Movie Review: Summer Wars

Summer Wars (Sama Wozu)
Director: Mamoru Hosoda
Voice actors: Ryonosuke Kamiki, Nanami Sakuraba, Mitsuki Tanimura, Sumiko Fuji
Madhouse, NTV, Kadokawa Group Publishing. Japan, 2009

Kenji is a mathematical genius working as moderator of virtual world Oz with his friend Takashi. The users of the Oz use avatars to interact with the virtual reality. A girl named Natsuki asks Kenji for help as she travels to his home to celebrate the 90th birthday of her great-grandmother Sakae. Natsuki's family the Jinnouchis are revealed to be an old samurai clan. Much to Kenji's surprise Natsuki introduces Kenji as her boyfriend. The plan is that Keiji pretends to be Natsuki's fiance to make great-grandmother happy. Natsuki's uncle Wabisuke who was living in America after stealing some of the family's money arrives one night. This causes some tension with the family. 

Welcome to Oz

Kenji and Takashi moderating the Oz

At night Kenji gets an coded message to solve. Next day someone  uses Kenji's identity to vandalize Oz. Rogue artificial intellingence program Love Machine has started to attack Oz and is stealing avatars. Also the sabotaging causes also damage in the real world. Luckily Natsuki's family members have access to military grade hardware so together Kenji and Jinnouchis start a war against Love Machine.

Love Machine

The movie combines the traditional Japanese family ties with modern social networking culture. There is a huge cast of characters. It has funny moments and spectacular virtual reality fights. As a sci-fi  movie Summer Wars resembles a bit WarGames. However some twists are quite absurd. Also I do not think that the film has the same emotional level as Studio Ghibli films. However all in all the movie is fun and entertaining.

Jinnouchis' avatars ready for battle

Rating:Good

Movie Review: Boiler Room

Boiler Room
Director: Ben Younger
Starring: Giovanni Ribisi, Vin Diesel, Nia Long, Nicky Katt, Ben Affleck
New Line Cinema, USA, 2000

Seth Davis (Giovanni Ribisi) is running an illegal gambling den but his father who is working as a judge finds it out and forces Seth to get a real job. He gets a job at J.T. Marlin as a stock broker trainee. The brokers are earning huge salaries. He becomes good at his job but never gains his father's approval. Soon Seth realises that the company is scamming investors and selling worthless stock. Also the FBI becomes interested in Seth.

Seth in the job interview

Although Boiler Room has a quite routine business thriller plot, it is actually a good movie about telemarketing and macho salesmen. It offers also some tips about cold calling for those interested.

Vin Diesel has a role as senior broker and Ben Affleck a role as the co-founder of the firm. Nia Long plays the romantic interest of Seth.

Busy day at the office

Rating:Good

Movie Review: Storage 24

Storage 24
Director: Johannes Roberts
Starring: Noel Clarke, Colin O'Donoghue, Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Laura Haddock, Ned Dennehy, Geoff Bell
Medient Unstoppable Limited, UK, 2012

 A transport plane crashes near self storage facility in London and a group of people are trapped inside. One of them is Charlie (Noel Clarke) who was dumped by his girlfriend Shelley (Antonia Campbell-Hughes). Soon a monster starts to kill people one by one. Charlie and the other survivors start to search for ways to battle the alien monster.

Alien giving Charlie a hug

The movie is quite low budget Alien clone with some gory deaths. There are some funny moments also. Most of the characters are generic and bland, but there are also some interesting characters such as weird man David (Ned Dennehy) who is living in the facility. Positive was also the British Scifi-horror touch. In my opinion the film was above average in the category of low budget monster horror films.

I'm going to brush your teeth!

Woof!

Rating: Good