I have to admit that I have never read any of the famous Hergé comic books, so that I do not know how true Steven Spielberg's take on characters, topics and atmosphere is to the source material, but I am pretty sure that he injected a healthy dose of Indiana Jones into the mix that was not there before. But a healthy dose it is, and combined with a lot of visual gags (that may very well have originated with Hergé) and wonderful transitions between scenes it makes for a very enjoyable movie.

8 points

Edward Morra is a struggling writer in New York. His life is in as much of a mess as his apartment is, and his girl-friend is no longer willing to put up with it and has left him. But then he runs into the one figure, that for sheer tenousness, absurdity even, stands towering above all other of the potential relatives that can be foisted upon you, alone and multi-hyphenated, his ex-brother-in-law Vernon. Vernon used to be a drug dealer, but now he claims to be doing consulting work for a pharmaceutical company, and that the insanely expensive pill he presents to Edward with the promise to remove his writers' block has been through clinical trials and is FDA-approved. Edward takes the pill and it immediately and drastically increases his intellectual capabilities, allowing him to finish his book and turn his life around. But of course, there are side effects, addictive properties, withdrawal symptoms, supply issues, and violent criminal elements that soon come into play.

The movie is based on the 2001 novel The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn (which has now been renamed Limitless to match the movie, but its protagonist did not get the same treatment and is still called Edward Spinola). I was delighted to see it in the Kindle store on sale for just 1.49 Euro instead of the list price of 8.38. Too cheap to not get it.

7 points

A missing first half is not as much as a problem for a movie as a missing ending, is and I thought the ending (of the whole franchise nonetheless) was handled very well here. In fact, I understood more of what was happening and why than what I remember from the book (but maybe I was just reading too fast at the time). Even the ending after the ending (the part about the next generation), that I would rather have seen left off, was tolerable. Nice conclusion to the series.

7 points

Captain Jack is back! Johnny Depp's fellow leads Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom must have grown tired of the franchise, and director Gore Verbinski has left ship as well, but we get Penelope Cruz as Jack's former flame, and Geoffrey Rush is still aboard as rival pirate captain Barbossa (plus another little bit of Keith Richards as Jack's father, despite all the trouble he caused for the marketing department of the family-friendly Disney corporation last time around).

The story about the quest for the Fountain of Youth is inspired by Tim Powers' highly-praised 1987 novel On Stranger Tides which (as Wikipedia tells me) also served as a source of inspiration to The Secret of Monkey Island. I am not familiar with the book or the author, but have queued up some Kindle sample chapters now.

I know you are as bored about me talking about 3D as I am about 3D, but given the choice (like today), I am choosing 2D now.

6 points

I am probably repeating myself here, but I am so over 3D, and I wish Hollywood would have developed the same sentiment by now, but from what I can see we are not in the closing act of this period yet. For me, curiosity for the novel technology, with admiration for when it is well executed and makes sense (Avatar), has first given way to indifference (Alice in Wonderland), and now finally reached the point where it actually deters me from seeing a movie. Aggravating factors to the silliness: 3D movies are more expensive (so that we still had to pay, on top of our free ticket coupons, an amount that would be the full price of admission elsewhere), and Tron Legacy was only partly in 3D (the scenes that take place outside of the Grid are 2D), but the Chinese subtitles where in 3D all the time, so that you had to pick between headache from the glasses and headache from blurry kanji.

Jeff Bridges is back (The Dude meets Obi-Wan Kenobi) to reprise his role from the 1982 classic, as is Bruce Boxleitner, who at the time when I first saw it on TV was the bigger draw for me, thanks to Scarecrow and Mrs. King (Agentin mit Herz).

6 points

Even a movie that is part of a longer series and tells only a piece of the whole story needs to work, and should be judged, on its own. I believe this to be especially important when the film in question is not part of a trilogy (where a third of the whole is already a large fraction), or of a loose franchise (like James Bond, where it really does not matter how much of it you see and in which order). The Deathly Hallows are doubly burdened here, both as the seventh part of the story, and as the first part of that seventh film. This will not matter to Harry Potter fans, who will have read all the books, seen all the movies, and re-read and re-watched them again in preparation for this one, but I can only wonder how much the uninitiated can enjoy these 146 minutes.

I imagine it to be somewhat like this: You are thrown in the middle of a story, and do not really know who all these people are. That part is not a problem, too much exposition can be detrimental as well. A lot of things are happening on screen, that you do not understand the meaning, but enjoy the spectacle of, at least when the turn of events does not seem to be complete happenstance. You will get a very enjoyable heist sequence, an impression of the main characters' growing frustration, and a wonderful animated picture-book scene. You will probably miss any kind of showdown or resolution at the end, though. That last part was dealt with much better in the books and in the previous movies, but then again, this is only half a movie.

6 points

Leonardo DiCaprio is a professional mind-thief, who enters his victims' dreams to extract valuable information. It is a dangerous profession, not only because of the potentially brain-damaging activities themselves, but also because of its illegality and the powerful and ruthless players involved. Already on the run from the authorities, he now also has to deal with a crime syndicate that will not easily forgive a botched job. In good heist movie tradition, he accepts a very risky last assignment in exchange for a chance to clean his record. This time, it is not about stealing an idea, but about planting one, about inception.

9 points

Shortly after arriving in Shanghai, I saw the trailer for this spy thriller in the subway, and of course immediately decided that this would warrant my first trip to the cinema here. Back at home, I was shocked to find no trailer on Apple's site and hardly any information about it on IMDb, not even a poster. John Cusack, Gong Li, Chow Yun-Fat, Ken Watanabe, David Morse, and Franka Potente, produced by the Weinstein Company, apparently already finished two years ago and sitting on the shelves ever since. Last week world premiere at the Shanghai film festival, releases this year in selected European and East Asian markets, but still no US release date. No idea why, I cannot see anything wrong with this picture.

7 points (only the fifteenth vote on IMDb !)

Tim Burton's take on this classic story sees a nineteen year old Alice run off at her own engagement party to chase a well-dressed rabbit down a rabbit hole. As it turns out, the rabbit has been sent to find her, as Alice has been prophesied to lead an uprising against the cruel Red Queen, thus freeing Underland from her oppressive rule.

We saw the film in 3D, and all the trailers were also in 3D. Hollywood seems to have gotten really behind this idea, but I am already tired of it.

6 points

Same movies on the return flight, and I did not want to see Up on the tiny screen, had already seen Two Weeks Notice, Serendipity, and Million Dollar Baby, failed to get English subtitles for the Korean movies, and did not feel up to The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. So ...

• The Day the Earth Stood Still (5 points)
• The Happening (3 points)

Ever since winning immortality in a bet against the Devil (which of course was a trick and turned out to be more of a curse than a blessing), Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) is touring the world with his little theatre troupe. Unfortunately, the style of the performance has not aged very well and it is hard for them to attract an audience. Their fortunes seem to pick up when they find Tony (Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp, Jude Law, Colin Farell), hanging from a bridge with a rope around his neck.

6 points

The problem with watching movies on the plane's onboard entertainment system is that the pilot turns off the screen before landing. On today's flight to Tokyo that cost me the last twenty minutes or so of Crash.

• Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (7 points)
• District 9 (9 points)
• Crash (8 points)

Fortunately, I am staying at Imai-san's place, and his extensive DVD collection did indeed include Crash (which actually he got from me), so I was able to enjoy the conclusion.

In the opening scene, legendary detective Sherlock Holmes and his partner, Dr. Watson, help the rather dimwitted Scotland Yard investigators to arrest the serial killer Lord Blackwood. After that, several months pass without a new case, and a depressed and bored Holmes hardly leaves his messy apartments. Worst of all, Watson is planning to move out and get married. But then, Lord Blackwood, who has been hanged for his crimes, appears to have risen from the dead, and taken control of a well-connected secret society. It is up to Holmes and Watson to track him down and dispel his apparent supernatural powers.

Too much action, too big a villain, too much Dan Brown, and too much setup for future sequels, but fortunately, the magical tricks do get explained by the end (I was worried), and the dynamic between the two leads (Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law) keeps the film entertaining.

6 points

James Cameron has reportedly been working on Avatar since 1994, and wanted to start filming directly after finishing Titanic. Unfortunately, he felt that technology needed to catch up with his vision, and production slipped ten years. Even though the story is nothing new ( take your pick of Pocahontas, Dances with Wolves, or Last Samurai), and a bit thin for 162 minutes, the result is spectacular. All the new camera, editing, and CGI technology that Cameron has created for his movie have really paid off. Seasoned critics have compared Avatar to seeing Star Wars for the first time. I am too young to make such comparisons, but it is definitely up there with Jurassic Park. The computer-generated actors in particular are so much more life-like than for example in Beowulf two years ago.

Many of the tools and techniques pioneered by Cameron here will very soon trickle down into other productions and become mainstream, but I remain doubtful about 3D. It is very well done in Avatar, but it still seems to be more of a silly gadget and a desperate marketing ploy. I cannot see it working outside of big action movies, and even there, people will probably soon tire of it. If studios want a more immersive experience, they should look at higher resolution instead. Or invest in better storyboards.

8 points

While the cinema in the Plaza Indonesia (a shopping mall immensely larger than the one I live in) has eleven screens, they chose to allocate seven of them to be able to show a certain vampire drama for teenagers in fifteen minute intervals. As such, choices were limited and the director to bring me back in front of the silver screen AFTER FOUR MONTHS turned out to be not Quentin Tarantino, not Wes Anderson, but Roland Emmerich.

A rare alignment of planets leads to unusually strong solar flares, causing the Earth's crust to become dislodged and shift around. Emmerich follows up Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow with an even more thorough destruction of our planet. If he intends to top it in the future, he will have to blow it up entirely. Emmerich has assembled a very likable cast of actors, but unfortunately he also demonstrates that action sequences can be overdone. There is only so many times in a single movie that you need to see an airplane take off from a world that is falling away under it. In addition to being repetitive and ridiculously overblown, the constant assault also violates the premise that an action movie should build towards a climax.

5 points

SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE!

7 points

After three films shot in London, Woody Allen continues his European tour in Spain with his current muse (Scarlett Johansson) in tow. It is the story of two young American women (Johansson and Rebecca Hall) on a two-month summer trip to Barcelona, where their encounter with a charming local artist (Javier Bardem, who is quite handsome without Anton Chigurh makeup, in fact, he looks a lot like Robert Downey Jr.) has a lasting impact on their outlook on life and love, especially when he is later joined by his mentally unstable ex-wife (Penelope Cruz).

7 points

Where can I sign the petition for making a full season with this team? I am ready to pre-order the DVD boxed set unseen right now.

8 points

While Dan Brown's book Angels and Demons relates Robert Langdon's first high-speed murder-mystery chase across important cultural and religious locations in European capitals, and is hence the prequel to the Da Vinci Code, the timeline has been reversed for the movie. Some of the more outrageous stunts that Brown pulls in the book have been scaled back, too, and Ewan McGregor's character is no longer Italian, but Irish. Other than that, this is a very faithful adaptation, which unfortunately took away the suspense for me (Cissy had forgotten who would turn out to be the bad guy and was genuinely surprised at the end).

Discovery of the day: Nikolaj Lie Kaas as the assassin.

6 points