Shoot Em Up -- Senselessly Sensible

Starring: Clive Owen, Paul Giamatti, Monica Bellucci, Greg Bryk, Jane McLean
Directed by: Michael Davis
Produced by: Michael Davis, Douglas Curtis, Toby Emmerich

Lets get it straight from the start. This is not your sensible art house classy cinema. This a movie which has a wafer thin plot, looks stupid, but still managed to entertain. I assume that this movie has been panned by critics, but I surely enjoyed it.

The story is very simple, Clive Owen helps a women during her childbirth, however she dies after delivering the baby. Owen is now responsible for handling the baby, however there are some people trying to kill it for some unknown reason.

The carnage and style of the movie reminded me of Kill Bill and Sin City several times, however I am not technically strong enough to compare the projects. But the feel was sure there.

This movie seemed to be poking fun at the action genre itself. Mr. Smith, as the character of Owen is known, shoots shoots and shoots. The sequence where is shown having sex while shooting is out of this world, he delivers the baby and cuts the umbilical cord with a gun shot, he is shooting when is skydiving.

The dialogues seemed to be quite good too. One liners are so bad that they're good.

Clive Owen is terrific in the role, Paul Giamatti is very convincing and manages to get smiles on our face. Monica Bellucci has the most serious character in the movie, however there is not much scope for her to perform other than looking hot, and I must say she does it well.

So all in all a good watch and a movie that gives to Guilty pleasure, because you know all that you seeing is stupidity, however you still enjoy it, and do not want it to end.

My Rating : 7/10

Transformers - Don't know what the hype is all about

Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Tyrese Gibson, Josh Duhamel, Anthony Anderson, Megan Fox
Directed by: Michael Bay
Produced by: Steven Spielberg, Brian Goldner, Michael Bay

Even though I am not a big fan of comic books, however I do enjoy good flicks regardless of the fact if I have read the comic/novel or not. This movie has been trying to catch my attention for quite some time now, it had amazing ratings on IMDb and most of the times they are very accurate, viewer response seemed to be great and there was a hysteria surrounding this. Still I avoided to be taken in by the release of this movie for first few weeks, however later I decided to check it out.

But I must tell you that I am not an American and hadn't heard about any comics that went by "Transformers" it was totally a new concept for me. And was I disappointed !! I simply failed to make any sense of the movie, then I thought it might a no brainer and decided to concentrate on action sequences and special effects, however I was not able to understand what exactly was happening on screen. My mind simply went numb. The robots were so complicated in design that I was not able to make what they were trying to do. The scenes seemed to be too much crowded and complicated, it was difficult to comprehend who was doing what. I understand that this was a comic book adaptation however there have been lot of movies in the past like Batman series, Spider Man Series that I have loved, and that too without reading any comics.

Maybe this movie is working because of the fans that it got from the comics and earlier adaptation, otherwise I don't see any other reason for it to be just any other movie on the block.

So for the sake for Die-hard fans, I sincerely hope that producers would put in more effort on story and screenplay rather than special effects, when they come out with the second installment, which I am sure that they will, given all the commercial success this one got.

My Rating : 6/10