It takes about 15 minutes to realize that the remake of CLASH OF THE TITANS is an irredeemable loss. Unfortunately, there is still another 105 minutes or so to endure until the ordeal is over. Where the original, no masterpiece to be sure, had a cheesy sort of charm, this offers only the irritation of… Read More »
AFTER.LIFE
AFTER.LIFE tries to be a thoughtful consideration of what it means to be alive, but instead devolves into an advertisement for red lingerie and mortuary science as a challenging career choice. The lingerie is a short charmuese slip worn through most of the film by co-star Christina Ricci, whose wardrober receives a special credit. The… Read More »
THE A-TEAM
The biggest mistake in making a testosterone-fueled action fantasy is to have it take itself too seriously. THE A-TEAM doesnt fall into that trap. Instead, it takes everything that was fun about the series on which it was based and amps it up into stratospherically ridiculous heights. And it does so with an irresistible insouciance… Read More »
NEXT THREE DAYS, THE
Based on the infinitely superior French thriller, POUR ELLE, THE NEXT THREE DAYS is a road kill of a thriller. Flattened beyond recognition as being its particular genre, and with all its vital, life-giving juices mercilessly squished out of it. Whats left is a pulpy mess that is by turns painfully protracted and irritatingly stupid. Russell Crowe,… Read More »
UNKNOWN
UNKNOWN is a diverting entertainment, well-plotted with a story that is just convoluted enough to keep the action barreling along with a nice selection of twists, some of which have a tantalizing foreshadowing that adds texture without spilling too many beans. Taking its cue from the best sort of Hitchcockian premise, the innocent man plunked… Read More »
BATTLESHIP
Its big. Its loud. Its got just enough plot and a few fine quips to tie up all the special effects. BATTLESHIP is what a summertime popcorn movie is all about. Based on the Hasbro game, and co-produced by that manufacturer, the film adds space invaders to the traditional maritime conflict, yet never forgets its humble… Read More »
TAKEN 2
TAKEN 2 is an unnecessary follow-up chronicling the further mishaps of the Miller family when they choose to go abroad on vacation again. In TAKEN 1, it was daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) who was kidnapped by the 21st-century version of white slavers, leading to an improbable but rousing rescue by her ex-CIA agent of a… Read More »
A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST
The late, lamented biologist Stephen Jay Gould, who popularized science for the masses and made the opabinia the favorite fossil, after the trilobite, for some of us, was a proponent of the punctuated equilibrium theory of evolution. Rather than a steady-state and gradual process, evolution was a thing of fits and starts, pushed by a… Read More »
KINSEY
KINSEY opens with the face of Peter Sarsgaard in close-up looking directly into the camera and asking questions of a sexual nature. An offscreen voice stops him when he uses a euphemism for a sexual act. No, says the voice that we will shortly learn is Kinseys, it wont work unless you are completely straightforward,… Read More »
BATMAN BEGINS
Superheroes say much about the culture that spawned them, and so it is with the various incarnations of Batman. In the 60s, he was a pop icon with more than a little camp fluttering around his satin go-go boots. In the 80s and 90s, it was a wallow in excess with sets that duked it… Read More »