TRON: LEGACY

TRON: LEGACY

By 

Caroline Hackett

For people who have not yet seen TRON: LEGACY i would suggest holding off doing so until after you’ve seen the original 1982 movie first because when it comes down to it, as much as director Joseph Kosinski tried to make this as relevant as possible, TRON: LEGACY is a movie just for Tron fans. The story is a continuation from the original and you’ll have a hard time following if you have no idea what happened previously.
TRON: LEGACY picks up roughly 20 years after the original with Sam Flynn played by the talented Garrett Hedlund, a rebellious 27 year old is haunted by the mysterious disappearance of his father Kevin Flynn (Bridges), a man once known as the world’s leading video-game developer. When Sam Investigates a signal sent from his fathers old Arcade he finds himself pulled into the digital world when Kevin has been trapped for 20 years. With the help of the fearless warrior Ouorra played by Olivia Wilde, father and son embark on a life or death journey across a cyber universe which was created by kevin himself and has become far more advanced with weapons, Vehicles, landscapes and a ruthless villain who will stop at nothing to prevent their escape.

Given that i was a fan of the original since watching it with my dad when i was 6 years old i had major doubts when i heard this film was going to be in 3D, however i had no reason to worry Joseph Kosinski and his team knew what they were doing. The environment stays faithful to the original film but the 3D brings it to life the grid looks more fascinating and don’t even get me started on the disc and lightcycle battles, quite possibly the highlight of the entire movie watching experience.

Now moving on to the performances, Jeff Bridges is terrific, but then again he’s terrific in all that he does. He’s returned as Flynn and just like how he was 27 years ago, Bridges plays it cool and chill, the only difference is that his character is much older now and the story has him worrying at times for his son, for the mistakes of the past, he’s constantly haunted by it.. but don’t worry.. Bridges ‘The Dude’ attitude is still intact, Flynn would once in a while say something along the line of ‘you’re messing with my jazz man!’
I love Olivia Wilde in this film, not because she’s a great actress but because as Flynn’s apprentice Quorra, her childlike personality is hard to resist. She’s naive, always eager to learn and incredibly faithful.
Gotta give some credit to Michael Sheen. For those few moments, he’s downright amusing. Sheen is engaging, he’s energetic and he has this unbelievable range of showmanship all of which burst out of him for the 5 or 10 minutes he is in the movie.
I think Garrett Hedlund could sharpen his acting skills a bit more but for the most part he does his job. He is a relatively unknown actor to most people who would have seen the movie but i have seen him in a few things before this and i can tell you he is one to watch.

As much as i wish i could give the perfect 10 out of 10 to TRON: LEGACY the movie is nowhere near perfect,..I can’t stand CLU’s digital face. I’m aware that technology may not be advanced enough to give us a believable young Jeff Bridges, but that creepy digital face just doesn’t work for me. They also use it at the start of the movie in what is meant to be a flash back to the original, in the scene a young Jeff Bridges is seen telling his young son about “The Grid” this cyber world he has created and you can see that the mouth movement on the digital face of Bridges doesn’t move in sync with the voice. Thankfully this was a short and quick scene so it is easy to look past and honestly forgotten about when its over. The only other thing i didn’t like about the film was the fact you needed to see the original before you could get the fully enjoyment from this one, while i was able to relax and enjoy the movie my 13 year old brother while loving the 3D effects and the action scenes came out totally confused as to what the whole point of the film was. That does tend to ruin a movie when you have to go back and explain it all over again. 

Overall i think TRON: LEGACY is an entertaining movie, it has eye candy for both sexes and is a sequel that speaks to its fans. I think some of its elements will disappoint some fans of the original but for me it was an easy going movie with a fantastic cast and amazing special effects that pulled you into the games  and as far as the 3D goes it topped Avatar for me.

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The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games

In The Hunger Games, Oscar-nominated Jennifer Lawrence takes on the role of Katniss Everdeen, a girl selected to represent the people of her region in a televised fight to the death. The event is organised by the Capitol, the ruling power of America known as Panem, as punishment for a rebellion years earlier. This is a story that draws from sources like Battle Royale, Stephen King's The Running Man and today's endless stream of reality TV.

       

The Hunger Games is enthralling from beginning to end, science fiction that has depth and intelligence to match its pulse-racing entertainment value.

       

Lawrence is the beating heart of the tale as bow and arrow-wielding heroine Katniss, who bravely steps in for younger sister Prim when her name is pulled out to be the tribute for District 12. Through director Ross's rough and ready handheld camerawork you're with Katniss for every blood-flecked moment of her ordeal in the arena

Running the show alongside her is Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), a baker's son from her district who declares his crush on her live in front of the Hunger Games audience. He is being viewed as the  underdog, and this budding romance satisfies reality TV's need to fashion narrative arcs out of its contestants.

Katniss appears to be playing this for the cameras at first, but as the finale draws closer those feelings begin to seem mutual. The rules of the games, however, state that there must only be one tribute left standing. It's kill or be killed for Katniss and Peeta.

All this plays out to the agony of Gale Hawthorne, the boy who hunted with Katniss back in her district. It's a slight role for Liam Hemsworth, who'll figure more heavily in all-but-guaranteed sequels Catching Fire and Mockingjay.

The film packs in a colourful cast of supporting players, too, with Woody Harrelson providing humor as former tournament champ Haymitch, Lenny Kravitz proving to be Katniss's rock as stylist Cinna and Elizabeth Banks stealing scenes as Effie Trinkett, a district escort who's Mary Poppins by-way-of Tim Burton.

The Hunger Games paints a vivid picture of stark contrast - poverty and wealth, oppression and freedom, fear and hope. It's these opposing forces that make Suzanne Collins's world such a tantalising one. In a clever addition to her text, Ross heightens the story's big emotional sucker punch to show Katniss as the catalyst for an uprising among the downtrodden people. One thing's for certain, after watching The Hunger Games you'll want to be a part of the Katniss Everdeen revolution.

Book Review

The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks is predictable but it still managed to surprise me.

Written by Caroline Hackett

Pros:fast and easy read, interesting

Cons:predictable if you've read other Sparks novels

The Bottom Line: This novel is much better than the last few Sparks books. After reading several mediocre ones, The Lucky One revived my interest in the next Sparks story.

I've read all of the books written by Nicholas Sparks. In my opinion, the first few were brilliant but his writing has been on a decline ever since. After reading "The Guardian" and being disappointed with it, I vowed to stop actually buying the books and instead borrow them when I could. When I saw that The Lucky One had been released, I reluctently bought it. A couple of months later, I finally had my opportunity to read this novel.

The Lucky One centers around Logan Thibault, an ex-marine who found a picture of a young woman in a Kuwaiti desert during his first tour of duty. He pins the photo to the message bulletin board and expects it to be claimed. Several weeks later, it is still there so he removes it and places it in his pocket... and it remains there through all three tours of duty and all of the dangerous situations in which he finds himself. Logan's friends and fellow soldiers die all around him, but he always manages to evade death and escape relatively unharmed. He considers the picture a "lucky charm" and decides to try to find the woman when he gets back to the States.

The picture shows a Hampton Fair banner, so he winds up walking from his home in Colorado to Hampton, North Carolina. He doesn't have high hopes for finding his lucky charm lady, which makes it extraordinary when he crosses paths with her. I don't want to say too much more about the plot because I don't want to spoil it for anyone.

In my opinion The Lucky One is a well-written and interesting novel that kept my interest throughout. The main characters are interesting and kind enough for the reader (or at least me) to feel empathy. Like all Sparks books, this one is loaded with lots of description that makes it easy to envision the town, house, kennel, etc.

The actual story itself is a bit predictable. I had the ending worked out about half-way through the book. I was happy to see that my version was a bit off so there still was a bit of surprise for me at the end. The Lucky One is no "Notebook" or "Message in a Bottle", but it is certainly better than the latest batch of Sparks novels. I'd recommend it to fans of Nicholas Sparks and to those who are looking for a fast and easy read.

In my opinion The Lucky One doesn't compare to Nicholas Sparks' very best novels, but it is certainly a huge improvement over the lacking stories that he's been publishing these past few years. Sparks is headed in the right direction and I can only hope that his next book is even better than this one. It is deffiently a book i will be passing along to my sister and friends.

For me this book gets a 4/5

Footloose Film Review

Footloose Review

by

Caroline Hackett

Literally four beats into the opening titles, with the original title music blasting out to a new selection of dancing shoes, I was a kid again, grinning away & wanting to get up and dance.

Opening with people out having an amazing time, at a party you really want to just step into the screen and be part of. Then it brutally changes. For the first time we actually get to experience why the town folk saw fit to ban dancing and music in the town. And in a tragic way, it all seems to make sense. They mean well, but moments of high emotion are probably not the best time to be making laws.

There is the obvious great music with most of the original sound track being ‘refreshed’ fantastic dancing, excellent cinematography and developing romance between characters. Ren previously played by Kevin Bacon is now brilliantly played by relative newcomer, Kenny Wormald, he has the looks, uniform and swagger of James Dean, but because of his life experience, this rebel knows exactly want he wants. That may all sound quite heavy, but the movie is incredibly funny. The sequence where Willard played by Miles Teller uncannily resembling the originals Chris Penn is learning to dance is worth the price of the ticket alone, Julianne Hough is mesmerisingly beautiful as the preachers wayward daughter. A very troubled teen, but this time around we understand why she’s behaving this way.

There are loads of loving references to the original movie, a few much needed touch ups and some inspired changes. You don’t have to have seen the original to enjoy this remake but if you have, I do recommend watching it again before seeing this version just to see how much better they have made it.