Movie Reviews

Argo

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Argo
  • IMDb: link

argo-movie-posterSome stories are so unbelievable they must be true. This was the case with Charlie Wilson’s War, one of my favorite films of 2007, which examined the absurd series of events that led a relatively unknown Congressman from Texas to lead the charge to bring down the Soviet Union.

Argo, the latest from director Ben Affleck who also stars in the adaptation of CIA Agent Tony Mendez‘s account of what became known as the “Canadian Caper” involving the extraction of six American diplomats from Iran during the Iran Hostage Crisis, is a similarly astonishing, and certainly well told, tale that’s so crazy it must be true.

Affleck stars as Mendez, a CIA extraction expert who comes up with a plan to safely smuggle out six Americans who escaped the seizure of the American Embassy in Iran on November 4, 1979. His idea is to pose as a film producer scouting locations for a new sci-fi movie in Iran and to pass off the six diplomats (Tate Donovan, Clea DuVall, Christopher Denham, Scoot McNairy, Kerry Bishé, Joe Stafford) as other members of the movie project.

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The Perks of Being a Wallflower

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  • Title: The Perks of Being a Wallflower
  • IMDB: link

“Welcome to the Island of Misfit Toys.”

the-perks-of-being-a-wallflowerStories of loners searching for their place in the world are hardly new, and there are certainly more polished films which tackle the subject, but for its flaws The Perks of Being a Wallflower gets the emotion more right than most.

Taking on teenage suicide, closeted homosexual relationships, drug use, teenage sex, unrequited love, the complex psychological problems of an anxiety-riddled teen, and one or two other major themes I won’t give away here, the movie certainly doesn’t shy away from tackling hard issues and forcing its characters to deal honestly with both their choices and consequences.

Written and directed by Stephen Chbosky, who adapted his own novel of the same name for the film, The Perks of Being a Wallflower centers around Charlie (Logan Lerman), an awkward, introverted high school freshman who has seen too much pain in his young life. The brainy introvert starts high school all too aware old friends have moved into new cliques without him and is ill-equipped to make new ones.

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Taken 2: The Wrath of Nameless Eastern European Thugs

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  • Title: Taken 2
  • IMDB: link

taken-2-posterDirected by Pierre Morel and written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen, 2008’s Taken starred Liam Neeson as retired CIA Agent Bryan Mills – a man forced to use his “particular set of skills” to rescue his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) who was abducted by an Albanian human trafficking ring while vacationing in Paris. Over the course of the film Mills racked up an impressive amount of property damage while assaulting, torturing, and killing dozens of people including shooting the wife of a French police officer (Olivier Rabourdin), and close friend, in front of him.

Taken 2 returns Neeson, Grace, and Famke Janssen (as Mills’ ex-wife), who take a family vacation in Istanbul only to find their past finally catch up with them. Mills and his family are hunted by members (who may, or may not, have ties to the trafficking ring) of the families of the men he killed in the first movie. When Mills and his ex-wife are taken the super bad-ass senior citizen will have to rely on the help of his daughter to wreck another city, rack up a hefty body count, and save both himself and her mother.

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Cute, but not exactly Pitch Perfect

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  • Title: Pitch Perfect
  • IMDB: link

“I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“But you have fruit punch and Rocky!”

pitch-perfect-posterCashing in on the success of Glee, Pitch Perfect takes viewers on the wacky ride of competitive a capella competition. Based on the book by Mickey Rapkin which examined the real-life underground subculture of competitive collegiate a cappella groups at three separate universities, Pitch Perfect desperately wants a to be a celebratory parody for college choirs in the same way Bring It On was for cheerleading. Sadly, nowhere near as clever, Pitch Perfect plays much more like one of Bring It On‘s straight-to-video sequels.

Anna Kendrick stars as Beca, a disgruntled college freshman whose father (John Benjamin Hickey), a professor at the university, is forcing her to get an education (what a dick, right?) when all she wants to do is head to New York and begin a career as a DJ. Making a deal to give college life a try, Beca begins working at the college radio station and is pressured into signing up for The Barden Bellas, an all female singing group, by an upperclassman (Brittany Snow) who hears Beca singing in the shower (and jumps in to sing along with her in one of the film’s more awkward scenes).

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Hotel for Monsters

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  • Title: Hotel Transylvania
  • IMDB: link

hotel-transylvania-posterI usually enjoy animated films in all shapes and sizes, but I can sum up my heightened interest for Hotel Transylvania in two words – Genndy Tartakovsky. For those who don’t recognize the name, Tartakovsky is responsible for creating Dexter’s Laboratory, Star Wars: Clone Wars, and a little slice of awesome known as Samurai Jack. Tartakovsky also help produce The Powerpuff Girls (and write my favorite episode of the series).

Although Hotel Transylvania isn’t Tartakovsky’s creation, you can certainly see his fingerprints all over the film in a script he helped punch-up and his influence to push the movie towards a more high-energy animation style resembling Tex Avery’s classic cartoons. The result is a fast-paced, zany comedy with just enough of the director’s deft touches and humor to make it stand-out from more generic animated fare. At times the film certainly panders with obvious (and even cheap) jokes for the kids, but Tartakovsky’s take on a hotel for monsters is better than it has any right to be and should satisfy kids and most adults as well.

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