It is practically impossible to innovate in traditional zombies movies. The Crazies in vain re-sifts all the stereotypes of the kind with an effectiveness sometimes surprising way, remains that the result was already seen hundreds of times… and in much better motion pictures.

In a lost village of the United States, people start to lose their mind, attacking their similar, killing out of the members of their own family. It is too much for the sheriff Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) who would like to put in safety his pregnant wife (Radha Mitchell). When the army unloads in the small town, he suspects that the situation is not likely to improve. Quite to the contrary!

Doesn’t the synopsis seem to leave the ordinary one? It is normal, it acts of a new version of the feature-length film that George A. Romero produced in 1973. This time, the father of death-alive beings acts as an executive producer and he entrusted the reindeers of the project to the director Breck Eisner (who did not convince at all with his last movie entitled Sahara). Work has in vain to have be conceived it there has tens of years, it remains cruelly of topicality, with these too many murder followed of suicides (and to say that the specialists are pointing the economic crisis), this pandemic influenza H1N1 which crossed the borders (and of which nobody any more seems to worry at present) and this almost generalized paranoia.

There the originality of the matter so much the unit stops are connected with a lower quality amalgam of 28 Days Later and low esteem The Happening. Conscious that it is extremely difficult to innovate on the matter, the scenario writer is satisfied to accumulate the shocks effects. Although some sequences freeze indeed blood, the repetitive assembly feels the routine, thwarting only too seldom waitings. Unfortunately this is too much hemoglobin in this movie and so few true shivers. And this is the problem with every modern horror movie lately.

Unfortunately for movie fans, the production was not able to be detached from the group for various reasons. The narrative screen, obviously, being the first on the list. But also the realization which misses of completion vision in some scenes of The Crazies, recycling instead of proposing something new and fresh. Interpretation is hardly better. The majority of the actors (and especially Timothy Olyphant) do not manage to raise their play. It is necessary to acknowledge that the insipidity of their characters leans for much in the balance.

All that transforms The Crazies in a test at the same time diverting and too much creature of habit, who eclipses two hours of the existence without annoying too much. Except that with such a groundwork, it would have been possible to offer something of even more captivating and well-done. With same even more black humor and of morbidity, with the image of these old titles of series B of the 70s in which David Cronenberg was among the best specialist in the world.

Film designed to make well appear its interpreters, The Last Station is far from being with the height of its subject, and even less from the mythical Tolstoï  novelist who is in the center of the stakes. Remain a wise and academic test being windy the virtues of the love.

The last tumultuous year of the socialist writer Leo Tolstoï (Christopher Plummer) near his young authoritative wife (Helen Mirren), of her attentive daughter (Anne-Marie Duff), of a faithful friend to the sibylline interests (Paul Giamatti) and of a young secretary (James McAvoy) who discovers passion in the arms of a woman (Kerry Condon) advances some over his time.

Follower of the works with costumes, Michael Hoffman swims as a fish in water while transposing the novel by Jay Parini which is held in 1910 in Russia. If the scenario writer did not respect the language of his origin country (everyone speaks in English with strong British accents), he took care of the costumes and the decorations, recreating the time with meticulousness, moving away from the empty and conclusive fresco which generally pollutes the screens.

Perfect for the ceremonies of price, the feature-length film alternates between the comedy and the drama, juxtaposing two stories gradually. There is this young man who discovers the love near a girl lit much more than him, and this important figure which is known at the end of its existence, seeking to juggle between the woman of his life and his work which will survive to him. Confrontations are generally held in duet, with a light introduction which points out the cleavage of two different social classes, a little as in the recent one and diverting Me and Orson Welles by Richard Linklater.

The serious finally takes the top on the happiness of the first days, which gives several dramatic scenes, a few moments of grace and a heavy final which collapses under a choking music. Incompetent to vary his setting in scene which tends to be slightly soporific, the creator of the ice One Fine Day taps with difficulty the dramatic stakes of his promising subject, asepticizing his depth at the same time.

Remain a film of characters, whose majority prove to be convincing. James McAvoy starts to know by heart know this role of young first and he is again convincing. Just like Paul Giamatti which wrinkles the eyebrows and draws the moustache into a villain. It is however the couple played by Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren which draws the attention, them which have been in nomination in last Oscars in the Best Supporting Actor Best Actress categories. The first steals the popularity to his entourage with his delicious performance in half-tone, whereas the second avoids forcing the amount too much as can do it Meryl Streep or a Sandra Bullock.

By disregarding its elegant distribution, The Last Station would have drawn the attention of well little world. And it would be comprehensible. The effort pains to rise above the mass and it is the service of the casting which makes all the difference. It is not perhaps sufficient to make a memorable title of it, but it is all the same possible to tap a certain pleasure there.