Criminal

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

CriminalThe premise behind screenwriters Douglas Cook and David Weisberg‘s Criminal is fairly ridiculous, even for B-movie action flick. Sadly, it’s not nearly as entertaining as the pair’s 20 year-old collaboration – The Rock. Set in present day, the death of Agent Bill Pope (Ryan Reynolds), who alone has vital information to keep backdoor access into the missile command of the United States out of the hands of a terrorist (Jordi Mollà), causes the CIA to attempt an experimental procedure to implant Pope’s memories into a brain-damaged convict named Jericho (Kevin Costner).

Costner is an interesting choice for a remorseless cold-blooded killer forced to deal with unexpected feelings for a wife (Gal Gadot) and child (Lara Decaro) who are not his own and a mission he never signed-up for. His casting looks to be a huge misstep in the early scenes before Jericho’s operation, but the more conflicted the character becomes over the course of the film Costner’s performance begins to become one of the movie’s biggest strengths.

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This Jungle Book lacks the Bare Necessities

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Jungle Book
  • IMDb: link

The Jungle BookAs with Alice in Wonderland, Maleficent, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and 101 Dalmatians, Disney’s latest attempt to offer a live-action version of one of their classic animated movies offers mixed results. Originally based on the stories of Rudyard Kipling, 1967’s The Jungle Book took us into the jungle to follow the adventures of Mowgli the Man Cub (Neel Sethi), a young orphan raised by wolves. Rather than offer a straight reinterpretation of Kipling’s work or a direct live-action version of Disney’s animated feature, the new movie attempts to do both leading to an uneven story that is too dark for its lighter moments and simple bizarre when it tries to recreate animated sequences (such as Mowgli and Baloo singing “Bare Necessities” down the river) in realistic CGI.

The choice to cast well-known actors in the main CGI roles also turns out to be a questionable decision. While Ben Kingsley and Idris Elba are used well, and the plodding plot certainly picks up with the introduction of Baloo (Bill Murray), Murray isn’t so much acting here as doing his own shtick which, while entertaining, works against creating the seamless reality needed to sell the story.

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Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – Paradise Lost

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – Paradise Lost
  • wiki: link

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Paradise Lost

“Paradise Lost” turns out to be mostly filler and set-up as the episode explores the past of Gideon Malick (Powers Boothe) through extended flashback sequenes and sets the stage for nearly all of S.H.I.E.L.D. to be captured by Giyera (Mark Dacascos). With Daisy (Chloe Bennet) and Lincoln (Luke Mitchell) off on their own mission talking to a former member of Afterlife, it will apparently fall to these two and the rest of the Secret Warriors to save the lives of their friends.

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Will Eisner’s The Spirit #9

/ / Comics

Will Eisner's The Spirit #9

Will Eisner’s The Spirit #9 takes us back to the Spirit‘s adventures in Tangiers while revealing the injured hero’s first encounter with Sachet Spice who it seems took an immediate shine to the vigilante and didn’t want him to leave… ever. As to just what the woman’s plans are for our hero going forward, or as to what she and her father Mikado Vaas want in central City, we’ll just have to wait for that to be revealed in the series remaining three issues.

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