Cowboys & Aliens: Western & Sci-Fi Collide

The title is a huge spoiler, which shows just how much of a plot this film has. Set in 1873, aliens want to take over Earth for its supply of gold. They swoop around in fancy alien planes blowing stuff up and abducting people to figure out the weaknesses of the human race. However, when they zoom in onArizonaand abduct half of the townsfolk, including a rich rancher's (Ford) kid, they've finally messed with the wrong guy. 

He gathers the town's cowboys and they set off to destroy the aliens and bring back the kidnapped people. Joining them on their mission is Jake (Craig), a gang leader who wakes up in the middle of the desert with absolutely no idea of who he is or how he got there. Further mystifying his situation is the presence of a huge iron wrist cuff clamped around his arm that can shoot out destructive laser beams and it's the only effective weapon against the aliens. They are also joined by Ella (Wilde), a beautiful woman who seems mightily interested in helping Jake regain his memory. 

Jake is a shoot first, think later cowboy who doesn't take orders from anyone and honestly, Daniel Craig could play this character in his sleep. He's the definition of badass! That being said, the romance subplot between Jake and Ella seems really forced. One minute he can't stand her hounding, and the next he's going wobbly at the knees.

Harrison Ford plays Woodrow, a wealthy and morally ambiguous rancher whose only son, the apple of his eye, has been abducted by aliens and he will do whatever it takes to get him back. He's a boorish no-nonsense man's man who occasionally shows an emotional depth that he buries under typical cowboy bravado.

Paul Dano as Harrison Ford's bratty, snotty, spoiled little coward of a son is a delight. He marches around arrogantly, stomping all over people while threatening them with his father's retaliation. And while he talks big, he'd be nothing without his daddy's power backing him up. A classic case of nepotism ruining a person, he is basically the most entertaining thing about the entire film despite only being on-screen for ten minutes.

Cowboys & Aliens combines the western and sci-fi genres, but this is definitely a cowboy's film with aliens in it. The role of the extraterrestrials doesn't really break any new ground in terms of originality, and the rough and ready weaponry and tactics of the cowboys are much more entertaining than that of the advanced aliens.  

There's no way this film wasn't going to be cool. It's a comic book adaptation that is executively produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by the man behind Iron Man, starring James Bond and Indiana Jones/Han Solo. And while the pacing never lets the film get boring, once it's over you can't help but dwell on how shallow the plot is. What should have been an insanely epic mash-up of two awesome genres, ends up being a pretty pile of mildly entertaining meh. 

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The Change-Up: A Good-Natured Comedy

The Change Up is an exercise in opposites. Dave (Bateman) is an overworked lawyer and family man, while his best friend Mitch (Reynolds) is a slacker actor. While peeing in a fountain and envying each others' lives, they accidentally switch bodies and must go about as the other until they can figure out how to reverse the switch.

Ryan Reynolds should do more comedy. He's hilarious whether as Mitch who has no responsibilities and nothing expected of him or as Dave, a very successful lawyer in the middle of the most important week of his career hoping that his nincompoop best friend – now inhabiting his body – doesn't mess up his job and his already rocky marriage. His [removed]as Dave) when surveying the squalor that is Mitch's apartment is priceless; especially when he gets a look at the fridge.   

A lot of the humour comes from Mitch's ineptitude with Dave's young daughter, Cara, and his baby twins. While Dave is the image of the perfect father, Mitch hasn't the slightest clue what to do with kids, which results in some pretty hilarious hi-jinks. Mitch pours milk on the twins, leaves them unattended next to knives and electric sockets and teaches Cara to always solve her problems with violence, which manifests itself as a pretty epic judo flip in the middle of a ballet recital. Bateman does a great job portraying both characters, but it's when he goes so thoroughly against his type as man-child Mitch that he's at his funniest.  

As a rule, The Change Up isn't mean or malicious. While Mitch is rather ridiculously sexist, his behaviour is never allowed to slide. You're not laughing with the sexist jerk, you're laughing at the depth of his misogyny. In addition, Dave's wife Jamie (Mann) is portrayed in a surprisingly sympathetic manner when she could have very easily been written off as the nagging wife. Mann does a great job merging the emotional and the comedic, and she ends up being the film's heart. Jamie's married to a man who, although perfect on paper, is never satisfied. She barely sees him because he's so caught up with his work and while she knows that he loves her and that he's fully committed to the family, she doesn't feel it because he's hardly ever around.

By the end, both men have realized that neither of their lives are as perfect as they made them out to be and are fully ready get their own lives back on track again. While The Change Up is pretty formulaic (It's basically Freaky Friday for dudes) and you can tell exactly what's going to happen from a mile away, it's funny and light and never grates on.

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Abduction: Sloppily Written & Acted Action Film

Opening shot: A car zooms down a tree lined road. A cute guy is seated on the front windshield laughing his head off, yelling at the driver to go faster. They reach the party. We get a round of fist bumps and a chorus of 'Man, you're so crazy!' followed by 'I totally am, bro!' and a whole lot of beer. Windshield guy, Nathan (Lautner), wakes up the next morning shirtless and on the lawn where his dad finds him, then takes him home and forces him to spar with him. This little scene sets the film's mood perfectly. It says, 'I am made for 15-year-old boys; I am a mash-up of everything they may find cool.'

The first thing you discover about Nathan is that he really isn't the sharpest tool in the box. He's a brown guy raised by white, blonde-haired and blue-eyed parents without ever questioning his parentage or suspecting anything. While working on a school paper with his girlfriend Karen (Collins), he discovers his picture on a missing kids' website and thus discovers that his parents aren't biologically related to him.

Before he has time to fully process this fact, a bunch of guys bust into his house, murdering his parents and forcing both, him and Karen, to flee for their lives. Hot on their heels are both the CIA and Koszlow (Nyqvist), the guy who ordered the hit on his parents. They're both after a top-secret encrypted list that Nathan has courtesy of his estranged biological father. 

Don't expect much on the acting front; at least not from Lautner and Collins. When Lautner isn't kicking ass, he's lolling around looking extremely awkward, possibly reading his lines off of a teleprompter. Nyqvist, who was so thoroughly badass in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy, comes off as a rather campy caricature of a villain. 

The film suffers from an embarrassing script full of laughably bad lines, worn out clichés and huge plot holes. For example, both the villains and the CIA repeatedly intercept Nathan's calls on his mobile phone; yet the plans that he makes with his friend via the same exact mobile phone are never intercepted and allow him to stay one step ahead of his pursuers. Sigourney Weaver, playing Nathan's shrink and an undercover ex-CIA agent, is pretty much the only character with a shred of a soul. 

The only possible reason for this film's existence is that Hollywood's powers-that-be are attempting to turn TaylorLautner into a fully-fledged action hero; a teenage Jason Statham if you will. He actually doesn't do a half-bad job on those terms; he's definitely at his most animated and engaging when he's running for his life or beating the crap out of people. Either way, the only thing that Abduction has going for it is the fight scenes; and the fact remains that not even its very talented supporting cast can salvage the rest.

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One Day: A Better Romance Than Most

You know how a few years ago, you'd be hard pressed to find a girl who hadn't seen The Notebook? Well, One Day could possibly take up that mantle, if the amount of females and young couples spotted at the cinema is any indication.

Emma (Hathaway) and Dexter (Sturgess) get to know each other on July 15th, 1988; the day of their college graduation. From that point onwards, they begin a complicated friendship spanning 20 years. One Day visits them on the same day every year as the characters grow up, grow apart, reunite and struggle with their feelings for each other.

Anne Hathaway's British accent is really distracting, which is such a shame because she does such a good job otherwise. Her charm makes you root for her character so badly. Emma needs a best friend to tell her that she deserves someone so much better than Dexter. She's talented, adorably awkward and nice. She deserves someone that will make her feel good about herself; not someone that only remembers her when he needs a person to whine to.

Emma is a classic example of a woman who has everything going for her yet is completely lacking in confidence and self-esteem, which, in effect, nullifies everything else. It's painful to see how earnest and unsure she is of herself. There comes a point when she's penned a successful children's book and is living in France with her musician boyfriend while looking like Audrey Hepburn, when you find yourself wishing the film would end right there, without any interference from Dexter, so she'd get to live the dream.

Now this isn't to say that Dexter is completely loathsome; because he isn't and this is why casting an actor as disarming as Sturgess was absolutely necessary. On paper, Dexter is not the nicest guy and he could have easily come off as completely self-absorbed and thoroughly reprehensible, yet as portrayed by Sturgess, the audience begrudgingly begins to see why Emma's unable to get over him. He's confident, charming and, unlike Emma, success comes easily to him.

The transitions between the years are handled deftly and for the most part, the actors look reasonably convincing playing a twenty-year age range. That being said, Sturgess's makeup made him completely unconvincing as a 40-year-old; instead, he looked like a twenty-something-year-old with really fake grey hair.

This is a gorgeously shot film filled with cute dresses, adorable haircuts and Parisian cafés. It ultimately works, despite some dodgy dialogue and characters, due to its thoroughly charming cast. For fans of melodramatic romances, One Day is a perfect fit. 

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How Do You Know: Exasperatingly Boring Romantic Comedy

Softball player Lisa (Witherspoon) gets cut from theUSnational team when her coach believes her to be past her prime (read: over 30 years-old). Lisa is devastated about the sudden loss of the pain purpose to her life, and somewhat uncomfortable that her new boyfriend Matty (Wilson), a famous pitcher for the Washington Nationals, is ambivalent about monogamy and the quintessential player in every sense of the word.

One day, Lisa gets a call from George (Rudd) a business executive who took her phone number from a common friend to ask her out on a blind date. George mumbles and blunders his way through the awkward phone call, she kindly turns him down, and they each go their separate ways.

Then George finds that he's the target of a federal criminal investigation into his company, which is incidentally run by his dad Charles (Nicholson), after which he's promptly fired and left alone to deal with the inevitable disaster and quite possible jail sentence.

Bordering on a nervous breakdown, George calls Lisa up and asks her out for dinner. Lisa accepts, still overwhelmed by the sudden end to her career and in need of someone to talk to. In what could possibly be one of the most awkward scenes ever filmed, George blabbers on uncontrollably until Lisa suggests he shuts up and they eat in silence. Somehow, this long, awkward silence of a meal is supposed to be a defining moment in their burgeoning friendship, yet this is completely lost on the viewer.

This reviewer could go on with the tedious details of this monotonous film, but it's better to not bore the reader as much as the film did. The pace is so incredibly slow that you spend three quarters of the film waiting for some point to be made; and the ending is so ridiculous you can't believe you wasted precious 116 minutes.

How big stars like Witherspoon and Wilson are in this terrible film is beyond our comprehension; other than looking adorably pretty, Witherspoon adds absolutely nothing to her role. Wilson's Matty is so charming and sweet, it's hard to understand why Lisa has any trouble falling for him. If anything, both characters are so one-dimensional and cute to look at, you're pretty sure they're a match made in picture-perfect catalogue heaven.

On the other hand, Rudd's portrayal of the quirky, zany George just doesn't work here. Either Rudd is too talented a comedic actor for this film, or the director failed to harness his wit in the right direction. Somehow, Lisa is supposed to fall in love with his mumbling, neurotic, quasi-stalking self. Equally ridiculous is Nicholson's presence; either this great actor has tax problems or he was drunk throughout the film, because he adds absolutely none of his signature Nicholson charm to the film. Instead, you get an awkward Nicholson who looks as uncomfortable being in this film as this reviewer felt watching it. How Do You Know is best avoided unless you have some drying paint to watch and no other DVDs are available.

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Skateland: 80's Coming-of-Age Drama

Skateland takes a universal story and sets it in a specific era, in this case small-townTexas in the early 80s. The local skating rink, Skateland is closing down. Its manager, 19-year-old Ritchie (Fernandez) has to figure out what he intends to do with his life, by either finding a new job or going to college to hone his writing talent. Either way, he has to start getting his life back on track so he doesn't end up like his friend Brent (Freeman), the oldest guy at the high school parties. 

Skateland's immediate enjoyment is more in its mise-en-scène than in its narrative. The clothes, the sets, the feathered hair and the soundtrack, even the red and blue palette evoke the 80s perfectly. The film is just beautiful to look at and the soundtrack goes perfectly with the visuals. We're introduced to the three main characters to the sound of Def Leppard's ‘Rock of Ages' and we find out that Ritchie's mum is having an affair while Blondie's ‘Heart of Glass' plays. It's the perfect late 70s/early 80s mix tape. Even the characters' jobs are reminiscent of the era; Ritchie works at a roller skating rink while his friend, music nerd Michelle (Greene) works at a record shop.  

Unfortunately, the same attention paid to the production values was not given to the story or acting. The plot is your run-of-the-mill tale of teen transitions to adulthood full of existential angst. However, Fernandez's Ritchie doesn't really seem to care about his future and doesn't want to bother with thinking about it despite having Brent, the eternal man-child, as an example of what he could end up becoming. Brent's life isn't going anywhere and he's reduced to boozing with high school kids while people his age have steady jobs and families. 

When Ritchie goes on about not being able to make a decision because he doesn't know what he wants, you don't believe that he's given the matter any thought in the first place. He comes across as lazy, not lost, and you never really understand why both his sister and Michelle nag him so much about his future; for some reason they care more than he does! And while his sister's attitude may be understandable (they're related and she seems like a Stepford wife-in-training), Michelle is the exact opposite of Ritchie. She's motivated, knows what she wants and will do what it takes to get there. Naturally, she gets fed up with Ritchie, but never really gives up on him. 

Skateland is a charming, beautiful film buoyed by an incredible soundtrack but held back by lacklustre performances of a potentially very likeable cast. Watch it for the visuals and the music.

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The Trip: Delectably Funny Faux-Documentary

The Trip essentially stars Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon as themselves. The film has main characters loosely based on the people acting them, and you will keep losing track of whether you're watching a film or a documentary. Is this real or isn't it?

Coogan is an actor who aspires to appear in mainstreamHollywoodfilms. He's carved a successful career for himself in British TV and art films, yetUSfame eludes him. His old friend Brydon is a Welsh comedian and mimic who is also moderately successful in theUK, but unlike Coogan, he is content with his lot in life. Coogan has been commissioned to review a bunch of fancy restaurants scattered aroundNorthern England, and he takes Brydon along for the week-long trip after his on-off girlfriend Mischa (Stilley) bails.

On paper, it sounds rather sparse and empty, and in a way it is; yet it's still really funny. This is a no-frills production and there's absolutely nothing fancy about the whole film; except for the food, which consists of fancy multi-course meals made by top European chefs. If you're a fellow cooking show devotee, watching snippets of the food being prepared is just as entertaining as the comedy.

Shot mostly in the countryside, the film's breathtaking scenery provides gorgeous views despite the dreary English skies. Also, while there is nothing out of the ordinary about the camera work and the editing; it works perfectly to keep the focus on the two leads. Pretty much everything in the film takes a backseat; allowing both Coogan and Brydon to shine.

Regardless of whether these two are old friends in real life or not, they definitely convey it convincingly. And while Coogan is rather blasé about their friendship and frequently gives the impression that he finds Brydon rather irritating, it's also obvious that Coogan is getting more out of the friendship and depends on it more than Brydon does. Brydon has his wife to fall back on, whereas Coogan has an ex-wife who isn't exactly his biggest fan and his relationship with his girlfriend is rather rocky. Brydon's goofy, down-to-earth persona is the perfect foil to Coogan's prima donna, and they play off of each other perfectly.

Their banter carries the whole thing. They bicker, squabble, have ABBA sing-alongs in the car and impersonate famous people. This reviewer's personal favourite was Brydon's Woody Allen impression with his hilariously accurate Al Pacino and De Niro impersonations coming in close seconds. Celeb impressions notwithstanding, the funniest parts were probably Coogan's two dream sequences, one of which stars Ben Stiller as himself.

The Trip is for fans of straight-up comedy with dark undertones, for people who don't need a lot happening on screen to hold their attention. Yes, you will be basically watching two (very funny) blokes argue for the better part of two hours; but it's so worth it.

 

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The Traveller: Confusing & Thought-Provoking Egyptian Drama

The Traveller is an Egyptian film that follows Hassan on three different days in his life in three different places. InPort Said 1948, Hassan (El Nabawy) meets Nura (Abdel Nour),who he initially charms but ultimately rapes aboard a ship. In Alexandria 1973, Nura's daughter Nadia reaches out to a much older Hassan (Sharif) upon the death of her last remaining family member; her twin brother. Upon meeting her, he realises that he is her father, but ultimately shirks the responsibility that comes with the discovery. In Cairo 2001, Hassan meets his grandson Aly (Ramzy) and tries to establish a connection with him.

To say that this film is muddled, vague and confusing is an understatement. You won't understand much while watching it, but a few hours and a couple of thousand brain cells later; you'll start to piece together your own personal interpretation of the story and the characters. In this reviewer's opinion, the film is trying to say something about both masculinity and family.

Hassan's first conversation with Nura involves her telling him about her admiration for brave men. A short while later he rapes her after telling her that he knows she likes her men daring and forward; almost as if justifying the assault. Hassan rapes Nura as a way of living up to expectations of masculinity, as well as her own thrill-seeking carefree approach to life. During the second act, these same expectations ended up killing their son, who dies in the middle of a foolhardy stunt.

In the third act, upon meeting Hassan as an old man, we find that he is still as susceptible as ever to society's definition of masculinity. He goads his grandson into picking a fight, hits on an attractive doctor and glorifies dangerously stupid, highly macho acts that supposedly prove your worth as a man. In contrast to his grandfather, Aly isn't as confined by these constructs. You also get the feeling that Aly is, more or less, happy the way he is and that he only caves to his grandfather's pressure in an attempt to forge a deeper connection with his deceased uncle and namesake. 

The familial theme is slightly less obscure. The film shows Hassan's growth over the years. When it starts out, his only interest is getting the girl no matter what. During the second act, he realizes that his actions bore him children that he has no desire to take responsibility for. Upon growing old, he yearns for a family and attempts to delude himself into thinking that he might have had a relationship with the son whose existence he was never aware of until his death. He clings to the only family member he has left, namely his grandson Aly, even though they have nothing in common.   

Having such a boorish central character means that the film is fighting an uphill battle; especially  as he never actually shows signs of remorse or regret. In fact, there is a part when you can tell that he is this close to sexually assaulting another woman. As the younger Hassan, El Nabawy comes across as predatory and sleazy while Sharif, as the older version of Hassan, plays the befuddled and lonely old man very well. The problem lies in the disconnect between the stages and in the fact that both Nura and Nadia, as the film's victims, come across as highly passive and completely spineless. On the other hand, Ramzy's Aly is possibly the only well-rounded character. He is allowed to come across as strong yet vulnerable, smart but impressionable; making him one of the more interesting characters.

The Traveller is not a commercial film nor is it trying to be. It may not entertain you, it may even infuriate you but it will get you thinking - even if just to make sense of it. In addition, it's worth a watch just for the novelty of seeing an Egyptian period piece.

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Ya Ana Ya Howa: A Jekyll and Hyde Comedy

Saeed (El Shafei) is a pushover man-child. He wears bright onesies to bed, has a Justin Bieber haircut, decorates his flat with pictures of Winnie the Pooh and watches cartoons while drinking milk. He's in love with a woman called Gamila (El Baroudi) to whom he's been sending anonymous love letters for 20 years without ever being able to pluck up the courage to introduce himself. He reaches his breaking point when a neighbour continues her quest to spoil his mornings and his alter ego Hazem appears. Hazem has greaser hair, smokes and drinks, has a way with girls and won't let anyone boss him around.

Saeed's latest assignment at the paper he works for causes both him and his alter ego to get mixed up in the robbing of a newly discovered Ancient Egyptian artefact. When Gamila gets unwillingly entangled in the robbery in her capacity as an Egyptologist, Saeed has to take a stand against Hazem to save the life of the woman he loves. 

This is Nedal El Shafei's film, and comes across as a Mohammed Saad / Ahmad Mekki hybrid. As Saeed his facial tics are really quite similar to that of Saad. While as Hazem, he brought to mind Mekki, especially during a choreographed dance scene to Michael Jackson's Dangerous. 

El Shafei's scenes show that he has the talent; he just needs the right material and better direction. There were some parts where he had to hold arguments between the two personalities and he'd switch his mannerisms and voice at a really rapid pace. During these scenes, you could always tell who was saying what and which identity was dominant at any given moment. He almost morphs into another person. Despite this, El Shafei is not helped by the direction. The director should have trusted the actor enough to convey the switching of identities without the background animal noises and the weird effects that were sometimes employed and which only served to give the film an amateurish feel. 

Story-wise, the film isn't very coherent. Saeed is shown to be working at a newspaper at the beginning of the film. The editor-in-chief gives him an assignment and this is apparently the set up for the rest of the film. The connection between the stolen artefact and the piece he was commissioned to write isn't made clear. Honestly, the latter seemed like a detail of no importance until the end of the film when the story finally clicks. 

The romantic subplot also needed to be fleshed out more. We're never given a reason as to why they're interested in one another, other than he's been sending her love letters for twenty years and that these letters are now a huge part of her life.

Despite the story's potholes and the amateurish effects employed, Ya Ana Ya Howashould be a stepping stone to projects that can better showcase El Shafei's talents. Until then however, this film offers a few entertaining scenes in the middle of an inconsistent and rather confusing whole.

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Bridesmaids: Smart Comedy That Won't Just Appeal To Women

This is a story about two lifelong best friends Annie (Wiig) and Lillian (Rudolph) whose lives are diverging wildly. Annie is broke, miserable and single while Lillian is happily engaged. Lillian chooses Annie to be her maid of honour, which is fine until she meets Helen (Byrne), a bridesmaid who is everything that Annie isn't. She's rich, married and glamorous; and she seems to have her whole life under control.

Calling this a straight comedy is kind of misleading. Bridesmaids is wickedly funny but at its heart it's about how Annie hits rock bottom then proceeds to pick herself up again. You'll laugh a lot, but you'll also cry, cringe and occasionally scream at the characters. It's about a woman that hates herself so much and who is completely lacking in self-esteem to the point that she puts up with a man who has no respect for her and routinely kicks her out of bed. 

The only person that Annie can rely on is her best friend Lillian and that relationship becomes increasingly strained during the wedding planning due to a class clash in the form of that certain bridesmaid called Helen. These crazies provide the kind of laughs that shake up your entire body especially when they're flying to Vegas and Annie gets high on pills and liquor. This also happens to be the best use of a Britney Spears song in a movie ever. In fact, the whole soundtrack is pretty awesome and includes everyone from Fiona Apple to Hole to Blondie.

The refreshing thing about this film is that it almost completely focuses on the women. For a change, it's the men that are defined by their relationships with the women instead of the other way round. This doesn't mean that all the women are three dimensional characters, though; in fact quite a few are walking stereotypes. The two men in Annie's life are basically used as shorthand for her relationship with herself. When she's at her most self-loathing, she hooks up with Ted (Hamm), and when she feels better about herself, she hangs out with Rhodes (O'Dowd). 

This isn't like most wedding-centric chick flicks that showcase demented bridezillas. Lillian's wedding isn't the reason behind Annie, Lillian and Helen's problems, but it is the catalyst.The film doesn't deal with their problems simplistically, and this allows the viewer to see the women as something more than shallow stereotypes.

Rudolph's Lillian is absolutely brilliant. She's torn between two worlds; the solidly working class one that she grew up in and the upper class world that she's marrying into. She shows just how difficult it can be to navigate both without losing your friends and, more importantly, losing yourself. Wiig's Annie is hilarious, desperate and completely messed up. You find yourself alternately wanting to cuddle her then yell at her, which makes the part where one of her friends finally slaps some sense into her hugely cathartic. While both Wiig and Rudolph are known for their comedic talents, they fully establish themselves here as nuanced actresses; and watching their friendship fall apart on screen is rather heartbreaking.

Bridesmaids is a smart comedy for adults. It's as touching as it is funny, and will appeal to both male and female audiences. It's right up there with the best of the comedy hits that we've seen in the last few years.

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Conan the Barbarian: Shallow Remake of Shallow Action-Fantasy

Jason Momoa is the lucky hunk chosen to star as this generation's Conan the Barbarian. Played famously by Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1982, the tale of the legendary warrior begins with him as a young man with a traumatised childhood.

With his mother having died giving birth to him, and his father Corin (Pearlman) murdered in front of him amid his village being pillaged and slaughtered, Conan believes that he was born on this Earth for one reason and one reason only; to become a fearless warrior.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that all this makes the perfect recipe for an epic vengeance mission, and so our hero must travel across the continent of Hyboria to find sorcerer Khalar Zym (Lang), and destroy him by any means necessary.

Conan the Barbarian's story is as predictable as the formula suggests, yet this is not its biggest downfall. Even the sometimes interesting journey of the protagonist's rise to valour is as two-dimensional as you're likely to see. We aren't naive enough to expect major character depth in a film like this, but there's almost no character arc with Conan; there is little change in his character throughout, and so there is little about him to make us root for him.

Moving on to the cast we must of course start with Momoa. There's no denying that his rough, good looks and sculpted figure make him great for the part (see him in television shows Stargate: Atlantis and Game of Thrones). Unfortunately, that's as far as it goes; as soon as Momoa uttered his first words, we knew we were in for a long hour-and-a-half. Usually anything would be an improvement on Arnie, but at least he's entertaining to watch; even if it is for the wrong reasons.   

As for the supporting cast, Rachel Nichols appears as nothing but a peripheral accessory, with nothing special to offer. Another disappointment comes in the form of Stephen Lang, who fails to channel the same bad-guy qualities into his role as Khalar Zym as he did inAvatar as the wicked Colonel Miles Quaritch.

All this aside, this might be one for those who love a bit of blood and gore. However, the action scenes are cluttered and hardly discernible. The poorly choreographed scenes are noticeably inferior to those in Clash of the Titans and 300. Even the 3D effects can't save the laboured visuals.

It'd be unfair to call this a failed attempt to revive what was actually quite a popular franchise, because in truth, the original wasn't that much better. The 80s were a much simpler time inHollywood, and the modern film-goer can no longer be fooled into enjoying something as shallow as this film.

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Bibo We Besheer: Quirky and Likeable Rom-Com

Besheer (Yaseen) works a Tanzanian translator for the Tanzanian coach of the Egyptian basketball team; a rather strange job to say the least. You'd think so, until you find out that Bibo (Shalaby) is a tabla player in a barely new musical group. It's not just strange jobs that the two stars of the film have in common. What brings the two together is their search for an apartment in Downtown Cairo. Besheer, sick of living under his father's iron fist at home, is in search for freedom, and Bibo must relocate fromPort Saidif she is to follow her musical dreams.

The heavens smile on the two, as they are able to combine their separate budgets to rent an apartment- but with a catch. Bibo has the apartment from 7AM to 8PM, and Besheer has it from 8PM to 7AM. Desperate as they are, they agree to the landlord's stipulation without ever knowing one another, and an impossible chance meeting between the two causes complications to this hidden arrangement as they fall for each other.

Despite the ridiculous plot, it's hard not to like this film. It's a little strange how the tone of the scenes differ greatly; pure comedy, straight drama and actually quite downbeat pessimism. What carries all this through though is the combination of Yaseen and Shalaby, who make for one of the best on-screen chemistries you're likely to see in this type of film. Yaseen really owns his role as Besheer, whereas Shalaby at times seems lost with her not-as-well-formed character Bibo.  

For your own sanity though, you will need to overlook the nonsensical coincidences that the plot relies on to move forward, but the film gives you enough incentive to do so. Debuting director Miriam Abo Ouf weaves her story well, but lacks the eye-for-detail of a seasoned filmmaker. That will come in time, and at least she has imposed a style of her own. The way she has chosen to film and edit together the basketball matches, and her depiction ofPort Saidis impressive.

Bibo and Besheer will not come even close to blowing you away, and the best we can say is that this is a nice and pleasant film. Not the most affecting of testimonies, but it sure beats some of the Eid and Ramadan films we've seen so this year.

Bibo and Besheer is thought to be loosely based on the 1985 Egyptian filmEl Sha'a Men Ha' El Zawga in which a football player and a single mother live together and try to drive each other out of an apartment they both claim ownership to.

About the Author

Staff Writer for Cairo 360 

Original article on:Cairo360