Director: David Koepp
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Shannon, Dania Ramirez, Sean Kennedy, Jamie Chung
***
After scoring major roles from The Dark Knight Rises to Looper, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is enjoying a bumper year. By comparison, his leading-man performance in this fast-paced New York thriller is a lightweight affair, full of zing and energy but, ultimately, a little too cartoonish.
Premium Rush unfolds inside a 90-minute, real-time frame, although the plot loops back and forward at various points to fill in character motives and back stories. Gordon-Levitt plays a New York City bicycle messenger named Wilee, a clumsy homage to the restless coyote in the Road Runner cartoons. Despite being a law graduate, he has rejected a conventional career to remain a free spirit - which, in his case, means carrying packages around Manhattan all day, breathing petrol fumes and risking serious injury for a minimum wage. Pathological idiocy dressed up as the American dream.
This is about the level of logic and realism we quickly come to expect from Premium Rush. The plot revolves around Wilee peddling at great speed from Manhattan's uptown university district to Chinatown to deliver an urgent payment for an illegal human-trafficking operation. Along the way, he gets into a deadly cat-and-mouse chase with Michael Shannon's crooked cop, who needs the money to pay off his heavy gambling debts. Wilee also tries to sweet-talk his semi-estranged girlfriend (Ramirez) into reconciliation, and ends up in a dangerous high-speed race through Central Park with his boastful bike-messenger rival (Kennedy).
David Koepp is a hugely successful screenwriter whose CV includes Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible and Spider-Man. He also co-wrote Brian De Palma's 1998 thriller, Snake Eyes, which had a similar kind of real-time, adrenalin-pumped, plot-looping energy as Premium Rush.
Koepp's slender handful of credits is more uneven, but he does a decent job here. Though not a great visual stylist, his use of smartphone apps and interactive maps to zoom the characters around Manhattan is impressive; likewise Wilee's split-second calculations of the quickest, safest route to zip through traffic.
But Koepp's film is also let down by clunky dialogue and cliched characters. Broad caricatures abound, especially Shannon's comically overblown, bad-apple detective, who appears to be channelling the young Christopher Walken. A chase movie with bikes rather than cars, a cartoon with humans instead of animated animals, this slick, street-level thriller is full of sensory delights but low on common sense. Ironically, for all its dynamic two-wheeled action, Premium Rush ultimately feels a little pedestrian.
The specs
Engine: Direct injection 4-cylinder 1.4-litre
Power: 150hp
Torque: 250Nm
Price: From Dh139,000
On sale: Now
COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
THE%20SPECS
%3Cp%3EBattery%3A%2060kW%20lithium-ion%20phosphate%3Cbr%3EPower%3A%20Up%20to%20201bhp%3Cbr%3E0%20to%20100kph%3A%207.3%20seconds%3Cbr%3ERange%3A%20418km%3Cbr%3EPrice%3A%20From%20Dh149%2C900%3Cbr%3EAvailable%3A%20Now%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Squid Game season two
Director: Hwang Dong-hyuk
Stars: Lee Jung-jae, Wi Ha-joon and Lee Byung-hun
Rating: 4.5/5
Dubai Bling season three
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5
The specs
Engine: 77.4kW all-wheel-drive dual motor
Power: 320bhp
Torque: 605Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh219,000
On sale: Now
'My Son'
Director: Christian Carion
Starring: James McAvoy, Claire Foy, Tom Cullen, Gary Lewis
Rating: 2/5
The Sheikh Zayed Future Energy Prize
This year’s winners of the US$4 million Sheikh Zayed Future Energy Prize will be recognised and rewarded in Abu Dhabi on January 15 as part of Abu Dhabi Sustainable Week, which runs in the capital from January 13 to 20.
From solutions to life-changing technologies, the aim is to discover innovative breakthroughs to create a new and sustainable energy future.
if you go
The flights
Emirates fly direct from Dubai to Houston, Texas, where United have direct flights to Managua. Alternatively, from October, Iberia will offer connections from Madrid, which can be reached by both Etihad from Abu Dhabi and Emirates from Dubai.
The trip
Geodyssey’s (Geodyssey.co.uk) 15-night Nicaragua Odyssey visits the colonial cities of Leon and Granada, lively country villages, the lake island of Ometepe and a stunning array of landscapes, with wildlife, history, creative crafts and more. From Dh18,500 per person, based on two sharing, including transfers and tours but excluding international flights. For more information, visit visitnicaragua.us.
Brown/Black belt finals
3pm: 49kg female: Mayssa Bastos (BRA) v Thamires Aquino (BRA)
3.07pm: 56kg male: Hiago George (BRA) v Carlos Alberto da Silva (BRA)
3.14pm: 55kg female: Amal Amjahid (BEL) v Bianca Basilio (BRA)
3.21pm: 62kg male: Gabriel de Sousa (BRA) v Joao Miyao (BRA)
3.28pm: 62kg female: Beatriz Mesquita (BRA) v Ffion Davies (GBR)
3.35pm: 69kg male: Isaac Doederlein (BRA) v Paulo Miyao (BRA)
3.42pm: 70kg female: Thamara Silva (BRA) v Alessandra Moss (AUS)
3.49pm: 77kg male: Oliver Lovell (GBR) v Tommy Langarkar (NOR)
3.56pm: 85kg male: Faisal Al Ketbi (UAE) v Rudson Mateus Teles (BRA)
4.03pm: 90kg female: Claire-France Thevenon (FRA) v Gabreili Passanha (BRA)
4.10pm: 94kg male: Adam Wardzinski (POL) v Kaynan Duarte (BRA)
4.17pm: 110kg male: Yahia Mansoor Al Hammadi (UAE) v Joao Rocha (BRA
