When is a sequel not truly a sequel? When it’s “Get Him to the Greek,” a spin-off feature pulled from the womb of the uproarious 2008 comedy, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” Knowledge of “Marshall” isn’t necessary to partake in the “Greek” debauchery, but it helps to locate the proper mood for this frequently hilarious, oddly poignant road movie, which once again captures actor Russell Brand in his most appealing form: tongue-floppingly lascivious.
“The Human Centipede” isn’t a horror film, it’s an oozing block of pure shock value, begging on stitched knees for audiences to find the material vile. It pushes buttons and dares the viewer to keep watching ghastly events unfold, while writer/director Tom Six kicks back satisfied, perhaps even aroused. To admit complete disgust with “Human Centipede” is exactly what the filmmaker wants; however, the picture commits an even greater sin, despite all the arm flailing and slosh of perversion: it’s a complete and unforgivable bore.
With “The Killer Inside Me,” the audience enters into the mind of a rather causal murderer, a man who’s been stewing in the reassuring juices of his vile “sickness” for his entire life. Director Michael Winterbottom makes the viewer feel every blink of that life in this sluggish, slow-motion adaptation of Jim Thompson’s lauded 1952 novel, which enjoys the art of stillness, frittering away any natural suspense to linger on a miscast lead actor well out of his range.
Paintball is a fascinating game, permitting average domesticated folk an opportunity to immerse themselves in a world of heated combat and precise military strategy, with the only possible downside being a few welts and stained clothing. “Paintball” is a low-budget thriller that twists purist enthusiasm for the sport in a rather macabre way, attaching life or death stakes to a pastime often associated with genial weekend warrior escapism.
In 1987, “Wall Street” climaxed with bitterness, revenge, and mournful resignation. The sequel, “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” crescendos with a kiss. Much has changed in the world of money over the last 23 years, but more reinvention has befallen filmmaker Oliver Stone, who thoroughly defangs one of his more lacerating creations with a clumsy follow-up that struggles to humanize greed as the financial world goes mad.
“You Again” is insufferable. It’s a glorified sitcom burning through the hoariest of comedic circumstances with a cast not known for their jester gifts. Because when you think of laughs, you think of Odette Yustman. It’s almost shocking to witness how derivative the feature is, often begging on bloodied knees for a laugh, while displaying a cringingly broad sense of humor that would make Carol Burnett wince. This picture is a baffling, excruciating, cancerous lump. A complete waste of time for everyone involved.
Perhaps director Zack Snyder should stick to making cartoons. The filmmaker behind hits such as “Dawn of the Dead,” “300,” and “Watchmen” takes an unexpected career detour with “Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole,” a CG-animated epic that’s teeming with technical Synderisms, yet is deployed inside a theatrical format that takes full advantage of the visual majesty. Pleasantly dark, lusciously animated, and richly performed, “Guardians” gives Snyder an occasion to spread his wings as a filmmaker, breaking his earthbound imagination to fully immerse himself inside fantasy filmmaking with a host of unlikely heroes.
There’s an explosive amount of screen energy radiating from the flashy Australian musical, “Bran Nue Dae,” but very little of it translates into approachable whimsy. Frightfully fearless, but exhaustively schizophrenic, this dynamite stick of a musical comedy is a difficult sit for anyone unable to tune into the film’s dedication to bootleg turns of plot and characterization, with the whole endeavor starting to feel like a dental drill after the first act.
The legend of Robin Hood has been fodder for countless adventure films, all bound together by a certain tights-n-woodsy appearance. It’s a story drained of tension long ago, populated with characters known the world over, rotated every few years to refresh moviegoers on the basics of outlaw justice and moony romance. Famed director Ridley Scott has accepted the challenge of a “Robin Hood” adaptation, and while the deck was stacked mightily against the filmmaker, he winds a flawed, but effective arrow-thwacked yarn, concentrating on the origins of Mr. Hood and his rise to fugitive hero status.
It was the film that broke Disney, both in spirit and in the savings account. After nearly 50 years of industry highlights, astounding audiences with storytelling perfection, The Walt Disney Feature Animation Studio ran into a brick wall with “The Black Cauldron,” almost in slow motion. It was a massive box office whiff from a studio used to hitting triples and home runs, brought about great professional misery for the animators working on the film, and essentially killed off the “Nine Old Men” era of Disney Animation, a business that would soon be reborn in the light of the Katzenberg/Eisner dawn. By all accounts, “Cauldron” was a disaster for everyone involved.
“Boogie Woogie” doesn’t know if it’s here to satirize or indict the modern art scene, but it certainly loves to remain in the sinister gray area it creates. A comedic look at the whirlwind nature of the art world, the film is only sporadically humorous, faring better as a perceptive jab at the egos, libidos, and nitwit audacity of a subculture that’s founded in handcrafted miracles, yet prides itself on excesses of status and power.
It’s been a rough year for filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan. If it wasn’t bad enough that his monster-budgeted adaptation of “The Last Airbender” was met with a collective raspberry from audiences last summer (thus killing what was left of his reputation), “Devil,” the first film from his “Night Chronicles” horror label, was the subject of immense derision during its recent marketing push, and now Universal Pictures has decided to dump it into theaters without showing it to critics — a sure sign of studio panic and often a great indication of odious quality. It’s not very often that a film goes from trumpeted to trampled so quickly, but “Devil” is a special case.
I have little doubt that one day Emma Stone will be a mighty force in the entertainment industry. She’s a hearty, likable, sly actress with a genuine sense of humor, approachable sex appeal, and great command of sarcasm. In sea of CW-bred mannequins, Stone’s real, and her ability to project intelligence is a rare gift. Her brightness is wasted on “Easy A,” a so-called “teen comedy” that feels as though it was written by a fading Gen-Xer projecting his Hughesian daydreams onto a high school comedy of his own. It’s unfunny, glib, and woefully confused. However, it does retain the fresh services of Stone, but she can only carry this nonsense on her back for so long before the weight crushes her moxie.
A thoroughly uninspired animated effort, “Alpha and Omega” doesn’t head anywhere Disney, Dreamworks, or a thousand Saturday morning cartoons haven’t already been. A routine tale of anthropomorphized animals, slapstick, and forbidden love, the picture fails to offer enough weirdness or wit to keep chaperones awake, while kids deserve a more engaging matinee babysitter — a feature with some genuine life to it, not just the family film basics slapped together with a money-grabbing coat of 3D to help it shine.
With the release of “Gone Baby Gone” in 2007, Ben Affleck climbed from an agreeable actor with a battered professional reputation to an unexpectedly elegant filmmaker, interested in dramatic dark spaces and disturbing questions of morality, stewing in the juices of his beloved Boston. “The Town” finds Affleck in a more mainstream mood, mounting a stout crime thriller that spotlights the turmoil churning within a soulful, somber crook. Almost impossibly, Affleck generates a spellbinding pulse to the proceedings, constructing a magnificently exhaustive suspense piece that effectively mines the anxiety of criminal behavior and the bleak prison of home.
I think we’ve seen pretty much all there is to be seen from the teen hornball genre, so I won’t sit here and proclaim “The Virginity Hit” to be some revolutionary work of comedic madness. It’s far from innovative, inhabiting the same coming-of-age concerns as many a motion picture before it; however, there’s a cordial sense of humor to the feature that doesn’t only make it endearing, but almost lovable, if smut can be prized like a Pixar movie. Low-fi in all the right ways, the feature is a genuine surprise for the early fall, taking known, beaten, dried elements and infusing them with a sunny day temperament, approaching cliché with a glad hand and snappy sense of humor.
BRIAN ORNDORF 