Posted on 18 July 2009
Hayden Christensen lies on an operating table, fully aware of what is happening around him. He is in a state of anesthetic awareness, able to feel everything and hear conversations, but paralyzed. It is a creepy and excruciating thing to watch as doctors rip open his chest cavity. Narration from Christensen makes it tougher to [...]
Posted on 17 June 2009
There’s a concept in Vantage Point that works. The contrived scripting and completely implausible action can’t take advantage of that though, leaving a fun, hollow thriller that could have been so much more.
A loaded cast, including Sigourney Weaver in one of her worst efforts as a monotone news director, catches a different glimpse of the [...]
Posted on 22 May 2009
One Missed Call is a bad movie. It doesn’t deserve much more than that. As a remake of Asian horror film Chakushin ari, there’s not a lot to live up to in the first place. However, this mess can’t even nail the basics.
The ridiculous concept has people dying, and then calling a friend after their [...]
Posted on 17 May 2009
Towards the end of Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, audiences are treated to another shot of thousands marching towards a castle before clashing with their enemy. It sets a wonderful sense of scale for this final conflict between werewolves and vampires, but then once inside the castle doors, it seems as if the battle is [...]
Posted on 03 May 2009
Truman Show is not a movie you can watch once. It requires repeat viewings to fully grasp its nuances, and even then you still might not have a complete understanding. Of course, it’s easy to sit back and take the film at its surface level viewing without digging any deeper, and it’s a fine film [...]
Posted on 11 April 2009
Some time in 1980, the USS Nimitz experiences an electrical storm which sends it (and its crew) back to December 6th, 1941 just off the coast of Hawaii. Led by Capt. Matthew Yelland, the Nimitz crew must decide whether or not to engage the Japanese fleet or let history take its course.
That candid discussion is [...]
Posted on 04 April 2009
With all the classic films in the Fox library that could have been released on Blu-ray, the studio chose… National Security? This buddy cop disaster was released in 2003 but feels locked in 1992, from its humor to its action. There’s nothing here to recommend unless you’d like to see Eric Roberts in painfully colored [...]
Posted on 25 March 2009
Horror remakes seem to be the latest Hollywood trend, just behind comic books and graphic novels. Less than a year after the release of Spanish horror movie [REC], America is served with a remake entitled Quarantine. Despite an incredible turnaround time in filming, Quarantine is a solid horror piece, with the usual genre problems dragging [...]
Posted on 24 March 2009
Small town? Check. Creepy kid? Double-check. Bad movie? Triple-check.
The Reaping manages to hold its audience for a while. Hilary Swank deals with a number of (incorrect) biblical prophecies concerning the plague, all while writing them off as her hardened atheist views push her towards the scientific explanation. The bloody river, dead cattle, recurring visions, and [...]
Posted on 23 March 2009
Following up on the spectacle that was Spider-Man 2 is hardly an easy task. However, it’s how far Spider-Man 3 falls that causes the massive influx of disappointment over every frame of the film. Campy scenes that feel out of place, far too much story, pointless (and wasted) characters, and occasionally lackluster special effects combine [...]