CHAPPIE is a cross between Pinicchio and ROBOCOP with a dash of DISTRICT 9. That last is unsurprising because CHAPPIE is the brainchild of Neill Blomkamp, and many of the elements at work in that earlier film about the meaning of humanity are at work in this one. The battleground is still South Africa, Blomkamp’s… Read More »
ELYSIUM
Neill Blomkamp, he of DISTRICT 9 fame, should not be expected to make a straight-up thriller without also making it a damning critique of societys ills. Nor would we want him to. His is an eye that can pick out the details that illuminate the whole without going all dialectic on us. Instead, he uses… Read More »
MALEFICENT
There is an old saw about movies that goes, “Dont tell, show” and, alas, MALEFICENT has gotten that backwards. wtih an incessant, distracting, and otherwise unhelpful narration. Its an unfortunate irony in that the film seeks to inform us of the other side of the Sleeping Beauty story, that of the evil fairy who cursed a… Read More »