2.5 Razors

Legends of Tomorrow – Last Refuge

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Legends of Tomorrow – Last Refuge
  • wiki: link

Legends of Tomorrow - Last Refuge

When various members of the team are targeted by the Time Lords‘ assassin the Pilgrim (Faye Kingslee), Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill) leads his motley crew through time to protect their younger versions before the assassin can wipe them out of existence. When her plan is foiled (thanks to a convenient plot device that allows the assassin only to target each member a single time in their timelines), the Pilgrim decides to use the team’s loved ones as hostages to force a confrontation. Of course it helps that the crew know exactly where in time and space the assassin plans to attack (based on some hazily-defined probability equations made by the ship’s computer in another convenient plot device).

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(No Snow White &) The Huntsman: Winter’s War

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Huntsman: Winter’s War
  • wiki: link

The Huntsman: Winter's WarI wasn’t too impressed with 2012’s retelling of the fairy tale of Snow White. While visually elegant, I felt the story lacked heart and a willingness to truly embrace the fairy tale. Dumping one of its two title characters for the sequel, The Huntsman: Winter’s War brings back the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth), the evil Ravenna (Charlize Theron), and two of the seven dwarves (Nick Frost and Rob Brydon) in a movie that is both prequel and sequel to the original.

The movie’s plot-heavy first forty minutes or so is problematic as the sequel explains the origins of Ravenna’s sister Freya (Emily Blunt) who will serve as the main villain this time around. These sequences also explain Freya’s madness brought on by tragedy and her army of Huntsman. This offers an extended backstory on Hemsworth’s character as well, including his relationship to both Freya and another Huntsman (Jessica Chastain) who kicks her share of ass and turns out be a far more interesting character than Kristen Stewart‘s Snow White. While still flawed, the sequel proves to be more fun than the original and something closer to the questionable success of Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters and Jack the Giant Slayer.

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Legends of Tomorrow – The Magnificent Eight

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Legends of Tomorrow – The Magnificent Eight
  • wiki: link

Legends of Tomorrow - The Magnificent Eight

Hoping to hide out from the Time Masters, Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill) takes his team to the Old West where Ray (Brandon Routh) and Martin Stein (Victor Garber) both find themselves tempted in unexpected ways and Kendra (Ciara Renée) runs into the person (Anna Deavere Smith) she least expects. Although better than that awful movie, the show’s version of Jonah Hex (Johnathon Schaech) isn’t one of the show’s best reinterpretations nor does the minimal insight he gives in Rip’s past justify his appearance here.

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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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