The King’s Man (2021)
DIRECTOR: Matthew Vaughn
CAST: Ralph Fiennes, Harris Dickinson, Gemma Arterton, Djimon Hounsou, Rhys Ifans, Matthew Goode, Daniel Brühl, Charles Dance, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Tom Hollander, Stanley Tucci
REVIEW:
While The King’s Man is a bit of a redundant movie, it’s at least redundant in a slightly different way: instead of a dime-a-dozen unnecessary sequel, this one is an unnecessary prequel. 2014’s Kingsman was a fun campy romp, but 2017’s Kingsman: The Golden Circle proved that trying to draw a franchise out of it might have been overkill, and The King’s Man, reaching back to WWI to show the “origins” of the titular secret society of gentlemen spies and modern-day knights, has not changed that opinion. With an episodic structure that veers between a campy action/spy romp to a grim WWI war drama and eventually comes back round again, The King’s Man tries to be two clashing things at once and doesn’t fully succeed in any direction. It’s moderately enjoyable, but doesn’t recapture the entertainment value of the original installment.
Continue readingGodzilla vs. Kong (2021)
DIRECTOR: Adam Wingard
CAST: Alexander Skarsgard, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Julian Dennison, Eiza Gonzalez, Kyle Chandler, Demian Bichir, Kaylee Hottle, Shun Oguri
REVIEW:
Godzilla vs. Kong, the fourth installment in Legendary Pictures’ Monsterverse (and bearing little plot resemblance to 1962’s King Kong vs. Godzilla), is an example of how a two-minute trailer highlight reel shows its inherent shallowness when stretched out over two hours. Sporadic monster slugfests are not enough to sustain a Saturday morning cartoon plot with inane human characters scurrying around. Fans of the “classic” Godzilla series—which regularly featured plots every bit as silly as this one—might be entertained, but for casual fans, this series demonstrates diminishing returns.
Continue readingJiu Jitsu (2020)
DIRECTOR: Dimitri Logothetis
CAST: Alain Moussi, Nicolas Cage, Frank Grillo, Tony Jaa, JuJu Chan, Marie Avgeropoulos, Rick Yune
REVIEW:
Every once in a while, I suppose a bit like slowing down when passing a car crash, I get the strange compulsion to review something truly terrible, whose amateurish ineptitude begs the question of who funded this in the first place. The inappropriately-named Jiu Jitsu (inappropriate because, as many a disgruntled Jiu Jitsu practitioner can tell you, it’s light on any actual Jiu Jitsu) is such a movie, taking the most ridiculous premise imaginable and using it to string together a series of clumsily-choreographed martial arts fight scenes interspersed with a bargain basement rip-off of Predator, all with bad acting, worse writing, and distractingly excessive directorial flourishes. One is better off watching a stunt/fight demo reel on YouTube and dodging the tediously awful filmmaking.
Continue readingProject Power (2020)
DIRECTOR: Ariel Schulman, Henry Joost
CAST: Jamie Foxx, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Dominique Fishback
REVIEW:
Project Power is at least an attempt to do something a little different and original; an entry in the superhero genre (sort of) that’s not based on a comic book or preexisting property, and tackles superpowers as a thinly-veiled (very thinly) drug allegory. Were that the results were more memorable….Project Power, while an entertaining enough diversion for the undemanding, feels generic and half-baked and fails to utilize a potentially unique and intriguing premise to its full potential.
Continue readingTerminator: Dark Fate (2019)
DIRECTOR: Tim Miller
CAST: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes, Gabriel Luna
REVIEW:
And now in the latest of far too many examples of Hollywood’s dearth of original ideas, the long-running—and long-suffering—Terminator franchise once again proves itself even harder to kill than its titular killer cyborgs, despite the fact that it passed its sell-by date quite a while ago (for my money, all the way back in 1991). While Dark Fate‘s promotion made much ta-do out of the “return” of James Cameron (who gets a producer and co-writer credit but did not retake the director’s chair, which is occupied by Deadpool‘s Tim Miller, leaving it questionable how much direct involvement Cameron really had) and Linda Hamilton (who hasn’t taken part in the franchise since 1991’s Judgment Day, turned down a chance to reprise her role in 2003’s Rise of the Machines, and should have turned this one down too), neither Cameron nor his ex-wife’s names in the credits signals a return to the quality of the first two installments, which slipped after Cameron moved on and has never been regained. Dark Fate ignores the existence of every entry since T2 and acts as a direct sequel to the first two and the first two alone—which many fans would likely have been okay with—but alas it doesn’t replace them with anything superior. It’s probably better than its immediate predecessor Genisys (no great accomplishment), but finds its own new ways of dumping on the series mythos.
Continue readingAngel Has Fallen (2019)
DIRECTOR: Ric Roman Waugh
CAST: Gerard Butler, Morgan Freeman, Nick Nolte, Danny Huston, Piper Perabo, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Tim Blake Nelson
REVIEW:
Despite ever-worsening critical reviews, the “[INSERT CODE NAME HERE] Has Fallen” franchise, like its generically stalwart hero Mike Banning, keeps chugging along. 2013’s Olympus Has Fallen wasn’t any kind of great movie, but it was a surprisingly enjoyable Die Hard knock-off. 2016’s London Has Fallen was a lazy, uninspired, low energy classic example of a sequel slapped together because the original did well at the box office, not because there was anywhere fresh or interesting to take the story. Angel Has Fallen is probably a little better, and at least a little more engaging, than London Has Fallen, but not as good as Olympus Has Fallen. It achieves more-or-less exactly what it promises—-a generic, moderately diverting but immediately forgettable action shoot-em-up—which given this franchise’s track record, is a low bar to hurdle.
Continue readingSkyscraper (2018)
DIRECTOR: Rawson Marshall Thurber
CAST: Dwayne Johnson, Neve Campbell, McKenna Roberts, Noah Cottrell, Roland Moller, Chin Han, Hannah Quinlivan, Noah Taylor, Byron Mann, Elfina Luk, Pablo Schreiber
REVIEW:
Among the myriad lesser Die Hard knock-offs, Skyscraper falls somewhere in the middle, an adequately involving diversion in the moment that doesn’t leave a strong impression once all the stunts and pyrotechnics are over. A mash-up of Die Hard and The Towering Inferno, it feels like something that would have been at home in the 1980s starring the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger (whose career Dwayne Johnson often seems to be attempting to emulate) or Sylvester Stallone. Continue reading
Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)
DIRECTOR: Peyton Reed
CAST: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas, Michael Pena, Hannah John-Kamen, Walton Goggins, Laurence Fishburne, Michelle Pfeiffer, Randall Park, T.I., David Dastmalchian, Judy Greer, Bobby Cannavale, Abby Ryder Fortson
REVIEW:
After the grim finale of The Avengers: Infinity War, Ant-Man and the Wasp could be viewed as a sort of palette cleanser. The follow-up to 2015’s Ant-Man maintains the same lightweight insubstantial tone, served up with more nifty visuals and one of the highest humor quotients of any MCU movie. The result is nowhere near among the MCU’s stronger offerings but is an enjoyable enough diversion, especially for those seeking something a little lighter staggering shell-shocked out of the theater after Infinity War. Continue reading
The Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
DIRECTOR: Anthony Russo & Joe Russo
CAST: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Pratt, Benedict Cumberbatch, Chadwick Boseman, Tom Holland, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Zoe Saldana, Karen Gillan, Josh Brolin, Sebastian Stan, Benedict Wong, Dave Bautista, Anthony Mackie, Don Cheadle, Pom Klementieff, Danai Gurira, Tom Hiddleston, Idris Elba, Winston Duke, Letitia Wright, Benicio Del Toro, Gwyneth Paltrow, William Hurt, Peter Dinklage, Bradley Cooper (voice), Vin Diesel (voice)
REVIEW:
After a decade’s worth of movies (starting with 2008’s Iron Man which kicked off the Marvel Cinematic Universe), we’re finally coming to the long-gestating endgame which will purportedly serve as the end of an era at least for some of the MCU’s crowded cast of characters, but while continuing Marvel’s pattern of trying to outdo itself with each consecutive all-star team-up offering by throwing the kitchen sink and an ever bigger cast of characters at the screen in ever more outsized ways, the long-hyped Infinity War feels like half a movie. This might be an inevitability given this “endgame” will be concluded in the as-yet-untitled Avengers 4 still twelve months away, but it leaves a feeling that’s a little hollow, flashy spectacle, splashy special effects, and battles large and small everywhere you look, but lacking a certain impact. Continue reading
Rampage (2018)
DIRECTOR: Brad Peyton
CAST: Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Malin Akerman, Jake Lacy, Joe Manganiello
REVIEW:
Is it possible for a movie to embody the adage “go big or go home” and miss it at the same time? Rampage (loosely based on a 1980s arcade game) takes too long to rampage. Like many a “meh” disaster/monster movie, entirely too much time is spent on the “storylines” of one-dimensional human characters scurrying around underfoot and getting in the way of the monster-on-monster rumble that, let’s face it, is the part of the movie everyone bought a ticket for. Fans of pseudo-Godzilla/King Kong giant mutant monster action might find enough here to wet their appetite, but maybe not enough for a full course. Continue reading