R.I.P.D. (2013)
DIRECTOR: Robert Schwentke
CAST: Ryan Reynolds, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Bacon, Mary-Louise Parker, Stephanie Szostak
REVIEW:
R.I.P.D. is one of the most depressing kinds of movies to sit through; a completely uninspired, by-the-numbers, unengaging, lazy film that literally offers nothing memorable. Playing out something like a cross between Men in Black and Ghostbusters with a dash of Ghost tossed in for good measure, it’s billed as a supernatural action-comedy/buddy movie, but it doesn’t succeed in any direction. It’s not funny (or at least not often enough to justify its existence) and it’s never exciting, no matter how much money it blows on splashy special effects. Continue reading
X-Men: First Class (2011)
DIRECTOR: Matthew Vaughn
CAST:
James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Kevin Bacon, Rose Byrne, January Jones, Caleb Landry Jones, Lucas Till, Edi Gathegi, Zoe Kravitz, Jason Flemyng, Oliver Platt
REVIEW:
Back when he wrote and directed 2000’s X-Men, Bryan Singer eschewed an origin story, jumping into the action with the X-Men already formed, deeming origin stories unnecessary and constraining. A decade later, Singer (who helped develop the story and served as producer here) and director Matthew Vaughn decided to tackle the ‘origin story’ after all, not only of the ‘first class’ of X-Men, but the friends-turned-enemies Charles Xavier/Professor X and Erik Lensherr/Magneto. While 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine failed to do anything interesting with its central character, Vaughn and company have righted that wrong here. First Class is easily ahead of The Last Stand, and might well top out X-Men and X2 for the best installment the series has produced so far. Continue reading
Murder in the First (1995)
DIRECTOR: Marc Rocco
CAST:
Christian Slater, Kevin Bacon, Gary Oldman, Embeth Davidtz, William H. Macy, R. Lee Ermey, Stephen Tobolowsky, Brad Dourif, Kyra Sedgwick, Mia Kirshner
REVIEW:
Murder in the First is a serviceable, if generic, courtroom drama with one exceptional performance and a couple harrowingly effective sequences. Unfortunately, it’s also a film that makes a virtual lie of its ‘based on true events’ tagline and docudrama style from beginning to end. If you’re looking for a movie to stoke the flames of righteous indignation at prison system injustice, Murder in the First may get your juices flowing, but keep in mind to take everything you see and hear with a very large grain of salt.