Coming out of Eid, cinemas are still writhing with Arabic movies that invite hordes of people despite their lack of plot or coherent ideas. However, do not fear, some new movies made the cut, and the Eid holiday is over, making cinemas a safe and pleasant outing again.
Gravity
The Sci-Fi thriller is all about space and the horror of being suspended in space. If the enticing line-up of George Clooney and Sandra Bullock is not enough to make you leave your home, then maybe the whole premise of the film will. This is not a survival story, but more of one that accepts the impending and unmistakable doom. Meanwhile, the two characters get to know each other and connect in knowing that they both share the same fate. The film is currently number one at the American box office and has already generated serious Oscar buzz.
“Bullock is the undoubted star and is seriously good here, giving Stone an inner steeliness that only the very deepest pangs of despair can unsheathe. Gravity teems with images of birth and rebirth, and from the cable that links Bullock’s character umbilically to Clooney’s, to the extraordinary shot of her hanging in an airlock in a state of amniotic suspension, Cuarón makes his heroine’s sex a core part of her heroism.
Comparisons to Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Tarkovsky’s Solaris and Ang Lee’s Life of Pi are inevitable and well-earned, but in fact, Gravity operates as a companion piece to Cuarón’s last film, Children of Men. In that film, humanity had suddenly lost the ability to reproduce, and the result was global meltdown. But here, Cuarón is telling a different but related story of terror and mortality and hope. With nothingness pressing in on all sides, in a place where the grip of someone else’s hand is all that keeps you from the void, life really does seem like a miracle,” wrote Robbie Collin of The Telegraph
About Time
Rachel McAdams stars in yet another Romantic Comedy and her love interest is a time traveller, again. This time the whole time travelling romance is a comic one unlike the Time Traveler’s Wife which was on the melodramatic side. The most interesting fact about this movie might be that her co-star Domhnall Gleeson was one of the Weasley boys in the Harry Potter movies.
“His defenders will argue that About Time is a lovely, sunny film about the importance of noticing ‘how sweet the world can be’. To object to that would be curmudgeonly. What’s so galling is that Curtis gives optimism a bad name. The message is unarguable: be kind. Be grateful. Be nice to one another. The method, however, is glib, ingratiating, falsely democratic and frequently inept. This latest enacts a fantasy in which death itself is briefly cheated: before a loved one dies of cancer, wouldn’t we all like to flit back to a time when we accompanied them on a sunlit stroll on the shore? And when they do finally shuffle off, why not have more children to plug the gap? Pardon me if I choke on these tranquillising inanities,” wrote Anthony Quinn of The Independent
2 Guns
Mark Wahlberg teams up with Denzel Washington to bring you another action movie with a flimsy storyline. Two undercover agents fail to infiltrate a drug cartel and are forced to flee. The twist? Each of them has no idea the other is an undercover agent. Expect a lot of cliché comedy lines and comebacks, with a lot of car crashing and unexplained explosions. If you fancy something like that, then this is your movie.
“2 Guns has its moments, but it is filled with cliches, particularly the time-honoured convention that supercool tough guys never look behind them at the deafening explosion that they themselves have ignited as they amble away. Washington is DEA agent Bobby Trench; Wahlberg naval intelligence officer Stig Stigman – they have unwittingly uncovered a corrupt scam run by a mysterious security chief, well played by Bill Paxton. There is a fair amount of not sufficiently witty or lovable banter, and Paula Patton gets to play Katharine Ross to their Butch and Sundance. She really has nothing to do except pose fetchingly in her underwear. Not much firepower,” wrote Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian.
