Category: Film Review

It’s fantastic to see Tom Cruise back to being enthusiastic and jittery in “Knight and Day,” though it’s a shame the film doesn’t support that soaring effort. A strangely strained spy caper, “Knight and Day” has its share of derring-do, explosions, and flirtation, but director James Mangold doesn’t shape a scintillating feature out of the ingredients. Instead, there are a few key stunt sequences that are smoothly rendered, but the film as a whole lacks a pulse-pounding, swoony mood of adventure and romance. Still, it does have Cruise, and he’s almost worth a recommendation alone for his spirited efforts.

(more…)

“Dogtooth” recalls the wondrous heyday of the Dogme 95 film movement, once spearheaded by Lars von Trier. Though enjoying some degree of polish, “Dogtooth” nevertheless approaches the concept of dehumanization with a gritty, free-flowing tone, permitting the film a genuine sense of surprise. It’s a grotesque illustration of inhumanity and feral instinct, but “Dogtooth” is an absolutely hypnotic motion picture, attaining a nauseating sense of self-destruction in a thrillingly art-house manner that’s been absent from the screen for far too long.

(more…)

I’ll give “Wild Grass” this much: it successfully summons a disturbed, frazzled state of mind. The mental blur carries this French import from legendary director Alain Resnais an incredible distance, assisting a special Euro discombobulation that makes it easier to swallow the often surreal nature of this unrequited love story. Meaningful? Romantic? Full-throated? Perhaps not. Yet, “Wild Grass” evokes the mania of a spinning brain wonderfully, presenting a polite jolt of anxiety to an otherwise impenetrable motion picture.

(more…)

What happens when you cross a film containing carnivorous trees, angry moths, and a lead actress billed as “Beverly Hills” with a group of ace comedians doing their best to make light of a dire moviegoing experience? Well, it means Cinematic Titanic has returned. Roughly four months after their last effort, “The Alien Factor,” the troupe has surfaced again to deliver 90 minutes of consistent laughs with “Danger on Tiki Island,” a wildly incoherent, bizarre horror film that provides the flood of awful the riffing gang needs to successfully land some satisfying bellylaughs.

(more…)

The comic relief is provided by Dax Shepard, Jon Heder, and Will Arnett; there’s a punchline where a needle is literally scratched off a record; a character exclaims “My bad!” after a piece of destructive slapstick; the screenplay makes absolutely no sense; and Danny DeVito plays a horny sausage salesman. See, this is what happens when Hollywood gives a romantic comedy to the director of “Daredevil,” “Ghost Rider,” and “Simon Birch.”

(more…)

Pixar cautiously entered the sequel game 11 years ago with “Toy Story 2,” a development that was somewhat forced upon the company, but proved to be an artistic and financial success. Now the beloved animation house is beginning to make sequels a full-time business, with follow-ups to “Cars” and “Monsters, Inc.” in the production pipeline. However, priming the franchise machine is “Toy Story 3,” a long-awaited second sequel that reunites beloved characters with a frazzled plot that exploits every ounce of plastic neuroses it possibly can. The third time isn’t exactly the charm for this friendly series of films, but this next step in the evolution of Buzz and Woody is dutifully manic and frequently engaging.

(more…)

“Jonah Hex” isn’t necessarily a bad film, it’s just nothing at all. Oh, there’s plenty wrong with this big screen adaptation of the DC Comics western hero, but it’s hard to stay angry with the film when the fingerprints of studio intervention are all over this movie, which has been whittled down to a scant 74 minutes in length. It’s hard to accomplish anything richly cinematic in 74 minutes, much less create a persuasive adventure for a character who’s been kicking around the world of funny books since 1972.

(more…)

After leading a nation of art-house cinemas into the land of mumblecore, the Duplass Brothers, Jay and Mark, try to up the ante some by enlisting a few Hollywood stars for “Cyrus.” A more sedate, straightforward comedy of discomfort and jealousy, “Cyrus” is a mixed bag of dramatic speeds, with the filmmakers struggling to locate a soul to a one-joke premise aching for a more profound funny bone.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

“The A-Team” was a successful NBC television show that ran from 1983-1987, enthralling kids with explosions, sprays of gunfire, slapstick, and a celebratory display of heroic teamwork. The show was undeniably primitive, but triumphantly charismatic, held together by diverse, exciting thespian efforts from George Peppard, Dirk Benedict, Dwight Schultz, and the one and only Mr. T. Now there’s a big screen adaptation from director Joe Carnahan, who takes recognized elements of the franchise and inflates his own twisted balloon animal of a picture, laying the violence and militaristic camaraderie on thick to bring an iconic ‘80s action show into the decidedly more cynical year of 2010.

(more…)

1984’s “The Karate Kid” is a classic. It’s timeless, and has been enchanting audiences for the last 26 years with its purity of heart, meaty characterization, flavorful acting, and victorious deployment of underdog formula. It’s a heartwarming, beautifully realized motion picture, created during an era when such lofty displays of sincerity could still be treasured and celebrated by the mass audience. There was no need for a remake. However, a brand name is a brand name, so Hollywood has decided to dust off the original screenplay, change a few names and locations, and reheat the premise with a new cast, hoping to entice the nostalgic and indoctrinate the young. Frankly, I feel bad for anyone taking their first taste of “The Karate Kid” with this mechanical, charmless update.

(more…)

It’s “Liberal Guilt: The Movie” in Nicole Holofcener’s latest endeavor, the dramedy “Please Give.” An odyssey into the itchy folds of shame and privilege, the picture slices to the bone, presenting a community of characters struggling with their perception of limited moral fiber, while some flaunt their curdled nature. It’s a parade of unlikable, flawed folk interpreted with equal parts horror and sympathy in the filmmaker’s screenplay, assuring something obnoxious when, in fact, the film seldom bubbles with disgust, electing to understand the brittle nature of the bleeding heart mentality.

(more…)

There’s a delicate environmental quality to “Crazy Like a Fox” that’s often more inviting than the drama unfolding. A bristly story of heritage and community, the picture is a bizarre combination of broad comedy and stinging sentiment, helped along by a sharp cast and a wonderful view of the Virginian wilderness, which takes a much-deserved supporting role in this itchy, exasperating film.

(more…)

Over the last few years, Katherine Heigl has faltered mightily picking romantic comedies. With “27 Dresses” and “The Ugly Truth,” the actress submerged herself into pure stupidity, slapping feminism across the face by playing a chain of subservient female characters who set aside self-worth for the chance to seize a man. With “Killers,” Heigl stares down Ashton Kutcher, another vapid thespian with limited acting mobility. The two make a pretty pair, but they’re not a rousing big screen match, ineffectively teaming up in this unconscious, insistently unfunny action comedy.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

Like your Viking stories with a hefty side of the abstract? “Valhalla Rising” is filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn’s dreamlike interpretation of the battle between man and earth, taking those brave enough to accept the challenge of this film on a journey outside the reassurance of reality. It floats a vicious tale of Vikings and warriors in a still sea of the unknown — a metaphysical realm of nightmares and stamina that comes together rather splendidly, but only for those moviegoers with a heightened sense of art-house adventure.

(more…)

Up against imposing art-house competition such as Michael Haneke’s “The White Ribbon” at this year’s Academy Awards, Juan Jose Campanella’s “The Secret in Their Eyes” stunned crowds by taking home the trophy for Best Foreign Film, thus guaranteeing it a substantial U.S. release it probably wouldn’t have enjoyed if denied Oscar gold. I’m not fully convinced the victory was justified, but this is a structurally sound, splendidly acted thriller, achieving a continuous swirl of suspicion other directors would slap their own mothers to achieve.

(more…)

The comic strip “Marmaduke” has been a staple of newspapers since 1954, leaving the producers of the film adaptation over 50 years of canine antics to help build a screenplay. So, naturally, they invent a series of urine and fart jokes to best service the enduring legacy of the rascally Great Dane. In all, “Marmaduke” isn’t quite the bleed-from-the-eyes moviegoing experience the heinous marketing suggests, but there’s an overpowering amount of laziness here that detracts from the core of good-natured mischief the character should be displaying.

(more…)

2007’s “Rec” was a marvel of a horror film, portraying piercing POV scares with an unreal strain of screen anxiety, shaping a monumental genre exercise in sheer cinematic terror. Of course, it was quickly dumbed down into an excretal American remake titled “Quarantine,” but directors Paco Plaza and Jaume Balaguero weren’t content to let the story die there. “Rec 2” shouldn’t logically work, but the raw creativity of the filmmakers lights up the screen, reworking the premise of handheld horror into a fierce, raging mix of “Aliens” and “The Exorcist.”

(more…)

“Splice” takes at look at the world of genetic manipulation, not through the eyes of science, but through the mechanics of a cheesy, easily winded horror film. Walking boldly in the mighty footsteps of David Cronenberg, “Splice” is aching to creep out the room with its symphony of goopy creatures and psychosexual situations, but the film is perhaps too timid and verbose to truly lunge forward and gleefully disturb.

(more…)