Action/Adventure | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: Armed and Dangerous [1986]

2012/02/132019/01/08 Jared Mobarak

“I got my Christmas goose early” If a band like Atlantic Starr is singing your movie’s theme song, it’s a pretty easy guess you’re from the 1980s. To most this tag is a detriment but others wear it like a badge of honor. Armed and Dangerous is one such film, letting the likes of John Candy and Eugene Levy run with its simple comedic plot as director Mark L. Lester hones his action expertise in order to destroy a bunch of cars with a renegade sixteen-wheeler, rocket fuel, and guided…

REVIEW: The Grey [2012]

2012/02/102014/05/15 Jared Mobarak

“Live and die on this day” Struggling to find meaning in a life of solitude by punishing himself to self-exile in a desolate world caught between the pristine white backdrop of untouched snow and the turbulent mass of flesh populating it as a refuge from decent society, Ottway (Liam Neeson) wonders if the time has come to retire. Writing a note to the woman he loves but can no longer see except in memory, he recalls a poem from his childhood and wonders if his fight has led him to…

REVIEW: Journey 2: The Mysterious Island [2012]

2012/02/072014/05/15 Jared Mobarak

“They will not stop until you feed them” After making a boatload of money—that’s the equivalent to one hundred millions dollars if you didn’t know—Journey to the Center of the Earth was almost guaranteed a sequel. Proving they could bring the fictional worlds of Jules Verne to life and somehow make it relevant to a bunch of kids barely able to put down their Smartphones long enough to read a magazine let alone a dense volume of literature, nothing would stop the studio machine from taking the plunge to Atlantis…

REVIEW: Journey to the Center of the Earth [2008]

2012/02/022014/05/15 Jared Mobarak

“No one gets dibs on the mountain guide” I feel really bad for Canada now that the adventure it holds for young Sean Anderson (Josh Hutcherson) and his mother (Jane Wheeler) will never quite live up to the boy’s quick little Journey to the Center of the Earth. Perhaps it can offer something in the way of safety and stability where thin rock formations that crack under your weight cannot, but I doubt it possesses phosphorescent birds. And we all know how awesome those are. One could say our sister…

REVIEW: Haywire [2012]

2012/01/262014/05/15 Jared Mobarak

“Oh, God. There’s a deer in the car.” If not for the cast list, I would treat Steven Soderbergh‘s Haywire as the newest entry to the experimental, off-the-beaten path section of his oeuvre. Without mentioning the larger scale Che—which is quite possibly his least mainstream film of the aughts—this quiet actioner fits right in as a sibling to Bubble and especially The Girlfriend Experience by using an untrained dramatic actress inside a plot playing to her strengths. Mixed Martial Arts fighter Gina Carano won’t be winning awards for her thespian…

REVIEW: 鋼の錬金術師嘆きの丘（ミロス）の聖なる星 [Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos] [2011]

2012/01/232014/05/15 Jared Mobarak

“The myths of the Milosian people are stained in blood” Anime truly is a breed of its own and a genre not to be trifled with by the weak at heart. Just take the popular saga of “Fullmetal Alchemist” and the amount of work created from Hiromu Arakawa‘s world. Spawning two separate television series adapted from the same original manga, both incarnations were also graced with a film to accompany their parallel journeys of the brothers Elric—Edward and Alphonse. Whereas Conqueror of Shamballa trailed the original run as a wrap…

REVIEW: Underworld: Awakening [2012]

2012/01/212014/05/15 Jared Mobarak

“My heart isn’t cold, it’s broken” I like dark, sci-fi actioners and I’m unafraid to admit it. I’ve seen every Underworld and Resident Evil in the theatre and anticipate continuing that trend until their respective series die. My interest in each comes from different motivations, though. No matter how cheesy and overly stylish the vampire versus lycan war gets, it retains its intriguing mythology as a backbone to the carnage. On the flip side, Alice’s adventures against Umbrella ratchet up the aggression for non-stop fight choreography deflecting from the fact…

REVIEW: Serenity [2005]

2012/01/122014/05/15 Jared Mobarak

“Love keeps her in the air when she ought to fall down” Seven years after hitting the theatre cold to watch what appeared to be a unique sci-fi space western, Joss Whedon‘s Serenity proves much more powerful and lush with a couple “Firefly” viewings under my belt. The film that should not have been—Fox unceremoniously canceled the television series despite fan protest post-Season One—stands on its own as a mere shadow of its potential without the contextual details of the titular spaceship and crew living inside so I implore you…

REVIEW: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows [2011]

2012/01/052014/05/15 Jared Mobarak

“Careful what you fish for” I am and probably always will be a Guy Ritchie apologist. I blamed Madonna for Swept Away and even bought a Region 2 DVD of Revolver in case it never made its way across the Atlantic. So when the director signed on to do a blockbuster studio version of Sherlock Holmes, I wasn’t sure what to think. On one hand it’s success would mean the hoped for sequel to RocknRolla had a better chance of seeing the light of day, but on the other it…

REVIEW: Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol [2011]

2011/12/232014/05/19 Jared Mobarak

“And I’ll catch you” I remember so much talk about whether or not Tom Cruise was being forced out of the Mission: Impossible series and how Jeremy Renner was cast to either replace him or be ushered in as the new team leader in subsequent films. Well, after watching Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and seeing ‘A Tom Cruise Production’ in big, bold white letters, I’m thinking it’s a pretty safe bet to say the franchise is still his to do what he may. Kudos to him if true, I’m…

REVIEW: The Adventures of Tintin [2011]

2011/12/172014/05/21 Jared Mobarak

“Only a true Haddock will discover the secret of the Unicorn” Considering I started conjuring images of an Indian sidekick named Hadji when first made aware of news Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson were directing a The Adventures of Tintin trilogy, my knowledge and therefore enthusiasm in the project was somewhat lacking. Once I put my head straight, removed any “Johnny Quest” infusions, and feasted on what looked like a gorgeous animated motion capture world, my interest piqued more. It wasn’t until watching the silhouetted credit sequence—recalling Spielberg’s Catch Me…