Posts tagged Morgan Freeman
Lucy “100% Pure Entertainment”
Sep 2nd
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
LUCY is the latest film from writer and director Luc Besson that is equal parts high concept, equal parts fast-action thriller, and all parts female protagonist played by Scarlett Johansson as Lucy.
The name “Lucy” is also the name given to the remains of the first human being found in Africa, and there is a connection between the two Lucys.
The story begins in Taipei, and we see Lucy and Richard on the street in front of a large building.
Richard has a briefcase, and he tells Lucy that he was given $1000 to deliver it to a Mr. Jang inside the building, but he wants Lucy to deliver it for him.
In fact, Richard will give Lucy $500 to do it for him, and the next thing she knows, he handcuffs the briefcase to her hand so that she has no choice.
Once she gets upstairs to meet Mr. Jang, who is protected by many menacing bodyguards, Mr. Jang refuses to be in the same room when the briefcase is opened, telling Lucy that he doesn’t trust Richard.
Lucy says, “I don’t trust Richard, either. I dated him only a week.”
The briefcase contains packets of a drug called CPH4, which supposedly allows people to use more than the false idea that humans use only 10% of their brains.
And to make a long, complicated story short and simple, Lucy is forced to be a drug mule and carry a packet of the drug to another country after it is surgically implanted in her stomach.
Unfortunately, a fight with one of Mr. Jang’s army of bodyguards causes the packet inside Lucy to rupture, and as the drug enters her bloodstream, her mental capacities increase and so do her physical powers.
So, Lucy escapes the clutches of Mr. Jang and contacts Professor Samuel Norman, played by Morgan Freeman, who is based in Paris and who is an expert on the human brain.
Then it is off to Paris for Lucy to meet with Professor Norman, and where she also engages he help of a French policeman, Captain Pierre Del Rio, but she is also being chased by Mr. Jang and his men.
Of course there are chases, shoot-outs, and more as Lucy increases her mental and physical powers to 100%.
LUCY is nothing but 100% of pure entertainment.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Lucy – Movie Trailer
Sep 2nd
From La Femme Nikita and The Professional to The Fifth Element, writer/director Luc Besson has created some of the toughest, most memorable female action heroes in cinematic history. Now, Besson directs Scarlett Johansson in Lucy, an action-thriller that tracks a woman accidentally caught in a dark deal who turns the tables on her captors and transforms into a merciless warrior evolved beyond human logic.
“Now You See Me” Misdirection in Its Own Right
Jun 9th
“Misdirection in Its Own Right”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Now You See Me combines the genres of a movie about magicians with a heist movie, and it ends up with an example of more is less.
Even the appearances of Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine can’t pull this movie out of the doldrums.
The story begins when four magicians who each have different specialties are all summoned to a locked apartment in New York City which is full of clues that they have to figure out in order to learn why they were summoned.
The four magicians are Daniel, played by Jesse Eisenberg, who is a master of misdirection; Henley, played by Isla Fisher, who is Daniel’s former assistant; Merritt, played by Woody Harrelson, who is a mentalist; and Jack, played by Dave Franco, who is an expert at card tricks.
Incidentally, Dave Franco is the brother of James Franco.
Then we shift to one year later in Las Vegas, the four now call themselves The Four Horsemen, and they put on a spectacular show in a casino, where Daniel announces, “Ladies and Gentlemen, tonight we are going to rob a bank!”
Well, not only do they rob a bank of 32 million Euros, but the bank is in Paris, France, and the robbery occurs during the show with the assistance of a man pulled at random from out of the audience.
Now the FBI gets involved with Agent Dylan Rhodes, played by Mark Ruffalo, another agent from Interpol, a woman named Alma Dray shows up to assist him, and after an interrogation that is unproductive for the authorities, The Four Horsemen are off to their next big show in New Orleans, which is publicized as the setup for their third show, the “Big Punch,” in New York City.
The thing about magic, however, is that if you know how a trick is done, you lose interest in watching that trick again, and a famous magician tells Agents Rhodes and Dray how The Four Horsemen managed to rob that bank in Paris.
The movie tries to spice things up with races through the streets of New Orleans during Mardi Gras, but again The Four Horsemen escape, and they are on to New York City, where a car chase through the streets and over a bridge don’t help much, either.
Now You See Me itself is all misdirection.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”