pushing the sky

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor – There’s only so many times you can kill the same bad guy, right? Which is why Rick and Evie are now All Grown Up and settled in Oxfordshire, England, following World War II (where their exploits for the British Government have set them up for the life [...]

Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever – Antonio Banderas is Jeremiah Ecks, former FBI agent with a stupid name mourning for his lost wife, and Lucy Liu is Sever, disaffected ‘DIA’-trained assassin with an even stupider name. The first thing you need to know about this movie is that it is possibly one of the worst movies [...]

Charlie Wilson’s War: Amusingly told story of how Charlie Wilson, a smokin’, drinkin’, womanising politician from Texas got the Afghan war of the 80s off the ground. A bit too light-hearted given the relevance of the subject matter today, and unrepentent – the argument being that “it would have been alright if we allocated more [...]

Where to begin with Batman? The franchise has, after all, been going for nigh on 20 years now, and now we come to the 6th installment, The Dark Knight. When you think about it, the number of Hollywood A-Listers who were in Batman and Robin, the entirely forgettable Batman movie of the mid-ninties, it is [...]

Get Smart: Bloody hilarious. Unless you came to see Get Smart the TV show replicated on the big screen, or were expecting something with a bit of substance, you won’t be particularly disappointed. Steve Carrell is no Don Adams, but his straight-man is nigh on perfect, and Anne Hathaway with her gorgeous eyes is … [...]

Hancock: This isn’t going to get great reviews in the media, because (a) it mixes genres and (b) it’s got some moral ambiguity, which could be like, confusing and stuff? But don’t be fooled, because it’s… uh… really not that bad. Honest. Will Smith is John Hancock, a superhero who doesn’t know why he’s a [...]

Jumper: David Rice (Hayden Christensen, sulky as ever) is your garden variety weedy highschooler when he suddenly discoveres he can “jump” – teleport to a place he’s seen before. Based on a novel, it’s a fast paced sci-fi thriller that won’t win any award for plot (case in point: David’s never encountered another jumper before, [...]

The Forbidden Kingdom: So get this. You’ve got a kid from Boston magically transported to middle-ages alt-China. Kung fu and the whole deal. You’ve got Jackie Chan and Jet Li on board (for the first time in a Hollywood film), and you make this movie? Good lord, someone make sure this scriptwriter isn’t let near [...]

For me, it started with a glaring continuity error. Let’s back up for a minute here. The most important thing a movie needs to do is keep your disbelief suspended. It’s what lets you watch James Bond movies and think of a car with missles under the engine as integral to the plot (Die Another [...]

The Kite Runner: poignant tale of two Afghani kids, one Pashtun, one Hazara. Growing up in Afghanistan before the Russians invade, and then torn apart by the invasion. Based off the book of the same name by Khaled Hosseini, though I’ve yet to read it. Reasonably hard hitting story that manages to have a few [...]