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Double Dragon

  • Title: Double Dragon
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Double Dragon DVD review

Based on the video game series, Double Dragon offers the story of brothers Billy Lee (Scott Wolf) and Jimmy Lee (Mark Dacascos) living in a dystopian 2007 New Angeles who are tasked with preventing one hell of a goofy super-villain (Robert Patrick) from getting his hands on both halves of an ancient Chinese talisman. While neither the best nor worst movie based off a video game, Double Dragon is a fair example of just what kind of mixed results the genre is known for.

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The Lie

  • Title: The Lie
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The Lie movie posterThe Lie is a joyless exercise featuring Peter Sarsgaard and Mireille Enos as a pair of divorced parents who decide to to work together to hide the fact that their daughter (Joey King) is responsible for the death of one of her friends (Devery Jacobs) during a contrived set-up in the film’s tiresome first act.

The film features the parents making a series of bad decisions, including trying to throw suspicion on the missing girl’s father (Cas Anvar) as the reason for her disappearance by painting him as a child abuser while forcing their daughter to echo the lies to the police. Sarsgaard and Enos do what they can, but there’s not much here to work with, while King is stuck with a character the script can never properly come to terms with. Melodramatic as a tween with her first phone, events spiral out of control and even an absurd late twist can’t save what is best forgotten.

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The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

  • Title: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
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The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie reviewThrowback Tuesday takes back at 2003’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Adapted from the comic by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill, the film takes place at the end of the 19th Century when a terrorist organization begins pushing countries to a world war. Tasked to prevent such an outcome, a select team is put together including professional big game hunter and adventurer Allan Quartermain (Sean Connery), Captain Nemo (Naseeruddin Shah), vampire scientist Mina Harker (Peta Wilson), invisible thief Rodney Skinner (Tony Curran), immortal doucebag Dorian Gray (Stuart Townsend), Dr. Henry Jekyll and his monstrous alter-ego (Jason Flemyng), and tagging along for the ride is uninvited American Agent Tom Sawyer (Shane West).

Although the film did well enough internationally to earn back more than double its costs, it had mixed reaction from both fans and critics (and Connery even stated it was a deciding factor in his decision to retire). The convoluted screenplay by James Robinson overcomplicating what should be a straightforward action adventure certainly didn’t do the project any favors.

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The Glorias

  • Title: The Glorias
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The Glorias movie reviewAdapted largely from Gloria Steinem‘s autobiography My Life on the Road, the latest from director Julie Taymor offers a look at the life and travels of Steinem through the performances of four different actresses. Following the film’s initial look at Gloria’s unorthodox childhood, where she is played by Ryan Kiera Armstrong and Lulu Wilson, Alicia Vikander then carries the role for the next hour exploring Gloria’s travels and development both as a writer and activist before handing over the role to Julianne Moore for the film’s final hour.

The structure of the film does allow the actresses to appear on-screen together at times as Gloria talks over decisions and regrets with both older and young versions of herself. This isn’t the only unusual technique Traymor uses of the course of the film, but it is by far the most effective. Otherwise, The Glorias plays much like a standard biopic, albeit with several scenes shown out of order.

Given the times, especially following the recent death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the film, and it’s subject matter, is certainly timely.

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Enola Holmes

  • Title: Enola Holmes
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Enola Holmes movie reviewBased on the young adult novels by Nancy Springer, Enola Holmes introduces us to the teenage sister of Sherlock Holmes (Henry Cavill). Taking much of its plot from the first novel of Springer’s series, The Case of the Missing Marquess, there are two mysteries here for the precocious Enola Holmes (Millie Bobby Brown) to unravel in both solving the sudden disappearance of her mother (Helena Bonham Carter) and discovering the identity of who is behind the attempted assassination of a friend (Louis Partridge) she meets on the road.

Millie Bobby Brown is the highlight here as a Victorian Nancy Drew who overcomes several obstacles, often breaking the fourth wall to talk directly to the audience, while searching for answers and attempting to prevent her brother Mycroft (Sam Claflin) from imprisoning her in a soul-crushing finishing school for girls of her age who hope for nothing more than to please a husband. Henry Cavill co-stars as an aloof version of Sherlock in his early years prior to meeting Dr. Watson. Sherlock loves his much younger sister, even if he can’t find a proper way to express that emotion most of the time.

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