Masterminds

We've seen movies about crafty teenagers playing a cat-and-mouse game with thieves so many times that it all gets blurred. But "Masterminds" is pretty entertaining. When shyster Rafe Bentley (a mustachioed Patrick Stewart) takes a school hostage, troublemaker Oswald Paxton (Vincent Kartheiser) decides to make Rafe's life a living hell. In a way, the movie is mostly a series of gags, but well done gags. This movie probably won't have any major effect on the cinematic landscape, but it doesn't pretend to be anything that it isn't. It's pure, unadulterated fun.

Maybe if thieves ever take over a place, I'll just use some of the gags that I learned from "Masterminds".

I must say after sneaking several clips of die hard behind my parents back, i actually found this movie quite entertaining.

I first heard of this movie from the friend of a friends sawing they didn't like it at all and that it was a sucky movie. Not really the best reason to rent a movie but then again I was getting real tired real quick out of all the romance comedies that my mother and sister had been renting, (Twenty is enough to kill someone) this action flick is very good.

The director brought action and comedy into the movie. The script was very well written except for in one or two spots but other than that if you like a teenage hacker kicking bad guys @$$ you'll enjoy this flick staring Vincent Kartheiser and Patrick Stewart. Both actors give a fine performance. I'm not use to seeing Patrick Stewart in a bad guy role (parents star trek fans) but he pulled it off well. Kartheiser was a face i hadn't seen before but he is a very talented actor and also was believable in the film as the hacker teen.

The movie carries itself fine though i thought the ending could be a little better but i still liked the film. 9/10 is how i rate it.

Apart from laughing my bollocks off at the computer software and the way nobody gets hurt even from stepping on mines, I fastforwarded my way through this movie because nothing in it was even remotely interesting, apart from the odd question marks, such as "why are there rocketlauncher armed dunebuggys in the sewers" and "how did the principal and the kids actually get away" and the ever occurring, my personal favourite, "how come the bad guys always are listening for obscure radio transmissions when they don't even need a radio to begin with". More questionmarks: Why did the sprinkler system only start in the room where they had the computers, and why did they have the valve for it in the sewers? How come there are video outlets for porno channels in the cellar of the school? (Pure video outlets, not RF outlets)

'No good kid' Ozzie takes his young stepsister to school, and winds up in a hostage of the school by head of security Rafe Bentley (Patrick Stewart from Startrek / X-men). As Ozzie says himself: We got a die hard situation here people!

Thank goodness Ozzie is some sort of (computer)whizkid (apparently learned it from his dad) and sabotages the bad guys in many ways. Now, this computer thing is going way out of hand, with him infiltrating in the Pentagon (or something) in the beginning of the movie and his dad touching 2 keys and immediately infiltrates in the bad guys files... You also see the obligatory flickering 'NO ACCESS' and stuff like that... but who cares!

Near the end the movie loses it's touch a bit with a chase in the sewers (or something) and Patrick Stewart claiming to be a Manchester United fan... one of the worst scenes in movie history, I must admit.

But for 'one of the worst movies ever' (as it's sometimes called), I thought the movie was highly enjoyable. Flawed yes, far-fetched sure, but still...

Final score: 5/10.

When I started watching this, I basically just had the TV on and I didn't know what it was about. After about 20 minutes you realise what it is - it's Die Hard in a School for teenagers! Kartheiser plays Bruce Willis' character with Patrick Stewart doing Alan Rickman duties. The film even has elements of the Die Hard movies - comic interplay over the radio, twisty escape plans, running down corridors and through ventilation shafts etc.

The only problem is that this is a kids movie - it's too basic for adults with too little tension or drama and it may even be a bit scary for young children. Which only leaves teenagers as it's audience. It's a shame, because this is not as bad as it sounds - it's reasonable undemanding fun. True, the action is not exactly what we've come to expect from an action movie - but for a kids version of Die Hard it's not bad!

Patrick Stewart is good as the bad guy and plays the whole thing with his tongue in his cheek - at one point in the film making his getaway wearing a Manchester United strip! The rest of the adult cast is ok (including well known faces such as Brenda Flicker and Whitford), but the weak link is unfortunately Kartheiser who, for most of the film plays it like a really annoying version of Malculy Culkin! It's unfortunate because it's hard to care about him when he's being a snotty arrogant teenager.

This won't satisfy many adults and will be too scary for kids (all the plot twists will be lost on them as well). But as a Die Hard for 12-15 year olds then this will satisfy most boys going through puberty.