DIRECTOR: Kenneth Branagh
CAST:
Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Tom Hiddleston, Stellan Skarsgard, Kat Dennings, Idris Elba, Ray Stevenson, Jaime Alexander, Josh Dallas, Tadanobu Asano, Clark Gregg, Rene Russo, Colm Feore
REVIEW:
Like 2008’s Iron Man and 2010’s Iron Man 2, along with this summer’s upcoming Captain America, Thor is one of various comic book movie installments introducing the individual Marvel superheroes who will be finally united onscreen in 2012’s The Avengers, but as Jon Favreau did with Iron Man, Kenneth Branagh is able to make Thor stand on his own as a superhero rather than letting his intro feel like a two hours Avengers preview. Continue reading
DIRECTOR: Louis Letterier
CAST:
Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Arterton, Alexa Davalos, Mads Mikkelsen, Jason Flemyng, Liam Cunningham, Hans Matheson, Nicholas Hoult, Pete Postlethwaite
REVIEW:
I don’t look back on the original Clash of the Titans through rose-tinted nostalgic glasses. I probably watched it a hundred times when I was a kid, and thought it was great, but in hindsight, it’s campy and hokey, with laughably wooden acting, led by a poofy-haired Harry Hamlin and Laurence Olivier on autopilot, and Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion animation was state-of-the-art in its heyday in the ‘50s and ‘60s but compared to 1977’s Star Wars made the 1981 Titans look significantly older than it was. While unnecessary remakes abound in Hollywood, this is the kind of movie that could actually benefit from a remake with better acting and updated visual effects. Continue reading
DIRECTOR: Michael Apted
CAST:
Ben Barnes, Skandar Keynes, Georgie Henley, Will Poulter, Anna Popplewell, William Moseley, Gary Sweet, Billie Brown, Tilda Swinton
voices:
Liam Neeson, Simon Pegg
REVIEW:
While it is adapted from C.S. Lewis’ beloved seven-book children’s series, The Chronicles of Narnia has had a hard time attracting the same following on the screen as it has on the page. Continue reading
As anyone who cares is likely to know by now, Sony has announced that its highly-profitable Spider-Man film series is to be completely rebooted, with a completely new Spider-Man movie unrelated to the previous Sam Raimi-Tobey Maguire trilogy sheduled for release in 2012. Continue reading