Smokin' Aces Reviews

I'm not familiar with the director, but i'm guessing he was trying to mimic martin scorsese in the way that the story was narrated in many characters and each character was finishing what the others said, frankly, the first 15 minutes were too much to handle, even though the plot eventually was simple to understand but the narration made it so hard.
I don't think that the action was spectacular like what people are saying, i mean it wasn't bad and wasn't impressive either, the major flop here is the miss-casting, i mean seriously Alicia Keys, Jeremy Piven, Common and Taraji P. Henson?
At what point did the casting people imagined Jeremy Piven will fit the role of a wizard and a playful smart gangster who have enough balls to become an Informat ? i mean seriously his performance was absolute shit and the dialog they gave him didn't help him either, it made him look stupider, and there was some confusing shots that they director took in the bathroom scene with Jeremy Piven, not to sound homophobic but if you really think about it, it would seem that the director was having a thing for Jeremy Piven.
Also Chris Pine playing a badass? seriously ? that guy is cute, that's the word that describe him perfectly, how does being a badass makes him believable?
Also what's wrong with the screen play, so many shitty dialog that made this movie completely ridiculous.
And why in the world would anyone thinks that Alicia Keys and Taraji P. Henson playing as assassins is a good idea, they can't act for shit, their dialog seemed unintentionally hilarious.
Worst thing about this movie is it's "humor", the scene when that guy entered the old women bathroom and found a dildo was anti-funny, inappropriate and out of place, and let's not forget that weird kid with his karate moves, did the director thinks that was funny? seriously if this is comedy then we're completely doomed.
The only thing that lift this movie a little bit is the great performance by Ryan Reynolds, few action and few effects and the end.
I liked the end, i don't know why, maybe because it was unexpected and the soundtrack made it really good, aside from that there isn't anything special about this movie.

Mindless, pointless, bloody fun. Entertaining and great for days when you just wanna shut your brain off.

Like many other viewers, I was really impressed by ‘Narc’, a criminally underrated and underseen cop flick, and I was really eager to watch Joe Carnahan’s following directing effort. At first, it was supposed to be ‘Mission Impossible III’ but it seems that he and Tom Cruise didn’t get along very well so he left the project. Eventually, he made this flick which had some pretty good buzz before its release. Eventually, I thought it was not bad and quite entertaining but, honestly, still fairly disappointing. On the positive side, I thought the directing was really solid, they were was a really cool massive cast (Ryan Reynolds, Ray Liotta, Jeremy Piven, Ben Affleck, Peter Berg, Martin Henderson, Common, Andy Garcia, Alicia Keys, Taraji P. Henson, Chris Pine, Kevin Durand, Joel Edgerton, Jason Bateman, Matthew Fox) and the whole thing was rather fun to watch. Unfortunately, I thought the plot was pretty weak and it felt really shallow. I couldn’t help thinking while watching this that the writer(s) seriously watched too much ‘Pulp Fiction’ and/or ‘Snatch’ and obviously tried to emulate the kinetic style of those classics. The point is that even though these movies seemed to be messy, they were actually the opposite as they were carefully crafted and, at the end, they completely made sense. This movie, on the other hand, was just style with no substance whatsoever and I didn’t care for the story or any of the characters involved. Still, even though I thought the whole thing was rather disappointing, it still remains a fun flick and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

If Smokin' Aces is of any implication as to what the action genre is going to be like in the future, I'm in! Aces delivered smashingly good action, deep, layered characters, all frostcovered with a layer of humour. Never have I seen action quite the way it was in this film. This movie built up to the last 30 action-filled minutes for about 80 minutes, during which we barely got any action at all. It worked perfectly, because the small glimpses along the way that we received worked brilliantly in building up to something, and we knew that whatever it was going to be was going to be awesome. And it sure was. I will not spoil any of the action, but it is surprisingly gory for a seemingly hollywood-like action flick, and it's also incredibly intense. Carnahan really did some spectacular choices in this movie besides that as well. For example the characters that we get, primarily the hitmen in this case. Usually in movies they have these gimmick-like things, that are just that; gimmicks. They're just there because a regular hitman would be somewhat boring. But here they became something more than that. Perhaps it was because of the great cast or the witty screenplay, but the gimmicks truly became a part of the actual characters. Israel was a marvellous character as well, a desperate soul, and Piven portrayed him spot-on. There was also a twist ending in Smokin' Aces, which I hate most of the time. But here it felt sensible, but remained unpredictable. I quite liked it. And after the twist had come out, we got an audiovisually brilliant, emotionally touching sequence that made Ryan Reynolds a good actor in my books.

I will not go too much to the actors, since there are far too many to mention individually; this movie is absolutely packed with great performances from character actors who feel right at home with who they play. Ryan Reynolds pretty much established himself as an extremely cool actor with this movie, something he miserably failed in doing in Blade III. Piven was wonderful as the human McGuffin of the movie, Buddy Israel. He has an amazing ability to morph himself according to the character that he plays, and here it really showed. The rapper of which I've never heard of before, Common, was surprisingly charismatic in his role as Israel's personal assistant. But by far the biggest surprise performance in this movie is done by another musician whom I never expected to see on the big screen: Alicia Keys. That's righ, that Falling-chick. She does a splendid performance as a hitwoman who doesn't necessarily enjoy her job just as much as the neonazi Tremor-brothers, who seemingly kill just for the heck of it. Also, props to the wonderful score composed by Clint Mansell, better know for working together with the Kronos Quartet in the drug movie Requiem For A Dream, for his awesome musical score. Especially the song at the end of the movie (which you can listen to at Clint's myspace page) worked marvellously, at least on an audiovisual level.

Overall, Smokin' Aces is an extremely enjoyable popcorn movie, that you should see, as long as you aren't the type to pass out in case blood appears on the screen. It's my favourite action movie of the year so far, alongside the Zack Snyder epic, 300. That should already tell you something about this movies quality.

I didn't really feel anything with this movie. Nothing bad, nothing good. Sure there was plenty of action and plenty of stars but that doesn't mean it's going to be a good movie. Seeing as I feel completely indifferent to this movie it's hard to say if it was bad or not. You just have to watch it to make up your own mind.

Ok, so this movie had enought action, but it really didnt have that 'feel' going on. Plot twists and turns, and a little suspense to hold you over. To be honest, I watched it to watch it. I want to see what it was like, and I was too impressed with it. It was good, but I am not running to the store to buy it

I went to this one expecting and wanting to watch a high octane testosterone movie. I wasn't let down. The body count is high and the blood flows freely in this one. I saw it at the matinee time and that is about what it is worth.

If you've seen the trailer for this one, you know what to expect. A group of hitmen are after one target for a big cash prize. They all compete to get there first and will do anything to get there along the way. Don't expect a deep thinking movie with this one. It is an "A" ticket ride with a lot of action.

I would've rated this one a little higher except the ending sucked. You go along for the ride and when the action ends they keep the story going. I was sitting there thinking about what they were going to do next, the movie is over. Well personally I think what they did next wasn't worthy of the rest of the movie. If you watch it, you'll have to see if you agree.

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