Defiance review

After watching “Defiance”, I now know why the movie failed. It’s the most rushed World War II movie about the Holocaust I have ever seen. It’s runtime is two hours and seventeen minutes, which just wasn’t enough time to tell this story.

The movie is about four Belorussian Jewish brothers, the Bielskis, that create a village in the forest in order to hide from the invading Nazis. They are led by Tuvia, played by Daniel Craig, who desperately tries to escape Bond…and fails. Two other brothers, played by Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell, are played much better and I liked them more than Craig, who is the star of the film.

The Bielski story is definitely an interesting one, but it seems to have needed more time and depth. For example, we learn that a central characters wife was killed a mere twenty minutes into the movie, which doesn’t resonate emotionally because there wasn’t enough time to connect with these characters yet. The action pieces aren’t that great either, which is surprising coming from Edward Zwick, who directed “Glory” and “The Last Samurai”.

Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring:

An amazing rendition of JRR Tolkien’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’ was brought to the big screens by the producer Peter Jackson. It is a flawless introduction to the trilogy, introducing the characters, the setting, and the story. You can easily fall into the gripping story within the first hour. The characters are interesting, mysterious, such as the character named Aragon, who within in the beginning of the film is portrayed to be a stranger who could be seen as a dangerous character. But further into the film he is shown to be a protector of the hobbits.
Big action scenes along with witty and clever dialogue make for a strong and successful film. Even though the play time is nearly 3 hours, it holds replay value due to the gripping story. The use of dark and unrealistic imagery is what really changes Lord of the Rings and puts it in a class of its own. It processes scenes such as ‘Balins tomb’ where they have to venture into the darkness by themselves not knowing what else is in there. Later on it is revealed that the supernatural is a large and ever growing occurrence through the films as they found out in the tomb. With all of this it gets a very respectable 9/10

The avengers – The Avenger was hyped up to be one of the biggest movies of the year, with big names such as; Robert Downey Junior, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth and Scarlett Johansson it was guaranteed to be a success.. or was it? Throughout the film there was plenty of action as you would expect with all the big marvel names squashed into one movie  and at parts it really feels like you are there in the action but at times you can feel quite distant from the characters as the storyline isn’t as gripping as it could have been. If it wasn’t for all the action between the super hero’s the movie would be your basic action movie with not many aspects appealing to the older that 10 audience. It involves the characters Hulk, Thor, Black widow, Hawkeye, Iron man, Captain America and Loki. It is a various selection, some which hadn’t been really heard of before such as ‘Hawkeye’ This was a risky move but it lets for more selection in the near future for sequels with different characters. Overall it is an enjoyable experience to watch once, but with another viewing it will become repetitive  action movie – 6/10