This is a movie review of The Debt, yea yea, not the most timely, but here yee be, in case you were curious what I thought:
The Debt, is rated R and has a runtime of 113 minutes and is distributed by Focus Features. It’s a 2010 movie (a remake of the 2007 movie, Ha-Hov), starring Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkenson and Ciaran Hinds (Jessica Chastain, Marton Csokas and Sam Worthington). The Debt was directed by John Madden (Killshot, Proof) off a screenplay written by Matthew Vaughn (X-Men: First Class, Kick-Ass), Jane Goldman (X-Men: First Class, Kick-Ass) & Peter Straughan (The Men Who Stare at Goats, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy).
The Debt starts out at a book reading in 1997, where Rachel Singer (Mirren), who happens to be an ex-spy, is asked to read a section from a book that her daughter wrote, chronicling an interesting event in Singer’s past. We then watch Stephen Gold (Wilkerson) picking up David Peretz (Hinds) to attend a function of some sort. But Peretz steps in front of a bus and offs himself.
This week the new movies coming out on Friday, December 9th, looking to do battle with vampires and Muppets include include actors such as Michelle Pfeiffer, Gary Oldman, Jonah Hill, and quite a few more.
But will any of these new movies contend with the box office top-10 movies right now? Maybe. I can’t imagine they won’t at least show up on the chart unlike last week’s new contenders that didn’t contend.
Farther down I touch on production status of some of the more anticipated movies coming out next year (If there are any you are interested in, lemme know, I can look it up.) and a little movie news to boot!
First up of the new movies this week,
• New Year’s Eve
New Year’s Eve is directed by Garry Marshall (Valentine’s Day), and written by Katherine Fugate (Valentine’s Day & on TV: Army Wives).
The cast includes a rather popular ensemble, like Michelle Pfeiffer, Zac Efron, Robert De Niro, Halle Berry, Cary Elwesm, Alyssa Milano, Common, Jessica Biel and many more!
If this one is anything like Valentine’s Day, it should be a fun film to go see.
This week, there are more than 100 new DVD & Blu-ray releases coming out this Tuesday, December 6th, 2011.
With Emma Stone, Bradley Cooper, Daniel Craig, Jim Carrey, & Sam Worthington leading the fray of new DVD’s. Other interesting titles you might want to ponder a few other titles down the list, like from The Biggest Loser, or cult fan favorite like Mystery Science Theater 3000!
There are quite a few exercise DVD’s, which I’m presuming, are aimed at all the holiday eating we’ll be doing and how we’ll need to work it all off again!
Check out my list of New DVD and Blu-ray releases below:
New Movies on DVD:
The Help, from Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures & starring Emma Stone and Bryce Dallas Howard
Buy, Rent or Wait?:
Having made $199M worldwide and being the number one movie at the box office for quite a few weeks, this breakout hit movie is rated 8 on IMDb… this would seem to be a must-see, must-catch any way you can movie, if you haven’t already seen it in the movie theater.
Despite having been at the box office once before, seventeen years ago that is, The Lion King is still king indeed. Especially when it adds its title the ever growing list of 3D movies!
Going up against a bunch of new movies and old movies, The Lion King pulled in just over $29M at the box office, being the top dog in the list of top-10 movies at the box office.
The appeal of a family classic is just as strong for families of today as much as it was back in the day! Very cool.
In second place at the box office was a movie that came out previously, is Contagion. The newest movie that came out this weekend, Drive, pulled off a third spot in the box office rankings.
The Help is still holding out with some staying power and took fourth.
It would seem that the people have spoken with their wallets this weekend while hitting up the movies. For sure I thought that both Contagion and Warrior would both dethrone the slow consistent burn of The Help, but it seems that movie going folks do not have that much of a stomach for ultimate cage fighting, which is what Warrior is based on.
This weekend Contagion pulled into the number one spot at the box office with an estimated $23 million take.
Each weekend I either have already planned on which movie I was going to see or if there are a few that I’m not sure about, I tend to hit up the website, Movie Review Intelligence. They take movie reviews and return a percentage of how many reviews were positive reviews.
(Yes, Movie Review Intelligence (MRI) does the same thing Rotten Tomatoes does… and they’re somewhat comparative…)
So I took a gander at what they’ve seen for movie review opinions for the movies The Debt, Shark Night 3D and Apollo 18.
In a word, fair to OUCH!
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Out of 43 reviews, The Debt had almost 66% good movie reviews on MRI. (RT: 77%). There’s an odd mix where some reviewers didn’t have anything good to say but most others did.
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Shark Night 3D only had 1 review, so even though 1 movie review (data point) is not a good survey, that one review said the movie was poor. (RT: ??)
This week, to be honest, seems a bit quiet for what’s new at the movies this week if you’re looking for a good dramatic story. But if you’re looking for some action, gore, fright and shameless body exposure, you might be in luck with the new movies this week like The Debt, Shark Night 3D or Apollo 18, if it pans out into the isolated space horror that the movie clips make it out to be!
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Quick Box Office Look
As crazy as it seems, The Help conquered the box office tallies for the weekend once again adding $14.3M to it’s total take. The movie studios once again tried for force us to watch 3D versions of Conan and Fright Night. (Meaning that only 2 screenings per day are in 2D at all theaters.) They probably already lost momentum, but it would be nice to see the majority of screenings for these two floundering movies in 2D.
Colombiana (tell me you don’t think of this feeling like a spin-off of her character from The Losers???) was the best performing new movie, pullingin just around $10M. Then del Toro’s Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark was afraid of The Help, and nearly pulled in $9M.
The top-10 movies from last weekend list is at the bottom of this article.
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New Movies This Week
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The Debt
Getting a leg up on the competition, The Debt opens in movie theaters on Wednesday, August 31st. It stars Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson, Ciarán Hinds with other cast such as Jessica Chastain, Marton Csokas, and Sam Worthington playing young versions of the primary cast.
Directed by John Madden (Proof, Killshot) [No, no, no, not the football Madden.], with the screenplay writing team of Matthew Vaughn & Jane Goldman, both of whom have brought us X-Men: First Class, Kick-Ass, and Stardust, the preview for The Debt actually looks intriguing.
This could be the box-office winner of the weekend, if it can take on The Help that is!
The film’s summary says:
In 1997, shocking news reaches retired Mossad secret agents Rachel (Mirren) and Stefan (Wilkinson) about their former colleague David (Hinds). They’ve been seen as heroes because of a mission they took back in 1966, when they had tracked a down Nazi war criminal, but now there’s a question as to if they really succeeded or not.
The Debt Movie Clip
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To be honest, if I didn’t know any better, the very first time I saw the movie clips, I started wondering if this was some awesome spinoff or sequel to RED. That’s the feel I had, but the tone is much more serious.
