Right at the beginning of JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH there is a hint that this is a break from the increasingly lackluster sequels to which we have been subjected. It is the moment when we see that Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson), the upbeat mercenary of the piece, is recruiting paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) for… Read More »
PRESENCE
Steven Soderbergh’s signature style is one of cool detachment to his characters. His films tackle people in crisis, but the tone is always one of an ersatz cinema verité witness to what is happening to them. In PRESENCE, he has channeled that aesthetic into a ghost story told from the spirit’s point of view. Literally.… Read More »
INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY
And so we come full circle in the Indiana Jones saga as Indy once again faces the Nazis, this time while going in search of the Dial of Destiny. It’s a bittersweet farewell (unless it makes enough money to tempt all concerned with another installment), rife with complicated action sequences that don’t all succeed in… Read More »
GHOST TOWN
GHOST TOWN is a film about ghosts, but the focus is not on the afterlife. No, it is firmly in the life of here and now. The ghosts that populate the film are still all too caught up in the lives of those that they have left behind to move on. Unfortunately, for everyone involved… Read More »
PREMIUM RUSH
Told with a frenetic, breakneck style that nicely evokes the anarchic life- and riding style of the most dedicated bike messengers, Premium Rush is a thrill-packed entertainment designed to be both diverting and fun. The which it is and then some thanks to the cast of solid actors and a story that is almost never… Read More »
JACK RYAN – SHADOW RECRUIT
JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT harkens back to those taut Cold War spy thrillers of days gone by. Not the ones with the elements of fantasy to their supervillains, but the ones that took ordinary people who had chosen the spy game out of patriotic duty, not dry martinis, and put them and their loved ones… Read More »
WAR OF THE WORLDS
There is a litany of inevitables in Steven Spielberg’s version of WAR OF THE WORLDS. There’s humanity turning on itself in a desperate scramble for survival. There are the vistas of CGI presenting hordes of extra-terrestrial killing machines cutting a swath across cities, suburbs and points rural. There are the seething tensions between an emotionally… Read More »
ZATHURA
ZATHURA is a big concept, but not an original one. It is, in point of fact, pretty much a rehashing of a much better film, JUMANJI, which was also based on a book by Chris Van Allsburg. It’s not fair to say that ZATHURA’s biggest failing is that it doesn’t have Robin Williams to liven… Read More »