Demi-god by Design

Hercules finds a circumspect puffed up lead (Dwayne Johnson), who, along with his band of mercenaries, sides with the Thracians to defeat the warlord Rheseus (Tobias Santelmann). Things are not quite what they seem, however, and the warrior soon finds himself requiring to draw upon his remarkable strength as well as the many legends surrounding him, to rally armies in favor and bring to pass what is righteous and just. Nothing like the disaster earlier this year (The Legend of Hercules), Hercules is a treat to watch, with a reasonable balance of special effects and the human element, and a few no-holds barred treats in raw physicality to boot

13/20

Shoot thy Enemies

Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, Joseph Fiennes and Ed Harris capture both the all-out poignancy of war as well as the fraility of man in the face of personal and extraleous challenge, in Enemy at the Gates. Easily one of the best war movies that I have seen, young Vassili Zaitsev (Jude Law), sharpshooter from the Urals, finds himself the hero of the Battle of Stalingrad on account of his superlative sniper skills. He also finds love in the beautiful Moscow-educated Tania (Rachel Weisz) and the two catch some fleeting intimate moments in the midst of the horror. The fame and love awaken jealousy in no small measure in Commissar Danilov (Joseph Fiennes) who clears his conscience in one last cathartic act. And the showdown between the deer-hunting German nobleman sharpshooter Major Konig (Ed Harris) and Vassili is the piece-de-resistance of the movie. It is a rare combination of the depiction of the large-scale brutality of war coupled with the cat-and-mouse game of the two sharpshooters

16/20