Movie Reviews

Pitch Black Deja Vu is Riddick-ulously Familiar

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  • Title: Riddick
  • IMDB: link

RiddickHow much do you love Pitch Black? For those passionate few whose fandom is strong enough to warrant sitting through a nearly identical (but inferior) film with all the originality of say Teen Wolf Too, Riddick may offer some late summer mindless entertainment. Everyone else may want to wait for home video for this IMAX version of a straight-to-DVD sequel that may not skimp on effects but could have used at least one new idea. Well, at least this one’s got Starbuck (Katee Sackhoff) in it.

Although it hasn’t as aged as well as I would like I will still admit to having some affection for Pitch Black, the 2000 sci-fi adventure about a murderous thief trapped on a world of monsters with people who want him dead, but I draw the line at the ridiculous trainwreck of a sequel that stalled this “franchise.” To call Chronicles of Riddick something akin to Underwold-level terrible is frankly being kind. That Riddick got made at all, even nine years later, and isn’t nausea-inducing is something of a minor miracle.

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Getaway

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  • Title: Getaway
  • IMDB: link

GetawayFrom the director of Dungeons & Dragons comes a convoluted chase film that makes the logic behind The Chase look sound by comparison. You know you’re in trouble when you start a review with any variation of that sentence. To be fair to director Courtney Solomon, the many issues I have with Getaway have far more do with the troubled script by Sean Finegan and Gregg Maxwell Parker than the director’s occasionally worthwhile attempts to make a story impossible to take seriously moderately engaging. (How’s that for a ringing endorsement?)

We’re thrown right into the overly complex plot as former professional driver Brent Magna (Ethan Hawke) steals a suped-up Shelby Mustang Super Snake after thugs working for a nameless voice (Jon Voight) on the phone kidnap his wife (Rebecca Budig). The choice to jump right in and show the kidnapping in broken flashbacks (as if Magna is piecing together what happened from the evidence left behind) works well. The trouble, however, starts once he gets behind the wheel of the car and begins taking orders from his new boss.

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The World’s End

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  • Title: The World’s End
  • IMDB: link

The World's EndWhen writer/director Edgar Wright works with the combination of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost good, and often hilarious, things are bound to happen. Although it might not quite reach the levels of hilarity in either Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz, The World’s End doesn’t disappoint in providing plenty of big laughs in a story about old friends, a robot invasion, and lots and lots of beer.

Pegg stars as Gary King, the former leader of a motley group who have all moved on with their lives. Unable or unwilling to grow up, Gary has been left behind by his former friends and is obsessed with a desire to recapture the glory days of their youth – especially a magical night where the five friends attempted, but failed, to complete the Golden Mile (drinking a pint of beer in all 12 pubs in their hometown of Newton Haven).

One by one Gary cajoles, lies, tempts, and pleads with his old friends (Frost, Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine, Eddie Marsan) to join him for one more night of debauchery which is interrupted by old arguments and alien robot replicants.

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Blue Jasmine

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  • Title: Blue Jasmine
  • IMDB: link

Blue JasmineBlue Jasmine reminds me quite a lot of Celebrity, writer/director Woody Allen‘s 1998 trainwreck of a film casting another actor (Kenneth Branagh) in Allen’s trademark role with mixed results. Allen’s latest is noteworthy for the terrific performance of Cate Blanchett as the female version of Allen’s hopelessly paranoid and neurotic character. Blanchett is amazing as Jasmine, but unlike Allen who was able to consistently charm his way through such portrayals, Jasmine’s cynicism cuts like a knife forcing audiences to keep their distance and never embrace the character in the way the film needs to ultimately succeed. Blanchett might be terrific, but the script give us no reason to care about what happens to her.

Despite loosing her fortune and marriage due to her husband’s (Alec Baldwin) shady business dealings and womanizing, it’s impossible to see the self-obsessed Jasmine as anything approaching a legitimate victim. There’s little reason to feel sorry for the oblivious and neurotic Jasmine, nor is there reason to hate or take joy in her fall from grace. All she can earn is our pity.

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Isn’t Apple the Most Awesome Thing Ever?!

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  • Title: Jobs
  • IMDB: link

JobsDirector Joshua Michael Stern‘s (Swing Vote) biopic of Apple founder Steve Jobs isn’t without it’s moments, even if the the screenplay by Matt Whitely brings nothing new to the party or fails to reveal anything previously unknown about Jobs’ life or the the rise of Apple Computers from a garage to a multi-billion dollar brand. Where it begins to get tedious, however, is in its never-ending praise of Jobs’ apparently limitless genius and all things Apple.

The story is relatively simple as Jobs (played surprisingly well by Ashton Kutcher) is the very much the cliched pretentious genius who doesn’t play well with others. From his humble beginnings, we watch as Jobs uses the expertise of Steve Wozniak (Josh Gad), a far more interesting and sympathetic figure than Jobs in almost every respect who doesn’t earn nearly enough screentime, along with the help of Bill Fernandez (Victor Rasuk), Rod Holt (Ron Eldard), and financier Mike Markkula (Dermot Mulroney) to launch the beginnings of what would grow to become a vast computer empire.

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