Category: Film Review

Director Gore Verbinski is known for his craftsmanship, making a meal out of trifle such as the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, paying close attention to richly cinematic details. His track record with actual storytelling is less impressive, often so caught up in moviemaking machinery, critical elements such as dramatic conflict and resolution are sacrificed. He's a helmer forever obsessed with cinematographic mathematics, and his latest, “A Cure for Wellness,” is cruel reminder of Verbinski's preference for style over substance. There's a terrific, haunting 75 minute long chiller here for the taking, but it's buried deep inside 145 minutes of repetition, flaccid sleuthing, and visual excess. Verbinski can fashion a pretty picture, but there's little in “A Cure for Wellness” that slips under the skin. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After making an appearance in 2014’s “The LEGO Movie,” Batman has now been gifted his first solo big screen adventure, at least in LEGO form. “The LEGO Batman Movie” endeavors to transform the DC Comics character and his universe of heroes and villains into its own blockbuster comedy, merging the punchline fury of “The LEGO Movie” with decades of Batman history, creating a picture that’s meant for a family audience, but may be a little too hip for the room. Inside references and cinema history cameos dominate “The LEGO Batman Movie,” with the screenplay (credited to five writers) working very hard to pack as much material as possible into every frame of the effort. It’s an exhausting feature, and while it builds a colorful world with an often sly sense of humor, it doesn’t really have much to offer Batman besides the basics in irreverent humor and superhero mayhem. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The biggest surprise of the 2014 film year was the release of “John Wick.” Instead of submitting to the action cinema norm, “John Wick” established its own show of force, with directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch working to redefine gun fights and hand-to-hand combat with a sensational reworking of genre cinematography, visual effects, and pure adrenaline. It was one of the best pictures of the year, shaking big screen roughhousing out of its slumber. For “John Wick: Chapter 2,” Stahelski returns to oversee the title’s transition into a franchise, and boy howdy, does he ever get it right. A true continuation with an invigorating sense of escalation, “John Wick: Chapter 2” maintains the delicious vibration of the original film, keeping the titular character on the prowl while choreography gets harder, bullets are faster, and star Keanu Reeves is even more committed to overall brawling, presenting the follow-up with all the brutality it requires. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

To best understand what type of viewing experience “The Red Turtle” provides, it’s important to note that the picture is co-produced by Studio Ghibli, the famous Japanese animation house that’s given birth to numerous classics that traffic in elaborate fantasy realms, populated with complex characters experiencing sophisticated emotions. Director Michael Dudok de Wit follows this lead for “The Red Turtle,” which combines the power of pure behavior with the possibilities of visual poetry, taking viewers on a riveting journey that bends reality and touches the soul with unsettling precision. It’s a gorgeously animated adventure without dialogue to support it, and it’s incredibly artful, sincere work that rewards patience with an achingly human story of life and death as it tours the vast recesses of the mind. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s hard to argue with a phenomenon, but 2015’s “Fifty Shades of Grey” was a terrible film. Based on the best seller by E.L. James, the picture hoped to bring viewers into a realm of BDSM via a romantic entanglement between two damaged souls, playing up the kink factor to entice those looking for a little moviegoing spice. The feature was an enormous box office success, powered primarily by curiosity, with actual creative achievements few and far between, including a troubling idea to remove any sort of ending that could provide closure to the saga. “Fifty Shades Darker” is the follow-up, and it does offer something of a climax. Multiple ones if close attention is paid. However, a story isn’t invited to this round of pained lives and saucy bedroom antics, generating a decidedly limp viewing experience as bland characters work out easily solvable problems, with the occasional bout of furious intercourse interrupting what’s basically a staring contest between two creeps. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Scripted by Christina Moore and Brian Rudnick, “Running Wild” has the advantage of originality, being the only movie in recent memory to explore the plight of wild horses. It’s not a romantic approach either, at least not initially, constructing a story about equine rehabilitation with creatures near death due to starvation and disease, attempting to shine a spotlight on an overpopulation situation few understand outside horse appreciation circles. Oddity keeps “Running Wild” compelling, with Moore and Rudnick cooking up passable conflict for human endeavors, while director Alex Ranarivelo glazes the whole thing with a big country feel, bringing out soft hearts and wide open spaces to best keep the effort endearing. It’s an unusual feature, and one that pits dramatic formula against message specificity, but intriguingly so. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

If one is going to pinch from “The Evil Dead,” this is a good way to do it. “Bornless Ones” isn’t shy about its Sam Raimi fandom, taking its collection of horror and demonic happenings to yet another cabin in the woods. Writing/director Alexander Babaev isn’t quite as sharp a conductor of agony as Raimi, but he manages to cover a good amount of dread, overseeing personal problems and supernatural influence with an atypical amount of human concern, trying to make the participants are authentic as possible before the slaughter commences. “Bornless Ones” is entertaining and mindful of genre demands, eventually giving genre fans a thorough examination of gore zone details as a reward for sitting through characterization. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Between 2002’s “The Ring” and 2005’s “The Ring Two,” everything that was needed to be said about the dark magic of Samara and her cursed videotape was said. It was over, finally, putting a cap on an overproduced saga that was more invested in lighting and angles than from-the-gut scares. Well, it’s difficult to let a name brand die these days, inspiring a revival of Samara’s wrath in “Rings,” which boasts an “Aliens”-like title, but doesn’t follow the same creative path of concentrated mayhem. VHS horror returns, along with flies, hair, and flickering screens, and while there’s some early hints at a fresh POV for the production, “Rings” sprints right back to the same old business, delivering what turns out to be a resurrection of the series, not a continuation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The signs are there. “The Space Between Us” is directed by Peter Chelsom, a once promising helmer (“Funny Bones,” “Hear My Song”) whose last two efforts were “Hannah Montana: The Movie” and the vile “Hector and the Search for Happiness.” The screenplay is written by Alan Loeb, who boasts a resume that includes “Rock of Ages,” “Just Go with It,” “Here Comes the Boom,” and one of last year’s worst films, “Collateral Beauty.” It’s a collaboration that was destined to fail, leaving little surprise that “The Space Between Us” is borderline unwatchable. Save for a few technical triumphs, the feature is completely awkward, overlong, and tone-deaf with its sincerity. Reaching for the stars, Chelsom and Loeb barely manage to assemble a single scene without falling apart. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

A few years ago, director Caradog W. James crafted “The Machine,” a low-fi take on artificial intelligence and the power of free will. It’s a tale that’s been told before, but the helmer found something substantial to work with, generating an exciting, grounded offering of B-movie escapism, sold with impressive visual style. James returns with “Don’t Knock Twice,” once again challenging himself with material that’s fairly routine for the horror market, overseeing the collision of the paranoid and possessed as urban legends and personal demons are brought in for closer inspection. While it doesn’t share the invention of “The Machine,” “Don’t Knock Twice” is a compelling nightmare, watching James take special care with chills and thrills, only throttling the viewing experience when it comes time to detangle a modestly engaging story.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s difficult to comprehend that the pain contained within “I Am Not Your Negro” is as relevant today as it was during the 1960s and ‘70s, which are the primaries decades of inspection for the documentary. It’s a cinematic rendering of author James Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript, “Remember This House,” with Baldwin recounting his experiences as a black man in America, putting his confusion into context as bigotry began to boil over during the Civil Right era, shaking the country. Director Raoul Peck (“Lumumba”) has the benefit of Baldwin’s work, using his eloquence and refined disgust to guide the picture, which evolves from memories to frustrations, recounting the loss of crucial lives during a time of national awareness coming after centuries of willful blindness. “I Am Not Your Negro” is powerful statement of personal experience tempted into resignation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The struggles between fathers and daughters takes a highly unusual turn in “Toni Erdmann,” a German production that does whatever it can to subvert expectations while trying to remain at least passably human at its core. Writer/director Maren Ade starts with semi-autobiographical touches but takes long dips into absurdity with this strange dramedy. She takes her time too, as the feature runs nearly three hours long, which is quite a journey for material that largely employs subtlety to explore the depths of a ruined relationship. “Toni Erdmann” has moments that test patience in full, but it’s also a richly realistic study of interpersonal struggle and fractured communication, delivered with a free-flowing sense of playfulness and concentration from stars Sandra Huller and Peter Simonischek. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

For his first two outings as a writer/director, John Michael McDonagh made a positive impression. With “The Guard” and “Calvary,” McDonagh displayed an impish sense of humor and an overall understanding of unusual tension and itchy human interaction, using his homeland of Ireland as a distinct backdrop for criminal activity and personal salvation. However, his streak ends at two movies, with “War on Everyone” providing McDonagh with a change of venue and comedic intent, but he repeatedly comes up short with this patience-thinning mix of action and black comedy. “War on Everyone” is meant to be broad, nasty, and sarcastic, but its lack of interesting characters and story make it difficult to endure, clinging to style and tiresome quirk just to get by. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Hunting Grounds” is a killer Bigfoot picture. The thought of it conjures all types of insane imagery concerning huge beasts stalking the woods, terrorizing those daring to enter Sasquatch domain. But the actual film isn’t nearly as exciting, dropping the ball in terms of violence and overall frights. Writer/director John Portanova admirably attempts to make a character journey with “Hunting Grounds,” hoping to pull viewers in tighter with strong personalities and troubled histories before the monsters are unleashed. But anticipation for mayhem becomes a weirdly prolonged waiting game for anything of note to happen, with Portanova almost reluctant to build on the material’s B-movie foundation and let this effort explode with creature feature fury. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s titled “Resident Evil: The Final Chapter,” and here’s to hoping the producers keep their promise. The sixth installment of the video game-inspire series endeavors to return the story to its origins, pitting long-suffer heroine Alice against old foes in the wilds of Raccoon City after spending previous sequels marching all over the world. It should be a back-to-basics romp for writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson, but the man can’t help himself, forgoing a chance to revive the simplistic fun of the original picture to craft another exposition-heavy, stiffly choreographed actioner, with star Milla Jovovich looking visibly tired, barely mustering up enough interest to portray a character who’s not really a character at all, but a poseable action figure. “The Final Chapter” is a drag, much like the rest of the franchise, but it’s the dropped potential of the movie that’s most frustrating, with Anderson recycling conflicts and combat as the script stumbles toward a non-ending. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While it's unfair to criticize a film due to its trailer, the marketing materials for “Gold” promise an adventurous romp with unhinged characters experiencing seismic changes to their bank account and notoriety. The actual “Gold” isn't anywhere near that feature, emerging as more of a study of integrity and honesty in the shadow of unimaginable greed. I'm sure director Stephen Gaghan is mortified with the way his picture is being sold to the public, but his take on the ecstasy of gold isn't appealing, delving into tediously diseased personalities that could benefit from judicious editing. Gaghan refuses focus and narrative balance for his endeavor, which is quickly crippled by his clouded vision and laborious plot. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Lasse Hallstrom has never been the most consistent moviemaker, boasting a filmography littered with gems (“My Life as a Dog,” “Once Around,” “The Cider House Rules”) and stained by stinkers (“Dear John,” “Safe Haven,” “Casanova”). He hit a creative highpoint with 2009’s “Hachi: A Dog’s Tale,” which successfully captured the behavioral tenacity of canines while handling a tearjerker story of undying connection between a pet and his owner. It’s a lovely feature that was rudely dumped on home video in the U.S. by its distributor, only to find a sizable, appreciative audience through word of mouth. Now Hallstrom’s attempting to reconnect with the animals for “A Dog’s Purpose,” which increases manipulations tenfold, straining hard to win over viewers with a tale of cute pooches dealing with mischief and existentialism, but not in an endearing manner. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Just when zombie cinema appeared to be all out of inspiration, “The Girl with All the Gifts” comes along to rejuvenate the subgenre. It’s a walking dead movie, but one that takes a more sympathetic approach to the ghoul nation, delivering a sophisticated depiction of evolution concerning a young girl caught between her macabre urges and her genius-level I.Q. Adapted from a M.R. Carey novel, “The Girl with All the Gifts” is a satisfying look at survival and unique relationships, and director Colm McCarthy (a television veteran) creates an evocative dystopian world on a limited budget, putting focus on his characters, not grand displays of horror. It’s an unsettling picture, but also engrossing and emotive, handling expectation for gloom and doom with inspired dramatic depth and performances. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Christopher Smith has dabbled in genre films throughout his career (“Severance,” “Triangle”), but he reached an impressively grim level of doom with 2010’s “Black Death,” a harrowing horror offering that showcased the helmer’s competent way with suspense and nightmare imagery. “Detour” doesn’t possess the sheer terror of “Black Death,” but it reinforces Smith’s skills behind the camera, commanding an effective thriller that plays with perspective and time, working to disrupt expectations for a traditional meeting of poisoned minds. “Detour” is swiftly paced and imaginative with narrative gamesmanship, but it’s also nail-biting stuff, keeping viewers attentive to character decisions and ongoing mishaps, with Smith celebrating the elasticity of B-movie exploration, keeping the effort angry and on the move. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s never easy for movies to portray the cutthroat world of business. Tales of fierce ambition generally require sensitivity to reach viewers, creating a foundation of human behavior to best appreciate dubious financial and legal tactics to come. “The Founder” tells one of the most important tales of hardcore corporate gamesmanship, recounting the rise of McDonald’s, the most successful fast food chain in history. It’s not a comforting story of a dream realized or mission accomplished, but an overview of shady business practices that launched billions of hamburgers. Through screenwriter Robert D. Siegel (“The Wrestler,” “Big Fan”), “The Founder” actually manages to find psychological depth underneath all the scheming and frustrations, shaping a fascinating examination of opportunity born from legal duplicity. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com