Short Review

21 Jump Street

DVD / Blu-ray, Short Review

Director: Phil Lord, Chris Miller

Jonah Hill … Schmidt
Channing Tatum … Jenko
Brie Larson … Molly Tracey
Dave Franco … Eric Molson
Rob Riggle … Mr. Walters
DeRay Davis … Domingo
Ice Cube … Captain Dickson

Synopsis: The old 21 Jump Street program was discontinued at some point but someone up there in the hierarchy thought it a good idea to get these old ideas out of the attic.
Schmidt and Jenko went to the same high school but only became friends seven years later when they both joined the police force. And since their first bust goes totally bust and they look the part they get sent to the new 21 Jump Street program.
Back again in high school they learn that a lot has changed since their days and now they have to find the supplier of a new and dangerous drug.

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The Librarian: Quest for the Spear

DVD / Blu-ray, Short Review

Director: Peter Winther

Noah Wyle … Flynn Carsen
Sonya Walger … Nicole Noone
Bob Newhart … Judson
Kyle MacLachlan … Edward Wilde
Kelly Hu … Lana

Synopsis: Flynn Carsen is what we call in Germany a “Dauerstudent”, a student who never leaves the comfort of the university – until he’s thrown out. He then gets a mysterious invitation to apply for a job at the library. But not any library, the Library.

The place where they keep the Ark of Covenant, Excalibur, Pandora’s Box – and one third of the Spear of Destiny. Unfortunately that piece is stolen shortly after he started working there and now he has to make sure that the other two thirds that are hidden around the world don’t fall into the hands of the bad guys.

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Beauty and the Beast (2012)

Short Review

Beauty and the Beast (2012) @ Wikipedia
Beauty and the Beast (2012) @ IMDb

Nine years ago Catherine Chandler’s mother was killed in a botched robbery but Catherine herself was saved by a mysterious beast in the woods.

Now she is a successful police detective in New York. But it’s there that she meats the “beast” again. Vincent is a former soldier who took part in an experiment that re-wrote his DNA, making him faster and stronger but also more aggressive. The project was abandoned and Vincent believed to be dead. With the help of his friend he’s hiding from the world until Catherine steps into his life again.

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Person of Interest

Short Review

Person of Interest @ Wikipedia
Person of Interest @ IMDb

After 9/11 Harold Finch (Michael Emerson, LOST) built a machine that scanned every internet communication, every phone call, every surveillance camera recording for possible threats to the United States. It divides the results into two categories: major casualties and minor casualties. The government was only interested in the list with the major casualties.

The machine cannot foresee accidents or spontaneous acts of violence but it does see planned crimes.

Harold has made it his mission to help those people the government deems of no interest to them. But he has to work in secret, no one can know the machine is giving him information. So the information has to be sparse – only a social security number. And that is not always the victim’s number.

He needs help. Someone who can handle the “hand-to-hand” business. And for this he recruits a former special forces soldier the government thinks is dead (Jim Caviezel, Outlander). They also have the help of two detectives, one straight, one crooked. Together they try to protect people who don’t even know that they’re in danger.

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Arrow

Short Review

Arrow @ Wikipedia
Arrow @ IMDb

Five years ago a yacht sank in the middle of the ocean. Aboard were billionaire Robert Queen and his son Oliver, the girl Oliver was sleeping with (who’s not his girlfriend) and at least one business partner of Robert’s. Only Oliver survived and he washed up on the shore of an island where he lived for the following years.

Now he’s back in his hometown but his life has changed. On the surface he’s still the same playboy that he was before the accident (if it was one) trying to get back into the life of the high society and to reconcile with his former girlfriend Laurel who lost her sister on that yacht.

Beneath the surface Oliver has come back with a mission: To free the city of the corrupt and powerful who are destroying it. He becomes the Green Arrow, a mysterious vigilante who hunts down the people on his list until they’re either properly prosecuted by the law or dead.

Both his lives aren’t made any easier by the fact that his mother is somehow involved in the accident but also hired a trained bodyguard for her son (which makes it harder to slip away) but also the fact that his former girlfriend Dinah “Laurel” Lance is a district attorney and her father (who lost a daughter that fateful day) is a police detective who holds a serious grudge against both Oliver and the Green Arrow.

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Comic Book Men

Short Review

Comic Book Men @ Wikipedia Comic Book Men @ IMDb Comic Book Men is hard to describe as a show. It’s not a scripted reality…

The Hunger Games

Cinema, Short Review

Synopsis: The United States of America have long been gone. In its place, between the Appalachians and the Rockies, is now the country of Panem,…

Suits

Short Review

Suits @ IMDb Suits @ Wikipedia Harvey Specter is the best closer of his law firm and he is about to be promoted to senior…

Smallville: The End of the Beginning

Short Review, TV Season 2010/2011 Diary

Let me start this by saying that it was better than LOST‘s ending. But that isn’t saying much…

Smallville has always been an uneven show. It had good years, bad years and worse years. It never had great years. It rarely had great episodes. They were there but there weren’t as many as one would hope in a ten year run with a total of 217 episodes.

And yet: Ten years and 217 episodes. There aren’t that many shows overall and even fewer shows in the Sci-Fi and Fantasy genre that can bring that much to the table.

For all its faults I love Smallville but I am also at peace with it ending now. I nearly gave up on it after what is commonly referred to as Failsday.
Seasons nine and ten became better again and quite a few episodes of season eight have grown on me.
But season ten and its finale also showed that even though they knew exactly how it was supposed to be ending they didn’t really have a clear idea of how to get there.

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Unknown

Cinema, Short Review

Actors: Liam Neeson January Jones (Mad Men) Bruno Ganz (Downfall) Diane Kruger (Inglourious Basterds) Frank Langella (Masters of the Universe, Dave) Plot: Dr. Martin Harris…