Sherlock Holmes a Game of Shadows

Sherlock Holmes a Game of Shadows
Sebastian Peill-M
10/24/15


   Why stop at the first Sherlock? Onward I say, this week I am reviewing "a Game of Shadows" the second in the Robert Downey Jr. version of Sherlock Holmes. The film was released in 2011 and made just under 40 million its opening week.

     Sherlock returns, and is in the middle of his biggest case ever, he is pursuing one Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris), a brilliant but insane man who wants war between Germany and France and will stop at nothing to gain it, including murder. Holmes races to stop him but he is always one step behind. When Watson and his new bride are attacked because of his connection with Holmes, Watson joins Holmes in his pursuit of Moriarty. The duo meets up with a gypsy who has a connection to Moriarty and chase him throughout Europe. Eventually they are all in the same place at the same time and although there isn't explosions the ending involves amazing fighting and one intense game of chess.

  As its predecessor, the film utilizes' many different things to cause the audience to enjoy the film. The camera angles are amazing and are mainly of people although they use several landscape shots for transitions and fillers. One scene really catches the audience attention, as the protagonists are running from an arms factory they enemies decide to open fire with everything they have, including a giant cannon. The camera angle captures the them running while being fired upon. The speed slows down and shows the bullet impact among the trees and whenever someone is killed (although no gore). The entire scene is epic and shows how far we have come with visual effects.

  As for the music, well it was epic as the first movies. Including lots of harpsichord, which is the main instrument. The musical editor did a great job speeding up and slowing down the music whenever they needed to add affect to the scene. One negative note about the music is that it is a bit repetitive and gets almost annoying at points. The film added some gypsy music as one of the characters is a gypsy and it really enjoyable and dance-able, even making Watson dance.

   I love this movie, and although in my opinion it isn't as great as the first movie it isn't far behind. The acting is great and of course it has Robert Downey Jr. so what's not to love? With plenty of puns and short one-liners RDJ of course, rocks this role perfectly. Jude Law as the doctor does as well as he did in the first movie, although with the added emotion of having a wife. The added and the killed characters add a variety of options for story line and motivations for each character. One character who appears is Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's brother. Mycroft is played by Stephen Fry and is an extremely important government official.

    As for the future of this franchise? Well a third installment has been confirmed, so I am extremely excited and can't wait for it to come out.

Interesting Fact: The slow-motion work in the film was done by Gavin Free, an English filmmaker who works for Rooster Teeth Productions and is known for his web series, The Slow Mo Guys, on YouTube. (Awesome YouTube channel)
Trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=td2Zjdjqhhs

Sherlock Homes

Sherlock Holmes
10/19/15
Sebastian Peill-M

     Sherlock Holmes is a recreation of the books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It stars Robert Downey Jr (my favorite actor), Jude Law, Mark Strong, and Rachel McAdams. It made 90 million dollars in the box office. It was directed by Guy Ritchie and was released December 25, 2009.
    

     RDJ plays the incredibly smart and funny detective, who has just solved his biggest and last case with his faithful and engaged companion Watson (Law). When the criminal hangs, but then escapes his tomb, Sherlock has to unwind what is trick and what is magic. The criminal is a man by the name of Lord Blackwood (Strong) and he utilizes many illusions to fabricate his black magic. While chasing down Blackwood, Sherlock runs into the only woman he has ever loved, Irene Adler (McAdams). While she was only a distraction Sherlock is still able to solve the mystery and save many peoples lives.

     Sherlock Holmes, uses a variety of different things to bring audience into the actions. To begin with the camera angles are marvelous, the director utilized a variety of angles but the three most common I saw were portrait; peoples faces, wide; the scenery and city, and birds eye; above the characters heads. These angles combine with surround sounds makes this an awesome movie. The acting is pretty great, with Robert Downey Jr, doing what he does best, getting into the perfect role. The soundtrack was made to keep a person on the edge of their seats, even my dad who often falls a sleep during movies was able to remain awake the entire duration. Another things that is recurring throughout the film is a crow. The crow represents death and whenever it appears you know someone is about to die.
    

Film's London

 

 

 Now, onto my favorite part of the movie, the boxing match. About 30 minutes into the movie you hear amazing Irish rock music and then see Holmes in a boxing ring, fighting a man 2x his size. Holmes is winning easily and decides to leave when he see Adler, however his opponent doesn't agree and spits of him. What follows is my favorite movie scene of all time, it shows Holmes and you hear his voice as he describes exactly what he is going to do and when in slow motion . Then it goes to real time and he does it all at normal. The way they filmed this scene has made it my favorite, the music is perfect, and it is an awesome concept which I wish I could do.

 This is one of my favorite movies and I would suggest this movie to anyone and everyone.
Fight Scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLuhWLNqpiA
Interesting Fact: Rachel McAdams, Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr. reportedly did most of their own stunts.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse [SPOILERS]

Resident Evil: Apocalypse
Sebastian Peill-M
10/5/15

     Resident Evil: Apocalypse is the second Resident Evil movie by Paul W.S. Anderson, and stars Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory, Oded Fehr, and Thomas Kretsmann. The film was released September 10th, 2004 and made $45,000,000 (I need to find a better way to start these, they are way too repetitive).

    Alice (Jovovich) has survived the horror of the Hive and the zombie T-Virus, only, when she escapes she is taken captive by the very company she used to work for, Umbrella. While she is being experimented on, Umbrella decides to open the Hive, unleashing the zombie virus onto the people of Racoon City. Chaos pursues as the city is slowly being infected, Jill Valentine (Guillory) has teamed up with several people and do their best to survive, eventually boarding themselves in a church.

    Alice, who at this point has escaped from the abandon Umbrella facility, is looking for other survivors and just happens (weird, I know, a giant city and she happens to find the main characters) to arrive at the church just in time to kill three mutated zombie lickers (see below) and save the day.

Talk about a face for radio (Licker)

     At this point you are introduced to Olivera (Fehr), an Umbrella soldier helping contain the infection. Olivera gets marooned with some of his colleagues and have to fight there way to safety, all the while, their numbers decreasing.

     Now, someone who I should probably have mentioned before is Umbrella scientist, Ashford. Ashford has been taken to safety, but his daughter is still trapped in city, he hacks into the city systems ans calls Olivera's team and Alice's team, and notify them that they can escape in a helicopter before Umbrella blows up a nuke to destroy the zombies. To do this they must rescue his daughter and he'll tell them where the helicopter is. Alice and Olivera make there way towards the school, unbeknownst to each other.

     While Alice and her survivors are making their way to the school Umbrella decides test out one of their zombie mutations, Nemesis. Alice distracts Nemesis away from Valentine, so that they can continue onto the school. While fighting and mainly running from Nemesis, Alice discovers that she has powers, from being experimented on by Umbrella and uses them to escape to the school where they find Ashford's daughter and meet up with Olivera.

     The rest of the film is like the ending of most action movies, and epic fight, the defeating of the antagonist and escape with a twist. This movie is a great action/thriller movie, full of action, gore, and zombie, what more can a 17 yr old boy want? The movie was not considered a big success and is one of the least liked out of all the current RE films. The movie has a R rating (duh) and is extremely violent. The hard part about writing about a Resident Evil movie is that you either have to do them in order (which I didn't), or explain a lot of the plot (that's me). Many consider this a horror movie, I disagree because I do not watch horror movies. Personally, I enjoyed the film and would recommend it to anybody who enjoys zombie films.

Interesting Fact: The trailer for this film was one of the most watched on the Internet, with 8.5 million downloads from November 2003 to May 2004.