Do your own stunts for the win

Rating: 8/10 (2 January 2012)

Sherlock Jr, The General, Modern Times -- lots of the great films feature actors like Jackie Chan, doing their own stunts. Nothing works better for getting me there with the actor. Also, it's become vital for the audiences to never know for certain when a special effect is being used.
Except for an exploding parking lot early on, everything in this movie seemed real enough for me to get into the action. The Burj Khalifa tower, in particular, was awe-inspiring. Now, they could have stayed safely in Los Angeles and done everything with special effects, and it would likely have looked pretty good. Spiderman movies have similar scenes, but there is no comparison. Tom Cruise here or Harold Lloyd there (Safety Last!) really brings out the tension.
On missiles -- under a treaty, Russia and the US inform each other ahead of time on all launches. Also, all missile launches are easily detectable. The missile would have taken much longer to reach the target. NORAD would have been just one agency aware of the rogue missile launch.
I loved the acting, the set-ups, and the solid grounding in reality. The sandstorm gave a great follow-up to the tower. Wonderful stuff. About the only scene I didn't like was a non-eventful one involving the main characters sitting around a table talking.