Cars 2

Once upon a time, there were cars. And once upon a time there were races. And once upon a time, the fastest, reddest, and most stuck-up of them all took a small "vacation" and was a lot more down to earth afterward. Now, a multimillionaire, Sir Miles Axelrod has developed a new alternative fuel called allenol, and to test it he is sponsoring the worlds first gran prix. The two main challengers: Lightning McQueen, our all-time favourite, and Francesco Bernoulli, a car as stuck-up, proud, and annoying as McQueen ever was.With McQueen: Tow Mater, the tow truck. And at a party before the races, a series of events leads some British agents to believe that Mater is an American spy who has come to help them against a group of criminal cars who don't like the idea of alternative fuel that might put them out of business.

As you can guess, Mater is not an American spy. He just happens to be in the wrong place at the right time. And he happens to know about old cars that don't work good since it falls in line with his work (did you know he's a tow truck?) Nevertheless, he sets out to bust the criminals, and to save his friend McQueen.

Cars is an interesting movie. It's animated and for little kids, except for one facts the plot is complicated beyond reasoning (well, mostly just the spy thing is complicated. Three races don't hold that much complication). Of course, every little kid will enjoy gunfights, explosions, and fast-moving cars, but that doesn't mean that they have any clue what's going on.

So really it shouldn't be all that surprising that Cars 2 got low ratings. Too complicated for little kids. Too boring for most of nowadays teens. Who is it for then? No one. Everyone. Maybe. However, on the upside, ratings aren't always true. My little brothers loved the movie, though they didn't understand a word. Many teens who aren't too cool for cartoon will enjoy it too. Half comedy, half action, it is almost a cartoonized, car-ized movie in the same catergory as RED. Funny. Weird. Cool.

RED

Frank Moses is just your average retiree. Almost. Except for the fact that he was CIA. So when a hit team pretty much levels his house, he knows, that something is up. He drives to pick up a girl he's been phoning with, putting her in danger, and takes off to find his old buddies, and to try to figure out why in the world someone would try to kill a CIA agent. It's not the Russians. It's none of his colleagues. So who is it? Well, to find out, watch the movie.

RED is easy to categorize. It's action (that took me a while - I mean, it's full of weapons, fights, agents and assassins, so it could easily be something else (that was sarcasm in case you didn't catch it)). And it's comedy. The CIA agents keep coming up with useless comments and memories - and it doesn't help that one of them is demented. After and intense gunfight with Secret Service, one of them remarks that he remembered them to be tougher.

If you're looking for a movie with high intelligence standard, don't pick RED. If, however you want a movie where you can just shut your brain off and laugh, RED is for you. Ratings for this movie were high, scoring a 95% with viewers, and a 61% with critics. So what does RED stand for anyways? Retired, and Extremely Dangerous: a four word phrase summing up the movie.

Equilibrium

The year is somewhere around 2200 A. D. World War III has just ended, and under the lead of a man who calls himself "Father", the surviving world leaders have decided that the reason for war, our ability to feel cannot be tolerated. At the cost of all feelings, and a lot of personal freedoms, it is ensured that there will never be war again. To ensure this, a new branch has been instituted: The Grammaton Cleric. With the (only) city-state of Liberia as base of operations, they strike out, working in strike parties to seek out and destroy all that oppose the theft of what is natural to them, rebels, criminals, or even those who don´t take their proxium, the drug used to eliminate feelings.
John Preston (Christian Bale) is the leader of the cleric. With his co-worker, Partridge (Sean Bean) he works his best to ensure peace - until his world is turned upside down.

Equilibrium is an action movie, full of gun- and sword fights. While blood is kept to a minimum, dozens of people are shot, beaten, burned, sliced and stabbed. If you like action and intense scenes, you´ll probably love this movie. The Clerics receive special gun training, ensuring maximal kills, and minimizing the chance of being hit by using a precise moving and shooting technique - making them almost invincible foes.

Romance is kept to a minimum - understandable in a movie without feeling. Feeling people, or "sense offenders" as they are officially called are almost only seen when fighting for their survival against Police, what appear to be SWAT teams without the insignia, and Clerics.
Color is also kept to a minimum. Except for in the dens of offenders, everything is black, white, grey, or a drab sort of blue.

In the end though, Equilibrium is a big hit, having made over half a million in the opening weekend on only 300 screens - in other words, it was running 24/7. Reviews have given it a popularity rating of 83 percent.

Personally, I loved it - and so did most of my friends (one mentioned that it was one of the few movies he watched after 11:00  pm and didn´t fall asleep). If you´re looking for an action packed movie to watch with friends, something to keep you awake and still have a good plotline - Equilibrium can be recommended.