This Week in Comic Book Film

/ / Film News & Trailers
  • Title: Wanted
  • IMDB: link

After the death of his father Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) is recruited by a league of assassins to follow in his footsteps.  Loosely based on the comic mini-series of the same name (check backThursday for our review of the graphic novel!), the film also stars Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie, Terrence Stamp, Common, and Kristen Hager.  Check out the official site.  We’ve seen it and we’ll have the review when the killing begins everywhere on Friday.

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Missed It By That Much

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Get Smart
  • IMDB: link

“I am not completely incompetent.”

Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell) is an analyst for CONTROL, a secret underground spy organization.  Although intelligent, Max is clumsy, awkward, and is known for the mind-numbing level of detail he puts into his job.

When CONTROL is attacked by the terrorist organization known as KAOS, the Chief (Alan Arkin) has no choice but to make Max an agent and pair him with Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway), who has recently gone through plastic surgery (the reasons for which make less sense than anything else in the film), for an important mission.

That’s the basic outline of the plot, which never really seems to get developed past the outline stage.  The film instead provides situations for Carell to get himself and 99 both into and out of danger, almost always making a fool out of himself in the process.  Carell is good here, and there’s a nice playful chemistry which slowly develops with Hathaway.  And Alan Arkin, and Dwayne “Stop Calling Me The Rock” Johnson provide some nice moments as well.

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A ‘Guru’ Only A Mother Could Love

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Love Guru
  • IMDB: link

About a month ago, a friend asked me, “Which are you dreading the least – You Don’t Mess With the Zohan or The Love Guru?”  It was a fitting question, as not only did the two movies look like the worst comedies of the summer, but they might have been the worst looking movies of the summer, regardless of genre.  I answered that Zohan looked a bit worse (Sandler‘s last film, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, still left a bad taste in my mouth) but now, having seen both films, I have a hard time deciding which one actually was worse.  All I know is that neither one is much of a winner.

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An American Girl

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
  • IMDB: link

“Don’t let it beat you.”

The American Girl series focuses on young fictional heroines centered in and around important historical events.  The Mattel dolls have spawned books, magazines, and countless accessories, and now a major motion picture.

Abigail Breslin stars as the precocious Margaret Mildred “Kit” Kittredge, an aspiring pre-adolescent reporter in Cincinnati, Ohio, during the Great Depression.  Kit’s life, and those of her firends and neighbors are turned upside down due to the Depression which causes her father (Chris O’Donnell) to seek employment in Chicago and her mother (Julia Ormond) to take in boarders (who include Joan Cusack, Stanley Tucci, Glenne Headly, and Jane Krakowski) to make ends meet.

Kit takes most of this in stride and attempts to use her new experience to become a real reporter and get her first story in print, if she can just get her work past that persnickety editor (Wallace Shawn).

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