May 2013
1 post
1 tag
Stark contrast
Iron Man Three ★★★
What’s better than a hot new hero? A hero who hasn’t lost it. A hero that finds his way back.
Conventional wisdom holds that the second film of a trilogy is usually the best, but that is not the case here. After a serious misstep with Iron Man 2, I would not have believed that Iron Man Three could be as smart, as sharply written, and as exciting as it is.
The film is very...
April 2013
1 post
1 tag
Old time future time
Oblivion ★★
Oblivion is an ambitious, but ultimately flawed, old school SF film.
The set up is that Earth has been on the losing side of an alien invasion. Most of the population has evacuated, with only a few small clean-up crews (one led by Tom Cruise, playing a “Jack” again for the second time in half a year) to make a few last preparations before the human race evacuates to Titan...
March 2013
3 posts
1 tag
Paleoterrific
The Croods ★★★
From the previews, I was expecting The Croods to be a story of rebellious female empowerment mixed with a little teenage romance. That was in the movie… but there was more to it.
Eep Crood (voice of Emma Stone) is a teenage caveman, who is the only one in her family who is not on board with the rule set down by her father, Grug (voice of Nicholas Cage): “Never not be...
1 tag
He’s off to be the wizard
Oz the Great and Powerful ★★
How does a con artistman from Kansas become the ruler of an Emerald CIty? Good question! I like the idea of this Wizard of Oz prequel more than its actual execution.
When a movie is named after one character in it, the character has to be engaging. Oscar, a.k.a. Oz (James Franco), comes close. Franco fills the part well, but it is a bit inconsistently written....
1 tag
FlapJack
Jack the Giant Slayer ★½
For a 3-D movie, and a Bryan Singer movie, Jack the Giant Slayer is surprisingly flat. It’s not so much that it’s bad… it’s just that there’s not all much that really works well.
The script is just odd. The lead, Jack (Nicholas Hoult) is woefully underwritten, almost entirely bereft of motivation or character. Jack is surrounded by a cast of supporting charactes...
February 2013
3 posts
1 tag
Blue man group
Escape From Planet Earth ★★
So… Gary Supernova is the mission controller for his little brother (agewise) who is also his big brother (sizewise) Scorch, who is the idol of millions (except Gary) on the planet Baab, including Gary’s son (Scorch’s nephew) Kip, whose mother Kira used to work in mission control with Gary, but who has been replaced by Lena, who, unknown to all, has struck...
1 tag
ZomCom
Warm Bodies ★★★½
I never thought I’s say this about a zombie movie… but this is lovely.
Warm Bodies is in that strange genre known as “paranormal romance.” There’s been a zombie apocalypse, and our male lead, has succumbed. Despite a surprisingly articulate inner monologue, he can’t remember anything about his name besides “R” (Nicholas Hoult).
R meets the female lead, Julie (Theresa...
1 tag
Another time, another crime
Parker ★★
And here were have Jason Statham again playing a criminal who is a little less scummy than all the criminals around him. Statham plays these roles well, but I do wish he could get slight different parts from time to time.
The set up is that Parker is part of a robbery team that doesn’t come off as planned. When the other members of the team want him to put in his share as seed money...
January 2013
1 post
1 tag
We don’t know Jack
Jack Reacher ★★½
When you have a title with the name of your lead character, you had better make sure he is either well known, or compelling enough to carry the movie off on his or her own.
I didn’t know who Jack Reacher was walking in. His character was good, and well played by Tom Cruise, but by the end of it, I didn’t think he was the most compelling thing in the movie.
Jack Reacher is, at...
December 2012
1 post
1 tag
No reason to be Smaug
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey ★★½
When creators of a successful project re-unite, you always wonder if lightning can strike twice.
The lightning that electrified The Lord of the Rings hasn’t struck for The Hobbit. Yet.
It is great to see Middle-Earth again, but part of the joy of The Lord of the Rings was how fresh it all was. It’s been about a decade since we’ve seen those films (my...
November 2012
3 posts
1 tag
Nipping at your nose
Rise of the Guardians ★★¾
Nobody believes in Jack Frost.
Three hundred years ago, he woke up, and has been drifting ever since. Jack has no idea why he can do what he does, or why nobody can see him.
That quest for identity runs through Rise of the Guardians, where Jack is called upon to team up with Santa Clause (voice of Alec Baldwin), the Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman), the Tooth Fairy (Isla...
1 tag
Resurrection
Skyfall ★★★
There has never been a Bond film like this one.
The pacing, the structure, is nothing like what we’ve come to expect. And by and large, that’s a good thing.
The later Bond films had become trapped by the checklist formula set by the first few films. Opening gunbarrel: check. Weapons lecture from Q: check. Quips: check. Woman with unlikely sexy name: check. Impregnable fortress to be...
1 tag
Power up
Wreck-It Ralph ★★★½
What Toy Story did for plastic, Wreck-It Ralph does for pixels.
Consider the parallels. Like Toy Story, both films start with the premise that the characters you know from your childhood have real lives of their own when you’re not looking. And part of the fun is seeing all the characters from different companies wandering around on the screen at the same time.
Ralph is the...
October 2012
2 posts
1 tag
Embassy games
Argo ★★★
Confession time: I’m old enough, and Canadian enough, to remember the events depicted in this film. But I never knew the story shown here.
And this is a great story.
The film opens with a short potted history lesson explaining the political situation in a voiceover. But the tension quickly ramps up with the opening scene showing the storming of the American embassy. Six embassy...
1 tag
Burtonesque
Frankenweenie ★★½
Say what you will about Tim Burton: the man is an auteur. There’s no mistaking one of his films for one by anyone else.
A young Victor Frankenstein lives in the suburbs of New Holland (because Frankenstein movies need a windmill, doncha know) with his dog Sparky, doting but slightly clueless parents, and with the overbearing mayor as neighbour. He goes to school where he...
September 2012
4 posts
1 tag
Dracula’s daughter
Hotel Transylvania ★★½
In the nineteenth century, Count Dracula (voice of Adam Sandler) builds a refuge for monsters. He does it not for the business – despite it being billed as Hotel Transylvania – as a way to keep his new daughter, Mavis (voice of Selena Gomez) safe from the outside world.
The film moves to today, where Mavis is celebrating her 118th birthday, and she’s feeling restless. She...
1 tag
Training day, Mega-City One style
Dredd ★★½
In his native comics, Judge Dredd pulls off surprisingly sophisticated balancing act. On the surface, Dredd is little more than a blunt object, a vehicle for telling crime stories. But the SF setting was often home for some sharp satire of American culture.
The first attempt to bring Judge Dredd to the screen - I liked it more than most. (I won’t say it’s a good film, but I think it’s...
1 tag
Clip show
Resident Evil: Retribution ★★
I’ll say this about the Resident Evil series: it’s consistent. I’ve consistently said about each movie that it’s more obstacle course than a movie, but that each film has a few small things about it than save it from being a complete waste.
And I’m saying it again for this one.
Despite the advertising tagline for the film, “Evil goes global,” Resident Evil:...
1 tag
Not easy being Green
The Odd Life of Timothy Green ★★
Jim Green (Joel Edgerton) is a earnest worker at a small town pencil factory, married to Cynthia Green (Jennifer Garner), an earnest guide in the town’s pencil museum. After they learned there is no chance of them having a child of their own, they earnestly think about what they would have liked their child to be like: kind, musical, and earnest.
They write down...
August 2012
5 posts
1 tag
Rebourne
The Bourne Legacy ★★
It’s a daring thing to try creating a sequel without your title character. But the verve needed to make The Bourne Legacy does not extend to to the final film.
Writer / director Tony Gilroy deserves credit for a simple, clean premise: the government program that Jason Bourne belonged to was involved in making a whole series of super spies. The film opens with one of these...
1 tag
Stormin’ Norman
ParaNorman ★★★
Norman is a kid who is a little obsessed with dead things. Zombies, mostly, And maybe it’s understandable, because he sees ghosts. And talks to them.
Norman’s ability may have something to do with the fact that his town has a long standing relationship with the weird. It’s famed for its witch trials, and it coming up on the 300th anniversary of the hanging of one...
1 tag
Improved recall?
Total Recall ★★½
I was more interested in the new Total Recall than most other remakes, because I always thought the original had one major problem:
Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The starting point of Total Recall is that here is a guy who suddenly discovers that he’s not a normal guy, and that he is a trained agent. It’s the story of someone who doesn’t know he has it in him.
Now look at...
1 tag
Drifting away
Ice Age: Continental Drift ★★
Even in an age of remakes, reboots, adaptations, and sequels, the fourth Ice Age movie is pushin’ it by remaking… the second Ice Age movie.
Family torn apart by geology, husband swears to get back to loved ones, travelogue of somewhat random events until reunion. That’s Ice Age: The Meltdown and it’s also Ice Age: Continental Drift.
Continental Drift may...
1 tag
Trilogy-itis
The Dark Knight Rises ★★
“Why do science fiction films betray themselves in their third movie?” author David Brin once asked. He noted that there is a common pattern.
First film is okay.
The second film sings.
The third film leaves you wondering where it all went so horribly wrong.
I’m sure you can think of your own favourite example. But it does seem like in so many cases, the second film of...
July 2012
1 post
1 tag
Wallopin’ websnappers!
The Amazing Spider-Man ★★★½
I wouldn’t have believed it.
I have a confession to make. I don’t like origin stories for super-hero movies. They tend to be rather predictable trudges through material that most people know. When I heard The Amazing Spider-Man was going to be another origin story, I thought, “What’s the point? We had a Spider-Man origin story - and a good one - this decade. Just...
June 2012
4 posts
1 tag
The princess bride to be
Brave ★★★
This will not be a helpful review.
Almost everything I want to say in a review of Brave I can’t say, because I’ll give away a key element of the plot. Much of this review will only make sense after you’ve seen the film.
I thank the previews for only giving us the set up: Merida has been groomed by her mother since birth to be a princess. Her mother is about to set up Merida into an...
1 tag
Eurozone crisis
Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted ★★★
This movie pulls off the trick of pleasing the eyes and the belly… while almost completely bypassing the brain.
The Madagascar movies have always weak plots and not the greatest characters. And this one… doesn’t bear close examination. There are canyon sized gaps in the logic. You’ll find a lot of the regular characters don’t have...
1 tag
Stealing fire
Prometheus ★★¾
After years of misfired sequels and cross-overs, this prequel to Alien is the most interesting take on the universe in years. The return of original director Ridley Scott may have accidentally highlighted some of the film’s shortcomings, though.
After starting with a truly intriguing opening, the film settles into a very familiar groove. It feels like the original Alien....
1 tag
On the hunt for love
Snow White & The Huntsman ★★
What’s missing from this movie?
Snow White & The Huntsman has visual spectacle, which was obvious in the preview. It looks great on the big screen.
It has a good cast, which was not so obvious from the previews. Kristen Bell and Chris Hemsworth are very watchable as the two leads of the title. Charlize Theron, with the help of some superb make-up and...
May 2012
5 posts
1 tag
Think gothic
Dark Shadows ★★
When Tim Burton fails, at least he fails in an interesting way.
Dark Shadows takes its name, and the names of some of its characters, from an old soap opera. Maybe because it is from a soap, it has many plot lines running through it. But a half-hour daily soap opera needs plot surplus to fill the swathes of air time every week. A movie, generally, does not. There are just too...
1 tag
Finding the right combination
Safe ★★½
This is a snappy crime movie.
At first glance, I thought it would be a defacto rehash of another Statham film, but it turns out to be rather more than that.
The movie’s McGuffin is a young Chinese girl with an eidetic memory. Because if her talents, she’s been pressed into service by an organized crime family. She’s given one particularly important number to memorize...
1 tag
Save the dodo
The Pirates! Band of Misfits ★★½
History fans, stay away. You will be extremely upset about the wildly inaccurate portrayals of Her Majesty, the Empress of India, Queen Victoria. Not to mention Charles Darwin.
If you’re willing to suspend your frickin’ disbelief, those are some of the most fun part of The Pirates!
Pirate Captain (voice of Hugh Grant) wants a little respect. He wants the Pirate...
1 tag
Trendspotting in film, spring 2012 edition
March 2012, The Hunger Games:
May 2012, The Avengers:
June 2012, Brave:
1 tag
Doing justice to a league of heroes
The Avengers ★★★½
This is the film we’ve waited four years for.
So. Worth. It.
What’s great about this film is that it takes its time. Despite being an action film, it doesn’t rush. Yes, it’s long, and you can feel that it’s long, but you get everything you want to see.
It’s no surprise that team books work great in periodical format like comics or in animated series, where you can rotate the...
April 2012
3 posts
1 tag
Awesomeness upload: 99% complete
The Cabin in the Woods ★★½
The Cabin in the Woods isn’t a horror movie. It’s every horror movie.
I went into this film cold, with no idea what to expect. This definitely enhanced the experience, as the preview I saw afterwards gave away too much. I went primarily on good word of mouth and that Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Avengers) co-wrote the script with Drew Goddard...
1 tag
Unleash Tartarus
Wrath of the Titans ★★½
This film was a pleasant surprise.
The predecessor to this, Clash of the Titans, was a remake, and that film had no sequel. This film had no reason to be. And when there are sequels to self-contained stories, one often expects a dip in quality.
This one comes in at about a par with Clash of the Titans. In some way, it improves upon it.
Sam Worthington bored me as...
1 tag
Gladiatrix
The Hunger Games ★★½
This warm up to this movie officially made me feel out of the loop. Here was this hugely anticipated blockbuster, and I hadn’t heard a thing about it.
So, I went to retain my street cred.
The basic plot is one that has been done many times before: Unwilling contestants might fight it out to the death in a gladitorial arena. I’ve seen my share of “game show gone mad” movies,...
March 2012
3 posts
1 tag
Go Barsoom
John Carter ★★★½
It’s been a good long while since I’ve read A Princess of Mars. I went into John Carter a little hazy on some of the plot details of the original book.
But most everything I remembered from the book was there on the big screen. Gloriously.
There was Tars Tarkas, looking not exactly like I pictured him, but with the personality and strong friendship with Carter that I recalled....
1 tag
Small wonder
The Secret World of Arrietty ★★½
With a Studio Ghibli film, you know what you’re getting.
Low key.
Well observed.
Beautiful looking.
The Secret World of Arrietty is very much in that mold. It’s a story of a family of tiny little people that live in a house, “borrowing” what they need, things that will never be missed.
Of course, they’re going to be seen by someone. Then it’s a question of...
1 tag
A few sparks and brimstone
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance ★★½
Ghost Rider was a story about Johnny Blaze.
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is a story with Johnny Blaze.
Nicholas Cage is back as Johnny Blaze in this sequel, though you almost wouldn’t know it. Cage’s quirky characterization of Blaze was one of the fun things about the first film, but here, Blaze feels flat.
Blaze doesn’t have a strong character arc in...
January 2012
1 post
1 tag
Heart felt (Literally... Muppets are made out of...
The Muppets ★★
This movie is so nostalgic that it undercuts the main characters.
Over and over and over, screenwriter Jason Segel (who’s also lead actor, playing “Gary”) and Nick Stoller make the point that the Muppets used to be popular. The Muppets spend most of the film being sad and mopey and dejected, thinking about their glory days.
I don’t like my Muppets depressed.
In this version of...
December 2011
3 posts
1 tag
Boy’s own adventure
The Adventures of Tintin ★★★
Pure adventure.
The Adventures of Tintin is absolutely true to its source: adventure stories for young adults. It’s both a good thing and a bad thing in this case.
The good news is that at when this film is at its best, it’s just thrilling. One chase near the end in particular is stunning and truly exciting. Real edge of the seat stuff.
The bad news is that it’s...
1 tag
European theatre
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows ★★½
The best sequels do more than their predecessors. Average sequels do the same as their predecessors.
This Holmes falls into the latter camp. It moves forward a little, but not enough.
Much of the fun of the first Sherlock Holmes was seeing the characters interpreted in a fresh new light. The take on the characters is still lots of fun. The...
1 tag
No child left behind
Arthur Christmas ★★★★
“She’ll think she’s the one child in the world Santa doesn’t care about!”
That’s the heart of Arthur Christmas, both the character and the film. “There won’t be any Christmas” has been done a lot in movies and TV. I love how this movie takes the idea of saving Christmas and makes it personal, about making sure one kid...
November 2011
1 post
1 tag
March, tap, and hip-hop of the penguins
Happy Feet Two ★★
Happy Feet was not my favourite animated movie, but the previews for the sequel gave me reason to hope that there would be at least enough fun here to make for an entertaining couple of hours. And that’s about what I got.
The plot here is extremely simple: trapped penguins need a rescue. But with a title like Happy Feet Two, what you’re waiting for are the moments...
October 2011
3 posts
1 tag
Shrekless
Puss in Boots ★★★
Ditching the ogre was the best thing that could have happened to this kitty.
Antonio Banderas, plus the talents of the DreamWorks animations team, bring back diablo gato to wonderful, exuberant life. This cat has charm and humour to burn.
To my surprise, the previews do not give away some of the great new characters here to bounce off Puss. Let’s just say that Puss has...
1 tag
Three(mix)
The Three Musketeers ★★½
This is absurd.
To say that this film is “based on” Alexander Dumas’s novel is patently, blatantly, and in all ways silly. The film shares the title and the names of key characters with the book. But everything else? A historical costume adventure has been turned into a steampunk fantasy adventure. No relation.
But I’m not saying it’s not fun.
The Three Musketeers is...
1 tag
Rock 'em sock 'em
Real Steel ★★★½
There isn’t a single punch you don’t see coming.
Real Steel is an underdog boxing movie. The story is as familiar as can be, treading in the same places as Rocky and who knows how many other films. There are two things lifting it above the mundane.
First, you have an engaging cast of Hugh Jackman as boxer Charlie Kenton, Evangeline Lilly in a winning turn as...
September 2011
2 posts
1 tag
Cat and cat
Killer Elite ★★★
Killer Elite is a smart, effective espionage thriller, and Jason Statham’s best movie in several years.
Statham plays mercenary Danny, who is trying to get out of the business. Of course, he tries to get out, but they keep pulling him back in. Danny is hired by a sheik who wants confessions, and the deaths, of British SAS agents who killed three of his sons. Danny...
1 tag
Idle, or maybe park
Drive ★★
Despite its single word, action-promising title, there is about one high speed chase in the whole movie. It’s very good… but not exactly what you would expect looking at the ads.
Drive is a restrained, low-key thriller that harks back to late 70s drive-in theatres. Long pauses, punctuated by short, bloody action. It reminded me of nothing so much as some of John Carpenter’s early...
