Another good film from 2016 albeit one that is getting mixed reviews is
"Passengers." I will agree that it is not a fantastic film but it is
most certainly entertaining and honestly isn't that really what a movie
is supposed to do?
Chris Pratt expands his resume with another good
role and he plays the hero very well in this film. Jennifer Lawrence -
what can I say except that I do not think she has been in a bad film
yet...well, she has not given a bad performance might be the better
thing to say. She also does a great job and the chemistry between her
and Chris Pratt is believable.
As for the story and plot of the film,
it was actually pretty good. I liked the concept and what happened from
a storyline perspective. If I had to find fault with anything it would
be that the film does start off a little slow and takes awhile to pick
up steam. But once it does, the action is good.
The other issue I have
is the small parts that some of the other actors such as Andy Garcia and
Lawrence Fishburne (an excellent actor) have but then again it is what
had to be based on the film's story. Overall a good film to watch over
the holidays.
Brad Pitt's gonna be 53 this year and he's still got it. He's 3-for-3. Allied isn't just his third war movie, it's his third damned good war movie (after Legends ofthe Fall and Fury).
What separates Allied from the pack is the fact that it's a throwback. And not just because it takes place during World War II. The movie itself is like an old Hollywood film. I'm talking black-and-white Hollywood. It's at least partly an homage to Casablanca and Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious.
Just like Notorious, Allied is about two people, one of whom is an intelligence agent, who fall for each other during an undercover mission to infiltrate Nazis. And like that movie, the mission involves the lovebirds attending a Nazi party at a mansion. Wait -- it gets deeper. Trust is the central theme of Hitchcock's film and the same applies here. By the way, Notorious hit theaters exactly 70 years ago in 1946.
Just like in Casablanca, the hero of the story pressures someone close to him to play the piano. And check this out: A lot of what happens in Allied actually takes place in Casablanca, Morocco.
Before the movie was released it was surrounded by bad press due to the fact that Angelina Jolie filed for divorce from Brad because he was rumored to have crept with his leading lady, Marion Cotillard. If he did, then history has repeated itself because that's how Angelina got him in the first place. Brad was married to Jennifer Anistonwhen Angelina snatched him up while they were making his first movie about a spy couple, Mr. & Mrs. Smith. But trust me, Allied is way better.
And by the way, like it or not, a movie star cheating on his or her spouse with their co-star is just one more piece of old-school Hollywood tradition. One more thing: Both Casablanca and Notorious are headlined by an A-list American movie star (Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant) and an A-list European leading lady (Ingrid Bergman). Brad's as A-list as you get in the U.S. and Cotillard's one of France's biggest stars.
Ok, close your eyes. Think about one of those old-school black-and-white movies you saw on TCM. Now, pretend it's in color, is full of action and uses modern special effects. That's Allied.
