The World's End (2013)

4/5

The World's End is a delightful finale to a delightful pseudo-trilogy about friendship, aliens, and the end of the world. The movie starts with Simon Pegg reuniting with his high school buddies (Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine, Eddie Marsan) on a quest to relive his adolescent dream of drinking a pint of beer at each of the 12 pubs in his bucolic hometown. A few pubs in, they discover that the town has been taken over by aliens masquerading as good-natured townsfolk.

The movie is just as outrageous as Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, with exciting fight scenes, well-written dialogue, and rapid-fire British jokes. But two-thirds of the way through you realize that the filmmakers deceived you: it will not end as predictably or simplistically as you might have thought or hoped. It will stretch the limits of your expectations and your imagination in a way that will put a smile on your face and a twinkle in your eye. The World's End is a smart movie, sharp-witted with lots of insight and inside jokes that will keep you glued to your seat, but there is nothing formula about it. If you prefer the winding path of uncertainty to the well-trodden one of genre filmmaking, then The World's End goes highly recommended by me.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1213663/

Remember Me (2010)

2/5

Remember Me is a gutsy movie that doesn't quite work for me. The impact and meaning is based on a surprise at the end that has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the movie, and therefore is a complete crap shoot as to whether or not you will like it. In fact, the entire movie trudges along because it knows what happens at the end, but you will find it slow and overbearing because you don't. The movie follows Emilie de Raven after a brutal scene in the beginning where she watches her mother get shot in a mugging. It also follows Robert Pattinson as a pale, emo non-vampire who gets into fights with random strangers and cops. The whole thing is very bizarre. They begin a relationship on fairly shaky ground and we watch it progress alongside their relationships with their families, with no sense of where anything is going until it eventually gets there at the end.

The technical aspects are surprisingly competent (I found them surprising anyway). There are some great shots in this movie and some provocative editing. However, that's where the competence ends and the incompetence begins. The script is excruciatingly emo, or maybe it's just the acting that makes me want to tear my eyeballs out and use them to plug my ears. The directing includes unnecessarily violent scenes, presumably intended to shock us with matter-of-fact style. Unfortunately it just comes off as gratuitous exploitation (as does the ending). There is no redeeming factor that would allow me to recommend this movie.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1403981/

The Ghost Writer (2010)

3/5

Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer is an exceedingly well-made thriller of the caliber that I have come to expect from Polanski, despite the flops he's made both recently and in the past. The plot follows a new ghost writer (McGregor) who was hired to help the former British Prime Minister Adam Lang (Brosnan) write his memoirs. The movie sets the stage quickly and gets more mysterious even quicker. The previous ghost writer died under curious circumstances, the new ghost writer was hired as fast as possible for a huge profit, and Lang just got accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity for aiding the CIA in torturing terrorist suspects.

In terms of directing, this movie is superb. It is Polanski at his best. The camerawork, the editing, and the acting are all phenomenal. They work in synchrony to build tension out of nothing. I just wish Polanski had better source material to work with. It's unfortunate that there is such a disjoint between the quality of Polanski's work and the quality of the plot itself. I didn't appreciate the story that much; it seemed a bit simplistic and unimaginative. The pieces just don't fit together particularly well, despite everything tying up in a neat little package in the end. I don't know what quality it is about the piece, but I left the theater feeling a little dissatisfied. Still, I would advise you watch it if you found the trailer interesting. You may not have the same qualms I do about the film. If that's the case, you will love this movie.

Note: it seemed as if the movie was edited for language (dubbed over, specifically) so that it could be released as a PG-13 movie. I suppose they did it to try to make more money, but the movie wasn't publicized well enough and it didn't play in enough theaters to make it a smart decision. And it just wasn't done in a particularly professional manner. Bad move, distributors, bad move.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1139328/