One of my primary criticisms of 2010’s found footage horror hit, “The Last Exorcism,” was its artificial feel and cringe-inducing performances. Intended to simulate reality, the picture felt false throughout, leaving me to wonder why the production would choose such a subgenre to tell their tale when they didn’t seem prepared to take the illusion s...
The fairy tale “Jack and the Beanstalk” gets an aggressive update in “Jack the Giant Slayer,” a vividly imagined fantasy film with an unexpected appetite for destruction. Director Bryan Singer can’t lift the feature off its feet, yet his vision for towering threat and lands far, far away is virile enough to supply a hearty adventure, sold with unus...
One year ago, there was “Project X,” a feature about a party populated by teenagers swinging wildly out of control. “21 & Over” is similar in many ways, with the primary difference being the legal drinking age, allowing the characters to carry out their boozehound fantasies in public. There are few surprises contained in “21 & Over,” which marks th...
In January they were witch hunters, and now they’re getting high. “Hansel & Gretel Get Baked” returns the fairy tale siblings to the screen, this time reimagined as a pot-loving, crime-solving young woman and her picture-snapping, straight-laced brother facing off against a drug-dealing witch. Obviously, it’s not a traditional retelling of this cla...
“The Sweeney” is based on a British television series that began life in 1975, making its American theatrical run a little on the baffling side, though one should never doubt the drawing power of Ray Winstone. The beefy, growling actor makes a fine if familiar impression in this hard-charging actioner, gifting depressingly conventional material a p...
Considering the wealth of news coverage surrounding the activities of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, it appears there’s little left to be learned about the man and his unnervingly calm modus operandi. “The Jeffrey Dahmer Files” doesn’t add anything to the conversation outside of a few psychological dimensions that have recently come to light, with c...
I can easily see why a respected actress like Marcia Gay Harden decided to take part in a dreary picture like “If I Were You.” It’s a meaty role that requires broad comedic skills and subtle dramatics, while offering the performer a chance to play around with romantic interactions and boozehound sway, hitting all the corners of characterization whi...
Scott Stewart is a former visual effects artist who’s directed two major features: 2009’s angel revolt picture “Legion,” and the 2011 sci-fi actioner “Priest.” With that type of gloomy filmography, the prospect of spending more time with Stewart’s blurred cinematic vision is less than appetizing. To write that “Dark Skies” is his best effort to dat...
“Snitch” doesn’t have a clue what type of movie it wants to be. A cautionary tale? An actioner? A domestic drama? A political statement? It’s a muddle of ideas and moods, and too many of them are not worth the price of admission. Despite a passionate performance from Dwayne Johnson and a few provocative ideas floating around the production, “Snitch...
Why should Liam Neeson have all the fun? “Inescapable” is a rather brazen attempt to rework the “Taken” formula with a different lead actor, asking Alexander Siddig to suit up as a raging father on the hunt for his missing daughter. While the feature has a fiery attitude and Siddig’s full commitment, it’s also painfully clunky, clearly unprepared f...
Matt Lucas is a British comedian who received his first taste of American success with the release of “Bridesmaids,” where he played Gil, the working man trying to push unemployed Annie (Kristen Wiig) out of an apartment he shares with his sister (Rebel Wilson). The small supporting role caught significant attention, leading to a starring role in “...
“Vamp U” is a bad film, though not terribly offensive. It’s an attempt to pants Hollywood’s waning vampire obsession with a no-budget production aiming for laughs over mystique, though the potency of the gags leaves much to be desired, and it has a tendency to underline its “Twilight” target with temple-rubbing regularity. Still, on the spectrum of...
As low impact CG-animated moviemaking goes, “Escape from Planet Earth” is surprisingly persistent when it comes to staging mind-numbing mediocrity. The potential for a rip-roaring alien adventure is there for the taking, but the production doesn’t bother, instead recycling beats of irreverence, action, and sentiment from other, better pictures. It’...
Out of all the horror productions that flood the market every year, it takes a special idea and level of execution to catch attention. Basic shock value is no longer enough to pass muster. “Would You Rather” isn’t blessed with a comfy budget or particularly strong actors, but there’s a suffocating feeling of suspense and personal ruin carrying the ...
Last year saw the release of “Goon,” a hockey comedy (starring Seann William Scott and Liev Schreiber) that took special interest in the job of the enforcer, a man recruited to provide violent protection for players, picking fights with anyone to claim dominance on and off the ice. It’s a genuinely funny picture with an amusing ugliness, but there’...
At the risk of coming off cold-hearted, I admit I wasn’t moved by Mark Webber’s “The End of Love.” It’s too incomplete and calculated to truly engage emotions, though it’s not without a few surprises, chiefly in the performance department. Webber appears to be making an audition tape with his second directorial effort, using screen time to display ...
“Spiders” is a latest attempt to bring the creature feature explosion of the 1950s to the modern age, and the newest example of why the genre should remain in stasis, or perhaps regulated to the intentional ridiculousness of basic cable productions. While giant spiders rampaging around New York City sound like an amusing, potentially thrilling nigh...
“The Playroom” is a disappointing film with an intriguing premise. Dealing with insecurities and marital dissolution in the 1970s, it’s fair to compare the feature to Ang Lee’s 1997 effort, “The Ice Storm,” which also mined the same material, but to greater effect. “The Playroom” doesn’t share the same narrative drive or depth of emotion, instead c...
With 2007’s “Live Free or Die Hard,” the once venerable franchise hit a shocking creative low, thwacked with a bout of amnesia that prevented the picture from recalling what made the previous three installments of the series so special to action film fans. It didn’t walk and talk like a “Die Hard” production, generating immense disappointment after...
“Beautiful Creatures” explores a romance between a slack-jawed mortal and a magical being, it features characters performing spells and dealing with a lifelong burden of destiny, and a few of the participants sport wild outfits and colorful hairdos. The movie is also based on a blockbuster series of young adult books. Sound a little familiar? That’...
At this point, it’s fruitless to fight the Nicholas Sparks formula, having already serviced hits such as “The Notebook,” while also worked into pictures like “Nights in Rodanthe” and last year’s “The Lucky One.” The man has a devoted fanbase, those who adore breezy North Carolina beachside locations, dewy love between opposites, and wildly implausi...
Looking to promote an upcoming Blu-ray release, Paramount has decided to make over the 1986 blockbuster “Top Gun” with some 3D mascara and IMAX blush, hoping to entice the faithful to once again pay money for a movie I assume most know by heart at this point. Indeed, the need for speed has returned to theaters for an exclusive one-week run, and whi...
I don’t believe I’ve come across a screenplay as fundamentally flawed as “Identity Thief” in quite some time. It’s a comedy that’s not really much of a comedy, and it forces the audience to sympathize with a monster of a woman, even while she shows no remorse for her awful crimes. If there was some type of comedic mayhem in play, with characters to...
If there’s any filmmaker working today who should go after the labyrinthine pharmaceutical industry, it’s Steven Soderbergh. A helmer who enjoys the challenges of cinematic control and thematic precision, Soderbergh knows how to wield a whip. Unfortunately, “Side Effects” is a mystery with only a fringe appreciation of pills and the process of medi...
“Sound City” is more of a rabid appreciation for the life and times of Sound City Studios (located in Los Angeles) than a crisp documentary of its history. However, the raw energy works in the movie’s favor, zipping along at top speed as its worships iconic music created sparingly, preferring talent over touch-ups. It’s a fan film from musician Dav...
“The ABCs of Death” is an unusual experiment in omnibus filmmaking, but its uniqueness doesn’t wash away its persistent unpleasantness. Looking to shock, tickle, and horrify its audience, the production bends over backward to be the vilest movie of 2013, and it succeeds in many cases. However, being unrepentantly ugly isn’t enough to support two ho...
It’s been an extraordinary journey for director Michael Apted and his longstanding “Up” series of documentaries. It’s a singular event that’s managed to carry on for decades, arriving at its latest stop, “56 Up.” We return to familiar faces and places with the new effort, catching up with individuals who’ve been followed on film since 1964’s “Seven...
While teeming with questionable attitudes and taste issues, gaming culture deserves a more respectful representation than what “Noobz” has to offer. Built out of moldy stereotypes and crummy improvisations, the comedy is painful to watch, with numerous opportunities for laughs and satire flushed down the toilet so co-writer/director/star Blake Free...
Imagining yourself as Indiana Jones in the thick of adventure wasn’t a difficult task during the 1980s. He was a fixture of screen heroism and pre-teen cool; a surrogate father for adolescent boys with bottomless imaginations. However, what would happen if the adoration, that pure impulse of cinematic love, turned into extensive homespun flattery? ...
Franchises can be a funny thing, especially when there’s no room for the story to grow organically, necessitating some fuzzy name brand math to keep the cash rolling in. The absurdly titled “The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia” has nothing to do with the 2009 hit that starred Virginia Madsen, and not a frame of it takes place in Connec...
