Saturday, August 31, 2013

Movie Review: Sally Lockhart ***Ruby in the Smoke, ***The Shadow in he North

These two movies have the same characters.  They are based on a series of novels by Phillip Pullman about a female detective/ financial consultant in England during the Victorian Era.  I ordered these two movies from Netflix DVD as Sally is portrayed by Billie Piper, Rose in Doctor Who.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that one of her friends is played by Matt Smith, the current Doctor Who.  I actually watched them in reverse order.  In the Ruby in the Smoke, Sally is left an orphan after her father dies in a ship accident.  She later discovers he was murdered over a ruby of great worth.  She is in the target of a murderess, who has murdered several people, and has surrounded herself with many thugs, in an effort to get the ruby.  The plot also includes the heroin trade and addiction.  Sally uses heroin in small amounts to help her remember her past.  The plot takes several twists, with a young girl kidnapped.  Sally and her friends, because of their persistence, are finally able to prevail. 

The second movie has a much more sinister and complicated plot.  Sally gets involved as someone she advised about investments, loses her money as a company goes bankrupt, and then reemerges as another company.  The plot takes even more twists, as the sinister man turns out to have purchased the rights to a super weapon which he is developing.  This weapon will quell all uprisings, at it uses a train and a Gatling gun, to fire a tremendous amount of bullets.  The evil man's men, burn down the home where Sally and her cohorts are staying, killing her love and father of her baby as she is now pregnant.  However she gets even in the end as she is able to destroy the weapon, but not until after she has turned it on our villain.

Billie Piper as Sally Lockhart
The stories were entertaining, but a bit hard to follow; mostly because of the thick cockney accents of the characters.

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