Category: Film Review

In 1997, writer/director Luc Besson unleashed “The Fifth Element,” a fantasy epic that rippled with idiosyncratic comedy and was shellacked with style, merging American-branded blockbustering with French-scented oddity, making for a delicious mix of the bold and the bizarre. It was a minor hit, growing into a cult jewel in later years, but Besson never revisited it, preferring to stick with minor concoctions and more Earthbound projects in the ensuing years. Two decades later, Besson finally works up the nerve to reenter space and beyond with “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets,” an adaptation of a French comic series that debuted in 1967. Now armed with every CGI tool imaginable, and a budget to feel out every inch of his imagination, Besson goes for…something with the feature, which is dutifully colorful, populated with weird creatures, and appropriately European when it comes to humor. And yet, with all this work up on the screen, “City of a Thousand Planets” rarely conjures excitement, with the production working to suffocate the audience with artifice, while the lead actors fight an unwinnable war against miscasting.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s fascinating to watch filmmakers attempt to wring suspense out of movies that explore assassination attempts on Adolph Hitler. Unless it’s a Quentin Tarantino production, there are few surprises waiting for viewers who know how the real story ends when it comes to Hitler’s final hours. For “13 Minutes,” director Oliver Hirschbiegel opens with a failed plot to kill the emerging leader of the Nazis, working backward to explore the life of the mousy man who attempted to pull off the impossible at the dawn of World War II. “13 Minutes” wisely avoids a history lesson to examine the true grit of an unlikely assassin, going in a more character-oriented route with its often harrowing account of Georg Elser’s rise in radicalism and his problematic plan to save Germany.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Steven C. Miller is a name that’s come up often in recent years. He’s a B-movie director specializing in VOD entertainment, which has become the new VHS gold rush for distributors looking to make a quick buck. He’s been supported by producers with deep pockets, willing to pony up for fading A-listers looking for easy paychecks, helming features with short, nondescript titles like “Extraction,” “Submerged,” “Marauders,” and the recent “Arsenal” (titles that easily fit in on-demand directory listings). None of them have worked, but Miller keeps chopping away, recently graduating to bigger fish with “Escape Plan 2: Hades,” a Sylvester Stallone-starring sequel due for release next year. Before his launch to the big time, Miller has one more scrappy actioner to share, guiding “First Kill,” a kidnapping/heist-gone-wrong thriller that reteams him with his favorite actor, Bruce Willis (in their third collaboration), joining forces once again for a simplistic adventure that details blue collar blues, small-town woes, and a battle over a bag of stolen cash.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Found footage returns to duty in “The Gracefield Incident,” which is the second film this year (after the spring flop, “Phoenix Lights”) to use the aesthetic to explore an alien visitation in the middle of nowhere. Writer/director/producer/editor/star Mathieu Ratthe isn’t about to let the exhausted antics of shaky cam chaos slow him down, mounting a clichéd, deafening adventure about a group of strangers in the woods armed with cameras. There’s nothing innovative here to help Ratthe separate himself from the crowd, leaving “The Gracefield Incident” tired, somewhat predictable, and, at times, far too silly. Found footage usually results in creative dead ends, and this production just isn’t strong enough to conquer the myriad of shortcomings it encounters. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There’s going to be a great number of people drawn to the darkness of “Killing Ground.” It’s an Australian production that delves into displays of barbarity and isolation, using extreme violence as a tool to unnerve its audience, showing no remorse when detailing character suffering and death. And it would all be far more interesting if there was a single sliver of invention to it. Another chapter in the “Wolf Creek”-ening of Australian horror films, writer/director Damien Power (making his feature-length helming debut) plays a tedious game of slow-pitch softball with this clichéd effort, which always turns to cheap shock value to make its impact. It’s vile stuff, and “Killing Ground” would much more compelling if there was a scene contained within it that wasn’t featured in dozens of similar endeavors. Power has a desire to disturb, but his cheat sheet shows throughout this dismal offering of backwoods survival.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s a rare event when a movie franchise actually improves as it develops. Granted, the “Planet of the Apes” saga has carried on in one form or another for the last 50 years, but its recent incarnation, the Caesar Trilogy, has offered a radical reinvention of the source material, using hindsight and cutting-edge technology to craft a strikingly realistic version of a fantasy premise. And it just keeps getting better and better. Following 2011’s “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” and 2014’s “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” is “War for the Planet of the Apes,” which doesn’t promise series finality, but if it all ended here, the production goes out with its finest achievement. An unsettlingly emotional viewing experience, “War for the Planet of the Apes” manages to achieve what so many blockbusters fail to do: it makes the unreal live and breathe. Director Matt Reeves completely moves beyond demands for extravaganza to create a strikingly intimate second sequel that fully delivers on the empathy “Rise” introduced and “Dawn” developed, making viewers feel just about everything for these damn dirty apes.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Wish Upon” isn’t based on an original idea, but it has the opportunity to do something fresh with known horror elements. It’s the umpteenth take on “The Monkey’s Paw,” a 1902 short story that’s spawned countless adaptations and rip-offs, but rarely does the saga of wishes and rashness hit the high school scene. Sadly, in the hands of director John R. Leonetti and screenwriter Barbara Marshall, “Wish Upon” becomes an unbearable mess in a hurry, displaying a level of production confusion and botched editing one doesn’t encounter very often. It’s nonsensical work, poorly constructed and considered, also torpedoed by obnoxious performances and a general disregard for its audience, assuming all they care to see are occasional scenes of murder and social humiliations, as clearly defined personalities, relationships, and even deaths are jettisoned from frame one.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Anorexia is an extremely difficult disorder to dramatically communicate. It certainly can be very visual, challenging actors to drop significant amounts of weight to physically portray the refusal of food, but there’s a heavy psychological component that demands a depth of understanding to fully absorb, as the impulses of anorexia are tough to understand. “To the Bone” feels as lived-in as possible, with writer/director Marti Noxon doing an excellent job slipping into the skin of the lead character, grasping her urges, habits, and reluctance to help herself out of a dangerous medical situation. As with any tale of torture, it’s difficult to watch at times, but Noxon is able to warm up the viewing experience through her study of character, trying to communicate headspaces in flux rather than linger on torment. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

The agony of personal loss inspires unique reactions to revenge in “Moka,” the latest from director Frederic Mermoud (“Accomplices”). While other productions generally head in a “Taken” direction, using the inner fire of a parent in the throes of grief to burn the screen, “Moka” plays a different kind of game. It’s a largely psychological study of a restless mother who needs to feel vengeance to feel anything at all, and Mermoud treats the material (an adaptation of a novel by Tatiana De Rosnay) with care, tending to intimate emotions and subtle shocks to the system. The feature is suspenseful, outstandingly so at times, but it doesn’t indulge bloodlust, taking a far more disorientating route to a sense of satisfaction, and doing so with terrific performances from stars Emmanuelle Devos and Nathalie Baye.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Sabbatical” is a Canadian production. One can identify a country of origin though accents and locations, but there’s a special comedic vibe to the picture that could only originate from Canada. Co-writer/director Brian Stockton (“I Heart Regina”) has fashioned his own take on “Lost in Translation,” though he doesn’t submit the same whispered screen poetry, working with a small budget and a cast of unknowns. Still, the overall vibe of “The Sabbatical” is lively and highly amusing, asking questions of aging and purpose while tracking a wonderfully sly sense of humor in the largely improvised feature, The helmer respects the talents of his cast yet pushes onward with this study of a mid-life crisis, creating distinct personalities and memorable reactions to even the slightest hint of a challenge, approaching an exploration of personal inventory with steady laughs and authentic behavior.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While it’s not a challenging picture, “Austin Found” does a fine job managing darkly comic material, not exactly trying to be hilarious, and teasing some rather grim behavior from morally dubious characters. Co-written and directed by Will Raee, the film explores the pursuit of fame and fortune through media manipulation, using a common depiction of mental illness to inspire a domino-tipping viewing experience that encounters less-than-bright characters and the schemes they hope to pull off. Again, “Austin Found” isn’t profound, and as a satire of television sensationalism, it falls flat, unwilling to snowball into something truly daring. But accepted on a lowered level of expectation, and the movie manages to balance varying degrees of stupidity and eccentricity.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

This isn’t the first time Alec Baldwin and Demi Moore have starred together in a film. Their last pairing was 1996’s “The Juror,” a moronic thriller that attempted to cash in on the John Grisham gold rush of the decade. It was one of the worst movies of the year. 21 years later, Baldwin and Moore try again with “Blind,” which heads in the more romantic direction. The results are better, but not by much, as the screenplay by John Buffalo Mailer (“Hello Herman”) actually achieves some sense of intimacy and personal loss before it plunges into complete stupidity. “Blind” might work on a lazy Sunday afternoon with relaxed expectations and an iPad on the lap, but it’s hardly successful, almost obsessed with sabotaging itself in its pursuit of dramatic motivation that’s completely unnecessary.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Stop me if you’ve read this one before: troubled kid grows into a troubled man, gets in deep with local mob and the wrong woman, forced to fight for a life that might not be worth saving. “The Persian Connect” is bereft of new ideas, but it does offer a cultural fingerprint few productions have attempted to explore, showcasing the Iranian criminal underworld in Los Angeles. That alone should be enough to get the movie up and going, but director Daniel Grove (making his feature-length debut) doesn’t pursue the production’s most promising element. Instead, he sticks close to the crime saga playbook, suffocating the picture in style and pounding it with overacting, eventually stripping “The Persian Connection” of anything identifiable.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There has been no shortage of films concerning the Afghanistan War, and tales concerning the war at home are just as common. Perhaps the producers have dreams of crafting a modern companion to “Coming Home,” using recent breakthroughs in PTSD comprehension to support a new look at the true price of combat. Unfortunately, a majority of these endeavors aren’t successful, with most features hitting the exact same beats of conflict and domestic disturbance. “Battle Scars” has taken its time to reach screens (it was shot in 2012), losing the war of timeliness, and it’s not a successful movie, but it does manage to locate a particularly sensitive understanding of bodily harm that makes it stand out from the competition, although any distinct viewpoint is eventually buried under clichéd criminal behavior.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Considering how everyone with the last name Coppola is already in the movie industry, it’s amazing that it took Eleanor Coppola so long to make her first feature-length film, graduating from documentaries and shorts at the age of 80. Her choice of subject is love, but not in the traditional sense, with “Paris Can Wait” a valentine to food, art, and travel, with interpersonal communication eventually working its way to the surface of the effort. It’s a mild endeavor, never challenging its audience with a deeper inspection of sadness, but it’s not a picture that’s easily dismissed, with Coppola finding a heartbeat here that holds attention, turning what’s essentially a travelogue into an engaging tale of exposure to new things and ideas, finding Diane Lane a practiced star of this kind of story. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The magnetized pull of fate is explored in “2:22,” an attempt from screenwriters Todd Stein and Nathan Parker to create a brain-bleeding viewing experience big enough to compete with similar titles. It all boils down to a question of patience, with the best of the genre inviting viewer participation and decoding, stimulating a burning need to keep with the big screen puzzling. “2:22” doesn’t encourage that type of response, trying a bit too hard to achieve a sense of confusion that eventually clears into profundity by the end credits. The movie doesn’t have the creative drive to be anything more than a tepid mystery, and even with a few ridiculous twists and turns, director Paul Currie can’t connect the dots in a fascinating way, with the entire effort resembling more of a screenwriting exercise than a hypnotic overview of celestial guidance.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

When one hears the title “Gremlin,” thoughts of the 1984 Joe Dante-directed classic, “Gremlins,” come immediately to mind, recalling how masterfully the blockbuster balanced dark comedy with PG-bending terror, emerging as one of the top films of its release year. But this is “Gremlin.” Singular. And we’re about as far away from Dante territory as possible. Co-writer/director Ryan Bellgardt has a vision for horror featuring a tiny creature that lives inside a box, but it’s not a strong one, manufacturing a chiller that takes itself seriously, but not in a way that strengthens viewer involvement. Instead of a high-flying creature feature with distinct gore zone visits, Bellgardt gives birth to a bummer, more content to numb his audience than thrill them. Perhaps it’s best to get lost in memories of Gizmo and Stripe while watching this dismal endeavor.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Inconceivable” doesn’t aspire to be anything more than a Lifetime Original, but even with those lowered standards in place, the feature doesn’t carry a level of insanity required to make it interesting. It’s an updated take on “The Hand that Rocks the Cradle” from “Poison Ivy II” screenwriter Chloe King, who heads in the wrong direction by taking the story seriously, trying to find the reality of these damaged characters and how they deal with strange conflict. “Inconceivable” isn’t campy, it’s bland, and the more helmer Jonathan Baker trusts in the dramatic limitations of the effort, the harder it is to sit through the movie. Those expecting a soap opera will be tremendously disappointed by the endeavor, which tries to establish itself as a proper psychological thriller, only to abandon all the amusing extremes of the subgenre.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Of course, the title “Spider-Man: Homecoming” has dual meaning. The story is set during the countdown period to a school dance, but it’s also the big return for the superhero brand name, which finally joins up with the Marvel Cinematic Universe after an extended tease in last year’s “Captain America: Civil War.” Spider-Man has endured a few lumps on the big screen in recent years, and lord knows the world doesn’t need another reboot, but for his third incarnation in 15 years, the wall-crawler reclaims multiplex dominance with “Homecoming,” which truly understand the cravings of its teenaged character, backing up frothy but meaningful characterization with some of the finest comic book-inspired entertainment in recent years. Sure, wedging Spider-Man into an already crowded community of costumed avengers is perhaps anticlimactic at this point, but director Jon Watts and his army of screenwriters (six in total) reclaim the swinging ambiance and sheer joy of the character, fashioning a superb refreshing that hopefully will carry on for a long time.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Within the first five minutes of “The House,” the movie makes light of date rape, and it’s all downhill from there. This should be a home run, pairing Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler in a comedy about an underground suburban casino, encouraging major mischief from two actors perfectly capable of onscreen play until something strikes gold. And yet, “The House” is nearly a complete dud, watching co-writer/director Andrew Jay Cohen tank every moment, unable to get a rhythm going as the picture stumbles from scene to scene. It’s thinly connected series of sketches in need of a script, finding Ferrell and Poehler oddly powerless here, struggling to come up with one decent, considered, expertly timed joke. Cohen would rather scattergun the humor, which creates an unfocused, unhelpful mess starring talented people. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com