Ronal the Barbarian is a hilarious Danish animated parody. It's funny, shocking and entertaining all at the same time. The plot is, however, rather trying. I watched the English dub.
Watch if you like swords, wenches and enjoy political correctness being thrown out of the window.
This movie tried to be 2012's Bourne Identity and falls woefully short. While it captures a bit of the same feel as the Bourne franchise, the script is just so idiotic that it becomes something of a painful watch after a while. I'd give it a 6 if it wasn't for retarded-ness of the stadium scene.
The setting is different from the original. But the story is roughly the same. That said, Colin Farrell was rubbish and the Kate Beckinsale character was tiresome.
Give it a miss.
If part 1 was bad, part 2 isn't much of an improvement. Chuck Norris and Van Damme jump on this seniors tour bandwagon and it's not a pretty sight.
Stay away.
Headhunters is a Norwegian thriller and as such has a lot of action, violence, a couple of nice twists, and some generous nudity. It's a fun watch and IMO, its best attribute in terms of its plot is that the baddie isn't aware of the second of two major threads that run concurrently throughout the movie. It's quite refreshing.
The direction is a bit dodgy in places as is the screenplay. But I recommend watching it if you enjoy the genre.
P.S. Bonus star for being Scandinavian.
I watched the movie first many, many years ago. Looking back it's mostly a faithful reproduction of this excellent Chuck Palahniuk novel, albeit not as "schizophrenic". The book mostly reads well. However, whether it was because I'd seen the movie before or not, the "Reveal" wasn't as satisfying as there were a number of suggestive hints throughout the lead-up which seemed to give the game away too early.
One of those rare situations where I enjoyed the film adaptation more than the book. That said, this is recommended reading.
If anything could be called a seminal work, it would be Alfred Bester's "The Stars, My Destination". Published in book form in 1956 and written well before that, it's an intriguing read after all this time. While the flow and logic can be a little stuttered in spots, allowing for the age of the novel, the leaps in imagination are singularly amazing.
Read this before you die :) I would rate this only three stars lower if it had been written today.
Hunger Games is a bit like Brave New World meets Lord of the Flies meets Rambo. The flow is decent once you suspend disbelief for a good li'l while. The acting is all right and the action above par in places. However, the foundation upon which the plot rests is either inherently flawed or not explained well.
The movie was reasonably entertaining on the whole and going by the ending, there's a sequel coming soon.
The Avengers is interesting as it unites characters from a number of other movies (a first?) to for a "super-team" of superheroes to save the Earth yada yada. However, it is terribly clichéd, the dialogues often vapid, and the plot resembles a sieve. That said, the whole point of the film appears to be a rather convoluted attempt at engineering a situation where the CG guys can have fun giving us a superhero war scene. And my, how they succeeded.
Watch the film for the battle scene towards the end. The rest is mostly dull.
The Wise Man's Fear is the sequel to Patrick Rothfuss' enjoyable The Name of the Wind, and it's a good 'un. While the flaws notes in the first book are still present in this work, the plot and flow are far smoother. But what makes the difference in book two is the level of imagination which, in some places, is absolutely riveting. The world of the Fae and the Ademre is just the kind of thing I like to soak my brain in.
