Movie Reviews

Wreck-It Ralph

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  • Title: Wreck-It Ralph
  • IMDB: link

wreck-it-ralph-posterPixar’s growing influence on Disney, particularly that of head of Walt Disney Animation Studios John Lasseter, is certainly evident in Wreck-It Ralph. The latest Disney animated feature from longtime Futurama director Rich Moore bucks the trend of most animated kids’ fare in that it’s a love story to classic video games (which skewers older) and is centered around the unlikeliest of heroes — a villain. It also doesn’t take place in our reality. Instead it’s set in a world where arcade games and their myriad characters roam about, but are connected to each other by a Grand Central-like power strip allowing them to come and go as they please.

Wreck-It Ralph (voiced by John C. Reilly) has spent every day of the last 30 years doing exactly the same thing. When the arcade opens and the first customer puts a quarter in the video game (as if a quarter would buy you a game anywhere today), Ralph sets to wrecking the digital landscape of Fix-It Felix, Jr. This, of course, allows the game’s hero (Jack McBrayer) to fix the villain’s destruction, vanquish his foe, and earn his medal.

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Chasing Mavericks

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  • Title: Chasing Mavericks
  • IMDB: link

chasing-mavericks-posterEven though the film was directed by the combination of Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential, Wonder Boys) and Michael Apted (Gorillas in the Mist, Coal Miner’s Daughter), I was still surprised by how much I enjoyed Chasing Mavericks. The film is based on the real life of surfer Jay Moriarty (Jonny Weston, who reminds me more than a little of Christopher Atkins in The Pirate Movie) who grew up chasing giant waves most believed were myths in a small cove in Northern California in the mid-1990’s.

Although the surfing footage is some of the best ever captured for a feature film, the screenplay is just as focused on Jay’s life outside the water when he’s not obsessed with his dream of surfing Mavericks. The fatherless young man whose alcoholic mother (Elisabeth Shue) is less than dependable latches on at a young age to a surfing neighbor (Gerard Butler) who, despite having enough trouble figuring out how to be a father to his own daughter (Maya Raines), finds himself cast into the role of a surrogate father to the talented young surfer whether he likes it or not.

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Cloud Atlas is in Need of a Road Map (and Lots of Editing)

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  • Title: Cloud Atlas
  • IMDB: link

cloud-atlas-posterCloud Atlas, the collaboration by the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer to bring the novel of the same name by David Mitchell to the big screen is, to put it bluntly, a mess.  It’s an ambitious mess to be sure as the project bites off far more than it can chew by casting a small group of actors playing multiple roles across different time periods, but it’s a mess none the less. Fans of the book may be prepared for what’s to come, but the rest of us could use a road map of this late night ride to nowhere. (At least nowhere interesting.)

The film beings by throwing the audience into a variety of stories taking place decades, or in some cases centuries, apart (including two distinctly different version of the future – one of which owes a little too much to The Time Machine). Introducing a slew of characters in the opening 15-20 minutes, all played by the same group of actors who jump centuries, ethnicities, and even gender between tales (due to some strikingly inconsistent make-up and CGI), Cloud Atlas hits the ground running and expects you to keep up.

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Alex Cross

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  • Title: Alex Cross
  • IMDB: link

alex-cross-posterAlex Cross is a bad movie that aspires to be a mediocre movie, only to fail even at that modest goal — in spectacular fashion. Based on the series of novels by James Patterson, Tyler Perry stars as a Detroit cop-turned-FBI-Agent who finds himself playing cat and mouse with a vicious killer (Matthew Fox) intent on the murder of a prominent businessman (Jean Reno) and anyone else remotely related to him.

Perry isn’t the first to play Alex Cross on-screen. Morgan Freeman played the role in both Along Came a Spider and Kiss the Girls. As problematic as both those films are, Freeman’s performances are actually pretty good. Although it’s far from Alex Cross‘ biggest problem, Tyler Perry is no Morgan Freeman.

Trying to choose the film’s biggest weak point is a near impossible challenge, as there’s so little Alex Cross does well. In almost every aspect of filmmaking (acting, directing, cinematography, writing, editing, effects, and so on) the new adaptation of Patterson’s character comes off as both incompetent and sophomoric.

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Searching for Sugar Man

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  • Title: Searching for Sugar Man
  • IMDB: link

searching-for-sugar-man-posterOdds are you’ve never heard of Rodriguez, a Detroit folk singer who failed to register a single blip on the American music scene. After releasing two low-selling albums in the early 1970’s the musician disappeared into obscurity by the end of the decade. But that’s only the beginning of the story.

As Rodriguez returned home to work construction and raise a family in Detroit, on the other side of the world his music was making an impact a decade later. In South Africa, Rodriguez’s songs struck a chord with a nation revolting against decades of Apartheid. As he worked minimum wage jobs at home, Rodriguez was becoming a superstar half a world away.

Searching for Sugar Man documents the search begun by two South African fans that led to the kind of heartwarming tale you usually can only find in the movies. Searching for more information about a singer more beloved in their country than Elvis Presley, Stephen “Sugar” Segerman and Craig Strydom began to track down the truth of the musician’s fate among several different rumors of his death.

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