Movie Reviews

Win Win

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  • Title: Win Win
  • IMDB: link

win-win-posterWin Win is writer/director Thomas McCarthy‘s weakest effort. Now that might sound bad, but only until you realize the man has put together a pretty impressive resume so far.

McCarthy both wrote and directed The Visitor and The Station Agent, as well as penning the original story Pixar’s Up was based on. That’s a pretty high mark to live up to, and so I can forgive him if his latest is only a very solid indie flick rather than hands down one of the best films of the year.

Paul Giamatti, in the kind of role he’s known for in indie flicks like this, plays lovable loser Mike Flaherty. Mike is a struggling attorney in a small town who helps make ends meet by moonlighting as the wrestling coach for the local high school. He’s also dealing with financial problems, stress attacks, and a kind, but needy, elderly client (Burt Young) – all of which he’s trying to keep from wife (Amy Ryan) and children (Clare Foley, Sophia Kindred).

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Source Code

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  • Title: Source Code
  • IMDB: link

source-code-posterGroundhog Day meets Twelve Monkeys in this new tale of time travel and alternate realites from director Duncan Jones (Moon) and screenwriter Ben Ripley (Species: The Awakening).

Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Colter Stevens, a soldier who awakes in the body of a complete stranger eight minutes before the commuter train he’s riding is set to explode. Over the course of the film he will be slingshot back and forth from his reality, a small one-man pod set at an indeterminate time in the future, back into the train reliving these events over and over again.

While in the present his only contact will be with his command officers (Vera Farmiga, Jeffrey Wright) via cam. They won’t answer his questions. They only want his help. The bomber who blew up the train will attempt detonate an even larger bomb somewhere in downtown Chicago unless Stevens can identify him and give them the information need to stop him.

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Hop

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  • Title: Hop
  • IMDB: link

hop-posterThe opening sequence of Hop is not only entertaining but a visual feast that conjures images of Gene Wilder and Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. Sadly, the effort and care that went into crafting this sequence is absent from almost every other frame of the film.

Our story centers around two selfish and somewhat unlikeable characters. The first is E.B. (voiced by Russell Brand) who leaves Easter Island days before he’s scheduled to take on the responsibilities as the new Easter Bunny. E.B. would rather play the drums than be burdened by the duty being asked of him by his father (Hugh Laurie), the current Easter Bunny.

James Marsden stars as our second lead, the lazy and unfocused Fred O’Hare (O’Hare, get it? *sigh*) still looking for that “dare to be great opportunity.” His parents (Gary Cole, Elizabeth Perkins) would just like for him to find a “get a job and move out of the house opportunity.”

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Sucker Punch

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  • Title: Sucker Punch
  • IMDB: link

sucker-punch-posterWell, the dragon was kinda cool. You know you’re watching a Zack Snyder film when twenty minutes in you realize you’d rather be watching a Brett Ratner flick.

There were a myriad of ideas bouncing around my head as the credits began to roll and I tried to wrap my brain around what the hell I just watched, let alone what it was supposed to mean. Coming out of Sucker Punch I felt I was the one who had taken the hit – right in the crotch.

Sucker Punch has been Snyder’s pet project since 2007 and it’s a pretty strong idictment against directors having total control of a film. It might have been insufferable, but at least Peter Jackson’s multi-million dollar masturbatory fantasy had a giant ape who was fun to watch.

Sucker Punch gives us scantily clad young actresses espousing ridiculous dialogue while playing out an even more ridiculous plot. It’s impossible to take a film like this seriously, and, for some unknown reason, that’s exactly what Snyder wants us to do.

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