Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Movie Reviews’ top 5 action movie picks for 2012


Wondering where to get your action movie hit from in 2012? How about these five little corkers...
They may not all have the highest IQs, but here are the five films we're looking forward to seeing some kicking, punching and exploding in for 2012...

Skyfall

Out in the UK on Friday 26th October (a good fortnight before our chums in the States get it) comes the 23rd Bond film, the third to feature Daniel Craig’s incarnation of 007 and the first from Brit director Sam Mendes. From the set snaps we’ve seen so far, we can confirm Craig definitely wears a coat in the film.

There’ll be more than just tailoring according to Mendes, who’s promising to deliver a classic Bond movie with “a lot of action”. Good, good, that takes care of the first entry in this list then. Craig stars alongside a classy list of the likes of Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes, Javier Bardem, Ben Whishaw, Helen McCrory and Naomie Harris.

The Grey

Out on 27th January, we don’t have long to wait for Joe The A-Team Carnahan’s action drama about a very cold Liam Neeson facing off against a pack of hungry wolves. Carnahan insists The Grey contains Liam Neeson’s career-best performance, and that the film is more a character drama than a bunch of mindless violence and wolf-abuse. Drama schmarma, we say, bring on the improvised broken glass knuckle dusters and let Neeson get some revenge on those puffin chick-eating bastards from Frozen Planet.

The Bourne Legacy

Known to all as the Bourne-less Bourne movie, writer Tony Gilroy is taking on directing duties for the fourth adaptation of the Robert Ludlum books, the first without Matt Damon. Watch the rogue CIA agent take more revenge (probably) on a shadowy ex-boss (we expect) in a range of sexy European locations (or something). Look, the plot's beside the point isn't it? We'll all just be watching the cool polyglot super-soldier pistol whipping baddies and crashing cars into things. 
Out on 17th August, The Bourne Legacy positions Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol actor Jeremy Renner in the Matt Damon role, opposite Rachel Weisz and Edward Norton.

The Expendables 2

Out in the UK on the same day as The Bourne Legacy, 17th August, comes the follow up to Sly Stallone’s geriatric machismo fest of 2010. Yeah, we know those who really rated The Expendables are few and far between, but the prospect of an even more pumped-up super-group of action stars (Statham, Stallone, Li, Lundgren, Rourke, Willis, Van Damme, Norris, Schwarzenegger and more) coming together for a punchgasm of bullets, explosions and people getting kicked in the face has a certain something, no?

The Sweeney

By rights this spot should probably be reserved for something like Steven Soderbergh’s stylish Haywire, a proper big-name action flick currently doing the press rounds before its end of the month release, but we, probably unwisely, are awarding it to The Sweeney. A risky pick for a few reasons, not least of which being that 70s TV shows don’t always come up smelling of roses after their big screen transfer (see Starsky and Hutch, Dukes of Hazzard), but we just can’t resist the idea of Ray Winstone swaggering around in a kipper tie as Regan telling babbling brooks they’re nicked. Frankly, who could?
From director Nick Love, who brought us a surprisingly acceptable remake of The Firm in 2009, The Sweeney comes out on September 21st in the UK. All together now, “Get your trousers on, you’re nicked!”

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