Movie Reviews

After Earth

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: After Earth
  • IMDB: link

After EarthBased on an idea from one of the film’s stars, the latest from director M. Night Shyamalan stars Will Smith and Jaden Smith as an estranged father and son in the far future who crash-land on a post-apocalyptic version of an abandoned Earth and must work together to survive. Part coming of age story, part father/son dynamic, part horror film, and part shaky science fiction, After Earth proves to be the most straightforward movie of Shyamalan’s career. Instead of twists or late reveals After Earth relies on drama, action, and ramped-up tension to play out a predictable story.

After racing through setting up this version of the future, the destruction of Earth, the settlement across the galaxy, and humanity’s battle with generic movie monster aliens known as Ursas (creatures who can smell and track fear of their prey across great distances), our story begins in earnest with General Cypher Raige (Will Smith) arriving home from his latest assignment to his talented but skittish son Katai (Jaden Smith) who on that very day has been denied advancement in the Ranger Corps for his inability to show calm in the face of danger.

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Fast & Furious 6

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  • Title: Fast & Furious 6
  • IMDB: link

Fast & Furious 6When the sixth installment of the Fast & Furious franchise plays to its strengths (fast cars, good cinematography, beautiful women kicking butt, and some terrific action sequences) it works well. Sadly, we are also forced to sit through the franchise’s usual hamfisted attempts at dramatic tension and clichéd (not to mention extremely corny) dialogue which give us a mopey Vin Diesel for the first half-hour of the film and an inexplicable subplot involving Paul Walker in prison that doesn’t so much shit in the face of logic as refuse to exist the concept exists at all.

Director Justin Lin reassembles the team from the last film as Hobbs (Dwayane “It’s Okay To Call Me The Rock Again” Johnson) recruits Toretto (Diesel) and his drivers to take down a mercenary group of high-speed thieves attacking military targets. For Hobbs its about using the lesser of two evils to stop a greater one. For Toretto its about bringing a lost member of his family back home when Hobbs informs him that Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) is alive and working for the murderous leader (Luke Evans) of the group.

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The Hangover Part III

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  • Title: The Hangover Part III
  • IMDB: link

The Hangover Part IIIWith The Hangover Part III, fans of The Hangover series will get to see one more misadventure concerning Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) in a script by Todd Phillips and Craig Mazin that returns to the lingering consequences of the Wolfpack’s original Vegas vacation while largely ignoring the events of The Hangover Part II. (In fact, other than a cameo by Jamie Chung as Stu’s wife and one or two quick mentions of the trip to Bangkok, the events of the second film are completely ignored.) The result is an adequate final chapter hell-bent on providing audiences with its share of both laughs and groans.

On the plus side the series breaks from tradition by giving us a new story rather than simply recycle the same storyline used in both the first two films involving the threesome slowly piecing together events from a hazy night while searching for a missing friend. Once again Doug (Justin Bartha) is left out of most of the chicanery as the trio are forced by a pissed of Vegas mogul (John Goodman) to find Leslie Chow (Ken Jeong) and the millions in gold bricks the maniac stole from him during the threesome’s original trip to Vegas.

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Star Trek: Episode II – Wrath of the Raiders Into Darkness

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  • Title: Star Trek Into Darkness
  • IMDB: link

Star Trek Into DarknessThe follow-up to director J.J. Abrams‘ 2009 relaunching of the Star Trek franchise is a mostly disappointing affair that cribs heavily off other films, including one of the franchise’s own, in an attempt to offer a sophomoric version of what is generally considered the best of the original franchise. It’s nearly impossible to discuss the film in any length, or its myriad of problems, without giving away a few of its secrets. So after a few broad points about Star Trek Into Darkness you’ll forgive me I move dangerously into spoiler territory.

One of the real disappointments with the first film was the numerous logic holes that plagued the story. This film has to build on that shaky foundation while introducing a host of new questionable story elements. You have to look no further than the movie’s opening sequence which involves the U.S.S. Enterprise hiding underwater on a planet where the natives have no knowledge of extraterrestrial life while performing a mission whose sole purpose seems to be to get Kirk in hot water with Starfleet Command (and give us an incredibly unsubtle nod to Raiders of the Lost Ark in the process).

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The Dull Gatsby

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  • Title: The Great Gatsby
  • IMDB: link

The Great GatsbyIt took five years after the disaster which was Australia for writer/director Baz Luhrmann to be allowed to make a feature film again. Sadly, it was this film. I kid, but the sad truth is Australia was an amazingly bad trainwreck that deserved every bit of scorn it earned from critics and audiences alike. Even sadder is the fact that Australia might actually be a better film than the writer/director’s current adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel which takes literary classic and grinds it down into dime store romance novel full of the director’s trademark spectacle, garish production design, and style (complete with inappropriate time-period music), resulting in dreadful boring film.

The Great Gatsby isn’t horrifically bad. It’s not the kind of truly wretched film that would rise my ire and pitchfork for a march on the director’s metaphorical castle. Almost as troubling, Luhrmann’s version of The Great Gatsby is an emotionally stunted and empty experience that often tells us, but never shows us, why we should care for these characters or the tragic events in which they find themselves trapped.

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