Gulliver's Travels

"Black is the new big." What kind of tag line is that? Sorry for the immediate sarcasm, but how come with $112 million budget ends up something like this? Rob Letterman directed Gulliver's Travels which is loosely based on the novel of the same name back in the 18th century. And using Jack Black as the main magnet, they think that they could do something cool.

Lemuel Gulliver (Jack Black) is a mail room guy who spent almost his entire time in the same position, while having a crush to Darcy Silverman (Amanda Peet) for five years. Darcy is a writer in the office, and she seeks for a new travel-writer. Trying to impress her, Gulliver tries his luck to apply. On his first job, he was tasked to go to the Bermuda Triangle to prove the theory. While on his way, his boat is capsized by watersprout and he wake up in the middle of nowhere. He then realized that he is surrounded by tiny people called themselves, the Liliput kingdom. And so, his adventures in the tiny people island starts where he meets new friends and also enemies.

The plot itself follows a small portion in the novel. Sadly, nothing good on it. Jack Black is pushing himself too hard, doing those kind of slapstick act. Seriously, dancing around with your body for sometimes is not funny. At all. But I'm not gonna put all the blame to Jack Black, as the entire crew contributed to the awfulness of this movie.

I don't know who is the movie is targeted for. But I think it is not suitable for children, teenager, young-adult, adult, or even the elder. If you want to see Jack Black in action, go watch Kung Fu Panda. It is much more hillarious. And nothing beats The Hangover in the comedy section.

Final words, this is the worst movie in 2010 as far as I know. I see a lot of movie this year, but nothing worse than Gulliver's Travels.

The Next Three Days

"What if you had 72 hours to save everything you live for?", well for me, I'll just contact some bad-ass mercenaries, round them up and blast our way to save everything I live for. Let me add something, you're an ordinary people with no military background or huge enterprise to wage off a full scale-war. You can say that's the general storyline of The Next Three Days, starring Russell Crowe and directed by Paul Haggis.

Based on a French film in 2007, Pour Elle, John Brennan (Russell Crowe) is a teacher in a Pittsburgh community college whose wife got charged for man-slaughter. He always believes that her wife, Lara Brennan (Elizabeth Banks) has nothing to do with the murder although the police found solid evidences and an alibi for her to kill. One day, he comes to an idea to break her off jail and ran off together with their son. He then contacted a book author, Damon Pennington (Liam Neeson), who managed to escaped jail seven times, to consult a way to get her wife escape the prison. Starting from that point, he prepares everything his family needs. Until on one visit to the prison, Lara tell him that she will got transferred in three days thus forcing him to start the plan right away.

I haven't watch the original French film yet, so I cannot compare the consistency to the original. But the idea is great, how an ordinary man risks it all to save someone he loves. Before, we watch a lot of prison-break theme film and tv series (still loves the Prison Break series.) but The Next Three Days offer something new.

Unfortunately, I don't think that this is the best work of Paul Haggis, as we all can see what he capable of in some of his film likes Million Dollar Baby. Especially that the movie is based something that already existed. So, some improvement could be done, Hollywood-style. Some of the scene is somewhat unimportant and slowing down the entire story. Considering of the talent Russell Crowe has, it should have been maximized to its full potential. Liam Neeson, although only appears in a small portion of the film, but deliver a good performance (also not his best performance.)

Conclusion, The Next Three Days whole idea is good. But the execution is not that smooth. It's kinda a waste to not dig the potential of all of the stars.

Unstoppable

"1,000,000 tons, 100,000 lives, 100 minutes," well after watched the movie, I'm still confused where is the 100,000 lives and 100 minutes themes? Oh wait, it should be the epilogue. It is Unstoppable starring veteran actor Denzel Washington and the new James T. Kirk, Chris Pine. The action thriller is directed by the one of the so-awesome director brothers, Tony Scott. Well, if you already watched some of his movie (Don't tell me you haven't seen it before. From Top Gun to Taking of Pelham 1 2 3? You've got to watched at least one of them.) you know what'll you get. A brilliant thriller. One more thing, Unstoppable also inspired by a real story, the CSX 8888 incident. All of the basic ingredients to an epic movie.

Frank Barnes (Denzel Washington) is a veteran train engineer who works at the Allegheny and West Virginia Railroad company stationed in Pennsylvania. One day, he got to worked with a new conductor, Will Colson (Chris Pine). They then both went off in a locomotive to grab Colson first job. In the mean time, another cargo train containing dangerous chemicals goes on unmanned with full speed. This is caused by the mistake taken by the engineer, who decide to leave the cabin to switch a lever without activating the air brakes. Back at the AWVR office, yard master Connie Hooper (Rosario Dawson), tries her best to stop the train before reaching Stanton. After several attempts to derail the train failed, Frank Barnes and Will Colson decided to go after the train and try to stop it.

Tony Scott, once again, did it. A brilliant thriller, you'll never get bored watching it. 98 minutes goes by packed with heart-pounding action and also emotional moments of how old worker' feeling when they're about to get laid off. Combined with the experienced actor Denzel Washington and also promising actor Chris Pine, this movie is awesome. The cinematic scene is wonderful, the cinematography section did it well. Not relying on heavy special effects, just pure acting. This is one of the movie that can set the parameter for action thriller.

Although, I still don't get the tagline. The movie runs for 98 minutes, the attempts to stop the train is more than 100 minutes, the population of Stanton is not 100,000 lives. And also, I don't really sure that the train contain 1,000,000 tons of goods. But don't mind of the tagline, maybe I get it wrong. But from technical aspects, storyline, acting,cinematography, soundtrack, simply great. You should spare your time for Unstoppable (especially if you never saw Tony Scott's works before.)