Assassin’s Creed (2016)
DIRECTOR: Justin Kurzel
CAST: Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, Michael K. Williams, Brendan Gleeson, Charlotte Rampling
REVIEW:
For whatever reason, Hollywood has had a hard time coming up with a successful video game-to-film adaptation, and unfortunately Assassin’s Creed does not buck the trend. An obtuse, poorly-edited mishmash of generic action sequences, narrative incoherence, and pseudo-scientific/historical mumbo jumbo that sounds like it’s out of a second-rate Dan Brown novel, one senses the movie would be direct-to-video fare without the presence of a couple of top-flight actors and a hefty budget, and frankly that’s where the quality level lies. Continue reading
Inception (2010)
DIRECTOR: Christopher Nolan
CAST: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Ken Watanabe, Ellen Page, Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy, Dileep Rao, Tom Berenger, Lukas Haas, Michael Caine, Pete Postlethwaite
REVIEW:
Christopher Nolan (Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Prestige) reportedly spent ten years writing his screenplay for Inception. Watching the film, one can see how it might have taken so long. 
Some will no doubt find Inception confusing. It definitely is not a movie where you can take a trip to the restroom, and requires a commitment of close attention and concentration, but I don’t see that as a bad thing. 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