With Oscar season upon us, I felt it was my duty as a disability studies & media scholar to sit through the latest Stephen Hawking bio-pic, Theory of Everything. What follows is my review of a wholly mediocre movie that likely only got nominated because it featured a nondisabled guy pretending to be a disabled guy. As with most reviews, the following may (read: likely does) contain spoilers – consider yourself adequately warned.
A sucker for mindless action films, I was excited to see Gareth Evan’s follow-up to the energetic and gruesome hit The Raid: Redemption (2011). While The Raid 2 (2014) is probably a mediocre film at best, there are enough interesting aspects to this film to make it worth watching. As with most reviews, the following may (read: likely does) contain spoilers – consider yourself adequately warned.
I went into this movie with pretty high expectations, given the pedigree of the production team and the buzz that this film could finally land DiCaprio his much desired Oscar. Although billed as a comedy, this film has been marketed as a satirical look at the opulence and moral bankruptcy of American stockbrokers in the lead-up to the economic crash of 2008. As you can imagine, I was pretty excited to see this one.