Movie Reviews - Safe Haven ;The Great Gatsby and Fast & Furious 6

Last week I did something I haven't done in a very long time, defintitely not during my working years.. I watched three movies at the cinema.. All at Nu Metro ( I like the popcorn more than Ster Kinekor as well as the cheaper prices with my Clicks card or Monte Casino loyalty card).

Safe Haven

On Monday I decided to have some family bonding time with my parents and we went to the movies. When we lived in Cape Town we used to go to Numetro's woza Wednesday at least 2-3 times a month but since we're back in joburg it just never seems to happen.

Either way on Monday we were at Monte Casino to watch Safe Haven. I thought we were going to watch Olympus will Fall but turns out my dad didn't want to put my mother through and action and we ended up with a romance/drama/thriller.

I read Nicholas Sparks' Novel last year sometime and to be honest I viewed it more as a drama but in the adaptation the movie definitely had more of a suspense/thriller feel which was interesting and actually worked.

Although Julianne Hough looked how "Katie" was described at no point did her body fit in with the book description. I distinctly remember that she was suppose to be skin and bones and well, in the movie there was not a single scene where Julianne did not look absolutely beautiful!

The movie was surprisingly good and due to it's casting of Josh Duhamel in the male lead it offcially became a better story than the book.

Katie is a girl on the run, she has dark secrets and clearly wants to be left alone. She has trust issues, excpet for her neighbour, Jo who she talks to with ease.
The difference between the book and the movie is that in movie Katie at times makes herself more than availabel for Alex and her version of hard to get is as hard as marshmellow egg :)

For me, Alex's daughter, Mimi Kirkland as Lexie Wheatley was the show stealer. She is pretty and so adorable. I look forward to seeing her in many more movies.

All in all, without giving too much away the movie was enjoyable as was the book. The "bad"guy was perfectly cast and the suspense and miinor changes made to the book were all executed beautifully. This is a definite date night winner; romance, a lttle bit of drama and some action for the guys!

The Great Gatsby

"I hope she'll be a fool--that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool..."
 - Daisy Bucannan

And a beautiful full she really is!

On Tuesday, Candice and I went to watch The Great Gatsby, we figured that not many people will want to watch the movie with us so we decided to make is a twosome which also got us some bonding time, good entertainment and awesome Leo time!

In my first year of varsity, this was one of my set works for English Lit but I have to admit that I don't think I ever read the book properly! However, I know if our film study was based on this version of Baz Lurhman's The Great Gatsby I would have been engrossed in it.

Firstly, I am such a Leo DiCaprio fan and I have enjoyed almost every movie I have ever watched of his so when I heard he was the lead for the movie, I was already excited BUT whatever I felt about him was just about to skyrocket after watching this poor man be so in love with Daisy that I am embaressed to say that I was overwhelmed in that moment when Gatsby sees Daisy for the first time. It was so magical that the romantic in me was so caught up in the moment I forgot that I was in fact watching Leo and then when I did realise I was ever more ecstatic.

Secondly, Baz Lurhmann's take on the movie is for lack of a better word - is beautiful. The movie exudes all things that I have come to associate with Baz Lurhuman in the OTT manner which the movie is set down to the raw emotion he manges to pull out of his leading men.

The great Gatsby may not be a movie for all movie goers but it is a beautifully put together movie with brilliant casting. You do end up hating Daisy even if you wanted to like her she dissappoints.

Isla Fisher is so well masked i didn't even realise she was in the film until Candice pointed it out to me! Tobey Maguire, although a good actor is once again forgetable for me and not sure he  needed to play Nick.

I must say the downfall of the movie for me is the soundtrack. In fact it really irritated me and once the badly placed Jay Z and Beyonce songs stopped playing I was able to concentrate on the movie.

Fast & Furious 6

Fast and furious 6 was brilliant. I must admit I was extremely skeptical considering we waited several years or Vin Diesel and Paul Walker to reunite and now we can't stop them from filming together.

However the movie did not disappoint. It was full of action, cars and man candy!!! 

Admittedly all the man candy is aging but if there is person who is making getting older look good, it's Paul Walker! Those eyes could make me forget my name!

Anyway the search for Lettie doesn't take much and as it turns out she's still as hard core as you remember her and she really makes Dom work for her.. There are many unrealistic moments in the movie like Vin Diesel jumping out of his car ad flying across the highway and catches Lettie mid air and they don't die??? I suppose it wouldn't have been as much fun to lose your lead actor for trying to save the woman he loves.. 

The Rock, Dwayne Johnson really worked out for this film but the funny thing is that whoever may have looked buff in the film, they ended up looking smaller next to the next actor eg: Paul walker/Tyrese Gibson look small in front of Vin Diesel and then he looks tiny in front of The Rock and then he looks small in front of that other bad guy... 

 

As a complete side note they dressed  Brian very old man like which definitely shows his character growth from the first movie and Mia well Jordana Brewster has lost a lot of weight which I'm not a huge fan of, frankly I wanto shake her and say "Please eat something!"

I also laughed out loud more than a couple of times from the banter between Ludacris and Tyrese continued.

Have you watched anything interesting recently or if you've watched any of these movies what did you think?