TL;DR – This is a movie banking on the pull of its lead star, and in some respects it works, but also it leaves you wondering what was the point of it all.
Ah the Cold War, once a time that we tried to ignore, that time when blowhards with nuclear weapons almost brought us all to ruin because of politics or ideology. We like to forget about it, but a lot of the problems of the world today can be traced right back to it, but still many don't have a good understanding of the world that was. American Made is looking to change that, maybe, sort of, by shedding the light on some of the dirty dealings the Americans embroiled themselves in Central America, told through the story of Barry Seal (Tom Cruise).
TL;DR – A harrowing look at a moment in our past that we need to deal with if we want to avoid repeating our mistakes.
This year after watching the simply amazing Okja (review) and Train to Busan, a film that redefines a genre and one I really need to write something on, I decided to try and get out and see more Korean cinema. Now, unfortunately, it can be a bit difficult to find here in Australia, but thankfully a cinema near me does get some of the new releases from Asia from time to time. So today I continued my exploration of Korean cinema with the fascinating The Battleship Island. So what is the film about? Well how far would you go to protect your daughter from the world around her, what would you do break a revolutionary leader out prison, how far would you go to exploit the people under you to make a quick buck? These are some of the questions The Battleship Island tries to answer.
Oh boy, where to begin here, wow, ok this is going to be a tough one to review. I think part of the problem was that July was such a strong month for movies we had Okja (review), Spider-Man (review), Baby Driver (review), Dunkirk (review) and Planet of the Apes (review). It was such a strong outing that maybe it overhyped me for the rest of the year because since the start of August we've had Wolf Warriors 2 (review), Valerian (review), and Logan Lucky (review), all films with immense potential that all failed in their execution, and well this week we have another one to add to that list. Now before we start, I do want to mention I have not read the source material myself so I can't give a complete comparison to what Stephen King wrote. However, even without reading the book you can infer a few things, which is what we will be doing today. So let's dive in and look at the world of The Dark Tower.