2.5 Razors

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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Scorpion – Hard Knox

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Scorpion – Hard Knox
  • wiki: link

Scorpion - Hard Knox

If the set-up for “Hard Knox” sounds familiar it’s because Scorpion has used nearly the identical template before. Tricked by a government official into what is obviously a very bad idea, Walter (Elyes Gabel) and his team are hired to break into Fort Knox to test out the facility’s security. And yes, despite being tricked into similar circumstances in the past, no one on the team questions the validity of their assignment. Of course while this is going on Walter works out his troubled relationship with Linda (Brooke Nevin) while the show continues to tease the a romance between Paige (Katharine McPhee) and Tim (Scott Porter) that no one (I’m betting this even includes the show’s writers) want to see happen.

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Supergirl – Myriad

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Supergirl – Myriad
  • wiki: link

Supergirl - Myriad

“Myriad” is a messy episode, especially given it’s the culmination of Non‘s (Chris Vance) big plans for the planet and Supergirl (Melissa Benoist). With all of National City under Kryptonian mind-control, Supergirl offers not one but two reasons for Superman not to be around to help. The first, that the Man of Steel is off-world dealing with a crisis may be cheap but it at least makes sense. The second, that he shows up and falls under the mind-control because he was raised on Earth, is just goofy. The only ones not effected are Kara (who was a Kryptonian the machine was designed to effect, let’s not forget), Non’s soldiers (also Kryptonians), the prisoners from Fort Roz, J’onn Jonzz‘s (David Harewood), and the unlikely duo of Maxwell Lord (Peter Facinelli) and Cat Grant (Calista Flockhart).

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Shadowhunters – Morning Star

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Shadowhunters – Morning Star
  • wiki: link

Shadowhunters - Morning Star

The First Season of Shadowhunters comes to a close with a finale that wraps up several themes of the show’s first year while laying the foundation for next season. As Jace (Dominic Sherwood) struggles with the truth about his parentage, and not nearly enough about how just a few episodes he was macking on his sister, Clary (Katherine McNamara) and the other Shadowhunters discover Hodge (Jon Cor) has stolen the Mortal Cup with plans to deliver it to Valentine (Alan Van Sprang) and double their efforts not only to find Hodge but also go to whatever lengths necessary to free Clary’s mother from her slumber so they might have a chance against Valentine.

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