3:10 to Yuma

I am not the biggest fan of wild west films. I don't particularly care for Russel Crowe (although I can appreciate that he is a good actor) and I am just so over Christian Bale. Still, I ended up watching 3:10 to Yuma (Alan Tudyk! Peter Fonda! Kevin Durand!) and enjoying it throughout.

Russel Crowe plays the outlaw Ben Wade, who gets himself caught and is set to be brought to the train going to Yuma prison. Yes, yes, it leaves at 3:10. The raga tag band of unlikely characters to get him there include the Doc (a vet, actually), a bounty hunter and farmer Dan Evans, who really needs the money promised him for getting Wade on that train.

Evans' motives go beyond that as he also wants his young son William to respect him (he doesn't). William himself wants in on the trail because he believes himself to be a great shot, even at 14, and also considers his father to be a wimp. Hot on their trail (after a cleverly devised delay) is Wade's gang of outlaws, now led by the trusted Charlie, who wants desperately to fee his boss and keep the gang together.

Many a shootout and several casualties later (Alan Tudyk! Peter Fonda! Kevin Durand!) the good guys almost made it. They are hiding out in a hotel room, having recently obtained the assistants of the local marshal and his two best men. They hightail it soon enough though, because Charlie offers anyone a reward of $ 200,-- if he just shoot and kill one of his boss' captors. Quite effective in making things way harder for Evans, who is the only one left that really wants to put Wade on that train. This not only wins him the respect of young William, but that of Wade, as well.

The final shootout is quite exciting, with only very few survivors.

Not bad at all.

7/10

Legion

Archangel Michael has a six pack and he is bad-ass. He knows martial arts and can handle all kinds of weaponry.

Don't believe me? Just watch Legion and you will see.

Archangel Gabriel is also kind of bad-ass and I am pretty sure that he has a six pack underneath all that armor, as well. Alas, we never get to see him shirtless.

But back to Michael, who has fallen (jumped?) from heaven because there is one task God asked of him that he is not comfortable with. You see, unlike the Lord, Michael has not lost faith in humanity and would rather save a baby than kill it. Yes, this here God is a vengeful one.

The setting for most of the film is a diner in the middle of nowhere (from the proximity to LA I would guess in the Nevada desert). The people inside get there first taste of the pending apocalypse when a little old lady comes in ordering steak that is practically raw. Then she tells the waitress that her soon-to-be-born baby (the one Gabriel is sent to kill) will 'burn', insults another customer (for constantly complaining) and bites the husband defending his wife's honor in the neck.

Shortly after, Michael comes, arms everyone and they all defend the diner. Or actually, Charlie, the soon-to-be-mother-of-the-coming-savior. There is some religious talk and lots of gunfire against the swarms of possessed (?) people surrounding the diner. It's like Feast, but without the humor and with a prettier cast.

Then, after the baby is born, there is one epic bar fight between Michael and Gabriel. The latter has the advantage of his armor and the wings, that appear to be sort of like an extra shield and kills his ex-colleague. But instead of dying like 'one of them' he dissolves into ashes and light to return a bit later, having earned his wings back and defeats Gabriel...but does not kill him.

So full of pathos and religious mumbo-jumbo but oh so awesome.

And did I mention Michael's six pack?

7/10

Winged Creatures (aka Fragments)

This is the story of a random shooting spree in a diner and how the survivors deal with what they have been through.

The waitress, probably not a good mother to begin with, neglects her infant son and tries to get close to a doctor, who left the diner just before the shooting started. In fact, he held the door open for the shooter on his way out. In the aftermath, he starts giving his wife medication that cause her massive headaches.

The black guy, who apparently just go the news that he suffers from cancer, starts to have incredible luck and takes it into a casino where he wins massively before getting in bed with the wrong people and having his arm deliberately broken by them.

The daughter who loses her father goes all born again Christian (as if Dakota Fanning wasn't annoying enough simply by being Dakota Fanning) and tells tale of her father's bravery. Her friend simply stops talking altogether, until the very end when he finally makes her tell the truth about her father's 'bravery'.

Aiming to make you cry, which doesn't quite work. It is just too sentimental.

3/10