This neat little Australia / UK collaboration packs quite a punch for it's relatively moderate budget.
The plot: A young single mother, Jess, (Melissa George) goes on a yachting trip with a small group, only one of whom she is acquainted with. All is well until, suddenly, from nowhere, a freak storm capsizes the vessel. Scrambling onto the hull of the vessel, all but one of the group are safe, when a vast ocean liner drifts past. Clambering aboard the huge craft, the group are puzzled to discover that they are all alone on the ship, the crew nowhere to be seen. Jess catches a glimpse of another person, who runs away as soon as they are spotted and, the group giving chase, they find Jess' keys on the floor, in a part of the ship they had not yet visited.
The group divides up, all the better to search the craft, but divided they shall fall, as one poor unfortunate gets a clothes hook through the back of the skull whilst another couple are picked off by a sniper in the gallery of the on board theatre
Why is someone seemingly intent on killing them off?
And why does Jess feel like she's been there before?
The Bermuda Triangle is one of those folk tales that fires the imagination, having just the right combination of science-fiction mystery and potential scientific plausibility to set the mind a-wandering. It's also a potent trigger for this occasionally vicious, continually smart and well-crafted yarn.
Violent in bursts, the lead actress is sufficiently engaging to carry her role and to sweep you along with the intrigue.
Intelligent and, at times, disturbing, this is a solid sci-fi / horror release. Very good, indeed.
4 out of 5
Favourite line: "Downstairs right now is a copy of myself. Me!"
Showing posts with label female lead character. Show all posts
Showing posts with label female lead character. Show all posts
Sunday, 21 November 2010
Sunday, 5 September 2010
Salt (2010) Dir: Phillip Noyce
Angelina Jolie action 'vehicle' Salt is a rather silly, surprisingly dull affair.
The plot: When a Russian defector walks into CIA Headquarters voluntarily to turn himself in, Jolie's Evelyn Salt is sent in to interrogate him, to find out what he knows and, just as importantly, to find out what he wants in return for his information. The man is unusually co-operative and, most intriguingly, he claims to want nothing in return.
Then he drops his bombshell:
He claims that an agent named Evelyn Salt is a Russian double agent, one of a batch of sleeper agents set in place by the KGB during the height of the Cold War in readiness for Day X, the day Russia would strike out at America and crush it once and for all.
Salt is rattled, her superiors more so who intend to take her captive, but she has other ideas, making good her escape in a manner so complicated and contrived it brought a genuine smile.
So begins a cat and mouse game of 'hunt the rogue agent,' Jolie protesting her innocence, claiming that she is just trying to protect her husband.
Famously intended as a Tom Cruise movie, the makers had to switch genders when he pulled out to make that height of banality Knight and Day instead, though this isn't much better, in truth.
The set-pieces are ludicrously unrealistic, which would be OK, but they are handled poorly, too, the CGI woven into the onscreen mayhem in a very slipshod manner.
Jolie is OK, I suppose, though she doesn't get to say much, her role pretty much confined to running around a lot, pouting with those freakish rubber lips and clinging on to the top of moving vehicles.
Interest levels aren't helped any by the casting of Liev Schreiber as supporting male, an actor so boring and lifeless he seems to suck the energy out of every scene in which he appears.
Whilst not as bad as I may be implying, this is effectively a watered down version of far superior espionage thrillers; Bourne, Alias, even Bond and, ultimately, just feels a little plodding and tame.
Yawn.
3 out of 5
The plot: When a Russian defector walks into CIA Headquarters voluntarily to turn himself in, Jolie's Evelyn Salt is sent in to interrogate him, to find out what he knows and, just as importantly, to find out what he wants in return for his information. The man is unusually co-operative and, most intriguingly, he claims to want nothing in return.
Then he drops his bombshell:
He claims that an agent named Evelyn Salt is a Russian double agent, one of a batch of sleeper agents set in place by the KGB during the height of the Cold War in readiness for Day X, the day Russia would strike out at America and crush it once and for all.
Salt is rattled, her superiors more so who intend to take her captive, but she has other ideas, making good her escape in a manner so complicated and contrived it brought a genuine smile.
So begins a cat and mouse game of 'hunt the rogue agent,' Jolie protesting her innocence, claiming that she is just trying to protect her husband.
Famously intended as a Tom Cruise movie, the makers had to switch genders when he pulled out to make that height of banality Knight and Day instead, though this isn't much better, in truth.
The set-pieces are ludicrously unrealistic, which would be OK, but they are handled poorly, too, the CGI woven into the onscreen mayhem in a very slipshod manner.
Jolie is OK, I suppose, though she doesn't get to say much, her role pretty much confined to running around a lot, pouting with those freakish rubber lips and clinging on to the top of moving vehicles.
Interest levels aren't helped any by the casting of Liev Schreiber as supporting male, an actor so boring and lifeless he seems to suck the energy out of every scene in which he appears.
Whilst not as bad as I may be implying, this is effectively a watered down version of far superior espionage thrillers; Bourne, Alias, even Bond and, ultimately, just feels a little plodding and tame.
Yawn.
3 out of 5
Saturday, 24 July 2010
Shelter (2010) Dir: Måns Mårlind & Björn Stein
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