EARLY REVIEWS: Green Zone and Get Him to The Greek!

Green Zone

Starring: Matt Damon, Amy Ryan, Greg Kinnear, and Brenden Gleeson

Directed By Paul Greengrass

Running Time: 1hr 40 Min

Rated R

Green Zone is a fun, entertaining adult action movie that sometimes gets off balanced with trying to preach a message. I didn't think i was going to enjoy Green Zone mainly because the trailers do an awful job with what this movie is about. This is not a Bourne Film. It's a Paul Greengrass film. The POV camera work and quick editing are still in effect but this is very much in the vain of his first film Bloody Sunday and United 93 (which you could even call a companion film to Green Zone). The film starts with balancing suspenseful action with a interesting story but near the end the film starts to lose it's edge by playing more with the action-super soldier side than keeping up with the realistic setting the movie started with.

The film starts out during the beginning of the Iraqi war with Captain Roy Miller (Matt Damon) dealing with a rapidly deteriorating situation: he's got to search a potential WMD site that is in mid-looting with a sniper somewhere on the site. Frustrated with the Intel, he goes off reservation and starts asking questions, employing the help of a CIA guy (Brendan Gleeson) and journalist (Amy Ryan), who made the case for the war in her articles based on Intel that even she can't ignore anymore. There's a little more story to it than that, but ultimately it comes down to three sides, those who used the false Intel now want to cover their own asses, Damon just wants answers before they are snuffed out, and the former Iraqi military forces who think if things get bad enough they'll get an offer to run/control things (assuming they survive long enough).

Matt Damon is excellent in the film proving that once again he can do action just as well as...well anything else. The supporting cast is well-rounded and the film never gets boring. The main problem with the movie is that it has a hard time with what type of film this is. Is it a war-message movie or is it a mindless-action film. The film tries to be as thrilling as the Bourne films but as intelligent as Syriana and it never finds the perfect balance. That being said, I recommend this fun, entertaining film!

Grade B

Get Him To The Greek

Starring Jonah Hill, Russell Brand and Sean (P. Diddy) Combs

Directed By Nicholas Stoller

This film doesn't come out for another 3 months and still has time to fix some thing but this spin-off of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, needs to fix ALOT of things to make this a good film. The movie has an awesome premise. The movie follows Jonah Hill, playing a different character than in "Sarah Marshall", as a ambitious 23-year-old record company intern (Hill) who is hired to accompany out-of-control British rock star Aldous Snow (Brand) to a concert at L.A.'s Greek Theater. This has all the set-up to be a hilarious, out of control film but the movie never really takes off. The film has some funny parts but it just doesn't ever work. Russell Brand worked so well as a supporting character in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" but as a lead, the act gets old quickly. Jonah Hill is playing Michael Cera and is just miscast. P. Diddy is the funniest person in this film if that goes to say anything.

The trailer was released and half of the trailer wasn't in the film, so maybe the version i saw was a film trying out different scenes. So...maybe and the film does have three months before it is released and the version I saw was supposedly a very early cut of the film but a lot needs to be done to make this an enjoyable film.

P.S. While the film is a spin-off, The film doesn’t follow the timeline of Forgetting Sarah Marshall at all…it takes place at least 7 years after Sarah Marshall but it’s set in 2010.

Also…Jason Segal does not make a cameo.

Grade - C