jmmustchin

The first instalment in the Harry Potter series is fun, charming, and magical. The plot moves along smoothly with a few genuinely surprising twists and turns. The actors are generally quite good. The special effects, while occasionally showing their age, are fantastic. The thing that immediately drew me in, though, was the music score. John Williams really outdid himself here - it gives a mysterious, magical, and charming feel to it. I also really liked the care and attention to detail that went into this movie - the costumes, all the details about Hogwarts, etc. A truly fantastic fantasy film.

The Towering Inferno was one of the blockbuster all-star disaster movies of the 1970s, alongside Airport, The Poseidon Adventure, etc. In the film, the tallest building in the world has just been opened. The Mayor of San Francisco and a United States Senator are attending the opening. However, the owner's son-in-law (Richard Chamberlain) has taken several legal shortcuts in the building's construction. A shorted-circuit sets a fire in a maintenance room that goes unnoticed for several hours. When it finally is discovered, it's too entrenched, and the entire building - at least for the upper residential storeys (at the bottom of which the fire started) - will burn. Unfortunately, the party is right at the top of the building.

First up, this movie will likely scare young children. It's intense, and the special effects are incredibly real-looking, even today. However, it's extremely well done, and quite good. It's provides a sombre look at legal short-cuts in buildings. (I watched it shortly after the Grenfell Tower tragedy.) Highly recommended.

Die Hard 2 is not as good as the original Die Hard (to be expected), but it's exciting & loads of fun. The first time I watched it, I liked it, but was slightly mixed. Then I watched it a second time, and found I was fully on board, loving every single second of it (well, except for one unnecessarily violent moment in the latter half of the movie, but it certainly does NOT affect the movie's quality). A year after the first film, John McClane must leap into action AGAIN to deal with terrorists trying to prevent a South American drug lord. As mentioned, it's heaps of fun. There's lots of great action, as well as a great sense of humour. There are several humorous references to McClane going through a similar experience yet AGAIN, second Christmas in a row. And the story is pretty good - and kinda scary, like the original.

And like the first, it's quite violent (and full of swearing - albeit not as much as the first), and isn't suitable for children. With the exception of a throat-slitting scene, I wasn't bothered by it.

A fun & thoroughly entertaining joy ride.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this film. And I admit I was one of the scoffers when I first heard about it. "Indiana Jones and aliens don't mix!" was my thought. Nonetheless, last night I FINALLY gave it a go. And was quite pleasantly surprised.

The film is set in 1957, 19 years after Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Indy has been captured by the Soviets and forced to help them find a crate in Area 51 containing alien remains from the Roswell crash. He manages to escape, and is subsequently informed by the military that the Colonel who had kidnapped him was obsessed with the psychic. Indy is subsequently fired from his college due to the FBI's interest in him. A guy named Mutt Williams comes to him looking for a mutual friend named Professor Oxley, who went missing after claiming to have found a Crystal Skull linked to the legendary El Dorado. In addition, his mother's been kidnapped. Indy starts to look into it, and has to dodge Soviet agents along the way.

OK, I find it hard to do the plot justice without giving away spoilers. My apologies for the poor plot summary. However, the movie's plot is extremely interesting. In fact, I think it's THE most interesting of the Jones movies. Especially to a conspiracy theorist like me (the original Indiana Jones movies were based around historical legends/facts; this one's based around conspiracy theories). It's very exciting and fun to watch, and no more unbelievable than the other Jones movies (before one condemns some unrealistic stunts: they're literally no more unbelievable than those in The Temple of Doom). The special effects were really good; the movie is visually stunning. And quite funny. Again, I can't give anything away, but it's a hoot. Like any Indy film, it's quite fun to watch. I actually find the film quite refreshing. It's definitely on par with the originals.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is the second (chronologically first) Indiana Jones movie, following Raiders of the Lost Ark (which I loved). It's set a year before Raiders, in 1935.

But first, some historical background for the movie. The Thuggee - often called the Thugs (where we get our word Thug) were a religious criminal cult that operated in India between the mid-1300s to the mid-1800s. They were quite vicious. Many - probably most - Thugs were Hindus, who targeted caravans (pretending to be travelers to gain the other travelers' trust), killing travelers as a human sacrifice to their goddess Kali. They strangled the person, and afterwards mildly mutilated part of the body. They usually robbed the persons they killed. They often recruited the children of their victims, with the presence of children dampening other travelers' suspicions. A very large minority of Thugs were Muslims who killed - in pretty much the same way - purely for the riches. All were superstitious, however, and believed themselves the offspring of Kali. The British began to learn of the problem in the early 1800s, and began to take action against them. They largely suppressed the Thugs in the 1830s, and they disappeared completely (as far as anyone knows, anyway) in the 1870s.

OK, now that that's out of the way, what about the movie?

Temple of Doom focuses on the evil Thugs, in particular on the area of uncertainty when any cult dies out: do they secretly exist underground?

In the movie, Indiana Jones, Willie Scott and Short Round just escape from Hong Kong after falling afoul of a crime lord. However, the plane they hopped in is owned by the crook! The pilots sabotage the plane and bail out. After failing to stabilise the plane, Indy, Willie and Shortie are forced to bail out over India - just before the plane crashes and explodes.

After an unrealistic (but funny) ride down a mountain on an inflatable rubber dinghy (yes, they bailed out of the plane in that), they come across a village where all the children are missing, and the people are practically starving. They are informed that an evil cult operating unsuccessfully tried to convert them, before burning their crops, stealing their sacred Sankara Stone (which allegedly has supernatural properties), and kidnapping their children. One of the missing children - severely malnourished - returns that night, and reveals he escaped from Pankot Palace. The next day, Indy, Willie and Shortie set off for Pankot.

Indy learns that Pankot Palace was once, a hundred years beforehand, the base for a Thuggee cult. A British army officer is there, investigating reports of a revived Thuggee cult operating out of the palace. Pankot's Maharajah and Prime Minister, Chattar Lal, give them hospitality but, partly to scare them off, serve them with disgusting food that Indians don't normally eat. Lal in particular acts slightly suspiciously - especially when Indy confronts him at dinner about the palace's history, and the evidence for the Thugs operating out of there.

That night, after Willie and Indy (who had been developing romantic feelings for each other) have an argument, a Thuggee assassin attempts to kill Indy, but Indy and Shortie kill him. Indy then goes to Willie's room searching for an assassin there, but doesn't find one. Instead, he finds a secret booby-trapped passageway (crawling thickly with insects - really upsetting Willie) leading to an underground Thuggee temple.

Now, up to this point the movie was really fun to watch. It was quite good. To this day, I would give the first half of the movie a 9 or 10. But from the moment they entered the temple, things changed. It became much darker and more horrific. This is when they introduce the historical Thuggee cult in action.

Indy and Willie stumble across the temple just in time for a human sacrifice. Not the strangling one that the real Thugs did (which would have been uncomfortable to watch), but ripping the heart out (a nod to the mild mutilating the Thugs did) and lowering the poor victim into a lava pit - somehow still alive. It's a very horrible scene to watch. It's shown in as much detail as possible - even reaching into the chest.

From then, it just deteriorates into horror. After the ceremony, Indy tries to take one of the three Sankara stones place in front of the giant (and horribly ugly) idol of Kali. He then discovers that the Thugs are using the kidnapped children as slaves in a mine in horrible conditions (a nod to the historical recruiting of their victims). The trio are captured. After being whipped (along with Shortie), the Thuggee high priest forces Indy to drink blood or something from from a ROTTING SKULL. This again is really uncomfortable to watch. Especially as the drink puts Indy into a trance and makes him an evil slave.

Shortie is made a slave in the mine, while Willie is selected as the next sacrifice. It was at this point that we turned the TV off.

This movie has a really interesting premise - probably more historically based than the other movies in the series. There is certainly a greater threat to the world. As the high priest explained, they are mining for the two remaining Sankara Stones (in addition to mining diamonds and jewels to fund their operation). Once they have all 5, their full power will be unleashed, and they will take over the world for Kali. In his words, "The British in India will be slaughtered. Then we will overrun the Muslims and force their "Allah" to bow to Kali. And then the Hebrew God will fall and finally the Christian God will be cast down and forgotten." I always found that part interesting.

But in the end, the movie (the middle part, anyway) is just too horrific to watch (unless you've got a very strong stomach). I don't know that I'd recommend it (unless you've got a good constitution).

The first half of this movie was really, really good. A kid obsessed with all things alien starts receiving mysterious dreams - and then his friends start sharing his dream! Using the circuit design shown in the dream, they are lead to build a small spaceship - where they are pulled into space. Unfortunately, from here the movie fell apart. The "climax" is too long and rather uncomfortable (and hardly a climax). You come out of it feeling you could have found a better way to spend your time.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is set two years after Raiders of the Lost Ark, and three years after Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Indie (Harrison Ford) and his father, Professor Henry Jones (Sean Connery), find themselves in a globe-trotting adventure to find the Holy Grail before the Nazis can get their hands on it. The film is quite exciting and very funny. It had a much lighter tone and lower violence than the previous films. It's also funnier than the others. The actors do a good job, especially Sean Connery. He provides such humour to both his role and the film. Many people criticise the Indie-Henry relationship in the film. I think it's the best damn relationship/interaction in the whole series! The Last Crusade is in my opinion the equal of Raiders.

A Bug's Life was Pixar's second film, and while it was a commercial and critical success, it's one of their lesser-known films. A pity - because it's pretty darn good! It's about a colony of ants, who send one of their hated members (an inventor who ALWAYS messed up WITHOUT FAIL) on a dope mission to find warrior bugs to protect them from the grasshoppers who were their de facto overlords. He finds what he thinks are warrior bugs - but which are actually circus bugs - and brings them back to the nest.

The animation probably doesn't look much compared to, say, Inside Out, but it's still pretty good. The story's excellent - an oppressed people rising up against their oppressors. But, it's also a character story, with great character development all round.

It's good.

I know the conventional wisdom is that Back to the Future Part III is the weakest film in the trilogy. And while it's certainly the least original - it's a Western remake of the original Back to the Future - but it's my personal favourite. Beginning exactly where Back to the Future Part II left off (you need to watch these movies in chronological order or you WON'T get them). Marty (with the 1955 Doc Brown's help) heads back to 1885 to save Doc, who is about to be murdered by Biff Tannen's great-grandfather, Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen. But once he arrives in 1885, the DeLorean was damaged by an Indian arrow - leaking all the fuel (irreplaceable) and rendering the car out of service for the next several decades. Doc and Marty must try and find a way to get the DeLorean up to 88 miles per hour - while at the same time staying out of Tannen's hair. But things are further complicated when Doc falls in love with a teacher.

Again, the movie's a remake of the original. But it's a fun remake, but all the charm, humour, and climatic almost-doesn't-make-it tension that fans have come to expect. What effects are used are quite good. It also provides a very satisfying conclusion to the trilogy (and yes, it's a definite conclusion). A great movie.

Despite being released 30 and a half years ago, I never saw Die Hard until last night. I have zero regrets whatsoever about watching it, and got quite a kick observing how movies like White House Down and Skyscraper borrow from it. I WON'T touch on the stupid argument over whether or not Die Hard is a Christmas movie.

It's Christmas Eve. NYPD officer John McClane (Bruce Willis) arrives in LA to see his estranged wife and kids. As he waits for the Christmas party at his wife's workplace to finish, a group of terrorists led by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) quickly take over the building and take the guests as hostages. McClane, however, manages to evade the crims without them realising he exists. The crooks are after the business owner's bonds - worth quite a lot of money - and murder him after he refuses to give them the codes to the vault. McClane must try and alert the authorities and at the same time stay one step ahead of the crooks - and kill/defeat them.

It's a highly fun and exciting action movie. Be warned that it's rather violent with a LOT of swearing (especially the F word) & is NOT suitable for (pre-teen) children. Some might consider the early parts of the movie scary. I love the tension and even the occasional humour in the movie. As mentioned, it was highly amusing spotting where Roland Emmerich and Rawson Marshal Thurber mimicked Die Hard.

As the title suggests, Back to the Future Part II is the second installment in the Back to the Future trilogy. It picks up immediately where the original Back to the Future left off - Marty, Doc and Jennifer going into the future (2015 - our past LOL) to "fix" Marty and Jennifer's kids futures. However, the old Bill Tannen quietly nabs the DeLorean and drastically alters the past, making the present dystopian. Doc and Marty (Jennifer is passed out) must try to work out where Biff altered the timeline, and prevent the altering.

This film is the darkest of the trilogy, and the weakest. But it's the most original of the BTTF sequels, and everything in it - even the scenes I used to dislike - fits and works perfectly. It's the most complex movie in the series. A perfectly done movie.

The Scarlet Pimpernel is a romantic drama adventure set against the backdrop of the bloody French Revolution. While hundreds of aristocrats are being guillotined purely for accident of birth or marriage, the elusive Scarlet Pimpernel succeeds in rescuing a few condemned souls from the chop, secreting them out of the country. The Pimpernel publicly passed life as Sir Percy Blakeley, Baronet, a fop who cares about nothing but fashion. While the French government (in particular their agent Chauvelin) hunts the elusive Pimpernel, Percy falls in love with the beautiful French actress Marguerite St Just (whose brother Armand works in the French Government, despite being a secret dissenter), and marries her.

The movie is brilliantly scripted & executed. The acting is brilliant - especially from Ian McKellan as Chauvelin, and Anthony Andrews as Percy/The Pimpernel. Jane Seymour plays Marguerite quite well. The tension and drama is played out very well, as is the romance. The costumes are very well done and quite beautiful.

This television movie is more cinematic (and of better quality) than many - perhaps most - movies released in cinema.

I originally saw Back to the Future on TV when I was young. Several years later, my brother bought the 30th Anniversary Trilogy box set. What a trip down Memory Lane!

Back to the Future is a brilliant movie. Teenager Marty McFly (Michael J Fox) accidentally travels back in time in a car his friend Doc Brown had invented - shortly after Brown is murdered by Libyan terrorists. He meets the younger Doc and convinces him that he is a genuine time traveler. But while they figure out a way to send Marty back to the future, they realise that Marty accidentally interfered with his parents' first meeting - endangering his own existence. They must not only work on returning Marty back to 1985 (he went back to 1955), but they must get Marty's parents to fall in love.

The movie's brilliantly scripted. It's very funny. The acting is good. And the effects (when used) are quite good. To quote one critic's praise, "It wastes very little in the way of dialogue". EVERYTHING that's said is put in there on purpose. Pay close attention throughout the film. It's hugely fun to watch. A true masterpiece.

In 65 million BC, an asteroid is hurtling towards earth, making a devastating impact. Charlton Heston narrates: "This is the earth at the time the dinosaurs roamed a lush and fertile planet. A piece of rock just six miles wide changed all that. It struck with the force of 10,000 nuclear weapons. A million tons of dirt and rock hurtles into the atmosphere, creating a suffocating blanket of ash and dust the sun was powerless to penetrate for 1000 years. It happened before. It will happen again. It's only a matter of when."

In the present, the shuttle Atlantis is destroyed in space by a meteor shower. Not knowing what's heading their way, the US upgrades to DEFCON 3. The meteors bombard the north Atlantic, with massive destruction shown in New York. At the same time, an amateur astronomer spots a mysterious anomaly in space.

NASA Director Dan Truman, on speaking with the amateur, moves the Hubble Telescope, and spots a Texas-sized asteroid on a direct collision course with earth. It'll hit in 18 days. "It doesn't matter where it hits. Nothing will survive - not even bacteria."

Thus begins 1998's most successful film, ARMAGEDDON. As you can guess from it's opening, it's a highly fun action-disaster film. True, it's science fiction, and it's not scientifically accurate - but who cares? It's highly fun to watch. There are some awkward scenes in the first half of the film - but the second half more than makes up for it. The action is awesome, the premise is scary (especially when one considers that in real life, WE COULDN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT), and the special effects are AWESOME!

An awesome movie.

This is a sequel to K-9 Adventures: A Christmas Tale (2013). I saw this movie a long time before I saw the original. It's not nearly as good as the original, but it's good enough - particularly for kids. Kassie and crew return to track down a long-lost town treasure - and beat the crims to it. Some adults might find it boring, although I personally don't. Kids will definitely love it. I'd say it's fairly (maybe moderately) good.

I saw this movie's sequel, K-9 Adventures: Legend of the Lost Gold, long before I saw K-9 Adventures: A Christmas Tale (this movie's REAL title - LOL). I liked it, and eventually saw this as a result. And it's even better than the second one!

Kassie Stevenson and her family have just moved to Heber Valley, and is the "new girl" struggling to fit in at school. She soon finds a lost and injured dog, whom she doesn't realise is a police dog named Jake. She takes him in and names him Scoot. She becomes active in the local church choir in a similar fashion to "Sister Act".

But what she doesn't realise is that Scoot was lost and injured chasing a couple crooks - who are now targeting the Heber Valley Bank.

The movie's kinda cheesy, and certainly not "great movie" material. But, it's handled surprisingly well, and is actually really good. A definite Christmas movie.

WARNING: THIS IS AN ADULT COMEDY. NO KIDS ALLOWED!

Now that we've got that out of the way, let's get on with the film. Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel star as two people who hate each other - ever since a couple mutual friends arranged a blind date, which went horribly. However, when those friends die, Heigl and Duhamel's characters are jointly left with their baby. There is naturally a bit of friction. Both characters have to mature, to try and get along, and to try and raise the baby.

The story is handled quite well. Just remember that it's an adult romantic comedy, and that it's not suitable for children. The story's well-scripted, and the acting was fine. The film had plenty of drama. But it also had LOTS of comedy - real laughs comedy, most of the time. True, some of it's a little crude, but we're adults watching an adult comedy, so who cares?

Overall a very satisfying film.

Zootopia is both a comedy and a thriller - and a children's animated film. For a children's film, it deals with surprisingly serious topics, as it doubles as a social parody (and NO, it ISN'T left-wing - THANKFULLY). Judy Hopps is a cute bunny (who'll get annoyed if you call her that) who manages to secure her dream job of becoming a police officer in the city of Zootopia - although she faces the challenge of a boss who holds old prejudices and simply isn't interested in a bunny as a cop. However, Judy soon finds herself on a missing mammal case with a very reluctant (and just a shade on the wrong side of the law) fox which has huge implications.

The animation in this film is terrific - among the best I've ever seen (alongside Finding Dory). The voice acting is good. Ginnifer Goodwin is literally PERFECT as the voice of Judy. No-one else could have done it half as good. Jason Bateman is similarly perfect as the fox, Nick Wilde. I was unsure initially about the voices of a couple less important (but still important) characters, but now I can't imagine them with another voice. The movie is both exciting and funny and mysterious. In short, great!

The Ten Commandments is based on the true story of Moses and the Exodus, as told in the Bible. While there is considerable license, the film is fairly accurate and quite enjoyable. To make it as accurate as possible, the filmmakers consulted many other ancient texts, such as Josephus, Philo, Jasher (which they didn't realise was a 16th-century forgery), and I think perhaps even the Talmud. In doing so (particularly in innocently consulting Pseudo-Jasher), Cecil B DeMille made some errors in the film - but his heart was in the right place in doing so, and I respect his efforts to make the film as historically accurate as possible. There are other accurate historical elements (such as Moses' invasion of Ethiopia) which are put in the film. The film is quite well scripted, and gets the basic story right.

The acting is superb. Yul Brynner is definitely the best performer in the film - his portrayal of the stubborn Pharaoh Ramses II is just brilliant. His best performance. Charlton Heston is almost as good as Moses. He's always a good actor, and no less here. His casting did present some accuracy issues (particularly Moses' stutter - in the movie he's a great speaker), but Heston generally nails it. Many people condemn the character of Nefretiri, but I actually think she's one of the more interesting additions. She adds quite an interesting element, and I'm glad they included her. Anne Baxter does a good job in playing her.

The special effects in this film are incredible - especially considering the movie's from 1956. Some of the effects are dated, but they generally still awe me today. The best effects scene - in fact, what is possibly the greatest scene in all of cinematic history - is the Red Sea Crossing. It's absolutely epic - sheer cinema at its best.

I really like the strong themes of the film - both of freedom and anti-totalitarianism, and that true freedom comes from obeying God's commandments as contained in the Torah (which is summed up in Moses' problematic-for-Christians-who-think-the-Torah-is-done-away-with line "there is no freedom without the law".

Overall, a great movie. I've actually at times felt quite refreshed just watching it.

When I first saw The Sound of Music as a kid, I loved it. Then I watched a documentary about Marie Von Trapp's real life, and realised that the movie was nothing like reality. My opinion of the film dropped considerably. Then, a month or two ago, I sat down and watched the movie without prejudice, without comparing it to real life, just considering it purely as a movie.

I love it! It may not be close to real life, but it's quite enjoyable. Julie Andrews - a year after her breakthrough it Mary Poppins - stars as Marie, a nun who doesn't fit in at the convent, and who is assigned as a governess for 7 children - who don't want a governess. The children and Marie bond, and romance blossoms between Marie and the children's hard father, Captain von Trapp (Christopher Plummer). However, the Nazis are on the rise.

It's quite fun to watch, with lots of fun songs, and a nice story. I now quite enjoy it.

I've only seen the first half of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (or Star Wars as it was originally called, which my Mum still calls it), as the second half wasn't on YouTube at the time (drat!). But what I saw was more than enough to thrill and entertain me! It's a fun-to-watch sci-fi/fantasy movie. The special effects are incredible. In short, I was thoroughly enthralled!

However, I do have one bone to pick with the movie: the New Age themes. Particularly when Obi-Wan Kenobi uses mind control (which I staunchly oppose - it's unjustifiable). Still, it's overall a fun and enjoyable science fiction adventure.

This adaption of Rudyard Kipling's classic The Jungle Book is quite different from most others. And while it's probably different from the book, that doesn't affect the film's quality. It's much more of an adventure. Mowgli was separated from the humans as a youngster, and raised by animals. As an adult, he is found and recognised by a human childhood friend, and brought back to civilisation. However, he doesn't fit in, and someone wants to use him to find the legendary treasure city deep in the jungle.

The movie's somewhat intense and a little scary. Many think it's not suitable for younger children - but I saw it as a fairly young child, and really enjoyed it. So yes, it is suitable.

I borrowed this from the library by accident - I mistook it for the 1994 version. But, I actually quite enjoyed this one. I don't like it as much as the other (1967, 1994 & 2016) adaptions, but it's quite good in it's own right. The movie is much more faithful to the book than other adaptions, although there are still (naturally) considerable differences (who cares?). Mowgli is a "man cub" who wanders off as a toddler into the jungle, and is raised by wolves. When older, while running from Shere Khan, he discovers the man village - the same one he wandered away from (although he doesn't know this - or how to speak any human language). Although he adapts to human life, he has the disapproval of the village chieftain. That's all I'll say.

The story is quite well done, as are the comic moments. The acting is alright. The setting is handled quite well. The effects (animals which are clearly not real, and snakes talking) is so-so. But remember that this movie was made in 1942. They're tolerable.

An overall enjoyable movie.

Independence Day is (in my opinion) one of the two greatest disaster movies ever made, alongside Deep Impact. The movie begins on July 2nd, when an enormous alien space craft is seen passing by the moon. The US military soon detect the anomaly. A series of city-sized craft are released from the mothership, and take up position over many of the world's major cities. Electronics expert David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) decodes an alien signal indicating they are going to attack. He manages to warn President Whitmore (Bill Pullman) and flee Washington - just barely escaping the city's destruction. The heat rays in the alien craft obliterate all of the major cities that had craft parked over them - and almost all of their inhabitants. They then begin moving from city to city, intending to exterminate humanity. The survivors must regroup, band together and fight back against the alien invaders.

The movie is very exciting, with brilliant tension (especially in the half hour before the cities' destruction - man, is that a breath-holder!). The acting is splendid - especially from Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum. The movie is also brilliantly plotted. It has a considerable air of mystery about it, which adds to the delightful experience that watching it is.

But the special effects in this movie are INCREDIBLE. Quite honestly, this movie contains among the best - and certainly most real-looking - effects I've ever seen (the only movies I've seen with more real-looking effects being the first two Jurassic Parks). They're so real, they're almost scary.

And, by the way, I highly recommend viewing the Extended Version. It's better - and makes more sense.

Are you ready for a kick-ass combination of The Towering Inferno and Die Hard? Because that's exactly what you're gonna get with Skyscraper!

Dwayne Johnson plays Will Sawyer, a former FBI Hostage Rescue agent who lost his leg 10 years prior in a mission that went wrong. He gave up FBI and went into security analysis.

In the present day (which appears to be future), in Hong Kong, a Chinese businessman named Zhao has built a new skyscraper called The Pearl, which is the tallest building in the world (I can hear the "Yep, Towering Inferno" groans). The lower half (the first 95 floors) are open to the public. The remaining floors - all residential - are closed off pending Sawyer's analysis (although Sawyer's family are staying above the 96th floor).

However, a notorious Scandinavian terrorist sets the building ablaze - trapping Sawyer's family (and Zhao) above the fireline. And Sawyer has been framed for the arson. He must save his family and find and stop the bad guys.

The movie is VERY tense and exciting, and hugely fun to watch. I love all of Sawyer's near-misses - they create so much tension. Johnson's acting is brilliant, as usual. But this time he is more authentic, more real. I think this is possibly his best acting yet (that I've seen). Despite some people's claims, the villains are actually well done, with realistic motives.

And the visuals of this movie are dazzling. They're incredible.

I LOVE this movie's climax (although I won't spoil anything about it). It's frigging' awesome - as is the whole movie.