MOONFALL is everything that a Roland Emmerich film should be. There are dazzling special effects. There are several plot threads happening simultaneously that occasionally show a puckish confluence. There are parent-child issues. And there is a huuuuuuuuuge story. This time, it’s the curious case of the moon shifting its orbit in a way that defies… Read More »
INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE
INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE was released here in San Francisco without a press screening. And for good reason. I’m putting The Golden Raspberry Awards Foundation on notice that we might have a new frontrunner for next year’s Razzies. We begin on the eponymous holiday. Twenty years have passed since Steve Hiller (Will Smith, appearing in this… Read More »
2012
With 2012 you got your big special effects, you got your overwrought melodrama, you got your colorful supporting characters, a passel of kids of varying cuteness, outrageous puns, and a plucky dog. What you got here is blockbuster of a popcorn flick that delivers on ending the world as we know it and takes a… Read More »
THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW
THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW understands that its premise, a cataclysmic climate change that happens in less than a week, is hard for even the most sympathetic audience to swallow. It thoughtfully has its characters mentioning that its all very odd and to be suitably surprised by it all. Given that expositional permission, the audience is… Read More »
10,000 B.C.
10,000 B.C. is a suitably old-fashioned action story, which is emminently suitable to the sort of old-fashioned fantasy/adventure tale it tells, one that is set in the remote past, when Stonehenge was more or less new, and before even the pyramids were built. Depending upon, of course, which version of the past to which you… Read More »