Disclaimer: I don’t know the first thing about the source material. Not that it matters. I can imagine any fan of the series, Avatar: The Last Airbender, sitting in the theater, slack-jawed, at this dreary, joyless, and boring effort from M. Night Shyamalan. Where’s the fun? We’re talking about characters… Continue reading
Now you’re messing with my childhood! That was my initial response to the news of a Karate Kid remake. While I hardly hold the 1984 original on the same pedestal as many others my age, I regard it as one of the finest “underdog” movies ever. It was formula (though… Continue reading
The primary fear with a movie like Prince of Persia: The Sand of Time, other than the fact that it’s another film based on a video game, is that it will take itself too seriously. Nothing can sink a would-be summer diversion more than self-importance, and while Prince of Persia… Continue reading
The bar for Saturday Night Live-inspired films is set appropriately low. After all, for every Blues Brothers or Wayne’s World (the diamonds of the genre), there’s a The Ladies Man, Superstar, A Night at the Roxbury, Coneheads, or many other failures. That MacGruber is as consistently funny and inspired as… Continue reading
Well, at least I know what setting $70 million ablaze looks like in 3D. That’s about all that’s to be gained from this 2010 version of Clash of the Titans, an ugly, joyless clunker that could only have been made better if it were an April Fool’s joke. No such… Continue reading
The Bounty Hunter is an abominable waste of time. Here we have a film with two stars that have no chemistry, no laughs, no romance, and boring “action” sequences. Coming up with justification for its existence is nearly impossible. The premise would seem to offer up some promising black comedy… Continue reading
Water and Chap Stick may be difficult to come by in the post-apocalyptic world of The Book of Eli, but ammunition certainly is not. 2010’s first big-budget action film is all over the place in terms of emotions and intentions, but it’s still pretty entertaining and boasts some decent effects… Continue reading
Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes arrives with particular disappointment, and this is coming from someone who doesn’t have any unbreakable attachment to the character of Sherlock Holmes. Those that do: beware. You’re bound to be even more appalled by this over-written, over-edited, and only moderately entertaining “re-imagining” (oh, how that is… Continue reading
This film was inevitable. I suppose there is actually a fringe group of people out there who truly believe that, in 2012, the poles will reverse and humanity as we know it will be destroyed by every disaster cliché imaginable. For those who do believe it: I hope you’re in… Continue reading
Somewhere around the two-hour mark of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, a character requests that a plan be made concise and to-the-point. I’d like to think that’s a wink from the trio of screenwriters to the audience, because next to nothing in Transformers 2 makes any sense. Perhaps that is… Continue reading