Invictus

Invictus

Director: Clint Eastwood

Starring: Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman

MPAA: Rated PG-13 for brief strong language.

What could have been a brilliant masterpiece of incredible star power, Invictus was instead a wonderful and beautiful but slightly disappointing movie. I went in expecting brilliance like Grand Torino or Million Dollar Baby, instead I got Remember the Titans without the Remember part. I still reflect on the issues raised in Million Dollar baby, and I think about the dark sorrow in Eastwood’s classic Unforgiven. However with Invictus, while uplifting, I did not get that stirring power from other Clint Eastwood films.



Morgan Freeman does a great job as Nelson Mandela. He has the screen presence that makes him every ones father. He is a loving person who truly wants to mend the Apartheid that had ravaged South Africa. To do this he uses the rugby team that has always represented Afrikaners racism to unite blacks and whites. Matt Damon is the captain of the rugby team, and his part is more of a minor supporting character. He has a great accent and looked so much younger than the last Bourne film. Both stars were great. They used the script they were given to play strong roles on screen.
There were also a few other characters that had fun side plots. Mandela’s security force was mixed with black and whites and it created a little bit of tension. One big theme that was stressed a lot was the reverse racism that the black had towards the white Afrikaners. Mandela really stressed the importance of unity in the country and forgiveness instead of retribution.


The big problem with Invictus was there was no serious personal struggle. Other sports films make audiences sweat and bleed with the players. Remember the Titans made us feel the racism problems of the 60s in America and we connected to the problems coaches and players had. Invictus felt a little empty in the human connection category. It failed where Titans succeded; and instead of a film that makes you laugh and cry and love the characters, you get a movie that is kind of surface deep.



I enjoyed Invictus. There were some parts that were so uplifting and happy. It was not a bad movie both morally and technically, and it was a fulfilling movie. It was just forgettable. The movie had it ups and downs and it had some really good sports action, but it is not a movie that people will think and talk about a year from now. I really liked the themes of forgiveness and unity that were stressed in the script. But the biggest problem was the lack of connection in for the audience to the story and the characters. I recommend Invictus because it is a good feel good story. There was nothing immoral of bad about the film and there were some very uplifting scenes. I’ll give it a 7 out of 10, not bad, not great. Invictus just does not measure up the Clint Eastwood’s other masterpieces.



Sex/Nudity – 2 out of 3 – Some bare chested men in locker rooms. A few women are seen in cleavage revealing dresses. A woman goes into her husband’s hotel rooms; they kiss and the camera moves off of them, presumably they have sex.

Violence/ Gore – 3 out of 5 – There are some shots of violent riots (possibly real news footage), some rugby violence, and some racial tension.

Profanity – 5 out of 10 - The “S” word is used 10 times or so, there might have been 1 “F” word, however the strong accents made it pretty hard to tell, subtitles may reveal one more, I wasn’t sure. There are a few other religious exclamations.

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes

Director: Guy Ritchie

Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Jude law, & Rachel McAdams

MPAA: Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some startling
images and a scene of suggestive material.
Guy Ritchie delivers an action packed megahit with Sherlock Holmes. This is James Bond meets Indiana Jones in Victorian England. Any fans of Ritchie’s previous masterpieces will agree that Sherlock Holmes is another brilliant film by an amazing director.

This was the second time I saw Sherlock Holmes and I loved it as much as the first. I can’t wait until I get the DVD and we can turn on the subtitles and understand even more of the witty bantering thrown back and forth between Robert Downey Jr.’s Sherlock Holmes and Jude Law’s Watson. My wife and I really enjoyed the film and what was great about it was being able to see it with the in-laws and not feel awkward about it at all. There was almost no swearing, no sex, and the violence was kept to a minimum, all three of these aspects seem very different from Ritchie’s other films like Snatch and Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. What I am trying to say is that Sherlock Homes is a great film that appeals to adults because of the witty dialogue, and older kids can watch it too because there is nothing there for parents to worry about.



What really makes this film amazing is Robert Downey Jr.’s Golden Globe winning performance as Sherlock Homes and his faithful sidekick Jude Law as Dr. Watson. Their banter is brilliant; the writers really put together some good stuff here, and with two master actors the film played out flawlessly. Mark Strong is Lord Blackwood, and he is as creepy and dark as Holmes is witty and brilliant. The faceoff between them is great.



When I first saw the previews to Sherlock Holmes I was really afraid the makers were going to butcher this epic story like what was done with Wild Wild West. Don’t worry, nothing like that happened here. There s a great mix of action, humor, special effects and a good strong plot full of mystery to satisfy the action junkie and the script obsessed snob; of which I am a little of both. If there is not enough plot to sustain tireless action I can’t abide the film (like G.I. Joe), and Sherlock could have taken away the action and still been a decent movie. The awesome part about the action is it is done the way all action films ought to be done. Why a director in this decade would bother to do anything less is beyond me. The fight scenes are fluid, gritty, and intense without the ridiculous gore some movie makers feel is necessary for a good action flick.

Overall this is a practically flawless film. The thick English accents made some of the dialogue a little difficult to understand but the subtitles will fix that in a month or two when the DVD edition comes out. The only other problem I had was the way the mystery was set up. Some movies allow the viewers to look at clues and evidence and try to solve the case while the leads are working on the case. In Sherlock Holmes instead we see Holmes observing the clues and evidence and we see him putting everything together, but it is not until the end when he explains everything that the audience can finally say, “Oh yeah, now it makes sense.”

These two minor details however do not take away from the fact that Sherlock Homes is one of the best movies 2009/2010 has to offer. It is top notch entertainment for teens and parents. I would not recommend youngsters for this film as some of the darker elements might be rather frightening and the action a little too intense. Go see Sherlock Homes while it is still in theaters, you must, this is one film you can’t miss.



Sex/Nudity – 3 out of 10 - As a woman walks around a screen to change she slips off her dress and you see most of her bare back. She changes clothes while a man is in the bedroom with her, she is behind a screen and we see her bare shoulders. She comes out in a long dress, her shoulders and a little cleavage is visible. A man is handcuffed naked to a bed; there is a pillow covering his lap; a maid walks in and is frightened away when he tells her the key is below the pillow. There is nothing sexual (meaning that he did not have sex nor was coming on to the maid) about the situation but it is a little bit of an innuendo.

Violence/ Gore 6 out of 10 – A man is executed by hanging, we see him drop off the gallows and his feet twitch. We see his dead corpse as a doctor pronounces him dead. There are quite a few fist-a-cuffs, some bloody noses and lips. There are a few gun fights, some people are hit and fall over. One man is killed from a body falling on him and two men examine his dead corpse. One man is lit on fire and jumps out of a high window and lands on a carriage, one man is seen dying in his bathtub boiling alive. A dead body is seen buried in a coffin; some maggots are crawling on his face.

Profanity – 2 out of 10 - One or two mild obscenities and religious exclamations, some name calling.

There is some alcohol and other substance abuse and tobacco use.