Wolfgang Petersen
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The ideal version of this story needn’t last as long as the unabridged Das Boot , but in only an hour and 20 minutes, it’s difficult to convey Krause’s exhaustion or the endurance required to outlast his assailants.
Perhaps remembering such gut-wrenching movies as Das Boot, Hanks and Schneider streamline everything to the point where the other characters hardly matter.
I was at least expecting something claustrophobic in the line of Wolfgang Petersen’s seminal Das Boot (1981).
You can see the effect Hanks and director Aaron Schneider, whose last directorial effort was 2009s Get Low , are going for — an immersive, no context tour-of-duty onboard a besieged warship — but it doesn’t have that filmmaking excitement of, say, Das Boot .
This briny war film can take its place among the greats – The Cruel Sea, Western Approaches, Das Boot, In Which We Serve.
Every encounter with a sub involves coordinates and orders being relayed ad nauseam, which yes, could be fashioned into high drama (see Das Boot ).
They’re unforgettable characters on their own, but they also mirror the guilt, trauma, and loss that haunt him long after his brutal invasion of Troy.
…the Wizard of Oz effect makes it so, just like with Troy, no Gods are actually used…
…his invasion heroics in Troy…
I never thought I’d find myself talking up Wolfgang Petersen’s big-budget 2004 epic Troy, based on Homer’s other story, and starring Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom, and Diane Kruger.
Whereas Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy feared even acknowledging the gods and reduced the war of its title to a fortnight frolic on a beach, Nolan’s Odyssey is all-encompassing, faithful, and dares incorporate actual history we know from the late Bronze Age.
The last major film in this genre, Wolfgang Petersen’s TROY, hit theaters 22 years ago, so huge epics about Greek mythology are rare.
Olympus Has Fallen (2013)
Directed by Antoine Fuqua
influenced by Air Force One (1997), In the Line of Fire (1993)
Plot Themes Characters
In addition to “Zero Dark Thirty,” you can compare “Olympus Has Fallen” to “Air Force One,” though on a much grander scale.
“Olympus Has Fallen” has a plot largely lifted from “Air Force One” (minus the plane), while also mixing in bits of “Independence Day” (minus the aliens) and “In the Line of Fire,” with a subplot about a Secret Service agent haunted by a past mistake and determined to successfully protect the president this time.
Unlike the similarly themed "Air Force One," Eckhart's President character isn't given much of a chance to do anything, while Morgan Freeman gets to be temporary Commander-in-Chief when things go amiss (and he's once again tasked with the pending end of the world, although this time it could be via nukes rather than a big interstellar rock headed this way).
As former special ops veteran Mike Banning, Butler makes his entrance as the tall, studly leader of the tall, studly Secret Service agents assigned to protect U.S. President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart in Harrison Ford’s “Air Force One” mode), first lady Margaret (Ashley Judd) and the first son Connor (Finley Jacobsen), a middle-school-aged kid who obviously hero-worships Mike.
In Air Force One, Harrison Ford made a powerfully convincing U.S. president; Aaron Eckhart, not so much.
Imagine grounding "Air Force One" and scaling it back to The White House, giving it the story of "Die Hard" with the laughable characters and ridiculous screenplay of the "Red Dawn" remake and sprinkling it with bits of "Law Abiding Citizen" and you get "Olympus Has Fallen."
U-571 is an awfully familiar journey through the Atlantic Ocean via submarine, one that we�ve taken before in Wolfgang Petersen�s Das Boot, Tony Scott�s Crimson Tide, and John McTiernan�s The Hunt for Red October.
Wolfgang Petersen exploited this flaw in our makeup back in 1981 with his classic World War II submarine epic Das Boot, a German film that had us temporarily pulling for the German army.
Between "Das Boot", "Crimson Tide", "Run Silent, Run Deep" and "The Hunt for Red October", the submarine genre has pretty much been given its due.
Aided by persuasive effects and authoritative production design from Götz (Das Boot) Weidner, writer/director Mostow pays his dues to the genre, but without much charge and even less depth.
U-571 slickly emulates Wolfgang Petersen's Das Boot (even grabbing that film's production designer Götz Weidner to work with Wm Ladd Skinner).
In his DVD commentary, Mostow makes clear that he isn't interested in the you-are-there squalor of "Das Boot" -- arguably the finest sub picture ever made.
The claustrophobic tank setting brings to mind such notable submarine dramas as Das Boot and Run Silent, Run Deep, right down to the inhabitants' frayed nerves and constant bickering.
What Wolfgang Petersen did for submarines in "Das Boot" more than 30 years ago, Ayer has done in a Sherman tank.
“Fury” may aspire to be the “Das Boot” of tank movies.
"Fury" is not a genre landmark like "Das Boot" or "Saving Private Ryan" — but its perspective is distinctive.
Fury is to tank warfare what Das Boot was to the dread of life on a German U-boat.
The Last Airbender (2010)
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan
influenced by The NeverEnding Story (1984)
Characters Themes
This means doing a lot of traveling, so it helps that Aang has with him a giant, friendly, furry, flying beast (think here of "The NeverEnding Story").
He and his “sky bison,” a giant flying creature that looks like a cross between the Luck Dragon of The NeverEnding Story (1984) and one of Maurice Sendak’s Wild Things, became trapped under the ice of the northern territory and were freed by Katara (Nicola Peltz), a young woman of the Water Tribe who is also a nascent bender, and her older and very protective brother Sokka (Jackson Rathbone).
Much-loved characters from the animated series are brought to life, including the monkey Momo and a flying bison named Appa (who looks terrific but is a little too reminiscent of the luckdragon Falcor from Wolfgang Petersen’s The NeverEnding Story, 1984).
Filmed in 2-D with 3-D applied after the fact - with marginal results - its muddled mythology is a patchwork of influences, from "Compass," "The Chronicles of Narnia," "The Lord of The Rings" and "The Neverending Story" to, of all things, the Dalai Lama parables "Little Buddha" and "Kundun."
Or, in more recent terms, it’s like Wolfgang Petersen’s Outbreak (1995) minus the monkey and with more than two functioning brain cells.
Director Steven Soderbergh and writer Scott Z. Burns eschew hysterical melodrama (e.g., 1995’s Outbreak) in favor of a matter-of-fact tracing of the disease from its first victim (Gwyneth Paltrow) through the far-flung efforts to cope with the spreading mortality.
Same goes for that symphony of coughing that invariably accompanies any public screening experience: Once an annoyance, the unwelcome noise takes on a threatening edge in this context -- a reminder of the scene in 1995's Ebola-inspired film "Outbreak," in which someone sneezes in a movie theater and the camera follows the swarm of germs around the darkened room.
It’s hard not to immediately hearken back to Wolfgang Petersen’s 1995 heart-pounder, Outbreak, the last major pandemic film with a stellar cast.
We expect to see the graphs where the color red envelops continents with each passing day and the eventual breakdown in human civility as lack of knowledge turns into desperation, but nothing about the film feels sensationalistic or headed towards some big action climax a la Dustin Hoffman running down the monkey and playing helicopter chicken in Outbreak.
The premise itself is sure to draw more than a cursory comparison to 1995's "Outbreak," but "Contagion" stands as the superior, less commercially reliant effort.
While built on elements from Alien Nation , Enemy Mine , and even David Cronenberg’s The Fly , District 9 transcends its inspirations by focusing on story, character, and the very human disregard for others until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.
Although Blomkamp and company have obviously drawn from previous films including "Close Encounters," "Enemy Mine," "Aliens," "Starship Troopers and even a dash of "I Am Legend," their film is the first in a long while that shouts out for series treatment à la "The Terminator" and "Alien."
Rather, this ham-fisted Apartheid allegory involving beleaguered insectoid space aliens herded into the eponymous South African ghetto wins several points because it craftily hybridizes much that was cool about '80s sci-fi (V, Alien Nation, Enemy Mine, plus a huge debt to The Fly -- these creatures seem to have flown in directly from Planet Brundle), whilst rocking both the action and the truly unusual setting.
District 9 takes an attractive premise and approaches it from an unconventional angle resulting in a wildly entertaining sci-fi satire that melds bits and pieces of The Fly Midnight Run Starship Troopers Enemy Mine Alien Nation and TV’s Cops .
White House Down (2013)
Directed by Roland Emmerich
influenced by Air Force One (1997), In the Line of Fire (1993)
Plot Characters
White House Down is yet another take on the old Die Hard formula, with more than a few nods to the fun Air Force One (1997) and to Emmerich's own Independence Day (1996).
The Presidential action hero has evolved from Harrison Ford yelling "Get off my plane!" in "Air Force One" to Foxx kicking away from a bad guy's grasp with "Get your hands off my Jordans!"
Then the president of the United States fires a rocket launcher out the window of a car while terrorists are machine-gunning him—a vicious burlesque, perhaps, of Harrison Ford's President Bad-Ass back in Air Force One.
This isn’t Air Force One, with the president kicking much ass - President Sawyer has to put on his glasses before taking a shot at a bad guy.
Double down on a “Die Hard” and “Air Force One” marathon as this second take of D.C. destruction isn’t worth your financial endorsement.
I'd like to have one of these guilt-driven security guys protecting me: Clint Eastwood in "In The Line of Fire" (1993) who failed to save the life of John F. Kennedy; "Olympus Has Fallen" bodyguard ( Gerard Butler ), who did rescue the president, but not the first lady; Channing Tatum specifically, for every "Sexiest Man Alive" reason, plus his dance-trained agility and his desire to impress and bond with his estranged daughter.
“Non-Stop” is nothing but entertaining; a locked-room mystery combining elements of Agatha Christie and “Air Force One.” Neeson is Bill Marks, a United States Air Marshal suffering from one too many ailments.
This is more in line with Air Force One, although it's not as tightly wound as Wolfgang Petersen's 1997 thriller starring Harrison Ford as the U.S. President.
This film needed a more confident filmmaking hand, someone to replicate the sleekness Jan de Bont brought to “Speed” or Wolfgang Petersen provided in “Air Force One.”
In terms of danger-on-a-plane scenarios it’s superior to “Flightplan” and “Turbulence” but not as goofily entertaining as “Red Eye,” “Air Force One” or even “Con Air.”
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
Directed by Peter Jackson
influenced by The NeverEnding Story (1984)
Anyone might notice the references to The Wizard of Oz, maybe even those to Wolfgang Petersen’s The NeverEnding Story.
I'm a Greek myth geek, so I was surprised when I realized no big Hollywood attempt had been made at dramatizing Homer's epic poem, The Iliad (I'm not sure if the 1956 movie Helen of Troy counts).
Like Robert Wise's 1955 "Helen of Troy" (a much inferior movie), Petersen's version leaves out the gods completely and tries to envision what this event might have been like if it had actually transpired and was later mythologized by Homer.
Lots of things can go wrong in a sword-and-sandal picture, and many of them did in Robert Wise’s 1953 Helen of Troy, probably the most notable previous cinematic stab at the tale.
Previous efforts--from Alexander Korda's "lost" 1927 silent film "The Private Life of Helen of Troy" to Robert Wise's unwieldy 1955 "Helen of Troy" to the recent television "Helen of Troy" miniseries--have all been equally ham-fisted, each falling prey to the misguided belief that a populist action-adventure yarn could be distilled from classical mythology.
Brad Pitt is so miscast as Achilles that he brings to mind sword-and-sandal debacles like 1963's "Cleopatra."
London Has Fallen (2016)
Directed by Babak Najafi
influenced by Air Force One (1997), In the Line of Fire (1993)
Plot Characters
Air Force One was Die Hard on a very specific plane — the president’s personal 747.
But the action-sequel "London Has Fallen" -- a breathless narrative mashup of "Die Hard" and "Air Force One" -- comes close.
As with 'Olympus,' 'London' is akin to an indelicate, more vicious riff on “Air Force One,” with the Commander-in-Chief relegated to a damsel in distress — Eckhart’s Asher does more fighting this time around, but he’s still ultimately in need of rescuing — and America’s finest military man, Banning, envisioned as a noble macho deity.
London Has Fallen, meanwhile, is more like The Warriors-meets-Air Force One.
“London Has Fallen,” the sequel to 2013’s modest hit “Olympus Has Fallen,” finds Butler back as the toughest Secret Service agent since Clint Eastwood’s Frank Horrigan from “In the Line of Fire.”
Other underwater sea adventures like “Run Silent, Run Deep,” “Crimson Tide,” and “The Hunt for Red October” may come close, but none of them can capture or match its power in unbearable claustrophobic tension.
Nijedan sličan film prije (“Enemy Below“, “Run Silent, Run Deep“…) ili poslije (“Lov na Crveni Oktobar“, “Grimizna plima“, “Podmornica U-571“…) nije uspio ovako psihički i fizički autentično projicirati istinu o životu na podmornici koju će otkriti novinar (Herbert Groenemeyer) - kakav je osjećaj biti ispod vode usred oceana u stiješnjenom prostoru dok vas neprijatelj gore čeka i u međuvremenu igra sa vama igru metalne mačke i miša.
CGI effects are generally good, at least until the film's climatic beach battle where approaching vessels recall the ships of "Troy."
The film’s ultimate Achilles’ heel (it even emulates Brad Pitt’s “Troy” in a lackluster and laughable climax) is Oscar winner Brian Helgeland’s script.
Remember how tedious it was to discover that Troy contained none of the supernatural elements that made the original Greek myths so captivating?
What do you get if you mix “Gladiator,” “The Return of Martin Guerre,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “Elizabeth,” “Troy,” “The Seventh Seal,” and a hundred buckets of mud?
In addition, the finished product verges on self-parody, repeating images and moments from everything from 1998's "Saving Private Ryan" to 2004's " Troy " to 2005's " Kingdom of Heaven " to the " Lord of the Rings " trilogy.
Thus "In the Line of Fire" joins a great tradition of cat-mouse assassination thrillers, such as "Rogue Male," "The Day of the Jackal," "The Eye of the Needle" and one or two others I could name.
The benchmark for assassination movies is "The Day of the Jackal," Fred Zinnemann's crisp, finely tuned 1973 adaptation of the Frederick Forsyth best seller about a plot to kill Charles de Gaulle.
Belier’s French dairy farm-backdrop becomes a tight-knit American coastal community, one we’re familiar with from dramas like The Perfect Storm , Blow the Man Down or Manchester By the Sea .
The world of Fantasia contains creatures inspired by Alice in Wonderland (a little man atop a racing snail), " The Muppets " (a cute dragon-dog that can fly), and probably B.C. (a giant made of stone, who snacks on quartz and rumbles around on his granite tricycle).
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
influenced Outbreak (1995)
Visuals Characters
I am not sure I believed the helicopter chase sequence in "Outbreak," and I am sure I didn't believe the standoff between a helicopter and a bomber (in a scene with echoes of " Dr. Strangelove ").
His portrayal, like his character, would be more at home in Dr. Strangelove than here, and it's a sore spot that the movie never quite recovers from.