Thor: The Dark World

A long, long time ago, the Dark Elfs (the evil to Asgard's good) lead by Malekith were defeated by Bor's (yep, Odin's father) army. Malekith was about to release the deadliest of weapons, known as Aether, which is only possible when all nine worlds align. After their victory, Bor has the Aether hidden...hopefully never to be found again. A handful of the bad guys escape and sleep in space until the weapon can be located again - this will only be possible the next time the worlds align.

Fast forward to today. Loki is thrown into prison by Odin, where he is to spend the rest of his existence. Meanwhile, Thor is cleaning up his brother's messes in all the worlds. His beloved Jane and her team are in London. Erik, however, is missing but quickly relocated as he made the news because he ran around naked in Stonehenge. While following weird info from their various instruments, Jane and her posse locate some sort of portal between different worlds. Jane is sucked into the one where the Aether is hidden and is taken over by the substance.

This awakes the resting Dark Elfs that attack Asgard, where Jane has been brought to by Thor. The battle is fierce and not only leaves considerable destruction in its wake but also costs Odin's wife's life. Thor's idea on how to solve the crisis differs wildly from Odin's. The son wants to take Jane back to earth to get the Dark Elfs out of hiding and defeat them right after the Aether has left Jane but before Malekith can use it. Odin wants to keep Jane locked to lure the Dark Elfs back to Asgard and defeat them there.

Thor, with a little help of his usual posse, springs his own plan into action. However, he needs the help of his brother Loki, who knows a secret passageway out of Asgard. When Thor, Loki and Jane meet with the Dark Elfs they stage a fight between the brothers to cause confusion as to where their loyalties lie. During the fight, the Aether cannot be destroyed how Thor had hoped and even though the bad guys suffer some losses, Loki dies in the fight (but fear not, Loki fans, he is not really dead - I repeat: Loki is not really dead!).

For the ultimate showdown, Thor, Jane and her group of scientist have to grow to Greenwich, the epicenter of the aligning worlds. Then, epic battle and - finally - victory for the good guys.

In the end, Thor asks Odin to not make him king so that he can return to Jane. He leaves with Odin's blessing but as soon as he is gone, Odin shapeshifts to become Loki (oh, witchery!).

6/10

We're the Millers

Small time drug dealer David is mugged by a group of neighborhood punks that take his weed and all his money. As he is now in the red with the Brad, who he deals for, he has to agree to go to Mexico to pick up a large amount of drugs for "Pablo Chacon". Brad leads him to believe that he uses that name with the Mexicans.

As a cover, David rents a family - his stripping neighbor Rose, his dorky 'friend' Kenny and a girl crashing on couches, Casey - the Millers. Together they go to Mexico in an RV and pick up a massive amount of weed and go on their merry way. Unfortunately, the real Pablo Chacon shows up right after and together with a huge honcho he goes hunting for the 'family' that he believes stole his drugs.

The Millers, unaware that they are being followed, have trouble with their RV (of course) and get help from fellow RV travelers, the Fitzgeralds. The father Don works for the DEA (of course), so the Millers cannot wait to get away from them. When they go to pick up their fixed vehicle, the baddies have caught up with them but the family manages to flee.

They hit another bump in the road, when Kenny gets bitten by a huge spider (courtesy of the honcho's mother) and they have to stop for medical help right next to an amusement park (uhm...), there they run into the Fitzgeralds and Pablo again (of course). In the confusion that follows, they take out the bad guys, Mr. Fitzgerald finds out that they have been smuggling drugs but lets them go anyway. In return, David helps the DEA take down Brad and he and the rest of the Millers go into witness protection together (of course).

And, yes, David and Rose (real name Sarah) do fall in love.

6/10

The X Files: Ghost in the Machine

At the beginning, Mulder loses his friend (former partner?) Jerry to the machine in the title. He is inside an elevator, hurrying after one Brad Wilczek, who created the machine that runs the entire high rise the two are inside. Wilczek went in to destroy his creation, because he realized that it got out of his hands. The machine now thinks and runs the place, trashing the agent by dropping the elevator.

While the government tries to understand the machine and get any information concerning it out of its creator, while Mulder wants to help Wilczek destroy his invention by planting a virus in the mainframe. He appears to be pretty much on his own until Scully comes to his aid because her computer has been accessed from the machine controlled building. They sneak in but are immediately detected thanks to the elaborate security system. When they are stuck in the stair well and Scully tries to get in through the air ventilation system, the machine tries to blow her into the massive ventilators.

Mulder, meanwhile, is let into the offices by the apparent nightwatchman Peterson, who pulls a gun on Mulder as soon as he realizes what is about to go down. Peterson really works for an agency himself, tasked to figure out how the machine works. Then - as happens so often - Scully comes to the rescue and Mulder gets to install the virus.

In the aftermath, Wilczek disappears. Mulder meets up with Deep Throat for any sort of information who simply tells him that 'they' can do anything they want. In the last scene, a short time before the remaining parts are about to be scrapped, we see the lights of the machine come back on again.

6/10

Paul Walker, 1973-2013

Never mind the Fast & Furious films (I never watched one and never cared to), but Running Scared, that Paul Walker starred in, was magnificent. Also, I have a soft spot for Joy Ride.

The X-Files: Shadows

The intro to this episode revolves around a secretary, whose boss recently died of an apparent suicide. She is attacked by two men while standing by the ATM machine but comes away unharmed. The two men are found dead above a dumpster in a backstreet.

Mulder and Scully are called in by an unnamed agency, represented by two agents that do not move a muscle, to consult in the autopsy of the two bodies. The corpses do not cool off as they should and the men appear to have been strangled from the inside. As the two mysterious agency are not very forthcoming, neither is Mulder, who clearly has an idea about what's going on (as he always does) and steals away with a fingerprint on his glasses to start his own investigation.

When he suggests the possibility of psychokinesis to Scully, she responds with, "Psychokinesis? You mean how Carrie got even at the prom?" And I love her for it.

The fingerprint belongs to a suspected member of a middle eastern group with terrorist tendencies and the agents head off to Philadelphia to further investigate. There, they discover the ATM security video that shows the aforementioned secretary being attacked and a blurry figure in the background, that may or may not be an accomplice to the secretary.

The secretary (I think her name is Lauren) has a vision of her boss' death, realizing that he was murdered by his partner because he was upset about their dealings with that terrorist group and ready to blow the whistle on his own company (hence the involvement of the mysterious agency figures).

Now here is the part worthy of an X file: the blurry figure and apparent protector of the secretary is the ghost of her former boss. In the end the entity is the one to help with the FBI investigation by leading them to the prove that was about to escape the FBI team searching the company office. It is a disk (old school!) hidden behind the tapestry.

The running gag of Scully always missing the supernatural stuff comes into play twice in this episode. The first time a culprit is suspended in the air while being choked by an invisible perpetrator, the second a letter opener, led by an - again - invisible hand, hurled towards the wall. Also, the creators of the show put another nod to supernatural films in Scully's mouth. They have her sing-song, "There he-ere!"

6/10

You're Next

The film begins with sex. Of course. Afterwards, while the young woman walks through the house wearing next to nothing and puts on some music, she feels like she is being watched. But, cool as she is, she does not panic, has a drink and...gets killed. The man, getting out of the shower and - you guessed it - wearing next to nothing picks up the half finished drink before noticing that across his wide windows someone wrote 'You're Next' in his girlfriends blood with the girlfriend lying dead on the porch.

The story, however, is about this guy's neighbors, if you want to call them that. These are weekend homes and there are stretches of wood in between them. Anyway, Paul and Abrey are celebrating their 35th wedding anniversary. They are joined by their four grown children with their significant others in the massive house. Obviously, this is a very well-off couple. Over dinner, the kids start arguing and while they go at each other, the daughter's boyfriend gets up and walks to the window to have a closer look at something he say outside and gets shot in the head with an arrow. Then more arrows keep flying through the window and eveyone panics (cue very shaky camera work, which I am not a fan of).

Most of what follows is a group of culprits wearing animals masks trying to kill the family members off one by one, using seemingly every possible weapon other than fire arms (crossbow, axe, machete). As the family is trying to gather their collective marbles, one of the son's girlfriend - an Australian girl named Erin - takes matters into her own hands and puts measures of self preservation into action. Apparently, she grew up in a sort of survivalist camp in the Outbacks and knows how to put a cleaver to good use.

The resentments within the family lead to some hilarious conversations (and the laughs produced are planed for and not accidental) and at some point one gets the feeling someone inside the house must have some involvement in what is perspiring. And one is right.

Amidst all the carnage, Crispian (the son who brought the Australian girlfriend) runs off to 'get help' and after Erin has finished off each and every attacker (and son Felix and girlfriend Zee, after overhearing them talking about an inheritance and how this all should have gone down way easier than it is happening), Felix' phone rings and Erin picks it up without saying anything. The caller is Crispian asking whether it is all finished and it is ok for him to come back in. When he does he realizes that he has been talking to Erin and explains to her that the idea was that she would be the innocent bystander attesting to a group of lunatics randomly killing off the rest of the family (and - to make the story more sound - kill off a couple of neighbors, as well) and Felix and Crispian would split the inheritance. He apologizes and notes that nobody expected her to be so good at killing people and promises her vacations and money, money, money. She is having none of it, of course.

The ending of the film is hilarious.

8/10

Who's Watching Who

WHO'S WATCHING WHO from Sebastian Solberg on Vimeo.