2010 Mini Film Reviews

Black Swan: Like the possible evil twin sister battling for possession of ballet dancer Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) upon winning the role of a lifetime in the play, White Swan, I found myself waging a personal battle on whether I should embrace this psychological (fan magazines like Fangoria are covering it as though this is a horror movie) and eventually predictable mind trip. Like Hailee Steinfeld’s performance in the remake of True Grit, the heart of Black Swan lies in Natalie Portman’s tragic perfectionist ballet dancer who sees a rival dancer (Mila Kunis) as a threat. Other than Black Swan, the only other film I have seen from director Darren Aronofsky was The Wrestler (2008) with Mickey Rourke in the title role as a down and out fighter attempting to make a comeback. I am going to go out on a limb here and say having seen both now I get the impression Aronofsky likes to do movies where the character's personal demons eventually get the best of them. R, 108m. Reviewed 12/30/10. «««

True Grit: It doesn’t take brain surgery to figure out the reason audiences would be interested in seeing this remake of the 1969 film that earned John Wayne an Academy Award in 1970 would be to see whether this year’s Oscar winner Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart - 2009) would do Wayne’s role as the drunken one-eyed bounty hunting U.S. Marshall Rooster Cogburn justice. The thought of Oscar winning directors Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country For Old Men – 2007) even remaking a John Wayne classic is enough to either peak one’s curiosity or, if anyone feels the way I do, they’ll cringe at the latest report of hearing Hollywood remaking an old film that in most cases was already perfect to begin with. The good news here is Jeff Bridges is not channeling much less mimicking John Wayne’s performance. This isn’t a John Wayne performance one is watching. It’s a Jeff Bridges performance all the way through. The real heart of this revenge story done in the Old West, however, belongs to actress Hailee Steinfeld as the 14-year-old who hires Cogburn to track down her father’s killer. At first glance any grown-up would find Steinfeld’s young Mattie Ross as someone they could easily take advantage of simply because she is only 14. From the get-go Mattie shows she knows how to take care of herself when the situation warrants it. She is the one who’s got “true grit” and is enough to eventually make Texas Marshall LaBoeuf (Matt Damon) want to shake her hand. I don’t think there will be any surprises at hearing Steinfeld’s name on the list of 2011 Academy Award nominees Jan. 25, 2011. The big surprise will be if she wins on Oscar night Feb. 27. PG-13, 127 m. Reviewed 12/29/10. «««

Tron: Legacy: When Tron came out 28 years ago, Atari and other popular game console systems were popular. Today, fans of Xbox would laugh at the graphics those Atari systems had back then, just as they would probably have a hard time embracing the 1982 Disney film, which was a box office failure in its day. One thing was certain. There was no denying the original about computer hacker Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) getting zapped into a video game world was innovatively clever and the visual effects at the time were not dated. The effects Tron: Legacy exhibits show just how much things have advanced from a technological standpoint as the son (Garrett Hedlund) of Kevin Flynn is again sent into a virtual game world to rescue his father imprisoned by his evil twin in the digital realm. Like the predecessor, Tron: Legacy does not make a lot of sense. Or maybe it’s just me and the ones who can make sense of the story are the computer geeks. Either way, I go see movies in hopes my eight bucks will not be wasted. Last year, I bought three movies I could justify having on Blu-ray to watch again over time. In 2010, other than the unrated extended editions of recently released movies, I found none. Perhaps the best recommendation I could give is that Tron: Legacy is probably one of the few movies I will buy when it comes out on Blu-ray next Summer. PG, 127m. Reviewed 12/17/10. «««

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows: Part I: My feelings about the Harry Potter movies and author J.K. Rowling’s seven book series are the same as The Lord of the Rings series when it comes to fantasy. These movies are really for fans of the books. As a non-fan, I have found it hard to get into the film adaptations, though for the most part, I did enjoy the previous six films (2001-2009) but not enough to sit through them all again unless each gets the red carpet treatment on Blu-ray and are turned into extended cuts which may not be the case with all the previous releases or for that matter, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows which will be shown in two parts. Part II comes out next July thus ending the entire franchise much to studio Warner Brothers’ dismay. My biggest argument with the previous six films is they felt about as long as the entire year that wizards Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and best friends Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) spend at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I find that to not be very far from the truth seeing since each of J.K. Rowling’s books are called “Year 1” and so on. The trouble with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows: Part I is it is one big 146 minute long journey that never seems to end as the three heroes evade Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) and battle his dark minions. At over 700 pages I think it is safe to say Rowling wanted the written series to go out with a bang. From a film adaptation standpoint, I assume director David Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves wanted to do the same thing and remain faithful to the seventh book. Like the long awaited comic book movie adaptation of Watchmen (2009), I got the feeling the filmmakers were being too faithful. Deathly Hollows seems to take forever before finally ending with the cliffhanger that will get resolved in Part II. Perhaps the only way to properly embrace Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is to watch both parts as one five hour plus movie when the second gets released on Blu-ray next year (no doubt Part II will have the same two and a half hour running time, if not more). I may not have been too “wild about Harry” the past nine years but the one thing I can say about the previous installments is they were magical, which despite some macabre dark moments I found this first of two climactic parts to be sorely lacking. PG-13, 146m. Reviewed 12/13/10. ««½

Burlesque: The story of a small town Iowa farm girl (Christina Aguilera) hoping to make it on her own in Los Angeles as a singer has all the ingredients of what made the sexy Flash Dance (1983) a successful box office hit and the controversial NC-17 rated Showgirls (1995) into a cult movie. The problem with Burlesque, which also stars Cher as the owner of an L.A. adult nightclub is it lacks any sex appeal or sleaze, much less a memorable Oscar winning song. Don’t be fooled by the film’s recent Golden Globe nomination for Best Musical or Comedy. All the characters and situations are predictable clichés from better movies like Flash Dance and Showgirls, which while not four-star flicks, they were still entertaining in their own way. I own Flash Dance and although I loathed Showgirls, I still put it in the category of “Bad Movies I Love to Hate.” There is no denying Christina Aguilera and Cher have great singing voices. They deserve a movie musical worthy of that talent. The only reason to see Burlesque would be if Aguilera’s character got into a catfight with the strip joint’s self absorbed diva played by Kristen Bell. Oh how my mind wondered as to who might win if such a scene happened the way sci-fi geeks debate who would emerge victorious if Darth Vader and Darth Maul fought one another in a lighsaber duel, or if the Imperial Empire from the Star Wars movies can kick the Federation’s ass from the Star Trek series. That catfight in Burlesque never comes. The film, much like it’s title is a rip-off to get people in to see something where one is promised a lot of skin only to find out this was nothing more than just a big tease. PG-13, 119m. Reviewed 11/29/10. «½

Skyline: I am starting to wonder if filmmakers are not so much interested in wowing audiences with a great story and characters as they are in love with today’s computer software technology they can use to make movies. According to IMDB trivia there was reportedly no screenplay for Skyline written yet when the clever trailer appeared late last year, which showed a clip of former CBS news anchor Dan Rather talking about aliens visiting from outer space. Skyline is just one big alien invasion monster movie where nothing makes any sense and where the hope of humanity rests on a small group of rich condo residents and partygoers whose brains and spinal cords eventually become alien food. This movie has everything in terms of visuals except intelligence, which probably explains why those monsters from outer space needed those human brains. PG -13, 92m. Reviewed 11/15/10. «

Megamind: Watching Megamind I found it hard to not be reminded of all the direct similarities to the Superman films (1978-2006), or for that matter, a fair number of visual references to several other popular movies of decades past. I have never been able to take the Man of Steel seriously given the way he is dressed in those blue and red tights and a cape, which is why I am one of the few who actually liked Superman III (1983). That being said, Megamind’s animated superhero story would feel right at home if directors Zach Snyder (Watchmen-2009) and screenwriter/director Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight – 2008) have plans to turn the 2012 Superman reboot into a comedy. Still, it is not hard to spot the direct similarities with Megamind (voiced by Will Ferrell) whose evil ego is as large as his big blue forehead resembles an alien version of Superman’s Lex Luthor. In fact everything here is literally “alien” as Megamind battles superhero Metro Man (voiced by Brad Pitt) in a city called “Metrocity” (just like Metropolis). Instead of a female newspaper reporter like Lois Lane, we have Roxanne Ritchi (voiced by Tina Fey) serving as the city’s only television news reporter apparently. Picture The Daily Planet’s Jimmy Olsen character from the Superman comics in the form of Roxanne’s overweight cameraman and making him into a jealous superhero created by Megamind named Titan (voiced by Jonah Hill). What we get is a story similar to the plot of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) where Lex Luthor used the world’s nuclear weapons to create a super villain to battle the Man of Steel. The difference here in Metrocity is following his losing to Megamind, Metro Man no longer wants the job as the world’s do-gooder. That leaves it up to Megamind to create a super villain of his own as a means to make him out to be the good guy; an experiment that offers up some humorous results much of which is provided by Ferrell. Megamind is the latest animated 3D venture where the animated villain is not as bad as he makes himself out to be. The first was Despicable Me. Somewhere inside that nefarious exterior is a good guy just waiting to get out. PG, 96m. Reviewed 11/8/10. «««

Paranormal Activity 2: What made last year’s independent October surprise, Paranormal Activity, a $100 plus million box office hit were the several surprisingly unexpected “Boo!” moments plaguing the young couple (Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat) whose home is haunted by a demonic presence. I don’t know if distributor Paramount Pictures had only money on their mind when they decided to greenlight a sequel, or prequel as this one is. What I do know is Paranormal Activity 2 offers nothing unexpected or shocking the way its predecessor did. Sure, doors slam on their own. Rumbling noises are heard. Kitchen drawers all open at the same time. Pots and pans fall from hangars while a family’s German Shepherd senses an unseen presence in the baby’s bedroom at night. All this and more is captured on a home surveillance system husband Dan (Brian Boland) purchases to protect his wife, Kristi (Sprague Grayden), their teenage daughter, Ali (Molly Ephraim), their newborn baby boy, Hunter, and their nanny (Vivis Cortez) following a supposed home invasion. I am fairly certain audiences looking for a good scare will welcome these repetitive “Boo!” moments with frightening delight as they jump out of their seats, scream or get a good laugh. What I see, however, are a lot of rehashed moments of supernatural déjà vu right down to the rip-off ending seen in the original. In other words Paranormal Activity 2 features the same demonic presence terrorizing a different family this time. R, 91m. Reviewed 10/25/10. ««½

Piranha 3D: “There’s a sucker born every minute,” according to P.T. Barnum. I was one of those who fell for the Piranha 3D trailer though my interest in seeing it was not necessarily the curiosity factor to see how the remake would be turned into a bloodbath. My curiosity stemmed from the casting of Richard Dreyfuss (in a cameo echoing his other character in Jaws (1975) as he sings “Show me the way to go home” before becoming lunch meat. Also featured was Academy Award nominee Elisabeth Shue (what was the last movie she did?) as a local sheriff, Ving Rhames, Jerry O’Connell, and Christopher Lloyd. For the first half hour, Piranha 3D actually offered some promise that this might not be so much a remake as it maybe a fun homage to Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. Instead of a great white shark bringing about financial ruin for a beachfront town, it’s a slew of prehistoric fish. Then the piranha strike and the remaining hour is dedicated to devising lots of gruesome ways for young spring break vacationers to become members of a food chain. This might be entertaining for horror enthusiasts who crave nothing more. That’s not what the original 1978 version, which was done on a very low budget, offered. The predecessor, much like a lot of effective horror cult movies of the past did, proved filmmakers can make viewers uneasy without a huge budget. Even more of a joke was the 3D where the sunglasses provided were even more cheap than the black plastic ones moviegoers get when they see movies in 3D on Imax. I could not tell what the fish were biting and the only real good laugh, which could be seen as a clever piece of shock value is when one of the piranha bites off Jerry O’Connell’s penis and spits it out. I felt a lot like that piranha did. Just days before I ate a Chicago Italian sausage sandwich where the meat was “hard” and burnt and I too, actually felt like spitting it out. R, 88m. Reviewed 8/23/10. «½

Salt: There is a story about how when producers asked Angelina Jolie to be one of the femme fatales in a James Bond installment, the actress reportedly said no and added that she’d much rather play Agent 007 instead. People don’t always get what they want but the role of CIA operative Evelyn Salt who while interrogating a defector gets accused of being a Russian spy is as close Jolie may ever get to playing an undercover. Salt is like the Jason Bourne movies where the action never lets up as Jolie’s character evades local law enforcement and government agents throughout Washington attempting to stop a sinister plan to bring down America from the inside. Every once in a while though not for long, Salt takes a breather recalling her shady past living in Russia and trying to recount how she got into this situation in the first place. There is no denying I can see where the climax is heading in terms of learning the identity of the “real” Russian agent. It is, however, comforting, even if this is just a fast-paced action movie, to know America has someone like Evelyn Salt possibly working for our side. A little “salt” with one’s meal never hurt anyone. The same can be said with this film. PG-13, 100m. Reviewed 7/26/10. «««

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: With the Transformers franchise possibly ending next year, producer Jerry Bruckheimer is on the hunt for another lucrative action-adventure/fantasy series that has the ability to spawn off installments. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, which failed to deliver, marked Bruckheimer’s strike one if I were to apply it to baseball. Now comes The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, inspired by the brief animated orchestral segment from Disney’s Fantasia (1940) that featured Mickey Mouse as a magician. Unlike Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, the good news is that The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is not Bruckheimer’s strike two. The film manages to hit a few balls in this live action version about a 500-year-old magician named Balthazar (Nicolas Cage) who’s been searching for centuries to find his next apprentice. Enter Dave Stutler (Jay Baruchel), a nerdy college physics student who is reluctantly recruited to become the next sorcerer as he must help Balthazar defend Manhattan and perhaps the world from his arch nemesis Maxim Horvath (Alfred Molina). There are a few laughs and even a couple mock references to Star Wars (1977) and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Instead of hitting that desperate home run out of the park that’s needed to win the game, however, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice eventually hits a foul ball. PG, 109m. Reviewed 7/14/10. ««½

Predators: If the filmmakers ever bother to make a worthy sequel to the original Predator (1987), or Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986), chances are I will be so surprised I’ll die from a massive heart attack while watching the film. I’ll be sitting in the theater dead for hours before the ushers realize I am not asleep or it’s closing time and they want to go home. If there is anything different from what is hoped to be a rebirth of the Predator franchise, it is that Predators has nothing to do with any of the previous installments that have taken place on Earth. The setting this time is on a jungle planet where convicts led by Royce (Adrien Brody) are hunted down by the advanced warlike alien race one by one. Like a boxing match, there can only be one winner. Why am I not surprised to find the last couple convicts standing are Royce and perhaps an eventual love interest played by Alice Braga? R, 107m. Reviewed 7/12/10. ««

The Last Airbender: Director M. Night Shyamalan’s fantasy based on the animated Nickelodeon cartoon series I have not seen is bad on so many levels I have no idea where to begin. I’d have to refer to the notes I should have taken while watching the film. I took none and I don’t know if it was because I was so taken aback by how bad this $150 million budgeted travesty was that I forgot. The film doesn’t even have the nerve to be a fun bad movie; one where you can at least get a few laughs while watching it. Even the special effects by the technological gurus at George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic who handled the Star Wars movies (1977-2005) are a visual eye sore and that’s without the cheap 3D sunglasses. Fans, mostly kids of the Nickelodeon television show will be quick to embrace the big screen version, if for no other reason that the film is in 3D and focuses on the story of a young boy named Aang (Noah Ringer). Aang is to quote the Star Wars prequels, “The Chosen One” who can bring the Water, Air and Earth Nations together to stop the Fire Nation (hint-their ships run on pyrotechnics and dark smoke) from world domination with the help of his mind bending skills and I assume his karate or judo expertise. I am not sure kids will feel the same way about the film as they get older. Ever since Shyamalan surprised audiences with the supernatural thriller, The Sixth Sense (1999), his greatest weakness has been how his supernatural/science fiction/horror movies always end with an unexpected twist. They are like eating a box of Cracker Jacks with a surprise inside. The Last Airbender offers no surprising twists near the end other than revealing once the end credits have rolled that Shyamalan made a bad movie. PG, 103m. Reviewed 7/7/10. ½«

Knight and Day: No matter how many stunts and action sequences filmmakers incorporate into their films, the only way the movie will work is if the two leads have any chemistry. That’s the only reason why I enjoyed Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005) that starred Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as a dueling married couple working as undercover assassins targeted by dueling agencies. Forget the plot. By comparison, I wanted to see more focus on the humorous relationship between Jake Gyllenhaal’s swash-buckling hero and Gemma Arterton’s damsel-in-distress in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time who exchange words like a quarreling boyfriend and girlfriend than I did being wowed by all the soulless video game action. Thankfully, the chemistry between Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise in the spy movie Knight and Day goes a lot farther than the slew of chase sequences and guns blazing. Cruise plays a mysterious, possibly rogue agent who befriends air traveler June Havens (Diaz) making her an unwilling accomplice in a government chase that begins across country and eventually around the world. It’s the likability of the two stars that won me over, not the predictable and in some cases, unbelievable storyline. I don’t think, for example, in this post 9/11 era you will be lucky to board a flight that has over a dozen passengers. Oh, how I miss those days where I could have several seats to myself. Women will probably enjoy Knight and Day because it’s got Tom Cruise. As for guys like myself, it’s hard to resist Cameron Diaz’s infectious smile. What male secret agent wouldn’t want to dupe her into getting involved in a worldwide chase that begins for the two characters on an almost ill-fated flight from Witchita Falls and ends on the streets of Spain during the running of the bulls? PG-13, 110m. Reviewed 6/23/10. «««

Jonah Hex: The path to taking one’s revenge out on the person who wronged them can be a long and lonely journey full of death and misery. Such is the path former Confederate soldier turned scarred bounty hunter, Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin), takes as he seeks out to avenge the death of his family at the hands of Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich). Turnbull is the old west’s version of today’s lead terrorist Osama bin Laden as Turnbull plans to wipe out Washington D.C. on July 4 using a super weapon equivalent of the 20th century’s atomic bomb. The trouble with Jonah Hex is it lacks a hero we want to root for and a villain we can’t wait to see get what’s coming to him. Jonah Hex runs a measly 81 minutes. That’s almost the equivalent length of a graphic novel. Yet it feels even longer given the film’s unpleasant revenge theme. If the promising cast don’t look like they are enjoying themselves in their roles, what makes the filmmakers think the audience will? There is no denying Brolin steals the show as the lead character whose best moments are not the predictably silly action sequences of eye candy where a half-dozen guns are trained on him and Hex successfully picks off the moronic gunmen all at once. Hex’s supernatural abilities are what peaked my interest as he interrogates rotting corpses who spring back to life at the touch of his hand. Chalk this would-be franchise on that updated list of worst comic book adaptations alongside that other list of lousy television show remakes and lousy remakes of great films. Not even former Transformers hottie Megan Fox cast as Hex’s damsel-in-distress as the town’s local prostitute (like what else would she do? DUH!!!) could save what is already being written off as another summer flop debuting at number six and grossing less than $6 million opening weekend. If you don’t want to take my word for it, than perhaps the humorous comment I saw posted on www.imdb.com’s website from a father quoting his nine-year-old kid about the film will convince you. “Dad, this movie sucks, can we please leave?” Enough said. PG-13, 81m. Reviewed 6/21/10. ««

Toy Story 3: Considering the heavy amount of abuse that toys Buzz Lightyear, Mr. Potato Head, cowgirl doll Jessie, and Hamm the piggy bank go through in this third and most likely final installment in Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story franchise, perhaps the full title of this third outing should have been called “Toy Story 3: To Hell And Back.” Just like in the previous installments, Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks) must save his toy pals from certain doom when he and his buddies are accidentally sent to the Sunnyside Daycare Center run by a furry bear named Lotso (voiced by Ned Beatty) who smells of strawberries. With the exception of Woody, Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Tim Allen) and the rest of the gang see Sunnyside as a new paradise where they will again be played with by children, now that their former owner, Andy, has grown up and is about to start college. The toy’s dreams, however, are immediately shattered the moment the rambunctious tykes rush in as the kids use them to pick their noses, put them in their mouths, or pluck out their body parts. Sunnyside might as well be called a violent toy prison. Up until now, I never pictured myself as an adult hoping that Woody, Buzz and the gang could avoid the fiery incinerator at a garbage dump as the toys hold hands awaiting their fate. Talk about playing the hymn, Nearer, My God, To Thee. I’d be lying if I said Toy Story 3 is one of those rare children’s movies where things don’t always end on a positive note for such beloved animated characters like these. Disney, let alone Pixar, is not known for providing audiences with sad endings though the road to happiness can sometimes be a bumpy one for the characters, which is clearly the case in this installment. Like every successful animated computer generated release Pixar has churned out over the years, Toy Story 3 offers another redeeming adult message for kids. Sooner or later, kids grow up and lose interest in the things they enjoyed playing with when they were young. It’s not just the grown-ups who have to learn to let go, but the toys themselves. G, 103m. Reviewed 6/21/10. «««

The Karate Kid: Were it not for the emotional final climactic fight between the young hero (Jaden Smith) and the bully during the kung-fu championship match near the end, there would be no reason whatsoever for me to recommend this largely unnecessary clone of the 1984 film that starred Ralph Macchio as the bullied young kid being taught karate by the apartment maintenance man played by Oscar nominated Pat Morita. Like The A-Team remake, The Karate Kid follows practically the same storyline except instead of a young white kid and his mother moving to California like in the original, we now have a young African-American kid named Dre Parker (Jaden Smith) and his mother (Taraji P. Henson) moving to China. Hours after just settling in the new country, Dre has a run-in with the local bully only to be defended and trained in kung-fu by the apartment’s maintenance man (Jackie Chan). Me, being an old timer fed up with Hollywood’s continuing lack of fresh ideas that they have to dig through the old archives in hopes of making a quick profit which will revive the summer box office slump, I prefer the original. There is no denying, however, this redo has a lot of energy, or to be more precise, “attitude”, something Jaden’s Dre eventually learns to get a handle on near the end. PG, 140m. Reviewed 6/14/10. «««

The A-Team: There is a moment in the big screen redo of the television series, The A-Team, which says this is not the television show your daddy watched as a kid. The scene, shown in the trailer, is one of the film’s more promising and most humorous moments, if not deceiving since the shot left me hoping this might be one remake of a classic television show Hollywood gets right other than last summer’s Star Trek reboot. Those who remember the 80s action adventure series that ran from 1983 to 1987 will likely recall the mode of transportation the four fugitives rode in; a black GMC van with the red stripe on the side. That van, which B.A. Baracus (Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson) calls “his girl” makes an appearance early on in this big screen redo only to get flattened as he and fellow comrades-in-arms, team leader Col. Hannibal Smith (Liam Neeson), Lt. Templeton ‘Faceman’ Peck (Bradley Cooper) and Howling Mad Murdock (Sharlto Copely) escape in a helicopter from who I assume are Mexican drug dealers. That’s the kind of offbeat humor the original television show had which this redo lacks. The storyline is still the same though the setting has changed. In the television series, the four mercenaries for hire played by George Pepperd, Mr. T, Dirk Benedict and Dwight Schulz were fugitives wanted for a crime they didn’t commit while serving in Vietnam. In the remake, the mercenaries led by Neeson’s Hannibal Smith are former Iraq war veterans framed for murder while trying to stop a counterfeit ring involving rogue CIA and government operatives near the end of the group’s tour of duty. All the elements that made the television series successful during the show’s five seasons are present. Neeson, Cooper, Jackson and Copley retain their previous counterpart’s mannerisms. The villains, much like the television series, however, are undeveloped, cardboard characters who aren’t sinister enough to make us want to root for their demise in the end. If all one is looking for, however, is the chance to watch a lot of things get blown up every so often and guns blazing, The A-Team movie offers plenty of that. I just wish the film were as much fun as the television show was. To quote Neeson’s Hannibal after Cooper’s Face comments how dangerous their next mission will be, “It gets better,” oh, how I wished the same had applied to this movie. PG-13, 117m. Reviewed 6/11/10. ««½

Splice: “What’s the worst that could happen?” That line Elsa Kast (Sarah Polley from the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead) says isn’t uttered until the end but the comment fits the overall plot of Splice, in particular when the subject involves tampering with science. Polley and Adrien Brody (King Kong – 2005) play two young scientists responsible for developing a genetic protein mixing an animal gene with several other species in hopes of finding cures for such diseases as cancer and diabetes. That’s all fine and dandy provided they don’t add human DNA to the experiment. If the two scientists had decided to follow proper procedure there would be no reason for a film called “Splice” about a scientific experiment gone wrong. The movie would likely be over within minutes instead of under two hours.The scientists’ end result is a creature Elsa names Dren (Delphine Chaneac) who’s got the body in terms of torso and facial features of a female. The rest of her is a combination of different animal species as she sprouts double pairs of wings, four fingered hands, three-toed hooves, and a tail whose end sprouts a deadly sharp needle. Though her voice is mostly compiled of animal noises, she communicates putting words together using scrabble letters. Yet, like a pet dog, she still understands when she’s been bad and can even exhibit a nice smile full of teeth as she chomps down on a bunny rabbit. Dren could well be a direct descendant of Sil, the female reptile human/alien Natasha Henstridge played in Species (1995). Unlike Species, however, Splice is not your standard “humans have trouble chasing down the experiment gone wrong” monster movie as the thing runs amok throughout society. The word that best describes Splice is “unpredictable” which not only applies to what happens when ego-driven scientists tamper with nature but to the film, which ends on an unexpectedly surprising high note. R, 104m. Reviewed 6/7/10. «««

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time: I don’t know how many people know that Prince of Persia is inspired by a video game. As for myself, I had no idea the film was based on the concept until I saw the end credits. Too bad Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time plays out exactly like a soulless video game. The difference here is instead of putting in a quarter to play a game that lasts a few minutes depending on how good a player you are, the viewer is shelling out $8 bucks or more on a game, in this case, a film that lasts two hours. That would be just fine if the story had any real emotional substance. I did not care whether or not the swashbuckling hero, Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal) along with the damsel-in-distress, Tamina (Gemma Arterton), would be able to prove he is not the one who murdered his adopted father, King Sharaman. Nor did I care about what happens to the evil Nizam (Ben Kingsley), the one responsible for the King’s murder. The characters are nothing more than just video game caricatures going through the required motions of playing good and bad characters. Dastan and Tamina exchange words like a quarreling boyfriend and girlfriend. The humorous exchanges of dialogue between the two leads is one of Prince of Persia’s more memorable moments. The rest of the film plays out exactly like a video game as the two jump from two story rooftops evading swordsmen and outrunning racing ostriches. Every action sequence is like the player reaching a new level. If the lead characters are not having to get away from a wealthy Sheik (Alfred Molina) who loathes having to pay government taxes, they are busy doing battle with Nizam who wants possession of a mystical dagger Dastan wields that is able to turn back time without one realizing it. Fans of the Prince of Persia video game will likely savor every minute of this big screen adaptation as it’s filled with plenty of action. I don’t play computer video games and can’t even remember when the last time it was that I ever stepped inside a video arcade. Now that I think about it, are such places even still around? PG-13, 115m. Reviewed 5/31/10. ««

MacGruber: Here is an example of the kind of gutter bathroom humor you will find in MacGruber. In one scene, as a means to distract the bad guys, ex-Green Beret, Navy Seal, Army Ranger MacGruber (Will Forte) strips naked and does a little dance with a stick of celery sticking out his ass. In the next scene once the bad guys have been taken out, MacGruber, this time back in civilian clothes, chomps down on that same stick of celery, which his partner and perhaps love interest Vicki St. Elmo (Kristen Wiig) calls gross. “Relax, I washed it,” MacGruber says as he takes another bite of what was sticking up his rear end minutes before. The villain who MacGruber is assigned to take out is called Dieter Von Cunth, played by a surprisingly pudgy Val Kilmer (The Doors-1991) who has plans to wipe out the entire United States government with a missile when the president makes his speech before congress. Given the film’s below the waist bathroom humor, I suspect there is only one reason why Kilmer’s character is called “Cunth.” It’s so MacGruber can utter the same word numerous times but without the “h” at the end, which I won’t say here except to say it’s a word men and women probably don’t like being called. MacGruber only appeals to two kinds of viewers. The first are those adults, who as kids, failed to graduate kindergarten and bribed teachers to pass them through grade school. To this day, they probably still find such scenes like the ones I am about to describe here laugh out loud funny as seeing the hero urinate on the villain’s burning corpse near the end, for example. Or seeing MacGruber have sex with the ghost of his dead wife (Maya Rudolph) at a cemetery, asking someone to either suck his you know what or say to someone how honored they’d be if they were asked to suck someone else’s you know what, and drawing pictures of taking a dump on someone they don’t like. I think the only reason the film had no fart jokes in it is because it was already done plenty of times in a South Park or Family Guy episode. The second group, and apparently there must be a very small miniscule group of people out there given the film’s box office take of just $4 million opening weekend at number 6 (not good for a debut), appeals only to those familiar with Forte’s character on Saturday Night Live. There is only one person to blame for this latest grossly unfunny, unnecessary SNL turned movie idea’s box office failure and that lies solely on the shoulders of Forte, who also wrote the screenplay. As his character says when taken off the case by his superior officer (Powers Boothe), “I have only myself to blame.” R, 88m. Reviewed 5/24/10. «

Robin Hood: If James Cameron’s Avatar - 2009 was a successful rallying cry for bleeding heart liberals who stupidly embraced and endorsed the film’s “I hate America” pro “Save the planet’s” environmentalist message with its notions that capitalism and the military are evil, Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood could have been the rallying cry for conservatives and members of the Tea Party movement fed up with Washington’s out of control spending and the Democratic Party. Russell Crowe’s Robin Hood could well be the Tea Party’s 13th century spokesperson as he rallies the townspeople to oppose heavy taxation brought on by the tyrant, Prince John (Oscar Isaac), who is like a rendition of President Obama. Near the end, Prince John claims the reason he was made king was because God said so. Like President Obama and his socialist regime, Prince John is always laying the country’s problems on the doorsteps of the previous king instead of finding a solution. Sound familiar as in Obama blaming “Dubya” for all the current problems (unemployment, Wall Street debacles, housing market, war on terror, etc.) going on? In movies, who wouldn’t want to see the English tyrant get what’s coming to him at the hands of the man he branded near the end as an outlaw. That moment never comes. Robin Hood is not an adaptation of the previous versions featuring the battle between Robin and his merry men having to rescue the damsel in distress (this time it’s Cate Blanchett) from a tyrannical government. This is a prequel to the legend of how Crowe’s Robin became the hero of Sherwood Forrest. That would be perfectly fine if the story had all the ingredients that made Scott and Crowe’s previous Oscar winning collaboration, Gladiator (2000) memorable. Gladiator boasted a hero we could root and perhaps shed tears for and a villain we found despicable enough, we couldn’t wait to see him get his just desserts. We get nothing like that here. PG-13, 140m. Reviewed 5/17/10. ««

Iron Man 2: Like the 2008 blockbuster that won me over thanks to the vulnerable performance by the actor in the red metallic suit with the gold face and lighted white eyes, I was happy to see Robert Downey Jr display that same kind of vulnerability again here but on an even darker level. It seems billionaire weapons inventor, Tony Stark, is not so “super” after all outside the suit, health wise that is. While showing a promotional film of his late father (John Slattery) talking about the company he founded at a technology expo, Stark takes a moment behind the curtain to check his blood count that’s getting dangerously low due to the mechanical heart that helps keep him alive. He is like a diabetic who is not only required to check their blood sugars daily but must take certain medications to keep them down. The medications, however, are only temporary fixes. The same goes for Stark whose energy supply has to be replenished every few hours. He is a man living on borrowed time. I can’t blame him for not wanting to do everything all at once whether it’s being the life of the party or competing in the Grand Prix. Life is short. Like the original, there are plenty of action sequences as Stark dons the deadly technological walking super suit entertaining guests at his birthday bash and fighting off adversaries with longtime beefs from Congress who want him to turn over the Iron Man weapon, a flawed rival industrialist (Sam Rockwell) to the muscle-bound, tattooed Russian Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke). Were it not for Downey’s emotional, and often times, egotistical (“I have successfully privatized world peace.”) and entertaining roller coaster ride he takes with this character, Iron Man the franchise would be just another visual effects comic book movie where this flying deterent is just an empty suit, or a computerized remote controlled drone. Of course, the fact Downey is also an admitted fan of the comic book series helps. I’ll be interested to see what life threatening turn the filmmakers take Tony Stark on in the third film. He’s a corporate tin man with a heartbeat, even if it is mechanical. PG-13, 124m. Reviewed 5/10/10. «««

A Nightmare on Elm Street: There is only one reason why this most unnecessary remake of Wes Craven’s 1984 horror classic grossed over $32 million opening weekend making it number one at the box office. The answer has to do with Jackie Earle Haley, last seen as the faceless anti-hero Rorschach in last Spring’s anti-hero epic, Watchmen (2009). Here Haley now dons the black and red striped sweater, hat, and four bladed metallic hand as a supernatural child serial murderer who haunts the dreams of high school teenagers on Elm Street. I know in the minds of horror geeks, were it not for the desire to see Haley as Freddy Krueger in a role first made famous by Robert Englund back in over a handful of follow-ups the past two decades, there would be no reason to see this retread of A Nightmare on Elm Street. When will horror want-to-be movie makers learn the reason films like Craven’s original Nightmare was so effective in a fun, creepy way, and maybe even suspenseful, was because they were made on very low budgets. The original was by no means a classic but the idea was clever in a grotesque way. This latest Elm Street reincarnation is literally a nightmare and not the kind where you are scared to go to sleep. It’s the kind where you are so bored watching what’s on screen, you are actually fighting to stay awake. There are no jump out of your seat surprises like in the predecessor as Freddy terrorizes his victims with his metallic four clawed hand wherever and whenever they are sleeping from classrooms and basements to bathrooms and bedrooms. For horror buffs younger than twenty with little or no knowledge that there was an original A Nightmare on Elm Street decades before, they will probably be more than happy to accept Haley as their Freddy Krueger. For us old folks like myself who tire of Hollywood revamping the old stuff, there is only ONE Freddy Kruger and he was the nightmarish ghoul Robert Englund played. This redo makes me want to say “Goodnight Freddy and good riddance.” R, 95m. Reviewed 5/5/10. «

The Losers: I don’t think action/adventure enthusiasts will be at all bored watching The Losers, given the many scenes of automatic weapons blazing, some of which is choreographed in slow motion to give viewers the full visual effect. Viewers of possibly both sexes smitten with actress Zoe Saldana (Star Trek, Avatar – 2009) will be pleased by her appearance here. She is an attractive woman. Otherwise she wouldn’t be listed in the April 28, 2010 issue of People’s 50 Most Beautiful Women. I wouldn’t be surprised if her name comes up as a possible love interest for the next James Bond installment, if that ever happens. The film boasts a couple redeeming qualities. I like Jeffrey Dean Morgan, for example, who stole the show as the anti-hero The Comedian in last year’s overlong, yet faithfully adapted Watchmen (2009). That film literally sprang to life the brief time Morgan was on screen. Here he plays the leader of a black ops CIA team who pairs up with the mysterious government agent Aisha (Saldana) to settle a score against Max (Jason Patric), a multi-millionaire who targeted his group for assassination in a botched covert military operation. As a result of one scene where the good guys use a beaten down yellow Ford Pinto for transportation, which brought back nostalgic memories of the very same car boasting the same rusted out color I drove back in high school, I went in hoping The Losers might be an enjoyably, brainless, fun, action/adventure popcorn movie. If all one is looking for is a lot of action and a few slices of female cheesecake, The Losers offers plenty of that. I don't, however, find that enough to leave me fully satisfied. I want more from a mindlessly silly popcorn movie. One where I can emotionally root for the good guys, and maybe relish the way a villain steals the show, if not cheer the moment he gets his comeuppance. That’s what’s missing from The Losers. Excuse me for having higher expectations. PG-13, 98m. Reviewed 4/26/10. ««

Kick-Ass: I don’t mind mindless cartoonish violence. The trouble with Kick-Ass, in which a nerdy high school kid named Dave (Aaron Johnson) gets inspired to become a superhero crimfighter named “Kick-Ass” as a result of the comic books he avidly reads, is that fantasy and reality don’t mix. Kick-Ass’ sudden popularity gives a widowed father and former police officer code named “Big Daddy” (Nicolas Cage) along with his 11-year-old daughter, code named “Hit Girl” (Chloe Grace Moritz), to become superheroes themselves as a means to settle a vendetta they have against a local mobster (Mark Strong). The film boasts less than a handful of humorous scenes with mock references to Batman and Superman as Dave’s friends, who have no idea he actually is “Kick-Ass”, asking themselves if Kick-Ass and another overnight superhero sensation named Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) were in a fight, who would win. It’s like listening to die-hard Star Wars geeks ask each other if Darth Vader went up against Darth Maul, who would be victorious, or to be more precise, Batman versus Superman. Unfortunately, every memorable sequence like that is quickly ruined by unsettlingly violent sequences as when Hit Girl delivers her own brand of vigilante justice to the bad guys, all of who eventually lie dead on the floor. There is something wrong when we see high school kids, in particular, an 11-year-old girl, acting out the same kind of blood thirsty violence that adult characters in movies do, like as though seeing someone crushed to death inside a trash compactor will have no effect on someone that young. I suppose I should be thankful that characters like Kick-Ass and Hit Girl killed off only the ones who had it coming to them. Their desire to become superheroes came from the comic books, if not from Big Daddy. At least they weren’t playing Doom and watching Natural Born Killers (1994) like the two young killers did as inspiration to murder fellow classmates at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado back in 1999 for no good reason. R, 117m. Reviewed 4/21/10. «½

Date Night: As a means to keep from waiting for a table at one of Manhattan’s most expensive seafood restaurants, married couple Phil and Claire Foster (Steve Carrell and Tina Fey) double as a couple who already had reservations butnever showed up. What’s the worst that could happen to someone who steals another couple’s reservation; perhaps an argument with the restaurant staff or with the actual people who showed up? The Fosters probably wish that was the case when the two are confronted by a couple police detectives at gunpoint demanding they turn over a flash drive. Of course, the Fosters have no idea what they are talking about. “The Tripplehorns” do; the couple the Fosters stole their reservation from. What follows is a chase involving the crooked detectives, a local mobster (Ray Liotta) and a crusading district attorney (William Fichtner) as the Fosters search for “The Tripplehorns” (James Franco and Mila Kunis) throughout the Big Apple. The idea of casting comics Carrell and Fey in what is a story about a case of mistaken identity probably sounded much funnier on paper. On film, however, the laughter is much more restrained. Watching Date Night, I found myself smiling more as opposed to laughing. Ironically, the most memorable moments are the sometimes dramatic ones in between evading the villains as the unlikely hero and heroine argue about their ordinary everyday lives working and taking care of the kids, and asking if either of them ever thought about leaving the other for fear they are growing apart. PG-13, 88m. Reviewed 4/16/10. ««½

After.Life: The message After.Life offers is not a positive one. There is nothing to look forward to when you’re dead. That’s it. The mood here is as cold and reclusive as the metallic slab school teacher Anna Taylor (Christina Ricci) is laid on. Or as cold as the cemetery and funeral home mortician Eliot Deacon (Liam Neeson) resides in. Throughout much of After.Life, the living Deacon and the supposedly dead Taylor engage in brief dark conversations about life and death as she tries to convince him she isn’t really dead. The dead always say that, Deacon tells her, who apparently may have the supernatural ability to talk with corpses. Or maybe the job of being a mortician and dealing with grieving families is such a lonely one, that he has never found the time to really converse with the living. Even after being shown the death certificate, Anna still has trouble being convinced that she died in a car accident. So too, for a while are we. I loved the characters and grim dialogue. Ricci tries to make more of a performance that requires her to either run around throughout the mortuary in red negligee and panties trying to escape or lie naked, perhaps drugged up, on the preparation table. I suspect fans of Maxim magazine who thrive on viewing scantily clad photos of female celebrities on a monthly basis will have no complaints seeing how she rarely has anything on in this movie. Unfortunately her performance is emotionally detached to the point I found it hard to hope she’d come out of this horrible predicament actually “alive.” R, 104m. Reviewed 4/12/10. ««½

Clash of the Titans: The first sign that the Clash of the Titans remake is not your daddy’s 1981 fantasy adventure comes within the first half hour when Perseus (Sam Worthington), a Demi-God and mortal son of Zeus (Liam Neeson), is about to embark on a perilous journey along with a handful of Greek soldiers to save the city of Argos from the wrath of Hades (Ralph Fiennes). When Perseus comes across a living mechanical droid owl and is told by one of the soldiers to leave it, I got the impression this was director Louis Leterrier’s way of saying to fans of the original to forget everything they remember about the 1981’ version. This is a Clash of the Titans for a new generation and is an often fun, mindless two-hour getaway fantasy adventure. I find the two ways a movie like this can work is one, if the actors look as though they are enjoying themselves regardless how outlandish the storyline is. Two, if they can get through uttering ridiculous dialogue like “Release the Kraken!” and make what they are saying sound convincing. Thankfully, Worthington, Neeson and Fiennes succeed. Up until I saw Clash of the Titans, I had no idea what a “Kraken” was except to assume that when Neeson’s Zeus gives the order, whatever a “Kraken” is can’t be good news for anyone. PG-13, 110m. Reviewed 4/2/10. «««

Hot Tub Time Machine: You will get no argument from me on what audience Hot Tub Time Machine is definitely for - the male bonding crowd. There are moments of sick raunchiness as when suicidal Lou (Rob Corddry) vomits all over a squirrel after a night of drinking with his buddies played by John Cusack, Craig Robinson, and Clark Duke while on vacation at a run-down ski resort. By all accounts, Hot Tub Time Machine, which rips off every plot and character element from Back to the Future (1985), should not work as the four are taken back to the year 1986. Still, I admit I laughed and smiled a fair number of times watching it. If someone told me that given the opportunity, they would not go back in time to change their present day situation, I’d accuse them of lying. Unfortunately, it’s only in Hollywood though where someone like Corddry’s Lou can go back in time and steal someone else’s million dollar Internet search engine invention called Google and change it to “Lougle” in 2010. R, 100m. Reviewed 3/29/10. «««

The Runaways: Music fans expecting this to be about hard rocker Joan Jett may be disappointed that the story is more about fellow band member, Cherrie Currie, and her time with Jett’s 7o’s teenage band, The Runaways, as based on Currie’s book, Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway. As the young rebellious teenager turned rock star Joan Jett, Kristen Stewart, looking every bit like the real Joan Jett donning black hair, jeans, and leather jacket, makes us forget for a while that she is part of that “other” major teenage franchise (the Twilight series) involving vampires and werewolves. On the other hand, 16-year-old Dakota Fanning looking more like she is over 18 as the band’s second featured lead singer singing “Cherry Bomb”, pushes the limits as she struts around in skimpy clothing entertaining the men dancing on hotel tables in between concerts and showing off her bad girl looks at the behest of the band’s crude, perhaps distrustful manager, Kim Fowley (Oscar nominee for 2008’s Revolutionary Road - Michael Shannon). Shannon’s character is so enjoyably unpredictable, I found myself wanting to know more about this colorful promoter and record producer. When I got home, I took a look at Fowley’s official website and came to the conclusion someone should do a biographical movie about him. R, 106m. Reviewed 3/24/10. ««½

Repo Men: If the events in Repo Men represented a society we live in today, I would have two questions for the concerned father of two kids and a wife sitting in the office of Union Corp. as he ponders whether or not to sign the papers to get himself a new pancreas. I would ask him if his concern is worrying on whether the operation will be a success. Or if he is worried about what will happen if he doesn’t start making payments on that $312,000 device inside his body at 19 percent interest with no medical coverage. I don’t know about you. I’d rather pick death than being put in the poor house, or worse, have Union Corp’s “Repo Men” played by Jude Law and Forest Whitaker show up at your door knocking you out, opening up your chest, and taking back that life saving mechanical device you stopped making payments on. Somewhere inside Repo Men’s futuristic sci-fi story is a clever timely premise given the current war going on between Congressional leaders and the American people over the recent passing of nationalized government run health care and the debate on whether to supply airports with full body scanners to weed out terrorists. Like that 2,000 page health care monstrosity Congress passed in March, Repo Men is a mish-mash of a few thought-provoking ideas that never pan out. The film is as predictably faulty as the busted defibrillator that knocks Jude Law's character out making him into a “wanted” patient himself hunted down by the very corporation he worked for because he can’t make payments on the new mechanical heart he received. R, 111m. Reviewed 3/19/10. ««

Green Zone: I cannot blame Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon) for losing patience as he leads his fellow soldiers into dangerously armed territories of Iraq where intelligence says there are weapons of mass destruction only to come up empty every time. Miller soon realizes within the first few weeks of the Gulf War II in March 2003 that maybe the reason American forces were sent into Iraq the second time around was not because Saddam Hussein had WMDs as the world was told. Even if director Paul Greengrass (United 93-2006) and Oscar winning screenwriter Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential-1997) take creative liberties with Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s book, Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone, name me one movie, good or bad, based on a historical subject that hasn’t? Green Zone makes for great fodder for liberals and yes, some Reagan conservatives like myself, who don’t agree with everything President Bush (2001-2009) did during his eight years in office when he sent America to war. R, 115m. Reviewed 3/15/10. «««½

Brooklyn’s Finest: The story about the daily lives of three New York police officers played by Richard Gere, Don Cheadle, and Ethan Hawke working in different departments, none of whom know each other, is like watching a promising television crime drama pilot. We’ve been down this road before watching this assortment of real life characters battling high stress and financial problems. What kept me interested from start to finish was seeing if their personal lives take a tragic turn for the worse. R, 132m. Reviewed 3/10/10. «««

Alice in Wonderland: A White Rabbit. A Dormouse. A Dodo bird. Multicolored flowers. A blue caterpillar. These are the assortment of nature’s creations Alice Kingsleigh (Mia Wasikowska) runs into after falling through a deep hole, as an adult, years after her first encounter in Wonderland as a child. This would all seem normal. The trouble is these creatures and budding flowers all talk and are led by a Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) who utters things that rarely make sense. To director Tim Burton who’s taken audiences on dark, sometimes macabre, out of this world journeys into foreign territory filled with strange characters in films like Beetlejuice (1988), Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), this should all seem completely normal…to him that is. To us, ok, myself, Alice in Wonderland is a fun visual delight. The unexpected revelation here is it’s not Depp who steals the show. The most memorable characters are Burton alum Helena Bonham Carter’s domineeringly evil, perhaps bitchy Red Queen who boasts an awfully large bulbous head. The other is a digital creation – a floating, talking, roly, poly Cheshire Cat with a long toothy grin who never gets involved in politics. PG, 108m. Reviewed 3/8/10. «««

The Crazies: The best possible explanation why a local citizen armed with a shotgun interrupted a little league baseball game is that maybe the guy had been drinking. At least that’s what the sheriff (Timothy Olyphant) of a small Iowa farming community thinks until the coroner reports the guy had a 0.0 alcohol level. Things get even stranger, if not more sinister, when another family man burns his wife and son to death in his home and acts like nothing happened. The answer to what could be causing people to go off the deep end might lie in the town’s water supply, or the air force jet lying at the bottom of an Iowa swamp. The Crazies is like seeing a new movie for the first time. For those like myself that is, who haven’t seen director George Romero’s 1973 independent horror original which, according to trivia on IMDB.com, was made on a budget of $270,000. I can’t help but wonder if like all the great independent horror movies (Night of the Living Dead - 1968, Halloween - 1978, A Nightmare On Elm Street - 1984) made on a low budget, if Romero’s original was more effective and perhaps shocking. R, 101m. Reviewed 3/1/10. ««½

Shutter Island: On the surface, the journey to Shutter Island is supposed to be a routine investigation for U.S. Marshalls Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo). Their investigation, however, into the disappearance of a female murderer who escaped from the remote mental hospital for the criminally insane takes a darker turn, in particular for Daniels, who may or may have not been a patient there himself. What follows is a story that could well come from an intriguing Twilight Zone episode but with a deeply disturbing, if not, tragic twist. Instead of Rod Serling, we got director Martin Scorsese behind the camera acting as our host. If I were to reveal anything more, you’d accuse me of giving away spoilers. You have to see the movie, or ask someone who has read author Dennis Lehane’s book or the graphic comic on which this film is based. R, 138m. Reviewed 2/26/10. «««

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief: There is an explanation of how the Greek Gods Zeus and Poseidon meet up in present day New York City in their human forms on the top floor of the Empire State Building in what doubles as Mount Olympus. The argument lies in what wheelchair bound Mr. Brunner (Pierce Brosnan) says to high school student, Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman), during a museum field trip. Percy is told that in Greek times, Gods sometimes came down to Earth to mate with mortals. This would make their offspring, “demigods.” At that point, Zeus passed the law that any God who hooks up with a mortal will have nothing to do with their child. I think. To this day, the Greek Gods still come down to Earth in human form to check up on their offspring. I admit the last time I read The Odyssey was during my freshman year in high school; before then - sixth grade. This makes me real rusty when trying to put all the mythological references I saw happening throughout the Lightning Thief together. For the younger generation hooked on author Rick Riordan’s series of Greek fantasy novels, I am sure they will have no problem following the film adaptation. For adults like myself, I just sat back and enjoyed the brief appearances of the older actors turning into renditions of Gods, Goddesses and other members of Greek lore that include Brosnan as a four legged cintaur and Uma Thurman as a modern day Medusa with living snakes for hair (“Take a peak”) who at first glance turns people into stone. At the same time, I find it clever that some of America’s landmarks, like the Parthenon art museum in Nashville, is protected by janitors who turn into a fire-breathing dragon with multiple heads. PG, 120m. Reviewed 2/15/10. «««

The Wolfman: There is a lot to like about director Joe Johnston’s faithful remake of the 1941 horror classic, which starred Lon Chaney, Jr. The casting is perfect with Anthony Hopkins as eccentric millionaire father Sir John Talbot who may be hiding a dark secret about some monster who’s been slaughtering people in the dead of night throughout the countryside. Benicio Del Toro, with his tall menacing frame and wooden cane, looks every bit out of place as Hopkins’ son and Shakespearean actor Lawrence Talbot. There is no doubt the one reason The Wolfman was remade was to improve upon the visual effects from over sixty years ago. Thankfully, in a time where filmmakers put a major emphasis on the million-dollar computer generated effects like Avatar, The Wolfman’s CGI images don’t steal the show. If I have any real complaint with the film, which is also its greatest weakness, it is that for a horror movie that’s meant to scare audiences, there is very little suspense. Still, I cannot help but admire the overall foreboding look of The Wolfman in terms of visuals and the perfect casting. Call it the film’s howl. On that note, I am recommending The Wolfman more so for its “howl” than its bite in terms of failing to generate a good amount of suspense. R, 103m. Reviewed 2/12/10. «««

Edge of Darkness: I suspect most people’s interest to see Edge of Darkness would be to see if Mel Gibson could still bring in audiences despite all the personal turmoil we’ve read about him the past eight years in the tabloids. The other would be in hopes of seeing him again playing the righteous good-guy intent on delivering justice to the bad guys his way. I am fairly certain audiences won’t walk away disappointed. When Gibson’s Detective Thomas Craven feeds one potential suspect the threatening line, “You had better decide whether you’re hangin’ on the cross, or bangin’ in the nails,” the quote should be enough to tell us blood is going to be spilled and it won’t just be Craven’s. The best thing Edge of Darkness offers is Gibson’s poignant portrayal of a grieving father and police detective out to avenge his daughter’s murder. I just wish the film had been a better movie to mark Gibson’s “welcome back” performance, or that maybe the villains were sinister enough I would have been happy to see them get their comeuppance. R, 117m. Reviewed 2/1/10. ««½

The Lovely Bones: Every notable filmmaker makes a dud now and then. Steven Spielberg had 1941 (1979). Francis Ford Coppola had One From the Heart (1982). George Lucas had Howard the Duck (1986). Now Oscar winning director Peter Jackson, best known for the epic The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the faithful but extra long King Kong (2005) delivers this depressingly morbid story about a young girl (Saorise Ronan) who is murdered by the child molester (Stanley Tucci) across the street. The film is told from the dead girl’s point of view in her own version of Heaven, or maybe Purgatory depending on your religious beliefs about the afterlife as she observes her grieving family’s attempt to cope with her untimely passing. Fans of author Alice Sebold’s 2002 book, on which the film is based, criticized how the dead girl’s murder was not done in more graphic detail. On that level I was thankful. I can also understand perhaps the reason Jackson chose this as his next project was he probably thought he could incorporate fantasy type sequences creating a beautiful world for the dead girl to roam through. The trouble is once you take out those fantasy sequences, all that’s left is the kind of sad child abduction story we see told too often on the evening news. A child is abducted and murdered. Family members are left to grieve. Police have few leads and the killer gets his eventual just deserts. PG 13, 136m. Reviewed 1/27/10. «½

Legion: When God decides he’s had it with mankind’s immorality with plans on sending his top angels out to unleash the apocalypse two days before Christmas, Michael the Archangel (Paul Bettany) takes it upon himself to save humanity claiming mankind’s future rests in the birth of a waitress’ (Adrianne Palicki) son who might well be the next Jesus Christ. The final standoff takes place at a rundown diner in the middle of nowhere between Michael and his small band of non-believers and the angel Gabriel and his band of human zombies. After sitting through last year’s Knowing and this year’s The Book of Eli both of which evoked intriguing religious ideas, and the fun silliness of Roland Emmerich’s 2012 where Mayan prophecies are the reason for the world’s destruction, I suppose it was only a matter of time before we’d see another end of the world film where the war between good and evil is predictably fought by a rogue angel carrying lots of machine guns and loads of ammunition. I don’t mind sitting through an occasional apocalyptic movie every now and then, especially if it’s in good fun but even I get burned out on them after a while. R, 100m. Reviewed 1/25/10. ««½

The Book of Eli: I don’t know if these are the end times we are living in except to say one thing is certain. Hollywood seems intent on cashing in on doomsday movies. Last year we had Knowing, 2012 and The Road. The latest apocalyptic film now is The Book of Eli in which Oscar winner Denzel Washington plays a well armed loner who’s been walking west for thirty years since the end came. In his possession is the Good Book, which the leader (Gary Oldman) of a rundown town and his henchmen want. Yes, the film has its share of violent shootouts in which Eli is most always the last man standing. Yes, the bad guy gets what’s coming to him but not in the way you would expect. The best surprise The Book of Eli offers is the message where as long as you have faith in God, nothing else matters. Who says we can’t use a little religion in our lives every now and then? R, 118m. Reviewed 1/18/10. «««

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus: The ones most likely to see this tale of a traveling theater group making its way through the streets of modern day London will appeal to two groups of moviegoers. Those interested in director Terry Gilliam’s fantasy movies and those interested in seeing Oscar winner Heath Ledger in his final and what looks to be a surprisingly finished performance as a con-man in on for the ride. Ledger’s unexpected passing in early 2008 – the result of an accidental overdose on prescription medications put his latest project following The Dark Knight (2008) on temporary hold. The screenplay called for his character to step through a different world where people get their comeuppance. Kudos to Jude Law, Johnny Depp, and Colin Farrell who stepped in to take on those fantasy sequences at the last minute as I was delighted, if not surprised, to find not only do the character transition sequences actually work. They also make sense. PG-13, 123m. Reviewed 1/13/10. «««

Daybreakers: Imagine Earth ten years from now where a plague has turned most every human into vampires and those few humans left, who have yet to succumb, become the hunted as the world’s blood supply gets dangerously low. For Dr. Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke), a former vampire turned human who joins forces with a human vampire hunter named Elvis (Willem Dafoe), coming up with an antidote that will turn everyone back to normal is easy. Trying to convince the blood thirsty corporate CEO (Sam Neill) of the world’s leading blood bank that becoming human is the best solution is what’s hard. While not nearly as humorous as last year’s Zombieland, the difference between Daybreakers and every other vampire movie before it is for the first time, being undead is not as much fun as it’s hyped out to be. It’s kind of depressing, or as Edward Dalton says, “Life’s a bitch and then you DON’T die.” R, 98m. Reviewed 1/11/10. «««

This list will be updated regularly.

©11/29/10