Body of Lies

Interesting action thriller from Ridley Scott. The movie is based on a novel with same title. The story deals around CIA operations in the Middle East and around the world, and what kind of dirty games is played in order to accomplish their missions.

The movie has some very minor similarities to one of my favourite movies, Spy Game, which was made by the brother of Ridley Scott, namely Tony Scott. I thought there would more similarities than actually was case. Still, this doesn’t spoil the watching experience.

Rating: 5 of 6

Dan Brown – The Lost Symbol

Interesting thriller novel from the author of The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons. This novel is pretty much like his previous book (The Da Vinci Code). Robert Langdon is back and a new controversy of epic dimensions is to be revealed. The brutal Silas from The Da Vinci Code is replaced with an even more evil villain; Mal'akh. And this time Freemason’s multiple century old secret is to be exposed. Help us, Robert Langdon.

The story of the book is catching, and highly enjoyable. Good entertainment actually. On the other side, the after climax story of the book is too boring and propaganda kind of stuff. (Actually, I slept twice when trying to read the last 10-20 pages). The author putted lots of effort to bring Freemasons in good light and trying to answer controversial questions around them. It seems like the author, Dan Brown, is Freemason himself.

Rating: 5 of 6

Skjult / Hidden

Pretty good thriller / horror movie. It uses several typical tricks in this genre, but still manages to be special. It is the team behind Villmark (Dark Woods) who made this one. Actually, it reminded me of both Villmark and Naboer (Next Door) which are both very good Norwegian horrors/thrillers.

The DVD lacks the commentary by the makers, thumbs down! The climax was actually pretty interesting, and let you think afterwards what actually happened. Therefore, I tried to see the last scenes with the commentary, but there weren’t any commentary…

Rating: 5 of 6

The Informant!

Funny drama from the director of Ocean’s 11-12-13 franchise. There are rumours that Matt Damon increased his weight with several kilos for this movie, and this can easily be noticed in the movie. The guy looks older, and this was the intention too.

It is based on true events about Mark Whitacre, and this also is described in a non-fictions book. Mark became a whistle blower when he confessed that his employer, ADM, is involved in the illegal activity of price fixing. This is also known as Lysine price-fixing conspiracy. Mark cooperates with FBI in order to get fewer penalties. But FBI will later regret this cooperation since their informer tends to be “unstable”…

The movie is funny, but I didn’t found many hilarious moments. Therefore, it failed to be added up as a top favourite in my book.

Rating: 4 of 6

Lost - Season 4

This is the best season of the Lost series. The concept of combining flashbacks, current events and flash forward works very well in order to tell the story.

Rating: 5 of 6

The Day The Earth Stood Still

All right interesting science fiction movie, this is based on a similar movie from the 50’s with same title. The story is about that the Earth is visited by some aliens, and the arrogant US authorities try to take care of this issue. (This is actually not that surprising after watching several Hollywood science fiction movies in where the Earth got visited by aliens).

Keanu Reeves is known for not using so much other face expressions than serious expressions. This works very well in this movie too, where his role demanded a particular body language.

Rating: 4/5 of 6

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

I wasn’t looking that much forward to this movie, since I am not a huge X-men fan. Since this one was available on Blu-ray, so I gave it a chance and got positively surprised. The move had a good starting and several good action scenes. Unfortunately, the focus moved to X-men etc in the ending, which reduced the experience.

Rating: 5/4 of 6

Sleeper Cell

All right interesting mini series. The story is about a Muslim FBI undercover who infiltrates a terrorist sleeper cell that is planning an attack. Some people have compared this series to 24, and the difference is that this series is much more drama oriented than 24, which focuses on intense thriller and action. Sleeper Cell was average entertainment, and had a couple of fantastic episodes and good executed climax. Several actors have delivered good performances.

Rating: 4/5 of

Kambakkht Ishq

All right comedy, and follows in the path of previous Akshay Kumar comedies. The humour is too much sex focused and the movie is not suitable for desi families. On the other hand, it is all right entertainment and has its hilarious moments sometimes.

Sylvester Stallone and Denise Richards are also part of this movie in order to create some cool factor around it.

Rating: 4 of 6

Varg Veum - Begravde hunder

Interesting thriller. This is the sixth and last movie in the series in this round, and there will be made six more movies.

The visual style of the movies has moved away from the style in the first two movies, but this works too. This movie is also directed by Alexander Eik who made the previous movie too.

Rating: 4/5 of 6

Luck

This movie desperately tries to be super cool by using effects like flashing scenes and fast edit clips. But this doesn’t help much when it lacks an interesting story and screenplay. The dialogues are just so over dimensioned and rather create boredom. For hardcore action fans, it’s a reasonable entertainment. For others, stay away.

Rating: 3 of 6

Varg Veum - Kvinnen i kjøleskapet

Good thriller in the Varg Veum series. Bjørn Floberg in his role as Hamre is just excellent. Alexander Eik is the director, and has done a good job.

Rating: 4/5 of 6

Kaminey

All right movie from Vishal Bharadwaj, who has also made Maqbool and Omkara. These two were inspired from William Shakespeare’s works, and I thought that this would also be for Kaminey. This movie is based on something else. It has some funny concepts, but wasn’t that good at all. Shahid Kapoor’s new look was interesting. All in all, it’s enjoyable entertainment.

Rating: 4 of 6

The Dark Knight

As mentioned in earlier comments (first time and second time):

One of the best and monumental movies of out times.

But I was somehow dissapionted that the Blu-ray don't include commentary by the makers in the background.

Rating: 6 of 6

Mannen som elsket Yngve / The Man Who Loved Yngve

I had lost the touch for Norwegian movies with several disappoints lately, but this movie regained the hope. The movie is based on a novel, and is good drama. The story deals around Jarle who has the best girl friend and the coolest best friend he could imagine. But then, a new boy, Yngve, joins his class and things starts to change…

As the title indicates, the movie has a bold topic, namely a homosexual relationship between boys. Despite this, as said earlier, the movie is good drama and entertainment.

Rating: 5 of 6

Surrogates

All right science fiction movie from director of Terminator 3, Jonathan Mostow. The movie concept is that in the future, people use so-called surrogates to do things. The surrogates are kind of robots which look like men, and people are connected with them in such a way that if the surrogate is experiencing something, the people will also feel it despite the distance between them.

The movie is all right entertainment, but don’t expect something revolutionary here. It misses several explanations for why things are in such a way.

Aftenposten managed to review this movie as a rubbish movie (tullefilm). The most interesting thing is that the review lacks every thing which has to do with professionalism, and some readers has defined the review as a rubbish review. Check it out here.

Rating: 4 of 6

In the Valley of Elah

All right drama thriller about a father with military background who experiences his son comes back from the war in Iraq and disappears. Neither the police nor the military is that enthusiastic to find out what actually happened.

The movie is above average entertainment and shows which slum direction the US is going.

Rating: 4/5 of 6