Ever seen two movies in a single day? I hadn’t. Until October 5, 2005 when I saw two great movies: Serenity and A History of Violence. We took the entire day off as we had a holiday anyway. We ate lunch and dinner out so we didn’t have to deal with crappy cafeteria food for at least a day. Also managed to squeeze in some grocery shopping in between the movies. So, in case you are wondering what the purpose of this blog entry is, then click the link below this line.

Yes, so this post is going to act like a mini-review for each movie. By the way, since these are mini-reviews, I will not spend much time discussing the stories. I know you can Google that. First up, Serenity.

Now Serenity is what you would call a thoroughly entertaining film. It has lots of action, some lighter moments, tragedy, and a wee bit of romance thrown in for good measure. The movie is set in the future and it’s about a bunch of fugitives who pilot a ship called Serenity. They pick up a man called Simon and his sister, River. Now this River is not your ordinary female lead. She’s 17, is mentally unstable because of some weird stuff done to her brain, and can kick some serious ass. Most of the movie deals with these people trying to protect the girl and surviving against the might of the Alliance (or inter-planetary government for the uninitiated). Of course like every movie with a happy ending, they survive. In the process, they kill a lot of people and a lot of innocent people are killed by the bad guys. Nathan Fillion and Gina Torres are among the main cast of the movie. On a side note, the movie is based on a TV series called Firefly which was pulled off after just 16 episodes for some reason.

Like I said before, this movie was highly entertaining. It is well written and keeps up the pace. It doesn’t slack at any point of time and keeps viewers on edge. Although the movie will make a lot more sense if you saw the TV series beforehand, you can still enjoy the movie. The film makes good use of metaphors and has some pretty effective dialogue. The special effects are not as top-notch as in movies such as Star Wars Episode III or War of the Worlds but are good enough. The movie makes no attempt to use special effects to hide flaws (honestly the movie doesn’t quite have flaws - or at least I didn’t see any). Although I think that the acting might have been slightly better, it was much better than the Star Wars prequels All in all, this is movie is a thrill ride and I would highly recommend it to anyone who likes adventure/action movies.

The second movie we saw was A History of Violence. Starring Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn from LOTR), this movie was radically different from Serenity. I would not call this movie fun even though it is a good movie. This is a very intense movie with a generous dose of gore and some sex as well. I will not reveal the story as it might ruin the movie for thoe looking to go watch it. All I would say is that the story and acting are brilliant in this movie. Even though the action is hardcore, it is well presented. The only “flaw” I saw with the movie was the climax. It was sudden, unexpected, and left me with the feeling that it was incomplete. But to be honest, me and my friends could not think of any other way the movie could have ended. So I’m not sure if I would like to call it a flaw

So that’s it folks! I know I suck at writing movie reviews but I write ‘em anyway! Enjoy.