Category: Film Review

Out of all the adventures I’ve enjoyed over the course of this week, I think my introduction to the masturbatory preferences of director Zack Snyder was my least favorite encounter.

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It was merely a year ago when the world was introduced to the cinematic incarnation of author Jeff Kinney’s saga of adolescent woe. “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” was only a moderate hit in the spring of 2010, but it was cheap, crude, and ripe for expansion. Enter “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules,” the hastily assembled follow-up, which does away with what little passed for legitimate charm the first time around. Of course, fans won’t likely mind, which is exactly what the producers are hoping for.

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There’s a flurry of hysteria within the psychological drama “Cracks” that keeps the sinister business frustratingly out of reach. A dark look at desire and mental illness, the picture boasts a few effective performances and features quite a humdinger of an ending, but the overall impression of sickness unfortunately loses its enticing delicacy as fears mount and lies are spread.

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“Limitless” is a frustrating motion picture to watch. It’s a film that insists on sabotaging itself time and again, creating a visceral sense of rabid junkie behavior, only to pursue inert thriller elements that derail the whole enterprise. While it kicks off with a bang, “Limitless” quickly grows weary of minimalistic pursuits, contorting itself into a tiresome genre exercise peppered with a few seriously absurd moments. What a waste of a wicked premise.

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“The Lincoln Lawyer” is a perfectly digestible legal thriller that starts off tall and proud and concludes on bleeding knees. It’s a charismatic picture due to a slick effort from star Matthew McConaughey, but, like a bad house guest, it overstays its welcome. Aiming to please in the worst ways, the film eventually self-destructs, though the view isn’t always intolerable during the flashy ride, orchestrated by director Brad Furman.

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“Paul” should be a simple wacky sci-fi comedy filled with pot humor, unrelenting profanity, gay panic, and dry Brit humor. Instead, the film is primarily constructed as a valentine to the fantasy genre, showing more interest dreaming up inside movie references than one-liners. “Paul” is pure geek bait, an oasis of unadulterated affection for all things sci-fi. The movie bleeds green. Thankfully, in the care of screenwriters/stars Nick Frost and Simon Pegg, the picture casts an amusing intergalactic spell, borrowing a Spielbergian concept and filling it with all sorts of enjoyable absurdity and R-rated mischief.

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Celebrating their 15th year stomping around the globe, Michael Flatley’s “Lord of the Dance” troupe finally makes their way to the multiplex, an ideal venue to display their flying feet and pearly white smiles. Taking the spectacle further, the feature is presented in 3D, permitting Flatley and the gang screen depth that accurately communicates the dimensions of the stage show, offering fans a front row seat to a celebration of all things Flatley. Sequins shimmy! Dances are lorded! And Flatley magically repairs a broken flute with his rear end! What’s not to like here?

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Well, it’s officially here. Instead of Hollywood rabidly chasing the success of “Harry Potter” by turning every semi-known kid-lit book into a potential big screen franchise, the powers that be are now consumed with rebuilding the extraordinarily profitable “Twilight” phenomenon. “Red Riding Hood” is the first full-bodied, unabashed rip-off of the sparkly vampire series, doing whatever it can to mirror the romantic fantasy powerhouse, even hiring the director of the original “Twilight” picture, Catherine Hardwicke, to reheat the “magic,” only this time using the forgiving fairy tale milieu to obscure the absurdly obvious trace lines.

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“Mars Needs Moms” is a peculiar moviegoing experience where its least effective element boils down to a single obnoxious performance. Lively, richly animated with intriguing motion capture fluidity, and pleasingly designed with special attention to sprawling Martian environments, the film is nearly sunk by the efforts of co-star Dan Fogler, who’s biologically incapable of delivering funny business, squirting his spastic funk all over this nifty CG-animated chase film.

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“Battle: Los Angeles” isn’t an alien invasion film, it’s a military picture with the occasional alien appearance. The marketing trumpets a global perspective on trespassing extraterrestrials, but the picture actually takes place almost entirely in Santa Monica, boiling down a sense of massive widescreen scope to a few city miles, placing the audience into the driver’s seat as a besieged platoon attempts to defend themselves against an unknown enemy. “Independence Day” this picture is most certainly not.

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In the grand tradition of “Critters 4” and “Hellraiser 7” comes “Elektra Luxx,” a sequel to a motion picture few actually saw. It’s a ballsy move, but writer/director Sebastian Gutierrez doesn’t seem fazed by the challenge, again assembling a crisscrossing tale of Los Angeles love in ruins, surveying the urges and woes of those permanently stuck inside their own heads. It’s an overly talky and scattered feature, but so was 2009’s “Women in Trouble,” leaving any true appreciation of Gutierrez’s latest effort to those who’ve already sampled the previous film.

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I’m honestly baffled by “Beastly” and I’m not sure if it’s just my personal reaction to this brain-dead feature or if there’s something genuinely crooked about its assembly. I walked away from the film with a host of questions, as far away from the state of swoon the producers intended as possible. It’s a cold, often unbearably illogical film, but I almost need to recommend it just for the opportunity to read varied reactions from moviegoers. Surely, I’m not crazy, yet “Beastly” made me feel disconnected from reality, and not in an enchantingly escapist manner.

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“happythankyoumoreplease” is a film that’s easy to hate. Embodying the worst qualities of indie cinema, the picture is a shrill drill of cliché and emotional exasperation, viewed through the prism of New York City neuroses, where the young congregate to ruminate on the trials of life and love while standing in the shadow of the big 3-0. Still, there’s a tenor of performance here that claws at sincerity, making the picture’s tedious nature palatable for a few stretches, but hardly dispatches the brutal film fest-baiting atmosphere.

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“Take Me Home Tonight” has endured a bumpy ride on its way to theatrical distribution. Shot nearly four years ago, this comedy has been shoved around the release schedule, handled gingerly by studios that didn’t exactly know what to do with a comedy aimed at twentysomethings about the 1980s. Their hesitance is understandable, with the feature trapped between traditional coming-of-age sympathy and brazen nostalgia, presumably aimed at a generation that’s stopped going to the movies.

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I don’t even know where to begin with this largely odd and plodding motion picture. “Rango” is an animated spaghetti western slapstick comedy with heavy hallucinatory asides and a taste for film references. Born from the screenwriter of “Gladiator” and directed by the man who launched and promptly sank the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, “Rango” is a tricky film to summarize, but a fairly easy picture to ignore.

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The struggle to retain free will takes a strangely spiritual turn in “The Adjustment Bureau,” a generally lively film that plays with questions of self while sprinting through a Philip K. Dick theme park of the unreal and the intimidating. Think of it as “Love Story” meets “Total Recall” and “Dark City,” which doesn’t quite do justice to the moviegoing experience at hand, but comes close to describing the idiosyncratic, highly cinematic world writer/director George Nolfi generates here for his filmmaking debut.

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“Dear Lemon Lima” is a delightful expedition into the drive of adolescence. It’s a film basted in eccentricity, yet successfully navigates the pictorial troubles of the teenaged mind, submitting a meticulously constructed, organic comedy that passes along some enchanting flights of fancy, using its exquisite Alaskan settings to mold a unique personality that further enhances the viewing experience.

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I’ll freely admit that I have a sensitivity to movies set in the Midwest, a place that I called home for the majority of my life. To most Hollywood productions, the Midwest is an alien landscape for hopelessly naïve folk going about their naïve business while the coasts take care of the culture and style for America. That’s not the Midwest I know. I shouldn’t take “Cedar Rapids” seriously as an incisive take on “flyover” country ethics, but the least this tepid comedy could do is provide a vibrant sense of humor. Instead, it’s a riff-heavy, wildly formulaic modern comedy that uses stereotypes and improvisations in a gentle, but tedious manner to bring the laughs.

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Movies that pursue a campy tone always walk a thin line of execution. Play the absurdity just right, and there’s a mess of good times to be had. Play silliness too aggressively, and the insincerity burns, making the jesting intolerable. “Drive Angry” belly flops into the latter category, pitching its winky tone to the rafters, making certain everyone in the audience is aware that the filmmaker is in on the joke. For a picture that aims to please, “Drive Angry” is far more proficient at summoning aggravation.

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To explain “Rubber” in full virtually guarantees turning off potential audiences to this bizarre French comedy. It’s a furious run of absurdity that toys with perspective and convention, exploring the relationship between spectators and entertainment while staging an adventure rooted in the film’s strict “no reason” policy, as explained in the opening moments. Oh, and it features a tire that comes to life, rolling around the American southwest on a killing spree using its telekinetic powers. Have I already written too much?

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