Category: Movie Reviews

Unstoppable

Starring Denzel Washington, Chris Pine and Rosario Dawson
Directed by Tony Scott (Man on Fire)
Rated PG-13 for sequences of action peril, and some language
Appropriate for ages 13+

     Due to the negligence of a couple of train workers in Pennsylvania, a runaway train without a conductor is sent speeding towards a densely populated area with a payload that is able to kill tens of thousands of people.  When two conductors in the area (Washington and Pine) get wind of the potential disaster, they go into hero mode in order to stop the potential catastrophe.  

    Considering Tony Scott’s last train movie (The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3) bombed (no pun intended), it was hard for me to fathom him taking on another tracked thriller.  Thankfully these films are very different, aside from the vehicle.

    This film ends up working for a few good reasons.  First off, you have two great actors in Washington and Pine in very physical roles.  The two have great chemistry on screen and Washington doesn’t at any point attempt to hog the scenes. 

    Secondly, the writing is really strong here and the words are well performed by the talented cast.  The exposition is given without placating the audience and comes across with real authority and credibility.  By the end of the film you actually feel like somewhat of a train expert. 

    Lastly, the film mimics a man-vs-nature thriller rather than the typical good guy/bad guy routine.  They could have easily made this a runaway train sent by a mad man, but instead chose stupidity as the villain and brains and bravery as the savior.  Not having a character as the villain allows you to think more freely about how to stop a disaster from occurring, putting you right in the mix as the action unfolds. 

    So while I’m not a train person and was a little concerned about sitting through the movie, I ended up having a great time watching it.  A-

Due Date

Starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Zach Galifianakis
Directed by Todd Phillips (The Hangover)
Rated R for language, drug use and sexual content
Appropriate for ages 17+

    Due to unfortunate events that take place on a plane, Robert Downey Jr is put on the “no fly” list and must hitch a ride with Zach Galifianakis in order to make it home for the birth of his first child.  Suffering one horrible catastrophe after another, the two trek on in an agonizing journey. 

    Minus the trains, this is essentially Planes, Trains and Automobiles for a new generation.  Unfortunately, it’s not quite as funny and doesn’t contain half of the heart. 

    It would be a mistake to claim that it’s not funny though.  Many of the jokes work here and Zach, apparently just being good old Zach, provides 95% of the laughter.  While his character here is nothing new, he is always interesting to watch just to see what he’ll do or say next.  He is so good at playing the idiot that it’s hard not picture him in the role.  He’s the very picture of the guy you love to watch but would never want to be around. 

    Downey, Jr, however is just your average straight man, perhaps too straight for this film.  He sets off on the journey as a no-nonsense, irritated and arrogant man and very little changes throughout the journey.  He does have a bit of an arc, but it’s too slight to be appreciated.  There is still good chemistry between the characters, but they are certainly no Abbott and Costello or Martin and Candy.  Perhaps it would have been a better film if Downey, Jr had switched roles with costar Jamie Foxx.

    As for the story, you can’t think too hard about the premise or you realize it’s too far fetched and extreme.  The whole incident that took Downey, Jr. off of the plane and onto the “no fly” list is too contrived and should have been made much bigger and funnier in order to have any chance of being believed. 

    But most audiences will only care about whether or not it’s funny, and it is certainly better at delivering laughs than most comedies this year.  That being said, it’s still nowhere near the hilarity of Jack Ass 3D.  B

Fair Game

Starring Naomi Watts, Sean Penn, and Sam Shepard
Directed by Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity)
Rated PG-13 for some language
Appropriate for ages 13+

    Based on an unfortunate true story that unfolded in 2003, CIA agent Valerie Plame (Watts) was illegally outed by members of the Bush administration, and when her husband, Joseph Wilson (Penn), attempted to stand up to the injustice, the challenges they faced put a strain on their careers, their family, and their relationship.

    From the premise, this film sounds like movie-of-the-week material rather than a feature film starring two of the best actors in Hollywood.  But with a wonderful screenplay, terrific directing, and amazing performances by everyone involved, the movie was able to elevate itself to become a very good political thriller.

    What some might consider a very low point of the Bush administration, the events that inspired this film are brought to life in a way that actually makes you feel like it is you against the world, and there is no way of winning.  Penn pulls off the strong-willed defensive husband beautifully and  Watts is nearly perfect as the confused woman whose commitment to her work becomes increasingly dangerous for those around her.

    Director Doug Liman does an admiral job presenting this material in an exciting, fast-paced way that enhances the story-telling, allowing the audience to grow more and more angry at the enemies, who in real life were eventually prosecuted and even sentenced to prison.  His style almost  makes the film feel like a state-side version of Green Zone.

    While there is a strong political agenda to this film that many at Fox News will have a problem with, the script lends a credible historical accuracy to the events of the day and very much serves as a reminder of why not to blindly follow our national leaders when we should be keeping them in check as much as possible.  A-

Hereafter

Starring Matt Damon, Cecile De France, and Jay Mohr
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Rated PG-13 for mature thematic elements including disturbing disaster and accident images, and for brief strong language
Appropriate for ages 13+

    Matt Damon is a retired Psychic who might be the only person on earth with an actual gift to speak to the deceased.  He considers it a curse, though, and wishes never to have to use his ability again.  But when a young British boy loses his twin brother and a French journalist dies during a natural disaster and returns to life, the three souls are drawn toward each other by fate.

    From the outside this film looks like it will be a heavy, spiritual film that will deeply touch any audience brave enough to watch it.  After all, it’s a film about life and death and the connection between the two and you can’t get much more profound than that.  Unfortunately, the decision was made to mock Christianity and Islam through the device of a child watching youtube videos, leaving Matt Damon as the only true link to life everlasting.  Maybe writer Peter Morgan thought that it might be less offensive to audiences to make the themes agnostic, but I think the opposite is true.  It’s hard for me to believe that anyone would be touched by a movie afraid to take a stance and, other than the youtube videos, no mention of religion is hinted at.

    Besides being a generic afterlife movie in theme, many of the qualities you would normally expect to be great coming from an Eastwood picture aren’t there.  While Damon and De France turn in good enough performances, many of the others actors are sub-par.  The child, played by real-life twin brothers looks like he is reading off of cue cards and never once pretends to be a serious actor.  In a movie like this that is highly unfortunate as this role needs to be there in order for the movie to work.

    In addition, the score, written by Eastwood himself, is a disappointment throughout.  I’m not doubting his abilities as a musician, but I am doubting his judgment as to what music works and where.  With a better composer I think I might have been at least a lot less distracted.  

   Still, fixing the smaller flaws doesn’t help the story enough to make it a compelling drama.  Maybe it’s that I expected a lot and didn’t get it, but I left the theater feeling cheated out of what could have been a great experience.  C

Red

Starring Bruce Willis, Mary-Louise Parker, Morgan Freeman and Karl Urban
Directed by Robert Schwentke (The Time Traveler’s Wife)
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action violence and brief strong language
Appropriate for ages 13+

    RED, which stands for Retired Extremely Dangerous, is the code given to ex-CIA black ops agents that could pose a threat to national security.  When retired agent Frank Moses (Willis) is forced to escape a CIA assassination plot, he gets together with some of his old RED cohorts to discover the cause for wanting him out of the picture.  When they uncover a secret plot set up by the Vice President, they attempt to turn the tides on their would be killers.

    This very unique film plays as both a thriller and a comedy with loads of action and laughter throughout.  The cast assembled here is like a who’s who of 50+ year old thespians having a late mid-life crisis.  Due to the smart script by Erich and Jon Hoeber, the movie never slows down and is full of surprises.  The biggest surprise though is Karl Urban who is best known for his role of Bones in the latest Star Trek reboot.  Due to his ability to steal every scene he is a part of, he is very much an actor I can’t wait to see more of.

    The difficulty this film will have is appealing to a younger crowd and convincing the adult audience that it’s okay to see this one in theaters.   
After all, although this film has a great appeal, it definitely lacks a broad appeal.  And the audience that is most likely to see a film like this has been notorious for waiting for the DVD release.  

    So is it worth seeing now or waiting?  If you are in need of a fun night out and don’t want to have to fight teenagers keeping you from enjoying it – I would say yes.  This is probably the greatest chance you’ll have to see an adult-skewing big action flick without many of the distractions you find in this genre.  B+
  

Waiting for Superman

Directed by Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth)
Rated PG for some thematic material, mild language and incidental smoking
Appropriate for all ages

    Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you are probably well-aware that our educational system in America is broken.  The education our kids are getting is ranked almost last in the list of developed countries – and it is getting worse, not better.  Waiting for Superman is a documentary that explores what is wrong and why, unless drastic action is taken, the problems won’t be fixed.  By following children in both good and bad socioeconomic situations, the movie shows the harsh reality that our kids must senselessly face every day.

    If you are looking for a film that will both inform you and make you crazily angry – you can’t go wrong here.  While the point of the movie is to stir up emotions, the film also does an excellent job of throwing out ideas on how to take action. 

    It is gut-wrenching watching young children who want to excel having to rely on a lottery system in order to get the chance to get the education they deserve.  The film shows a school program in America that actually is working called KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) where kids are all treated like they not only can succeed, but that they should succeed.  The only problem is that there are far more kids that want in than spots available.  For the children being followed here, there are hopes and dreams of the future at stake and they are convinced, justifiably so, that their only chance is in a random drawing to attend the special school. 

    It is sad to see the kids count on such a system, but what is more sad is why aren’t schools switching to more successful ways of teaching our youth.  While the filmmakers don’t do a great job exploring issues such as bad parenting and bad students, the argument is more for why aren’t kids who want to achieve given the chance.  Much blame is placed on the Teacher’s Unions – and the fact that it is almost impossible for a tenured teacher to lose his or her job – even if they are providing an environment that is poisonous to their students.  The statistics are sound.  Only 1 in 2400 tenured teachers loses his or her license, a number that is not even closely matched by any other profession.  My question is will firing the bottom 10% of teachers make a difference?  The opinion of this film is absolutely yes.  It is the key.  Very little effort is placed in proving other arguments like more money for teachers, more money for education, and longer school years, but the central argument is well-defended. 

    Whatever the cure is, this film shows the need for one and will hopefully be a powerful agent for change.  If you are a parent, teacher, or an individual who is just merely concerned that things are going downhill fast, this is a must-see film.  Sure it will make you angry, and will most likely make you want to act out of that anger – but maybe that is just what this film is trying to be – a catalyst for revolution.  A   

The Social Network

Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, and Justin Timberlake
Directed by David Fincher (Fight Club)
Rated PG-13 for sexual content, drug and alcohol use and language
Appropriate for ages 13+

    While a two-hour movie about the creation of the popular social media site Facebook sounds excruciating at first thought, The Social Network proves that when you get a good enough director, writer, and cast – any story can be made not only interesting but thrilling as well.

    The Social Network begins with the not so humble albeit brilliant Mark Zuckerberg (Eisenberg) as he succeeds in getting the authorities at Harvard riled up by crashing their servers.  From there he lands himself in hot water when he decides to create the first version of Facebook and people come out of the woodwork claiming that he stole their ideas and even their right to the profits of the site.  We all know what happens in the present, but following these early years (all of which take place within the last decade) asks many questions that have never really been answered and tells the tale of a brash young genius who doesn’t care about money but does care deeply about the credit.

    David Fincher does such an excellent job creating a crazy, frantic mood and he gives the film a great deal of its dark personality.  That being said, without the amazing script by Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing) it’s hard to imagine this movie being worth watching at all.  It might not be completely non-fiction, since the story did not come from the keyboards of those that were there, but it’s as close to non-fiction as we’ll probably ever get and the events are what are most important.  Getting from one stage to the next is all in the hands of one of the best writers of our generation.

    Also of great importance is the extremely talented cast.  Jesse Eisenberg has always played such nerdy, wimpy characters and for him to come on as the man whose brain can beat your brawn is truly impressive.  Andrew Garfield and Justin Timberlake also provide terrific performances that could land either or both an Oscar nom this year. 

    The film’s not perfect by any means.  There are moments where the technicalities cause it to drag and while the tale might be true, the story objectifies and demeans women to a place where they are nothing more than girlfriends or wannabe lovers of smart men, not capable of actually contributing to the success of Facebook, except for in an inspirational manner. 

    Still, these are forgivable sins, and the pic ends up being one of the most entertaining films to be released so far this year.  A-

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Starring Shia LaBeouf, Michael Douglas, Carey Mulligan, and Josh Brolin
Directed by Oliver Stone
Rated PG-13 for brief strong language and thematic elements
Appropriate for ages 15+

    It’s been 23 years since the original Wall Street hit theaters and since that time Gordon Gekko has served his time in prison for insider trading and is now back in New York, a changed man, promoting his book about the life he used to lead.  But the film is not really about Gordon Gekko.  Instead, Shia LaBeouf is a young trader engaged to Gekko’s daughter (Mulligan) who badly wants revenge on the man (Brolin) who brought down his boss and mentor as well as caused him to commit suicide.  The only problem is that the daughter wants nothing to do with her father and LaBeouf needs Gekko’s mentoring in order carry out the vendetta. 

    This whole plot is all good and fine were it not for Stone losing sight at what he used to be best at: stirring up controversy.  It’s almost as if he read Too Big To Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin and rather than recreating history and giving moviegoers something to chew on, he leaves some of the same situations but changes the names of the players and companies to where some of it is recognizable, some is a direct copy, and some of it a complete fabrication.  While it’s his story and he’s free to do whatever he wants to with it, this tale is extremely boring compared to the reality.  Were he to do something like JFK with the Finance industry, throwing Gekko in the mix, he might be looking at an Oscar.  Instead the movie might simply break even. 

    Acting-wise, the film is very uneven.  While Douglas is always great and this film is no different, LaBeouf fails to impress and Mulligan, who showed great promise in last year’s An Education, comes off as a whiny little brat with daddy issues.

    The most disappointing features of the film though were the distracting directing style of Stone, who normally isn’t like this, and the horrible choice in music.  Somebody obviously likes David Byrne and Brian Eno, but to have every song of the movie sung by them felt like a bad 80’s comedy starring Dudley Moore, not a contemporary movie about the financial crash that had such a great impact on all of our lives.

    The fact is, this movie could have been great.  All of the elements are there.  Perhaps the filmmakers didn’t have the intelligence to pull off a story that had such important significance.  That’s hard to believe given Stone’s history.  But seeing the failures of his past decade plus of directing, I think it can only be assumed that he has lost his touch.  C 

The Town

Starring Ben Affleck, Rebecca Hall, Jon Hamm, and Jeremy Renner
Directed by Ben Affleck
Rated R for strong violence, pervasive language, some sexuality and drug use
Appropriate for ages 17+

    When a group of friends in Boston, who also work together as bank robbers, run into issues during a bank heist, they decide to take a hostage (Hall).  In order to keep tabs, the leader of the group (Affleck) decides to try to get personally involved with her without her knowing he was one of the criminals so that he can find out how much she knows.  In the process his emotions get the better of him and he begins to fall for her instead, all while she thinks he is a completely different person than who he really is.

    It’s awfully fun getting surprised by a film and while The Town won’t be your Oscar winner for best picture, it is a darn good drama that is full of terrific performances and headed up by an immensely talented Affleck. 

    For about the first hour I just sat there thinking about how much this movie really wants to be Heat, which is an extremely tall order considering Affleck is no De Niro, and Jon Hamm most definitely is no Pacino.  After a bit, the movie takes on a different personality, paying homage to the Godfather portraying a criminal with female problems who can’t get out of the business, but who really wants to go legit.  But everything is at least done with a fresh, modern spin that won’t get you too distracted. 

    What I admired most about the film isn’t the story, but the great performances, namely those by Renner, Hall and Affleck.  Renner is such an ass here and you just hope  and pray that he will eventually reach his comeuppance.  That is the sign of a well-played villain.

    But Affleck’s turn behind the camera is just as impressive as his one in front.  You could tell he had a knack for visual storytelling with Gone Baby Gone, but this new venture is an even more solid outing that brings its audience to the very heart of Boston and into the lives of its characters.  He’s done such a great job of reinventing himself after what could have been a devastating career move in 2003 with Gigli, and while he might never live that moment in time down, at least he can say he’s moved way beyond it. 

    Overall, I really like this dark, gritty film that might have a few ripoffs here and there, but provides for a nice couple of hours of entertainment.  B+

Alpha and Omega

Starring the voices of Justin Long, Hayden Panettiere, and Dennis Hopper
Directed by Anthony Bell and Ben Gluck
Rated PG for rude humor and some mild action
Appropriate for all ages

    When an alpha wolf and an omega wolf are taken from their home in Canada by humans to repopulate a national park in Idaho, they go on a journey to find their way back home.

    There are so many reasons not to see this film but I will keep this fairly short.  First and foremost is the story which is insulting at its most basic level.  Kids learn so much from watching movies which is why their information should be somewhat based in fact.  The world of nature seen in this movie makes me believe that the filmmakers had wolves and bees confused with their thoughts of Alphas and Omegas.  After all, the “alphas” are just leaders, not genetically bred super wolves.  Each litter of wolves can have alphas and there are no “omegas” – just other wolves.   

    And then there is the war between the two wolf clans which is fine for story, but if there truly was a war such as that there would be no food to found and there is obviously tons of caribou all over.  The Lion King did an excellent job of showing that the food had gone completely scarce with bad decision making.  Conversely, these must be the dumbest wolves imaginable eating bones and fighting each other instead of hunting the plethora of meat widely available all over.  My point is – why create entertainment that dumbs down our kids.  Subtle changes could have enlightened our children and been a boost to their brains. 

    The film even had acting challenges.  For example there was supposed to be a wolf named Garth that upon his horrible howl, birds would fall from the sky.  This could have worked had the actor been able to emit a horrible howl.  Instead, his howl was just weak and when the birds fell, it was cute but made zero sense.  So much of the film was like this – half-thought-out ideas that might have worked with better writers and actors but upon completion didn’t work at all.

    But if all of that isn’t enough to kill brain cells, the animation surely can’t help.  This is crude animation that looks more like a student film than a theatrically released motion picture with big name voices.  The wolves look more like dogs with tiny tiny teeth with feathers rather than manes.  And the golfing goose, while a cute idea, is one of the most disturbing images I’ve seen in years. 

    Finally, if you feel you absolutely must see the movie against this entire warning – stay away from the 3D version.  They did not go all out with the 3D and it not only looks horrible but it will hurt your head and cause tremendous strain to your eyes as well.  I’ve had some bad 3D experiences so far, but this by far is the worst.  F