Sherlock Holmes (2009)
DIRECTOR: Guy Ritchie
CAST:
Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Mark Strong
REVIEW:
Devout followers of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective novels may be appalled at what director Guy Ritchie has done with Doyle’s creation, but those with open minds may find a surprising amount of Holmesian details emerge intact, and for all others, Sherlock Holmes is a rollicking ride with plenty of action and comedy and some style and wit along the way. Continue reading
Avatar (2009)
DIRECTOR: James Cameron
CAST:
Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Giovanni Ribisi, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Wes Studi, Laz Alonso
REVIEW:
It’s possible to experience a little of the same thrill watching Avatar that audiences felt in 1977 watching the original Star Wars for the first time. It embodies the feeling of wonder and being transported to another world that an elite few films truly evoke. It is quite possibly the the most technically amazing motion picture yet to hit the screen. Continue reading
Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009)
DIRECTOR: Chris Weitz
CAST:
Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Billy Burke, Peter Facinelli, Ashley Greene, Jackson Rathbone, Nikki Reed, Kellan Lutz, Elizabeth Reaser, Gil Birmingham, Graham Greene, Michael Sheen, Dakota Fanning, Rachelle Lefevre, Edi Gathegi, Christopher Heyerdahl, Jamie Campbell-Bower
REVIEW:
After the explosion of Twilight mania, with a more established director and an expanded budget, New Moon is a better-looking film, but does not escape problems- mostly related more to Stephenie Meyer’s source material than Chris Weitz’s adaptation- that still make it a mixed bag. Continue reading
Bronson (2008)
DIRECTOR: Nicolas Winding Refn
CAST: Tom Hardy
REVIEW:
Bronson is a prime example of a film that’s longer on style than substance. As envisioned by Nicolas Winding Refn, Bronson is not a straightforward biopic of Michael Peterson, who in his alter ego of “Charlie Bronson” (not to be confused with the actor) became Britain’s most infamous prisoner and has spent all but 69 days from 1974 until the present day behind bars and often in solitary confinement. Rather, Refn has crafted a stylized and semi-fictionalized “greatest hits” montage of Bronson’s escapades. Essentially a string of loosely-connected vignettes, Bronson‘s kinetic, visceral approach leaves little chance of boredom but also little depth, and is less a straight narrative than a fragmented, rambling trip through a deranged mind. Bronson works best as a vehicle to showcase its star Tom Hardy; take away Hardy, and there’s not much left over, and ultimately, a forceful lead performance in and of itself is not enough to make a strong film. Continue reading
500 Days of Summer (2009)
DIRECTOR: Marc Webb
CAST: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel, Chloe Grace Moretz, Geoffrey Arend, Matthew Gray Gubler, Clark Gregg, Minka Kelly
REVIEW:
While it contains its share of romance, 500 Days of Summer is not a romantic comedy, at least not in the conventional sense. As the narration informs us from the get-go, “this is not a love story”, and it acknowledges that every romance isn’t “happily ever after”. Using a non-linear narrative structure, it’s a deconstruction of the beginning, middle, and end of a relationship that follows its protagonist, not always in chronological order, as he runs the gamut from exhilarated joy to crushing heartbreak, and all the little moments in between. In a way, it’s not about the boy getting the girl, but the boy learning to get over the girl and living his life instead of desperately clinging to a relationship that may not have ever been as compatible as he thought it was. That 500 Days of Summer manages to do all this without being a total downer is a tribute to the smart and witty screenplay by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, the sophisticated and visually inventive direction by first-time filmmaker Marc Webb, and the charm of star Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Despite the inherent bittersweet poignancy of the premise, this is–for the most part–a breezy, entertaining, enjoyable comedy-drama that manages in the end to be optimistic and life-affirming rather than bitter or depressing. Among “breakup movies”, this is as “feel good” an example as you’re likely to find. Continue reading
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
DIRECTOR: David Yates
CAST:
Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Michael Gambon, Alan Rickman,Jim Broadbent, Tom Felton, Bonnie Wright, Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, Jessie Cave, Evanna Lynch, Helena Bonham Carter, David Thewlis, Helen McCrory, Dave Legeno, Timothy Spall, Warwick Davis
REVIEW:
Following in the wake of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix , which elevated the series to another level, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has managed the impressive feat of ascending another notch higher. Continue reading
Public Enemies (2009)
DIRECTOR: Michael Mann
CAST: Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard, Billy Crudup, Stephen Graham, Stephen Lang, Jason Clarke, Stephen Dorff, Giovanni Ribisi, Lili Taylor, David Wenham, Leelee Sobieski, Branka Katic, Channing Tatum
REVIEW:
Public Enemies is not the first film to portray legendary bank robber John Dillinger, but it’s the most high-profile and the most accomplished, but certain elements keep it from gangster genre classic status, not least of which is that director Michael Mann (The Last of the Mohicans, Heat) elects to film the events in docudrama style instead of aiming for grandeur and glamor. It could be argued that Public Enemies is an independent art film masquerading as a gangster epic, and how audiences react to that will determine how absorbed they become by the film’s content. Continue reading
Angels & Demons (2009)
DIRECTOR: Ron Howard
CAST:
Tom Hanks, Ewan McGregor, Ayelet Zurer, Stellan Skarsgard, Pierfrancesco Favino, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Thure Lindhardt
REVIEW:
While Dan Brown’s novel Angels & Demons chronologically took place before The Da Vinci Code, the movie is a sequel to the 2006 Ron Howard-Tom Hanks film. In the wake of scathing reviews dissmissing the first as leaden and ploddingly-paced (which I did not, for the most part, agree with), Howard obviously took a few steps here to make Angels & Demons more conventionally cinematic, but despite a faster, somewhat more action-oriented pace, Angels & Demons is a close cousin to its predecessor, and whether that is a good thing or a bad thing will largely depend on your opinion of The Da Vinci Code. Continue reading
Star Trek (2009)
DIRECTOR: J.J. Abrams
CAST:
Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Eric Bana, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, John Cho, Ben Cross, Winona Ryder, Chris Hemsworth, Jennifer Morrison, Faran Tahir, Leonard Nimoy
REVIEW:
For the first feature film Star Trek entry since 2002’s much-maligned box office flop Star Trek: Nemesis (giving an ignominious send-off to the Next Gen crew led by Patrick Stewart’s Captain Picard), J.J. Abrams (director of Cloverfield and creator of the Lost television series) and writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (writers of 2007’s Transformers) have attempted to do much the same for Star Trek what Christopher Nolan did for Batman; mix things up and inject freshness in a way that the new film is not tied down to those that came before. While the simply-titled Star Trek is not quite as triumphant a success as The Dark Knight , in my opinion, Abrams and cast and crew have mostly succeeded at what they set out to do. Trekkies with open minds may find much to appreciate here, but be forewarned: this ain’t your Daddy’s Star Trek. Continue reading
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
DIRECTOR: Gavin Hood
CAST:
Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston, Lynn Collins, Ryan Reynolds, Taylor Kitsch, Will.i.Am, Daniel Henney, Dominic Monaghan, Kevin Durand
REVIEW:
Prequels rarely avoid feeling unnecessary, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine isn’t an exception. The spin-off for the character embodied onscreen in three X-Men films by Hugh Jackman (who produced here) is not exactly a train wreck, but it’s a bit of a disorganized mess that doesn’t escape a feeling of generic, uninspired redundancy. Continue reading