Man on a Ledge falls firmly into the category of the “time filler” film. It’s a competently made, never dull suspense yarn that seems perfectly content being average and unassuming. The problem is that it’s a little too unassuming. A setup like this should wring suspense out of the audience… Continue reading
The return of the viral outbreak film has been a long time coming (there hasn’t been one without zombies since 1995’s cheeky Outbreak), and Contagion is a damned good one. Feeling chillingly realistic throughout, director Steven Soderbergh and an all-star cast deliver a tense, first-rate thriller that will have you… Continue reading
Green Lantern is a loud, obnoxious, joyless video game that pretty much makes you want to write off superhero origin movies all together. The genre has become such a cash cow that studios now just assume that throwing a character onto the heap automatically guarantees a franchise. Warner Brothers may… Continue reading
The Adjustment Bureau somehow successfully combines romance, comedy, and science-fiction into an elegantly woven tale of the lengths in which we’ll go to defy Fate to be with the one we love. It may sound heavy, but the film introduces just enough ideas to keep interest and provides just few… Continue reading
I Am Number Four is being billed as a high-octane superhero movie. It does eventually become one in the third act, but it happens long after anyone could possibly care about the story, characters, or anything else in this teenybopper cross-pollination of every superhero film ever made and the Twilight… Continue reading
By now you pretty much know the drill when it comes to Jason Statham action vehicles. He plays a largely charisma-free lead, usually a hit man or other stealthy dude, gets wronged in some way, and takes it out on, well, everyone and everything. The Mechanic, a remake of sorts… Continue reading
The Green Hornet represents a pretty big shot in the arm to the recent crop of self-serious superhero films. While those films like reflect on the problems of the times, The Green Hornet is really only interested in having fun, satirizing the genre, and packing in plenty of over-the-top action.… Continue reading
I distinctly remember sitting in my college apartment in 2003 and reading the story of a hiker who cut his own arm off to free himself from a fallen boulder that had pinned it against a crevice wall. One can’t help but ask: What kind of mental state does a… Continue reading
Finally, a movie that depicts how women in a competitive environment actually feel about each other – at least I think. Black Swan is a spellbinding psychological thriller, a genre whose entrants have been sparse in recent history. Working with a fantastic cast and a first-rate script, director Darren Aronofsky… Continue reading
Why so serious? Faster, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is his return to seemingly watchable movies, is an unpleasant, cliché-ridden revenge-fantasy that goes about itself completely wrong. If you’re going to make a movie with absolutely zero redeemable characters, at least inject some life through black comedy or just take… Continue reading