this turned out not to be his worst. Even though this movie was borderline OK. J.Lo was Statham’s opposite number in this movie, and I was hoping for this to be some kind of cool movie like 1998′s Out of Sight but sadly even J.Lo couldn’t save it.

There was a number of decent action scenes, but nothing really unexpected happened. Check it out when it hits DVD.