When last we saw ex-Triple A rated bodyguard Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds), he had succeeded in getting notorious hitman Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson) to the Hague to testify against a genocidal dictator (Gary Oldman). He had also taken a bullet for Darius, which is part of a bodyguard’s job. It would have been better… Read More »
THE CROODS: A NEW AGE
The animation in THE CROODS: A NEW AGE is just as lovely as it was in the original. As we find our cave family going through some changes, though, the story, while lively, has a distinctly mid-century sit-com vibe, and not just because that Partridge Family anthem, “I Think I Love You”, is on repeat… Read More »
FAST AND FURIOUS PRESENTS: HOBBS AND SHAW
HOBBS AND SHAW is, occasionally, as clever as it thinks it is. Fueled by that cocksure attitude, a healthy dose of ironic self-awareness, and the undeniable star power of its three eye-candy leads, this spin-off from the Fast and Furious franchise is a pleasant enough diversion. The plot is strictly a perfunctory exercise involving a… Read More »
THE HITMAN’S BODYGUARD
In a way, it would be a shame to saddle Samuel L. Jackson and Ryan Reynolds with too much plot in THE HITMAN’S BODYGUARD. The snark fest that they provide as adversaries forced to endure one another’s company is its own reward as they travel from Manchester to The Hague while fending off some very… Read More »
LIFE
Stephen Hawking once opined that when we first make contact with alien life forms, it won’t go well for us. LIFE takes that premise and gives it a derivative ALIEN-esque story and a lackluster execution of same. Set in the near future, aboard the International Space Station, it presents a dark vision of our first… Read More »
CRIMINAL
CRIMINAL is a trifle of a thriller. Sure, guns are fired, things explode, and Ryan Reynolds meets a grisly end shortly after the flick begins, but the necessary tension to keep us all on the edge of our seats is noticeably lacking. What we are left with is an intriguing premise, Gary Oldman at his… Read More »
DEADPOOL
Exhibiting a hearty dose of irony and a mordant sense of humor, DEADPOOL exuberantly embraces the conventions of the super-hero genre while fearlessly pricking the more pretentious conventions of same. There is in this tale of a man who has super powers, but refuses to be a hero, evinces a bold and bracing willingness to… Read More »
THE PROPOSAL
What almost saves THE PROPOSAL from itself is a pair of performances by Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds that have a bold and bracing bite of snarkiness to them. Alas, the formulaic nature of the script requires that they both warm up to each other and in the process, while their characters find true love,… Read More »
GREEN LANTERN
For a film that is based on a super hero’s ability to make anything he thinks of materialize in green glowing splendor, THE GREEN LANTERN is a film that is unusually flat in execution and uninspired in conception. It’s also painfully disjointed, as though there were a much longer, even more disappointing flick from which… Read More »
SAFE HOUSE
SAFE HOUSE is a curiously subdued film relying more on the charisma of its leading men, Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds, and on psychology rather than bombast for its suspense. The result is a film that occasionally becomes too languid for its own good, but is generally entertaining enough with an earnest style of gravitas… Read More »