THE TOURIST is a leisurely thriller, more interesting than heart-stopping, with an unfortunate tendency to stall. Designed to showcase the good looks and star quality of its Venice locations, and of its stars, Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp, it is a picture postcard of a flick. At its center is a bait-and-switch caper devised by… Read More »
SANCTUM
James Cameron neither wrote nor directed SANCTUM, but his fingerprints as the executive producer of same are all over it. Visually, it’s an exhilarating experience. As for the storytelling, the word lugubrious comes to mind. The writing is stiff and ridden with clichés, with cheese-ish motifs overwhelmed by swelling, overwrought music cues that forge straight… 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 »
LIMITLESS
Its the dream come true. A pill that allows a person to remember everything he or she has ever seen, access it instantly, and fire off the synapses in order to use that information meaningfully in any given situation. Too good to be true? Of course. And thats the rub in LIMITLESS, a spiffy little… Read More »
SOURCE CODE
THE SOURCE CODE is an action thriller in which the action is strictly incidental, there to ratchet up the level of tension that superbly pervades the film. It advances the point of the story, rather than being the point of same. As for the point, its a divinely complex consideration of right and wrong, justice… Read More »
THE THING
THE THING by Matthijs van Heijningen, Jr. is the prequel to John Carpenters re-make of the same name, which was a re-make of Howard Hawks THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD. Its a confusion that would seem to have been easily avoidable, but for some reason wasnt taken care of at any point during pre- or… Read More »
GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, THE
At a key moment late in THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, a character is offered the choice between doing the sensible thing or doing the polite thing. He does the polite thing with dire consequences. The concept of politeness takes a beating in David Finchers turn at visualizing Stieg Larssons internationally successful crime novel… Read More »
WOMAN IN BLACK, THE
Daniel Radcliffe, fresh from the preternatural success of the Harry Potter films, stays close to his cinematic roots with THE WOMAN IN BLACK. A smidgen too young for the role of widowered father of a four-year-old, at least for 21st-century sensibilities, he and the film use the tender vulnerability of both his years and his… Read More »
THE RAVEN
RAVEN is a mess of a movie. An infuriating mix of amateurish writing and flowery antique speech; of sublime romance and hopeless pedantry; of atmospheric melancholy and risible smugness; of pointless melodrama and a movingly poignant performance by John Cusack as the damned soul, Edgar Allen Poe. The premise is Poe’s mysterious last few days… Read More »
EASY MONEY (SNABBA CASH)
EASY MONEY is an ironic title for a sharply observed, tonally complex story of people who dont fall into easily definable categories. Money is the driving force in all their lives, but they are not all people who have sold their souls for it. There is nothing so cliché in this Swedish import starring Joel… Read More »
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