The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015)
DIRECTOR: John Madden
CAST: Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith, Dev Patel, Ronald Pickup, Celia Imrie, Penelope Wilton, Diana Hardcastle, Tina Desai, Lillete Dubey, Richard Gere, David Strathairn
REVIEW:
2012’s The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was a pleasant, unchallenging little morsel, but nothing about its modest charms cried out for a sequel, yet here we are. Unsurprisingly, like many an unnecessary sequel, the follow-up wears out the original’s limited welcome and, despite writer-director John Madden returning, hackneyed try-hard attempts at stirring up contrived plot complications and overly frantic wannabe comedy replaces the first movie’s gentle simple charms. It’s not worth checking back into the hotel to watch the somewhat sad sight of a cast of distinguished elder British thespians gamely going through the motions of material that’s beneath them.
Continue readingJupiter Ascending (2015)
DIRECTOR: Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski
CAST: Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum, Sean Bean, Eddie Redmayne, Douglas Booth, Tuppence Middleton
REVIEW:
While they’ve struggled to equal their 1999 sci-fi hit The Matrix (including with two inferior sequels), the Wachowski siblings have always had a strong sense of style, even when they have repeatedly had difficulty wedding that to an equally strong narrative. Their latest would-be epic, Jupiter Ascending, does not buck this pattern, but it’s visually sumptuous and never boring, and worth a look for eye candy alone. Continue reading
The Imitation Game (2014)
DIRECTOR: Morten Tyldum
CAST: Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Rory Kinnear, Mark Strong, Charles Dance
REVIEW:
Does the name Alan Turing mean anything to you? Chances are it doesn’t, despite him being credited with shortening WWII by as much as two years, saving an estimated 14 million lives, as well as giving birth to the prototype of the computer. Director Morten Tyldum and screenwriter Graham Moore’s biopic/docudrama, working off Andrew Hodges’ Turing biography, is a belated attempt to bring some deserved recognition both to Alan Turing’s accomplishments and the disgrace of what eventually happened to one of the most unsung heroes of WWII. Continue reading
Taken 3 (2015)
DIRECTOR: Olivier Megaton
CAST: Liam Neeson, Forest Whitaker, Maggie Grace, Dougray Scott, Famke Janssen, Leland Orser, Sam Spruell
REVIEW:
WARNING: THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN “SPOILERS”
Taken 3 is what might be expected from an unnecessary sequel in a mediocre action franchise that arguably never needed sequels to begin with. 2009’s Taken was the best of these movies—and even then, it wasn’t that great—with each follow-up offering diminishing returns on the modest premise, and now #3 (directed like its 2012 immediate predecessor by original helmer Luc Besson’s protege Olivier Megaton, while Besson remains credited as a co-writer and producer) is the least of the three. Devotees of this series, or those simply looking for a fleeting diversion, might find it distracting enough to hold their cursory attention for a couple hours, but it’s a generic and forgettable action flick that offers nothing memorable.
Continue readingInto the Woods (2014)
DIRECTOR: Rob Marshall
CAST: Meryl Streep, Anna Kendrick, James Corden, Emily Blunt, Daniel Huttlestone, Lilla Crawford, Mackenzie Mauzy, Chris Pine, Billy Magnussen, Tracey Ullman, Christine Baranski, Johnny Depp
REVIEW:
Into the Woods doesn’t make the journey worth taking. Perhaps part of the blame lies with Disney neutering Stephen Sondheim’s original play, a dark-edged satire of classic fairy tales, toning down darker and more sexually suggestive moments in the name of “family friendliness”, but the generic musical numbers, with nary a catchy tune to be found (just compare it to the list of memorable songs in, say, Les Miserables) aren’t a promising advertisement for Sondheim’s original material either. Satire only fully works when it’s a razor-sharp, incisive blade. Whether or not the fault lies with Disney softening its edges, the movie adaptation of Sondheim’s play is a dull butter knife. Continue reading
Selma (2014)
DIRECTOR: Ava DuVernay
CAST: David Oyelowo, Tom Wilkinson, Carmen Ejogo, Tim Roth, Oprah Winfrey, Giovanni Ribisi, Cuba Gooding Jr., Martin Sheen
REVIEW:
An uneven but sporadically stirring slice of a turbulent period in American history, Selma does not quite achieve the greatness it reaches for as a film, but serves as an important historical document chronicling events beginning in January 1965 in Selma, Alabama and climaxing with Martin Luther King Jr.’s march to Montgomery and President Lyndon Johnson’s passage of the Voting Rights Act. Given recent events in the news, Selma feels more timely than ever, and can inspire both reflection on dark aspects of America’s past, and a questioning of how far we’ve truly come. Continue reading
Unbroken (2014)
![UNBROKEN [Movie Review]](https://i1.wp.com/simplyvinnie.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/150322unbroken.jpg?resize=600%2C300&ssl=1)
DIRECTOR: Angelina Jolie
CAST: Jack O’Connell, Domhnall Gleeson, Finn Wittrock, Garrett Hedlund, Jai Courtney, Miyavi
REVIEW:
Unbroken, Angelina Jolie’s second time in the director’s chair (following 2011’s In the Land of Blood and Honey), is a good-but-not-great docudrama adapted from the same-named non-fiction book by Lauren Hillenbrand (author of the less harrowing but similarly earnest and “inspiring true story” Seabiscuit) telling in competent but somewhat unremarkable fashion the true story of Olympic athlete and WWII POW Louis Zamperini.
Continue readingExodus: Gods and Kings (2014)
DIRECTOR: Ridley Scott
CAST: Christian Bale, Joel Edgerton, Ben Kingsley, Aaron Paul, John Turturro, Sigourney Weaver, Ben Mendelsohn, Maria Valverde
REVIEW:
Previously in his sometimes acclaimed but uneven career, Ridley Scott has directed two other lengthy historical epics in a desert setting. The first, 2000’s Gladiator, was a rollicking throwback to the likes of Spartacus and other sword-and-sandal epics from Hollywood’s glory days. The second, 2005’s Kingdom of Heaven, did not live up to the same standards, likewise epically-mounted but narratively fragmented (apparently due to large chunks of the movie ending up on the cutting room floor, which Scott attempted to rectify in a reportedly superior director’s cut, but feeling so underwhelmed by what I saw gave me no motivation to seek out more). Unfortunately, Exodus: Gods and Kings, Scott’s take on the Biblical story of Moses (with a healthy helping of “dramatic license”), bears more resemblance to Kingdom of Heaven than Gladiator. In fact, 1998’s animated movie The Prince of Egypt is a better version. Exodus is marred by some of the same flaws as Kingdom of Heaven; visually epic but narratively fragmented, sporting some stirring scenes but not enough to consistently maintain interest over its 2 1/2 hour runtime. Considering this is actually too short to tell the whole Exodus story (various elements are truncated or left out here), that’s even more telling of Scott again showing his troubling recurring issues with narrative focus and cohesion. Continue reading
The Giver (2014)
DIRECTOR: Philip Noyce
CAST: Brenton Thwaites, Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, Odeya Rush, Alexander Skarsgard, Katie Holmes, Cameron Monaghan, Taylor Swift
REVIEW:
The Giver has taken a long, winding road to seeing the inside of a theater since Jeff Bridges (who serves here as both star and producer) bought the movie rights to Lois Lowry’s 1993 young adult novel (which won the 1994 Newberry Medal). Bridges’ original casting for the title role (his father Lloyd Bridges) passed away in the meantime, and funding was difficult to find. But, over twenty years later, Bridges’ determination to get the film adaptation made has paid off, and while sticklers for accuracy to the book, a staple of middle school literature classes (I have vague memories of being assigned to read it in school), may grumble at some changes, overall it was worth the effort. The Giver, while with some narrative weaknesses, is a thought-provoking and visually striking motion picture that proves “young adult” doesn’t have to be synonymous with the vapidity of something like the Twilight series. In fact, this is a thoughtful movie with well-developed themes and something meaningful to say. While the film soups up the book’s thin narrative with some tacked-on action and suspense, with mixed results, it gives equally important focus to the book’s messages of the dangers of conformity, the importance of individuality, and the need for emotion, even with all the pain it can bring, to live a truly full life. Continue reading
Interstellar (2014)
DIRECTOR: Christopher Nolan
CAST: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, Casey Affleck, Matt Damon, Wes Bentley, David Gyasi, Topher Grace, John Lithgow, Mackenzie Foy, Ellen Burstyn, David Oyelowo, Bill Irwin (voice)
REVIEW:
WARNING: THIS REVIEW WILL REVEAL ASPECTS OF THE FILM’S PLOT
Christopher Nolan has never shied away from a challenge or been content with generic, and Interstellar is his most ambitious project yet, surpassing his resurrection of the Batman film franchise and the mind-bending contortions of Inception to combine powerful human drama with a rigorous attempt at making a “hard” science fiction film that takes a serious examination of the rules and physics involved in a way Hollywood seldom attempts. If Nolan’s reach sometimes exceeds his grasp, the passion and grandeur he has thrown into this project makes comparatively minor flaws forgivable. Interstellar is not a perfect motion picture–far from it, in fact–but it is by turns hopeful and heartbreaking, simultaneously paying tribute to the spirit of exploration and the cold, silent, deadly realities of space. Continue reading