While all of us who are fans of comic book movies wait for Ryan Reynolds (Waiting) to star in Deadpool (which comes out in February), I figured I would review the last film he made to date. The name of the film is Self/less and it was directed by Tarsem Singh (Mirror Mirror) and the film looks at a topic that all of us may have wondered about. What if we possessed the ability to take the brilliant men of the world who are old and about to die and transported them into new bodies? It brings up the idea of immortality and man’s ability to play God. That was the question that was raised to New York real estate tycoon Damien (Ben Kingsley) as he was slowly dying of Cancer. He was lead to believe that the bodies that were available were created in a lab and so he makes the jump. Unfortunately as he gets used to his new body (Ryan Reynolds), he begins to discover that maybe these bodies belonged to people who had souls of their own. As soon as he discovers this, he is on the run and he has to protect the family of the man who once occupied the body. The film also stars Natalie Martinez (Death Proof) as Madeline, Matthew Goode (Watchmen) as Albright, Victor Garber (Argo) as Martin, Derek Luke (Captain America: The First Avenger) as Anton, Melora Hardin (Hot Chick) as Judy, and Michelle Dockery (Non-Stop) as Claire.
Ryan Reynolds takes a lot of crap for some of the roles he chooses where people feel he can only play a certain part, but I beg to differ. We know that the film didn’t do as well in the box office as the studio had hoped, but I feel like people should given the film a chance. It was definitely a cool and new concept for a Sci-Fi thriller like this. It gives you an insight into what the possibilities could be and what the side effects can be by taking over a new body. Ben Kinglsey is an amazing actor to begin with and he plays a bitter old man who has always appreciated the money first over the real joys of life. Ryan Reynolds is kind of the coming of age part of the film where he begins to realize that he loved all the wrong things in life and decides to make up for it. I really enjoyed the acting from Matthew Goode, he does an amazing job play a manipulative man hell bent on perfecting his research and will do anything to achieve it. There’s plenty of action, suspense, and mystery to please any fan and I love the special effects in the film. Now I pose this question to all of you. Would you sell your body to save someone you loved even if it meant never seeing them again? Would you take over a body knowing that a real soul once possessed it and is still kind of there? Check out the film and answer that for yourself. I am giving the movie an B+ for a final grade.
This was one of those films that came out last year that I never had the chance to see and when I saw that it was available on Redbox, I jumped on the chance. The United States has been fighting the war on drugs on every single (Local, State, DEA, FBI, etc.) level ever since the Reagan administration. Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) is sort of a straight laced, by the book FBI agent who is knee deep in the war on Mexican cartels in Arizona. After an incident where she found tons of bodies, she is recruited by a government task force that is led by an unconventional CIA agent (Josh Brolin) and a mysterious Latino man (Benicio Del Toro) working with the CIA to hunt down a drug lord. The mission is tough for Kate as she begins to notice that they’ll do anything to catch the man. The film also stars Victor Garber (Argo) as Dave Jennings, Jon Bernthal (Fury) as Ted, Daniel Kaluuya (Kick Ass 2) as Reggie, Jeffrey Donovan (Burn Notice) as Steve Forsing, Raoul Max Trujillo (Riddick) as Rafael, Julio Cedillo (The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada) as Fausto Alarcon, Bernardo P. Saracino (Frontera) as Manuel Diaz, Maximiliano Hernandez (Warrior) as Silvio, and the film was directed by Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners).
I am going to come out and say it and that is I am a huge fan of Denis Villeneuve films because they are dark, intense, and they keep you on the edge of your seat. I think just about everyone has seen Prisoners which was dark and intense, but if you haven’t seen Enemy, then you need to. You also need to see this film if you haven’t because the last half of the movie gets really intense. There’s this one scene when they are preparing to go forward with a mission that the score gets as intense and suspenseful as the scene. That is the perfect marriage between score and film which is what we all aim for when making a film. It’s really hard to choose who the MVP of the film is because Josh Brolin is as amazing as usual and Benicio Del Toro is pretty intense in the film too. For a while, you are trying to figure out what an assassin has to do with the story, but once you get it, you really get it and you move forward. I am going to warn you that at times some of the images you may see on screen can get pretty intense, but we are dealing with the Mexican Cartel after all and they’ve done some pretty nasty stuff. This could be a contender for movie of the year, but it’s hard because 2015 was a really good year for films. Anyways, I am going to give this film an A- for a final grade so check it out for yourself.
365moviesin365dayschallenge 