Movies out today: war movies and woeful remakes

Well, at least now the Joburg peeps that didn’t get to see Fury on Tuesday thanks to our delightfully irregular load-shedding schedule can see it now!

Fury

April, 1945. As the Allies make their final push in the European Theatre, a battle-hardened army sergeant named Wardaddy (Brad Pitt) commands a Sherman tank and her five-man crew on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. Outnumbered and outgunned, and with a rookie soldier thrust into their platoon, Wardaddy and his men face overwhelming odds in their heroic attempts to strike at the heart of Nazi Germany.

Reading the overwhelmingly positive feedback from the Cape Town screening and Kervyn’s equally glowing full review has made me so excited to watch this! With heart-stopping action and intense performances, Fury seems to be one of the best war movies out there and comes highly recommended. If you’ve been looking for another Saving Private Ryan, you’re in luck!

Annie

Annie is a young, happy foster kid who’s also tough enough to make her way on the streets of New York in 2014. Originally left by her parents as a baby with the promise that they’d be back for her someday, it’s been a hard knock life ever since, with her mean foster mom, Miss Hannigan. But everything’s about to change when the hard-nosed tycoon and New York mayoral candidate Will Stacks, advised by his brilliant VP and his shrewd and scheming campaign advisor, makes a thinly-veiled campaign move and takes her in. Stacks believes he’s her guardian angel, but Annie’s self-assured nature and bright, sun-will-come-out-tomorrow outlook on life just might mean that it’s the other way around.

I know I was defending Hollywood remakes earlier in the week, but it looks like Annie doesn’t fall into the category of “good” remakes. Somehow director Will Gluck managed to make it even more annoyingly cute and cloying, while spending the rest of his time modernising the story and losing most of the original magic somewhere along the way. If you really love the original, either the stage performance or the 1982 movie, you’re probably not going to like what’s been done.

Tracers

After he crashes his bike into a stranger named, Cam is introduced to her crew – a team that uses parkour to pull off heists. Hoping to alleviate his deepening debt to a violent crime gang, Cam quickly joins the group. As the stakes get higher with more dangerous side ventures, the payouts get bigger. Cam must use every ounce of his skill to stay alive as the crew’s heists grow more daring with each job, and gang enforcers breathe relentlessly down his neck.

I think the only good thing to come out of the fact that Tracers was made is that Kervyn got to write one of the funniest reviews I’ve ever read. Seriously, go read it and have a really good laugh. But if you need a TL;DR: the only people that should go watch Tracers are those without medical aid that are in desperate need of a free lobotomy.

Kite

A young woman, Sawa, is orphaned following the murder of her parents and is later taken off the streets by a crooked, Svengali-like detective who employs homeless children to do his dirty work. Trained as a killer, Sawa exacts street justice against the detective’s chosen targets until she is able to break free of the abusive, manipulative control he has over her.

Damn, I won’t lie, I’m very disappointed. Kite looked so promising from the trailer, but turns out to be a shallow, emotionless kill-a-thon with seriously mixed messages about its female protagonist. But then, live-action western remakes of anime have always been hit and miss. Let’s hope Ghost in the Shell fairs better.

No (Cinema Nouveau)

In 1988, Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet, due to international pressure, is forced to call a plebiscite on his presidency. The country will vote YES or NO to Pinochet extending his rule for another eight years. Opposition leaders for the NO persuade a brash young advertising executive, Rene Saavedra, to spearhead their campaign. Against all odds, with scant resources and under scrutiny by the despot’s minions, Saavedra and his team devise an audacious plan to win the election and set Chile free.

Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2013 Academy Awards, No is a gripping political drama with biting wit and a dash of Mad Men, shot using period accurate tape to lend it extra authenticity. Highly praised across the board, it was well deserving of its nomination. (It lost to the Austrian movie Amour, in case you were curious.)

Last Updated: January 30, 2015