Category: Film Review

Despite a punishing pace and a few lukewarm performances, “Sound of My Voice” still manages to preserve a beguiling mystery. Credit the screenplay by Zal Batmanglij (who also directs) and co-star Brit Marling, who layer in subtle twists and confrontations, keeping the picture semi-alert as it works its way to an unsatisfying ending. Although deeply flawed, “Sound of My Voice” does hold attention, creeping along with unnerved characters as they inadvertently find themselves on a journey of science fiction, struggling to separate reality from manipulation in a feature that enjoys the dramatic possibilities of both approaches.

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While it doesn’t come together as a gripping motion picture, “The Samaritan” does offer actor Samuel L. Jackson something different to play for a change. Gravitating to the same brute role time and again (years back, Jackson admitted he picked acting gigs based on his proximity to golf courses), the icon finds a softer side to his personality in his latest effort. Although guns are brandished and heads are smacked around, Jackson hits an effective note of remorse and resignation, blended with some unnerving sensuality to give a formulaic grifter movie an interesting spin, though this interest in unexpected directions is short-lived.

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The main character of “Hick” goes by the name Luli McMullen. There’s the film in a nutshell. An attempt to cinematically realize the Great American Story about innocence lost, “Hick” is a messy, monotonous picture, showing immense trouble maintaining focus as it labors to turn a host of disagreeable characters into meaningful figures of tragedy. It’s bad Midwestern poetry, carried by actors unqualified to handle such ferocious swings of behavior, while director Derick Martini basically gives up on storytelling about 20 minutes into the feature, hoping a grubby atmosphere of creepy men and vulnerable women is enough to patch the abyssal holes in the plot.

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When dealing with a movie based on a popular board game, there’s some sense of critical relaxation involved. I knew going into “Battleship” that it would be idiotic, hard on the ears, and directed with a lean toward total screen aggression. However, I wasn’t prepared for how noisy and moronic the feature actually is. Tasked with providing summer entertainment on a massive scale, director Peter Berg goes bananas with this production, turning the harmless merriment of kitchen table strategy involving plastic ships into an alien invasion extravaganza, frosted with explosions for the explosions and a 100-pound pop music star in a supporting role as a tough-as-nails naval officer. All hopped up on Michael Bay-brand steroids, Berg attempts to outwit his audience by playing so broadly with a painfully simple concept. It’s a shame almost nothing in “Battleship” comes close to genuine fun.

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At this point in his career, Sacha Baron Cohen has done one thing with his starring roles, and he’s done it well. With “Ali G Indahouse,” “Borat,” and “Bruno,” Cohen has set out to explore stereotypes and challenge prejudices, while making a silly mess out of every room he enters. He’s a gifted performer with fantastic chutzpah, but “The Dictator” feels a little tired, a little too calculated to create a few ripples of controversy. It’s a broad creation taking a whack at dissecting Middle East and North African culture and political tyrants (the movie is dedicated to Kim Jong-il), but the bubble gum doesn’t hold its flavor for very long. Perhaps its fatigue with Cohen’s comedic impulses or some good old-fashioned lazy writing, but “The Dictator,” while occasionally hilarious, is mostly flat and uninspired.

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The process of abridging a daytime soap opera that ran for over 1,200 episodes down to a single two hour picture is not a simple task, and while I only have a fringe appreciation for the “Dark Shadows” television program, it’s easy to see director Tim Burton has handled the translation to the big screen with a great degree of care. Unexpectedly macabre (it’s not exactly titled “Happy Shadows”) with a flexible funny bone, the feature film update of the cult show bares it fangs with some success, likely unnerving those on the hunt for a slapsticky good time. Although burdened with far too much story and one too many supporting characters, “Dark Shadows” is a solid return to form for Burton, who creates his most measured and atmospheric effort in quite some time.

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In recent years, Mel Gibson has proved himself to be a concentrated architect of pain. Throughout his entire career, the actor has always been drawn to human suffering, but lately it’s been an obsession, but I suppose audiences would expect nothing less from the once mighty Mad Max. “Get the Gringo” (titled “How I Spent my Summer Vacation” overseas) puts Gibson back on track in terms of quality filmmaking, putting misfires like “The Beaver” and “Edge of Darkness” in the rearview mirror to roar ahead with his latest effort, an occasionally vicious prison picture that fits the actor’s groggy worldview snugly. Layered with dark comedy and toxic locations, “Get the Gringo” isn’t a thorough return to form for Gibson, but it’s a step in the right direction.

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It’s been nearly a decade since Lawrence Kasdan last made a movie, making “Darling Companion” a welcome return to screens despite pronounced faults. One of the better screenwriters in Hollywood, Kasdan was last seen guiding 2003’s “Dreamcatcher” (a weirdo guilty pleasure), a big-budget Stephen King adaptation that failed to attract much attention at the box office. The filmmaker returns to his character-based roots with his newest effort, a chatty, quirky comedy sure to draw divisive reactions from viewers. While it’s far from perfect, “Darling Companion” is pure Kasdan, and it’s great to have him back behind the camera again.

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“The Perfect Family” means well enough, but it’s a hopelessly scattered picture attempting to cover a lot of emotional ground in 80 minutes. A story of enlightenment and religious concern, the movie is a grab bag of subplots and characterizations, failing to gel into a cohesive whole despite a clear passion for the messages presented from director Anne Renton. At least there’s Kathleen Turner, who delivers a spunky performance that carries the feature, showing signs of life onscreen she hasn’t reveal in ages, helping to slow the erratic storytelling momentum that comes to destroy any lasting message of personal illumination the material is hoping to impart on the viewer.

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Ballet is hard enough to watch adults perform, yet “First Position” is a documentary about children on the hunt for dance glory. Although the film is a cookie cutter effort showing absolutely no interest in a visual personality of its own, the subject remains engrossing, following a group of aspiring ballet performers as they march to an unknown future, contending with aching bodies, overbearing parents, and astonishingly gifted competition. Actual dance almost feels like an afterthought to the picture, which finds more life holding on the participants, soaking up their individual stories of ambition and adversity as they inch closer to a seemingly unattainable dream.

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Unlike many of its low budget brethren, “Transit” has a singular drive to thrill its audience with ferocious displays of gunfire, car stunts, and feverish performances. It’s a ridiculous movie, abandoning logic immediately upon commencement, yet its dedication to pace and intensity is charming and frequently effective. It’s a turn-your-brain-off viewing experience, with director Antonio Negret eager to share a little Louisiana troublemaking with viewers, hitting juicy points of pursuit and intimidation with a clear vision for violence. Instead of playing dead due to lack of funds, “Transit” carries itself with confidence, delivering the goods in a clean and efficient manner.

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A few years back, I reviewed “Universal Soldier: Regeneration,” which was technically the fifth installment of the tired series, leading to minimal viewing expectations. Instead of a snoozy actioner, director John Hyams (son of inconsistent helmer Peter Hyams) refreshed the franchise with a shockingly stout effort, returning some firepower back to a flatlining futuristic concept, also replacing a few blown light bulbs in Jean-Claude Van Damme’s marquee value. Unfortunately, the excitement was only fleeting, with Hyams’s latest, “Dragon Eyes,” a tepid fight picture that’s too reliant on chaotic moviemaking elements to make an impression, creating noise where a thrilling revenge saga should be. Where “Regeneration” showcased a filmmaker ready to pound some life into dreary formula, the ugly and bafflingly dull “Dragon Eyes” revels in cliché, slowly falling asleep despite some gratuitously violent content.

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It’s almost impossible to decode the true intent of “LOL,” which is such an obnoxious and baffling viewing experience, clouding whatever teen angst authenticity it was striving for. A remake of a 2008 French feature starring Sophie Marceau, the original picture’s writer/director Lisa Azuelos has returned to helm the American take on the war between teens and adults, perhaps best qualified to film material she’s already tackled before. The challenge proves too insurmountable for the creator, with her update a choppy, confused observation of growing pains and adolescent insubordination, executed with a bizarre obliviousness to the toxicity of these characters and their extraordinarily superficial concerns begging for sympathy.

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After years of insides jokes, cameos, hints, and calculated introductions, it’s finally led to this. “The Avengers” pays off a promise made in 2008’s “Iron Man,” bringing together Marvel’s greatest superheroes (and two question marks) for a battle to save the Earth, after they’re done pummeling one another. A mildly clunky but largely soaring presentation of citywide devastation, costumed hero neuroses, and flamboyant evildoing, the feature gathers all the details and character quirks fans could want from a super-sized outing such as this. And who better to direct than a man with practically his own religion in the realm of geeklandia, Joss Whedon. Every ticket should come with a tube of smelling salts to keep the target demographic from passing out.

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With such an esteemed cast and capable director, it’s hard to argue with anything “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” provides. The familiarity of the story’s revelations and relationships are a tad deflating, but the overall feature puts forth a great deal of heart and empathy, with emphasis on the aging process, rarely handled delicately in features. Although mildly comedic, “Marigold Hotel” is at its finest sitting back and allowing the gifted performers an opportunity to feel around the situations, usually discovering the most precise emotions to play. It’s far from a remarkable film, yet it strikes all the satisfying notes required to remain meaningful and entertaining.

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As a child, I adored the CBS Saturday morning program, “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse.” A phantasmagoria of cartoons, slapstick, and puppetry, the show was a miracle shot of creativity in a realm of glorified commercials, drilling into my brain with its purity of imagination and firm grasp on ridiculousness. At the time, I didn’t consider the personalities that drove the series alongside Paul Reubens, but as the years went by, revisiting “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse” exposed brilliant work emerging from multiple sources. One of those fountains of genius was Wayne White. While the playhouse festivities don’t define his career, it’s an excellent entry point into a snowballing mind always on the prowl for absurdity.

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When it comes to Jason Statham and his action entertainment endeavors, one always knows what to expect. While maintaining a perfectly respectable career as an unshaven action figure, Statham’s movies haven’t always displayed a level of concentration and imagination that could solidify the star as a punch-happy icon. “Safe” is a fitting match of the actor’s growly determination to restless cinematic overload, with writer/director Boaz Yakin orchestrating a largely insane bruiser that invests in mesmerizing absurdity. It’s ridiculously violent and frequently flat-out ridiculous, but the picture’s commitment to the underlying promise of roaring bullet-drenched mayhem is kept in a big way. With “Safe,” Statham finds assertive material that fits his limited range like a glove, blending the diminutive scrapper into a larger portrait of New York City chaos, prizing every last broken bone and open wound.

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The latest from Aardman Animations, “The Pirates! Band of Misfits” (released elsewhere as “The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists”) carries all the hallmarks of the British studio’s wit, speed, and visual creativity. A stop-motion animated effort, the movie is a delightfully entertaining yarn that puts a little cheekiness back into cinematic pirating, especially after the gradual disruption of jollity found in the last three “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequels. Besides, what’s more fun to watch, a mincing Johnny Depp or a plasticine figure of extraordinary flexibility and cartoon possibility, plundering and bumbling across a vividly designed and colored background, surrounded by pure mischief? It also doesn’t hurt that “Band of Misfits” is easily the most charismatic performance Hugh Grant has delivered in over a decade.

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“The Raven” should be a lot more entertaining than it actually is. Extrapolating the final days of writer Edgar Allan Poe, the movie turns the author into a detective of sorts, playing up the man’s expertise with macabre situations as he races to save a damsel in distress. After all, who’s more skilled at catching murderers than a man who’s spent his life imagining indescribable horrors? What’s actually committed to the screen is stillborn, poorly arranged by director James McTeigue, who’s too caught up in stiff period details to keep suspense in play. It’s a neat idea for a film, but it doesn’t come alive in this uneventful attempt to refresh the serial killer genre.

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“The Five-Year Engagement” highlights familiar cinematic working parts, keeping in step with previous Judd Apatow productions with its overreliance on improvisational comedy, unnecessary foul language, and a bloated run time (clocking in at just over two hours). Yet, the picture manages to locate a morsel of life left in the mummified romantic comedy genre, using relationship realism and blindingly charismatic stars to carry a heavy load of Apatowian formula. While a bit unwieldy, “The Five-Year Engagement” is a winningly silly effort to dissect pre-wedding tension and longtime commitment coziness, doing a capable job milking domestic discomfort for every drop of goofballery, punctuated with a sweet dollop of genuine affection shared between the lead characters. In an industry obsessed with wedding movies, here’s an anti-ceremony heartwarmer, executed with a spongy comedic imagination and a little touch of soul.

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