Eid Attractions! YOU Magazine, The News International

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Eid Attractions!

Eid and amusement are linked closely; this time around Eid is going to be extra special since some of the biggest hits are opening simultaneously for your visual pleasure on the first day of Eid itself. So, why not have some fun and hang out with your family or friends to amuse yourself visually by checking out one of these action-packed movies. Eid Mubarak!

Compiled by
Waqas Hasan Sharif
All movies will be shown @ Cineplex
and cinemas all over Pakistan.

DATED:[30TH-SEPTEMBER-2008]

Hellboy II

The Golden Army

The Golden Army is even more entertaining than its predecessor. Writer-director Guillermo del Toro returns to Mike Mignola's comic book creation for an upgraded sequel that offers more of everything while staying largely true to the source material. The film gains big points for its dazzling visuals and for significantly ramping up the fantasy-tinged screen fighting. The climax is a battle on top of giant revolving cog-wheels, which is splendidly staged.

It's a movie filled with exotic make-up effects, lush sets and costumes and even brilliantly conceived digital puppetry, all added to an equally enjoyable story with quality action. The screenplay is entertaining, even with a couple of plot holes. Not only are the creatures amazingly conceived, but there's a lovely sense of humour to it all as Del Toro references horror movies of the past and even the work of John Landis.

HELLBOY 2 can be added to a growing list of movies partaking in what one would call a design renaissance. This is another great super-hero adventure that's bound to be a big red franchise for years to come.

Death Race

Directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, the most astonishing thing about 'Death Race', a action-thriller, is the presence in its cast of Joan Allen and Jason Statham who continue their winning streak with Death Race.

The movie is notionally based on that '70s grindhouse classic, 'Death Race 2000', which starred David Carradine and the pre-"Rocky" Sylvester Stallone.

The movie is set in a hell-hole prison - it looks like a vast abandoned foundry - that houses "the worst of the worst": murderers, rapists, personal-injury lawyers. And Allen's character, Hennessey, is the warden of this place. She also presides over an event called Death Race, a sort of armored NASCAR tourney in which the fearsome autos are equipped with all manner of cannons, flamethrowers, even napalm, and driven by guys with handles like Machine Gun Joe (Tyrese Gibson, looking very 50 Cent) and the Grimm Reaper (Robert LaSardo). The prisoners competing for pardons in 'Death Race' have a huge arsenal at their disposal to use during the races. And they have little to lose.

But the real charm of the movie is its racing segments. And it is here that the film is quite simply awesome. The action is powerful and intense. It's insanely violent with decapitations, bodily explosions and practical effects of cars crashing and discharging weapons at each other. This movie is like much of Anderson's films, it offers exactly what action film fans would expect: squealing tires, blazing guns and spectacular crashes - a lot of fun to watch.

The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight, director Christopher Nolan has rewritten the rules for making a big budget movie. The film is an unbelievably intense, kinetic head-rush of a movie yet, simultaneously, a two-and-a-half hour meditation on the breakdown of society, the morality of vigilantism and a multi-layered rumination on good and evil.

'The Dark Knight' consumes itself with the idea of how corrupt some are willing to become in an effort to fight corruption itself. It's that undercurrent of irony that runs through the movie, lifting it, and it emerges as one of Nolan's major themes.

The performances both in front of and behind the camera are uniformly good. Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Gary Oldman, return in fine form; cinematographer Wally Pfester and production designer Nathan Crowley create a menacing universe of perpetual night plagued by uncertainty, at once fantastic and believable. The stunt work feels authentic and visceral, with less CG than audiences have come to expect from the genre. The rousing score by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard amps up the suspense and raises the stakes, without resorting to cheap sentiment. The overhead aerial shots of Hong Kong and nighttime Gotham are thrilling as are the heart stopping aerial stunts which achieve maximum impact when seen in IMAX.

Armed with some of the outrageous action scenes - 'The Dark Knight' is undoubtedly one of the best films of the year.