Action

Jack Reacher

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Jack Reacher
  • IMDb: link

jack-reacher-posterI prefer my Tom Cruise action films a little crazy and more than slightly ridiculous. (Hell, I even kinda like Knight and Day.) Jack Reacher delivers on both counts. Based on the character created by Lee Child, Cruise stars as former Military Police officer turned professional nomad who shows up in Pittsburgh when a former Army sniper (Joseph Sikora) is accused of killing five people.

As Reacher tells the man’s attorney (Rosamund Pike), he doesn’t show up to save Barr (Sikora) but to bury him. With Barr in a coma after a prison beat down, the only way Reacher can get the proof he needs to make sure Barr gets the needle is to agree to work with his lawyer. However, the more Reacher digs into the case the more, to his increasing frustration, it appears Barr was framed for the crime. Reacher also discovers the killings weren’t as random as everyone believes.

I’ve never read a Jack Reacher novel, and I’m not sure this film sells me on the character quite enough to pick one up anytime soon. However, as a fun B-movie action flick Jack Reacher succeeds.

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Red Dawn Redux

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Red Dawn (2012)
  • IMDB: link

red-dawn-remake-posterAfter being filmed in the Fall of 2009 this needless remake to 1984’s Red Dawn sat on the shelf for three years before finally being released in theaters this Thanksgiving. The new version of Red Dawn is an uninspired trainwreck of an incredulous plot mixed with a gritty attempt at character study, draped in the flag of simplistic patriotism that would make Michael Bay proud, that can never decide what kind of movie it actually wants to be.

Where the original film saw the United States invaded by the Soviet Union, the remake chooses China as the new baddies. However, unwilling to lose the lucrative Chinese movie market, the studio spent another $1,000,000 in post production and CGI to recast North Korea as Red Dawn‘s new villains. Because, in Hollywood’s view, all Asian bad guys are so easily interchangeable. Seriously, I’ve seen WWII propaganda films which were more subtle.

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Bond is Back (and he’s brought the Joker with him)!

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

skyfall-posterI wasn’t the biggest fan of Quantum of Solace which I felt stayed far too focused on the fallout of the first movie in the reboot James Bond franchise without moving our new version of British Secret Agent James Bond (Daniel Craig) forward. Skyfall certainly isn’t a perfect Bond film, in fact it may be the first of the franchise that I’ve enjoyed without liking its choice of villain. However, it does make a concerted effort to blend in elements of the classic Bond franchise with the new version making it feel, really for the first time, that James Bond is truly back.

The film borrows heavily from themes, elements, and even specific props from previous Bond movies. Some of these callbacks include the Aston Martin from Goldfinger, a signature gun (which we saw before in Licence to Kill), an assassin’s with signature bullets (a major plot point used in The Man with the Golden Gun), and even the recreation of M’s classic office. The movie also begins incorporating Bond’s original supporting cast including finally delivering a new Q (Ben Whishaw).

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Bond is Back (and he’s brought the Joker with him)! Read More »

Wreck-It Ralph

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Wreck-It Ralph
  • IMDB: link

wreck-it-ralph-posterPixar’s growing influence on Disney, particularly that of head of Walt Disney Animation Studios John Lasseter, is certainly evident in Wreck-It Ralph. The latest Disney animated feature from longtime Futurama director Rich Moore bucks the trend of most animated kids’ fare in that it’s a love story to classic video games (which skewers older) and is centered around the unlikeliest of heroes — a villain. It also doesn’t take place in our reality. Instead it’s set in a world where arcade games and their myriad characters roam about, but are connected to each other by a Grand Central-like power strip allowing them to come and go as they please.

Wreck-It Ralph (voiced by John C. Reilly) has spent every day of the last 30 years doing exactly the same thing. When the arcade opens and the first customer puts a quarter in the video game (as if a quarter would buy you a game anywhere today), Ralph sets to wrecking the digital landscape of Fix-It Felix, Jr. This, of course, allows the game’s hero (Jack McBrayer) to fix the villain’s destruction, vanquish his foe, and earn his medal.

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Alex Cross

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Alex Cross
  • IMDB: link

alex-cross-posterAlex Cross is a bad movie that aspires to be a mediocre movie, only to fail even at that modest goal — in spectacular fashion. Based on the series of novels by James Patterson, Tyler Perry stars as a Detroit cop-turned-FBI-Agent who finds himself playing cat and mouse with a vicious killer (Matthew Fox) intent on the murder of a prominent businessman (Jean Reno) and anyone else remotely related to him.

Perry isn’t the first to play Alex Cross on-screen. Morgan Freeman played the role in both Along Came a Spider and Kiss the Girls. As problematic as both those films are, Freeman’s performances are actually pretty good. Although it’s far from Alex Cross‘ biggest problem, Tyler Perry is no Morgan Freeman.

Trying to choose the film’s biggest weak point is a near impossible challenge, as there’s so little Alex Cross does well. In almost every aspect of filmmaking (acting, directing, cinematography, writing, editing, effects, and so on) the new adaptation of Patterson’s character comes off as both incompetent and sophomoric.

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