Treydle's stats
- Review count108
- Helpfulness votes608
- First reviewNovember 10, 2011
- Last reviewJune 30, 2013
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- Average rating3.7
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- First review commentNovember 10, 2012
- Last review commentNovember 10, 2012
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![Les Miserables [DVD] [2012]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/8486/8486515_sa.jpg)
Posted by: Treydle
from Saratoga Springs, NY
Could you build a new life with mistakes of your past haunting you? What if you had to do it more than once? Everyone has a breaking point. What if you reached yours and had further to go?
Jean Valjean (portrayed by Hugh Jackman) stole bread to feed his starving family and, while serving his sentence, tried to escape. So, nineteen years after his initial incarceration, a guard known simply as Javert informs him that he is free to go. Javert (played by Russell Crowe) believes that Valjean (Jackman) is a born criminal and that he will return to jail eventually. After spending almost twenty years in prison, Valjean is unable to find work and resorts to sleeping on the street. He is taken in by a bishop and spends a night in a church. He steals the church's silver in the night and is arrested but the bishop lies to the authorities, claiming the silver was a gift, thereby facilitating Valjean's release. Valjean breaks parole and is reborn as an honest man but Javert vows to find and arrest him. Eight years after the bishop's kind act, Jean has become a factory owner and the mayor of a small town. One of his workers, Fantine (portrayed by Anne Hathaway), is exposed as an unwed mother and fired by her lecherous foreman. Fantine (Hathaway), with no other options, resorts to prostitution to support herself and send whatever she has left to her daughter Cosette. Seen arguing with a customer by the rigidly moral Javert, who is now police inspector, Fantine seems destined for imprisonment. Luckily, Valjean intervenes and brings Fantine to a hospital. Despite initial suspicions that the mayor is Valjean, Javert arrests another man he believes to be Valjean and offers the mayor his resignation. Valjean declines, exonerates the man believed to be him and goes on the run. Rather than concerning himself solely with his own freedom, Valjean seeks out the daughter of the now-deceased Fantine who is being "cared for" by a pair of unscrupulous innkeepers. Those innkeepers (portrayed by Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter) extort a large sum of money before allowing Valjean to leave with Cosette and then inform the police who are hot on his trail. Nine years later, Cosette (who has, of course, grown and is now portrayed by Amanda Seyfried) is still being cared for by Valjean and, after a chance encounter with a revolutionary, falls in love instantly. That revolutionary (Marius, portrayed by Eddie Redmayne) is the object of a one-sided crush by the daughter of Cosette's former caretakers. Her name is Eponine (played by Samantha Barks) and while she has little or no interest in politics, she joins Marius's revolution almost immediately.
I can go either way where musicals are concerned. I couldn't stand Chicago, but I loved Dreamgirls and eventually bought it on DVD. Also, while I'd heard of it before and knew it was a musical, my first introduction to the story of Les Miserables was a film starring Liam Neeson and Geoffrey Rush which altered the original story and abandoned the musical aspect. I really liked this film. All the actors in this film, to varying degrees, are competent singers. In fact, Anne Hathaway was shockingly good. What I liked better about the Liam Neeson film is that it supplied explanations. Even so, if you can appreciate musicals, you should see Les Miserables.
I would recommend this to a friend!
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+3points
3of 3voted this as helpful.
![This Is 40 [DVD] [2012]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/8424/8424043_sa.jpg)
Posted by: Treydle
from Saratoga Springs, NY
What are the expectations you have for yourself? Successful career, comfortable home, happy family? What if all of that were in jeopardy and had no way to save it? What would you do?
Pete and Debi (who we were first semi-introduced to in the 2007 film Knocked Up and played again by Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann) are married, have two children, and both own their own businesses. Pete (Rudd) has left a major record label to open his own independent label where he can work with musicians he’s passionate about. Debi (played by Leslie Mann) owns and operates her own clothing store with two employees. Those employees are Jodi (played by Charlene Yi) who Deb considers a friend and a valued employee, and Desi (played by Megan Fox) who may or may not be stealing from the store but, with the huge influx of male shoppers thanks to her looks, those losses might be inconsequential. Pete is trying to drum up major public interest in a reunion album for a group that has great meaning to Pete personally but who’s never been particularly well-known. At the same time, Pete and Debi are both turning 40 within days of each other. Their two daughters, Sadie and Charlotte (played by director Apatow and lead actress Leslie Mann’s real-life daughters Maude and Iris Apatow) fight constantly. In addition, Sadie, Pete and Debi’s 13 year-old (played by Maude Apatow) has developed an unhealthy obsession with Lost. To add even more fuel to the fire, Pete has been loaning money to his father, Larry (played by Albert Brooks), in secret. In contrast, Debi and her father, Oliver (played by John Lithgow) rarely speak.
I didn’t really enjoy This is 40 that much. I have never been a big fan of Apatow’s other films. They always seem to go for the gross-out factor and I have a low-tolerance for that type of humor. Also, there seems to be some sort of revelation every half-hour in this movie. “I don’t know what we’re going to do” and then twenty minutes later “we’re all going to be okay”. Apatow fans might enjoy this movie, I most definitely did not. I don’t recommend This is 40.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
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-7points
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![Argo [DVD] [2012]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/7218/7218071_sa.jpg)
Posted by: Treydle
from Saratoga Springs, NY
A hostile nation is holding 52 members of the embassy staff hostage. While the majority of the State Department is focused on those hostages, six members of the embassy staff have sought refuge with the Canadian ambassador. How would you get them out? Could you get them out?
Thanks to the U.S. allowing their deposed leader to seek refuge in America, the Iranian people storm the American embassy on November 4, 1979. The staff is rushing to shred or burn all their confidential files. The majority of the staff are held hostage while a small percentage escape unnoticed. The State Department begins planning a rescue and asks the CIA to consult. It’s abundantly clear to the Agency’s “exfiltration” specialist, Tony Mendez (played by Ben Affleck), that the State Department is in over their heads. With such plans as having the embassy workers ride to the border disguised as teachers on bicycles in winter. It was back in his hotel watching Battle for the Planet of the Apes and talking to the son Ian (played by Aidan Sussman) that Tony (Affleck) has an idea. Disguise the hostages as a film crew and sneak them out right under the enemy’s nose. After bringing the idea to his boss, Jack O’Donnell (played by Bryan Cranston) the plan gets the go-ahead. Later, they approach the make-up specialist who worked on The Planet of the Apes who has also done work for the Agency in the past, John Chambers (played by John Goodman). Chambers in turn introduces Mendez to a well-known producer named Lester Siegel (played by Alan Arkin). Once they’ve chosen a script, Argo, a science-fiction fantasy in the style of Star Wars, they go the extra mile in establishing it as a legitimate enterprise. Where it was simply a poster in the beginning, Siegel organizes a table-reading with known actors, press, and studio staff. While all this is going on, the Iranian government has sweatshop labor assembling the shredded photos so that they can identify anyone who they failed to capture. Also, our six escapees become increasingly fearful that they will be discovered.
I’m kind of a sucker for movies based on factual events, no matter how much the narrative diverges from history. A Beautiful Mind, The Insider, some that don’t have Russell Crowe as the lead actor. That said, it doesn’t guarantee I will like it. Case in point, I found J. Edgar unbelievably dissatisfying. Argo, on the other hand, is brilliant, in my opinion. The story is gripping, the comic relief is hilarious, and the suspense has me on the edge of my seat. As a lead actor, Affleck has had some notable flops. Gigli and Surviving Christmas among them. As the director of Gone Baby Gone, The Town, and now Argo, however, he is now three for three. You should definitely see this movie.
I would recommend this to a friend!
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+14points
14of 14voted this as helpful.
![Skyfall [DVD] [2012]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/7734/7734205_sa.jpg)
Posted by: Treydle
from Saratoga Springs, NY
A hard drive containing the names of undercover agents embedded in terrorist organizations is now up for sale and you suffered a near fatal injury trying to stop it. What would it take to send you back into the fray? Money, love, fear?
James Bond (played by Daniel Craig for the third time) and fellow MI6 agent Eve (played by Naomie Harris) have tracked a thief carrying a stolen hard drive with confidential information to a train. After an exhausting chase and an epic amount of destruction, Bond and the thief are locked in a physical struggle. With the thief in her sights, Eve (Harris), on orders from M (played by Judi Dench for the seventh time) takes the shot, misses, and sends 007 plummeting to the water below while the hard drive and the thief are lost. M (Dench) is summoned before a government committee where one member, Gareth Mallory (played by Ralph Fiennes), encourages her to retire. While en route to MI6 headquarters, their servers are breached and, while M watches helplessly in traffic, their offices are destroyed killing several agents. Bond, having taken his fall from the tracks as an opportunity to retire, learns of the attack while watching television in a bar. His return to government service is typically atypical. He breaks into M’s home, reports for duty, and asks how he can be of service. Before returning to duty, Bond must submit to both a physical and a psychological exam. Despite failing both, a desperate M puts Bond back in the field, for lack of a better idea.
This being a Bond movie, there is, of course, a great deal more to the story. The moment we are introduced to the true villain, Raoul Silva (played by Javier Bardem) marks the Bond series’ return to cinematic greatness. Bardem is truly terrifying and every time you think you’ve figured out his master plan, he shocks you. The introduction of Ben Whishaw as 007’s liaison to Q branch breathes new life into an element of the franchise that I assumed had simply been abandoned with the departure of Pierce Brosnan and the death of the much-beloved Desmond Llewelyn. I understand that many Bond fans saw Quantum of Solace as a failure. Putting aside the fact that I was not one of them, this is easily the best Bond film since Craig assumed the role of lead actor, in my opinion.
I would recommend this to a friend!
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+27points
27of 27voted this as helpful.
Posted by: Treydle
from Saratoga Springs, NY
Have you ever felt like you were stuck in a role you never wanted to play? Constantly subjected to scorn and ridicule simply for performing the only task available to you? What if you could change that?
Fix-it Felix Jr. has been a popular game in Litvak’s for years. The hero and titular character, Felix (voiced by Jack McBrayer) has a magic hammer that can repair any damage done by the game’s villain, Ralph. When the game is over, Felix is given a medal while Ralph (voiced by John C. Reilly) is tossed off the roof by the tenants of the building he failed to destroy. When the arcade closes and the game is turned off, Ralph returns to his home atop a garbage heap in the nearby dump. For recreation, he visits Tapper’s, a vintage game that assigns the player the role of a bartender. Also, upon our introduction to the story, Ralph makes his first visit to a support group for video game villains. Among the villains in attendance at Bad-Anon, we see M. Bison and Zangief from Street Fighter (voiced by Gerald C. Rivers and director Rich Moore respectively), a ghost from Pac-Man (voiced by Kevin Deters), and a zombie (Raymond Persi). During that meeting, he announces he no longer wants to be a bad guy. With the 30th anniversary of Fix-it Felix Jr., the tenants throw a party and “forget” to invite Ralph. Ralph crashes the party, in every sense of the word, and leaves soon after. Before he’s left, he vows to return with a medal, something denied him by Felix and the tenants of the building he destroys. He seizes the opportunity to travel to a new game, a first-person shooter game called Hero’s Duty, when a character from that game passes out in the bathroom. While at the center of Hero’s Duty, Ralph is overwhelmed by the violence in modern games and refuses to heed the orders of his superior, Sergeant Calhoun (voiced by Jane Lynch). Once the arcade closes and the game ends, Ralph decides to forego the usual hurdles of Hero’s Duty and steal the medal typically awarded to the winner. After stealing the medal and, unwittingly, bringing a menacing enemy insect known as a Cy-bug with him, Ralph heads to the kart-racing game Sugar Rush. It’s there that he encounters the perpetually glitchy and terminally annoying Vanellope von Schweetz (voiced by Sarah Silverman). Despite the initial friction, Ralph and Vanellope (Silverman) bond over their shared status as outcasts.
There is, of course, more to the story including Felix’s pursuit of Ralph into the various other games and his budding romance with the no-nonsense Sergeant Calhoun, the true origin of Silverman’s character, and an eventual revolt in the world of Sugar Rush. All of it, and I do mean all of it, had me riveted. I will say that, as a fan of old-style video games, I would’ve preferred seeing the character of Ralph travel to more than just the two different games besides his. Regardless of my criticisms, Wreck-It Ralph is hilariously entertaining and fun for viewers of all ages. Check it out.
I would recommend this to a friend!
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![Flight [DVD] [2012]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/7482/7482097_sa.jpg)
Posted by: Treydle
from Saratoga Springs, NY
After an amazing display, the world hails you as a hero. But, even with that, you still might spend the rest of your life in prison. What do you do? Obscure the truth and save yourself or admit the truth and face the music?
Captain William “Whip” Whitaker (played by Denzel Washington) is an airline pilot with impeccable skills and a personal life in shambles. After a night of intimacy and intoxicants, Whitaker and flight attendant Katerina Marquez wake up and prepare themselves for a scheduled flight to Atlanta. Whitaker greets his co-pilot, the naïve and devoutly religious Ken Evans (played by Brian Geraghty), and flight attendant Margaret Thomason (played by Tamara Tunie) and then prepares for take-off. After deftly piloting the plane through turbulence, Whitaker mixes himself a drink, turns on the auto-pilot, and goes to sleep. The plane goes into a steep dive as it approaches Atlanta which rouses Whitaker from his slumber. Both Whitaker and Evans attempt to halt or at least slow the plane’s descent, unsuccessfully. Whitaker then decides to roll the plane so that they might glide in at a safer angle. During the maneuver, Katerina (Whitaker’s companion from the previous evening played by Nadine Velazquez) unbuckles her seatbelt to help a child who’s been unseated thanks to the maneuver. In the interim, the engines flame out and the plane is now gliding to earth. Whitaker turns the plane right side-up, the plane crashes, and Whitaker loses consciousness. Now injured, Whitaker wakes up in an Atlanta hospital and is met by a friend and representative of the pilots’ union named Charlie Anderson. Anderson (played by Bruce Greenwood) tells Whitaker that of the 102 people on board, 96 survived the crash. Katerina, with whom Whitaker had spent the night preceding the crash, was among the six fatalities. Whitaker’s injured but will leave the hospital in a matter of days. While in the hospital, he meets another patient named Nicole Maggen while smoking in the stairwell. Maggen (played by Kelly Reilly) is in the hospital as a result of an overdose that occurred as the plane was crashing. After the hospital releases him and he is picked up by friend, neighbor and dealer Harling Mays (played by John Goodman), Whitaker elects to avoid the press by staying at a farm owned by his deceased father that he has been trying to sell. He drives to a meeting with an airline where a lawyer named Hugh Lang (played by Don Cheadle) tells Whitaker that a blood test performed after the crash showed Whitaker was under the influence and that he could face prison time, no matter what the ultimate cause of the crash.
Whitaker is the very definition of an anti-hero. While he succeeds in saving the majority of the crew and the passengers, he struggles with a myriad of personal issues including alcoholism and cocaine addiction. Goodman’s character, while he is a supplier, is hardly a salesman. He simply serves the needs of a demanding customer. The character of Nicole Maggen offers little more than perspective as we watch her turn her life around while Whitaker continues down a dark road and attempts to take her with him. Cheadle and Greenwood play morally ambiguous characters who know Whitaker broke the law but hope to keep that a secret. While this may not be as triumphant as director Robert Zemeckis’s last live-action film, Cast Away, it’s a well-made, well-written, well-acted film and I’m glad I saw it.
I would recommend this to a friend!
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+9points
10of 11voted this as helpful.
![Here Comes the Boom [Includes Digital Copy] [DVD] [2012]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/7383/7383149_sa.jpg)
Posted by: Treydle
from Saratoga Springs, NY
You’ve been doing the same job for most of your adult life and stopped making an effort a decade ago. Then you hear the news that someone who’s been doing the job even longer and still makes an effort is about to be fired. Do you let it happen?
Scott Voss (played by Kevin James) is a 42 year-old biology teacher. Ten years ago, he was given a Teacher of the Year award but when we join the story, he’s sleeping late, making little or no effort in the classroom and seen as an embarrassment by the principal, Mr. Betcher (played by Greg Germann). When Betcher (Germann) catches him sneaking into class late via the classroom window, he gives Voss parking lot duty and strips him of a vacation day. Rather than accept more work that he’s in no way interested in doing, he tries to find someone to fill in for him. His colleague, Marty, the music teacher (played by Henry Winkler) is more than willing to assume the responsibility but also a little shaken by the news that his wife is pregnant. Later, at a school board budget meeting, he’s given the even more troubling news that thanks to budget problems, the music program is in jeopardy. Voss, despite his long-standing apathy, offers to raise money to save the music program and his colleague’s job. He resumes the job of teaching citizenship classes in night school but sees that the wages would make it near-impossible to earn the money in time. One of his students, Niko (played by Bas Rutten) asks for additional tutoring and Voss agrees, reluctantly. It is during a tutoring session at Niko’s apartment that Voss, who wrestled in college, sees a mixed martial arts match, learns that the loser was paid $10,000, and decides he can raise the money by joining this very punishing sport.
Now, the last Kevin James movie that I saw in theaters was Zookeeper. I wasn’t impressed. I won’t say that Here Comes the Boom was impressive, but it was easily a step up from Zookeeper. Also, naming the movie after what would eventually become the main character’s theme song isn’t particularly creative. Still, I was entertained. Watching an overweight 42 year-old enter the ring and take serious punishment over and over…and over was hilarious and watching the effect his decision to make an effort had, not just on him but on the entire cast of characters, was bizarrely uplifting. I don’t imagine James or any of his co-stars will receive awards for their work in this film, but I liked it and you might too.
I would recommend this to a friend!
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+3points
4of 5voted this as helpful.
![Looper [DVD] [2012]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/7025/7025107_sa.jpg)
Posted by: Treydle
from Saratoga Springs, NY
What is the perfect crime? I don’t know if killing men sent from the future, and therefore unidentifiable, qualifies, but it’s certainly close. Of course, if you should screw up somehow, those same people would know immediately. What then?
It’s 2044, and while time travel has yet to be invented, those in the future use it to their advantage by sending individuals who threaten their business interests back to that time where they can be eliminated by men awaiting their arrival. The men who execute these unfortunate individuals are known as loopers. Joe Simmons (played by Joseph Gordon-Leavitt) is one such man. Simmons (Gordon-Leavitt) is in the employ of a mafia boss in Kansas City who he calls Abe (played by Jeff Daniels). Abe (Daniels) was sent back in time to manage the organization’s hired guns as well as their other illicit operations as only someone from the future is uniquely equipped to do. When loopers have outlived their usefulness, they are sent back to be executed their younger self who receive payment in the form of gold rather than the customary silver. This is referred to as “closing your loop”. In his spare time, Joe abuses drugs, maintains an intimate relationship with a showgirl named Suzie (played by Piper Perabo), frequents a club owned by his employer and is studying French to prepare for his eventual retirement in France. Things start going awry when Seth (Joe’s friend and a fellow looper played by Paul Dano) is confronted with the task of closing his loop and fails. His superiors are more than a little displeased by this and so Seth goes to Joe, hoping his friend will hide him. Eventually, Seth is found, maimed, and his now disfigured older self is executed. This is after Seth and Joe both learn that a crime boss known only as The Rainmaker is behind the recent rash of closing loops. As Joe resumes his usual routine, he too is given the task of closing his loop when his older self (portrayed by Bruce Willis) appears before him. Joe’s younger self cuts a message into his arm so that he can discuss the situation with his older self. Old Joe (Willis) confirms that The Rainmaker exists and is closing loops, in addition to killing the woman Joe would eventually marry. Both Joes are attacked by men working for their employer and flee, neither intending to do anything other than the task they set out to. Old Joe’s being to kill The Rainmaker’s younger self, young Joe’s being to close his loop.
Obviously, this is a very complicated story. It’s made even more so by characters I haven’t mentioned yet. One of them played by the always talented Emily Blunt, the other by child actor and relative newcomer Pierce Gagnon. That said, I found it surprisingly good and highly entertaining. The complicated and paradoxical nature of sending someone back in time to be executed by their younger self as well as other questions about time travel are complicated and that is dealt with by a rather humorous line and then never brought up again. Thankfully. The story is gripping, the performances top-notch, and the conclusion leaves the audience wanting more and wondering what’s next. This is a great film.
I would recommend this to a friend!
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0points
7of 14voted this as helpful.
![The Perks of Being a Wallflower [Includes Digital Copy] [DVD] [2012]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/7373/7373112_sa.jpg)
Posted by: Treydle
from Saratoga Springs, NY
Imagine yourself on the eve of your first day of high school. If you’d prefer not to, I get it, believe me. What if you’d just been released from the hospital? Do you really think you could rebound from that?
Charlie (played by Logan Lerman), is a quiet, introspective teenager who has recently suffered a setback, the full nature of which we’re not informed of, and is about to start his freshman year of high school. The only friend he makes on his first day is his English teacher, Bill Anderson (played by Paul Rudd). Rather than worry his parents, (played by Dylan McDermott and Kate Walsh) Charlie gives the typical, one-syllable description of his first day of high school. Time passes and Charlie becomes friends with step-siblings Sam and Patrick. Sam (played by former Harry Potter actress Emma Watson) is an outgoing senior dating a college guy and her step-brother Patrick (played by Ezra Miller) is a flamboyant underachiever with a great sense of humor. They attend a football game together and follow that with a visit to a diner before driving Charlie home. The next function they attend as a group is a party where Charlie, unknowingly, ingests a pot brownie. It is during this moment of drug-fueled confidence that Charlie reveals to Sam the fact that he lost a friend to suicide one year ago. After quietly relaying that fact to Patrick, he and Sam both decide then and there that Charlie should become a full-fledged member of their group. Moments later, Charlie bears witness to a romantic encounter between Patrick and his closeted boyfriend, star football player Brad (played by Johnny Simmons). They leave the party, go for a drive, and hear a song that inspires Sam to stand in the bed of the pickup truck and stretch out her arms as they drive through a tunnel. This is when Charlie first develops romantic feelings for Sam which she is completely unaware of.
There’s a lot to like about this film. Miller and Watson’s characters are both very endearing and their decision to adopt fellow outcast Charlie is a moment that brings hope for the character and life in general. There are elements I believe the film could do without. Examples include the one-sided relationship between two of the characters and the references to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which never resonated with me the way it seems to with others. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it greatly and encourage others to see it at their earliest possible convenience.
I would recommend this to a friend!
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+8points
8of 8voted this as helpful.
![Taken 2 [DVD] [2012]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/7188/7188058_sa.jpg)
Posted by: Treydle
from Saratoga Springs, NY
How do you come back from the worst experience in your life? Therapy, denial, maybe some substance abuse? What if, after a relatively short amount of time, you’re flung back into a very similar circumstance? I don’t imagine that would help.
Sometime after returning to the relative safety of Los Angeles, Bryan Mills (played by Liam Neeson), his ex-wife Lenore (played by Famke Janssen) and their daughter Kim (played by Maggie Grace) are still rebounding from the trauma they suffered. Bryan (Neeson) arrives at Kim’s home to give her a driving lesson only to be informed that she is not even in the house. She’s with her boyfriend. A boyfriend Bryan knew nothing about, no less. Simultaneously, in Tropoje, Albania, Murad Hoxha, father of deceased kidnapper and human trafficker Marko Hoxha, is attending a funeral service being conducted for his son and his accomplices. Murad (played by Rade Serbedzija) vows to avenge the deaths of his son and his friends. After hearing that a planned vacation to China is cancelled by Lenore’s now estranged husband, Bryan invites both Kim and Lenore to join him on a business trip in Istanbul once he’s fulfilled his professional obligations. They arrive sooner than expected and, unbeknownst to them, followed by Murad’s henchman. Following a family lunch in the marketplace, Kim returns to the hotel. It’s immediately apparent to Bryan and Lenore that their daughter hopes privacy and the exotic locale will rekindle feelings of love in her long-divorced parents. While romance does seem to be in bloom between the couple, it is abruptly halted when Murad and his men make their play for the Mills family.
Now, I was and still am a huge fan of the 2008 film. I believe Neeson took a film that would’ve seemed dull and uninspired in the hands of Jason Statham, Vin Diesel, or any other contemporary action star and elevated it beyond the material. This film, while entertaining and plausible enough for an action/adventure, is the lesser of the two. Of course, there’s the fact that it’s more of the same and, therefore, less interesting. In addition, while the original depended on Neeson’s estimable talent, this film relies heavily on Maggie Grace. A competent actress, sure, but nowhere near as good as Liam Neeson. I enjoyed it about as much as I expected to. That’s it.
I would recommend this to a friend!
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+10points
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Treydle's Review Comments
![The Amazing Spider-Man [Includes Digital Copy] [DVD] [2012]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/6836/6836709_sa.jpg)
Overall
4 out of 5
4 out of 5Great superhero film
By Treydle
from Saratoga Springs, NY
Can you reboot a franchise that once held the record for largest opening weekend in history? Can you create something original using a character who was first introduced to the world in 1962?
Peter Parker, age 4, (played by Max Charles) is playing hide and seek one night when he discovers someone has broken into his father’s study. His father, Richard (played by Campbell Scott) sees this and takes some important papers, his wife Mary (played by Embeth Davidtz) and his son to the home of his Aunt May (played by Sally Field) and Uncle Ben (played by Martin Sheen). Peter is left in that home for his own safety and never sees his parents again. At least a decade later, Peter (played as a teenager by Andrew Garfield), is being bullied by an athlete named Flash Thompson (played by Chris Zylka) and has a crush on a student named Gwen Stacey (played by Emma Stone). When Peter returns home at the end of the day, bruised and beaten by Flash, he finds papers in his father’s briefcase that show he once worked with a man named Dr. Curt Connors (played by Rhys Ifans). Connors works at a company named Oscorp, so Peter disguises himself as an intern to gain access to the lab and, hopefully, Connors. Little did he know, the tour for new interns was led by Gwen Stacey. She knows immediately that the ID badge that Peter’s wearing belongs to someone else, but allows him to continue on the tour regardless. Peter sneaks away from the group and finds a lab filled with genetically-modified spiders that are producing biocable. As is often the case with people who bother animals for no reason, Peter gets bitten. Security eventually finds him and escorts him out of the building. While on the subway, he discovers that he gained far more than knowledge from his visit.
Now, I saw the 2002 Spider-Man film starring Tobey Maguire and the 2004 sequel. I liked it initially, but over time, I grew tired of it. I thought 2004’s Daredevil was a much better film, despite mixed reviews from moviegoers and critics. Not to mention, I believe Kirsten Dunst gave a less-than-stellar performance as Parker’s love interest, Mary Jane Watson. Not to mention the irony of having blonde Kirsten Dunst dye her hair red to play Mary Jane Watson and then having redhead Emma Stone dye her hair blonde to play Gwen Stacey. Forgetting all that for a second, this was a much better film than the one we got from Sam Raimi. Director Marc Webb and company have created something with a much darker, more serious tone, a better story, and a solid conclusion. I enjoyed this film very much.
Treydle
Saratoga Springs, NY
Answer
November 10, 2012
Not on Sony's payroll. Or anyone else's for that matter. As for Sam Raimi, I have great respect for his work as the writer/director of "Evil Dead 2", "Army of Darkness", and "The Hudsucker Proxy". The "Spider-Man" film series, on the other hand, turned webbing into something that just came along naturally with the spider bite and turned Mary Jane Watson into a damsel in constant distress who spoke in a whisper most of the time. Whether Dunst was chosen by Raimi or forced on him by the studio, I believe the film was worse as a result. As for having a pleasant day, while it has little if anything to do with you, that seems unlikely. At any rate, I appreciate you saying that you respect my opinion and find my comments well-written. Perhaps you could submit a question with regard to a film on which we are of like minds. To sum up, feel free to respond or not and thanks for the input.
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