 I realize that there’s only limited use in reviewing the 3D re-release of James Cameron’s Oscar winner (and formerly highest grossing film of all time) ‘Titanic’. I’m positive that no one is going to base whether or not they see it on my review/star rating, but since I wasn’t a film critic in the 90′s when it was initially released, this is my chance to approach it as ‘Titanic’ the film, not ‘Titanic’ the cultural phenomenon. For me, this is a ridiculously overlong, flawed, inconsistently acted, and ultimately frustratingly unsatisfying look at the ill fated maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic. Cameron is a gifted filmmaker, but he’s always been more of a director than a writer…nowhere is that more apparent than with this film. Yes, the special effects are still great, and the 3D doesn’t hurt the film at all (thought it doesn’t help it all either), but this re-release just feels completely unnecessary to me. I realize that women are the target audience and those who saw the film 3 or 4 times initially will no doubt go back for another viewing, but just looking at it as a film on its own terms, it’s just not worth the fuss. There’s also no reason on Earth that this film should be 3 hours and 15 minutes long, but I’ll get to that later on. I’ll concede that the movie completely works for some people, but for me I mostly found it to still be the cloying mess that turned me off initially. Few winners of the Best Picture Oscar are, in my eyes, more overrated than this one.
Read more on Titanic in 3D (**½)…
 I can’t say that I’m a particularly big fan of Mario Van Peebles as a filmmaker to date. That’s not to say that he’s bad at what he does, but he’s yet to really do anything that’s made me sit up and take notice. That’s changed somewhat with his teen comedy ‘We the Party’, a disposable yet entertaining little flick. This is essentially a West Coast and urbanized version of ‘American Pie’, but Van Peebles is having such a blast making this coming of age film (and co-starring in it) that some of that fun rubs off on you (it’s also a family affair for him, as what seems like his entire family is in the film, from the leads all the way down to bit parts). He’s also given the film a strong pro education message, and it’s handled well enough that he never comes off as preaching to the audience. Van Peebles direction is very sure-handed (though the subplot featuring a character always in a dark hoodie obviously has a different connotation currently than he intended it to have and turns out to be a more lasting image than it should have been) outshines his writing here. Still, it’s all things that we’ve seen before, and mostly done better. I did like the film, but it just never got over the hump to be something worth getting particularly excited about. It’s getting a very mild thumbs up from me, even though the 2 and a half star rating doesn’t always mean that for me. It’s a flawed film, but the good slightly outweighs the bad here, and that lets me recommend it, even if it’s only a halfhearted recommendation in the end.
Read more on We the Party (**½)…
 Willem Dafoe does some of his most surprisingly human work in the Australian dramatic thriller ‘The Hunter’, a film that kind of snuck up on me. What starts off very sparse and holds you at arm’s length (and is based off of a novel by ‘Sleeping Beauty’ filmmaker Julia Leigh) eventually becomes rather intimate and emotional even. Aside from a few small quibbles about a bloated running time, this is a rather good film and has some interesting things to say. It’s ultimately a movie about conservation, but it approaches that top in a different way than I’ve ever seen before, and I certainly appreciated that. In addition to Dafoe’s noteworthy work, Sam Neill has an effective supporting performance that’s miles away from most of the roles we’ve come to expect him in. Factor in some very nice cinematography and a palpable sense of tension that builds throughout the entire film, and this is an effective little flick. Not every film has you thinking about it 5 minutes after you leave the theater, let alone the next day…but this movie is one of them. It’s filled with dread and a few gruesome images, but overall it’s a pretty beautiful movie in its own way. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect here, but the end result was one of the better films of the year so far (even if it’s up against less than amazing competition so far in 2012) and something I can easily recommend.
Read more on The Hunter (***)…
 Scribe Chris Sparling probably doesn’t want to be known as a one trick pony, but all evidence is to the contrary here with the lame horror film ‘ATM’. After all, there were lots of rumblings of just that after the announcement that his follow-up script to the critically acclaimed (if commercially ignored) ‘Buried’ would be another film involving being trapped in a small space. I loved ‘Buried’, so I was optimistic that ‘ATM’ would be sufficiently different. Alas, while it’s not a carbon copy of that first flick, it’s vastly inferior on just about every level. From the writing to the directing to the acting and even the shot selection, everything is average or below average. Pretty much in each way that ‘Buried’ was creative and powerful, this one is limp and pointless. I feel like I saw this film so you all don’t have to. From the rushed beginning to the unsatisfying ending, everything about this flick is a waste of time. I was actually looking forward to this movie, and it stands as one of the bigger disappointments of the year so far. It’s just that mediocre and without much in the way of redeeming qualities. I wish I had something nice to say about it, but I simply don’t.
Read more on ATM (**)…
 Any review of the new documentary ‘Bully’ is of course going to have to mention the ratings controversy that’s come along with the film. After all, The Weinstein Company acquired the flick and Harvey Weinstein is nothing if not a master of milking publicity out of anything. It was no doubt surprising that the MPAA gave the doc an ‘R’ rating instead of a ‘PG-13′ (I’ll get to the rating more later on in the review), in effect preventing the very people who the film is speaking to from seeing the work, but what’s more surprising to me is how the story took off. It’s become a real cause, but now that the Brothers Weinstein released the movie unrated, we can judge it on its merits. In that regard, ‘Bully’ is a good but not great documentary isn’t quite as powerful as I was expecting/hoping it was. It’s filmed with a great deal of care by director Lee Hirsch, but I didn’t find it to be the hard hitting expose of bullying that many others have praised it as. There’s a bit of a message, but mostly it’s content to just document the horrors of bullying and to state that it needs to end. My only issue with the work is that it doesn’t really get below the surface and never really suggests a true way to fix things, besides just saying that things need to be fixed. It’s possible that I was just hoping for more of an answer to this question, but I was left (to a small degree) wondering what all the fuss over this film was about. It’s certainly a quality cinematic experience, but it’s not a phenomenal documentary in my eyes.
Read more on Bully (***)…
 Presented as a live-action family film, Mirror Mirror is the first of two very different, but equally high profile 2012 adaptations of the iconic tale of a princess named Snow White and her quest in finding her handsome Prince Charming. Aiding in that pursuit, are seven dwarves who work with Snow White in helping her vanquish an evil queen and restore a wondrous kingdom to its rightful heir. It is indeed a tale that has been told, interpreted, and reinvented countless times, but in all honesty, “Snow White” seems a story well suited for the dazzling and innovative director Tarsem Singh.
Singh’s approach to the story, Mirror Mirror features a fair amount of alterations made to the original Brothers Grimm fairy tale, but essentially this is a simple take on the classic tale; one which seems to have an eye towards a possible franchise moving forward. The evil queen (Julia Roberts) is “raising” her orphaned step-daughter, the beautiful and kind-hearted Snow White (Lily Collins), who is banished to her bedroom. Snow White’s father left her the gift of a dagger and promised to return as he set off to battle, but he never came home and his wife, the queen, controls his and his daughter’s kingdom. The opulent palace they call home is bathed in a stunning colorful palette with its architecture and is an extraordinary backdrop to the queen’s expensive and lavish parties and galas. Just outside the queen’s palatial estate however, the neighboring towns are bleak, dark, and destitute.
Read more on Mirror Mirror (**½)…
 An action film for those who think the modern action film is too talky, ‘The Raid: Redemption’ is almost one long and sustained action sequence stretched out to feature length. The editing and pacing are terrific, and those who want intensity in their fight scenes will be thrilled, but if you’re looking for anything deeper or a story of any note, keep looking, as this isn’t the flick for you. Writer/Director/Editor Gareth Evans wants to keep you on the edge of your seat as an elite group of cops battle untold amounts of criminals in a tenement in order to get to the boss…I mean bad guy. This is essentially a video game made into a movie, but it’s the rare occasion that this is meant more as a compliment than as an insult. It’s all about excitement and fights, not characters or story. For some, this will be a real issue, while for others it won’t be one at all. I’m somewhere in between, but my problems with the movie are lightened considerably by how well done this all is. Evans is a filmmaker you need to keep your eye on, because he’s got as much talent as any young filmmaker out there. His creativity is what makes this arguably the best and most satisfying action film to hit theaters in some time. The premise itself isn’t much to write home about, though the manner in which it’s done certainly is.
Read more on The Raid: Redemption (***)…
 An odd little hybrid between ‘Slap Shot’ and early Adam Sandler films, ‘Goon’ doesn’t quite know what type of hockey movie it wants to be. It’s obviously not going for heavy drama, but it’s not a broad comedy either, and when it tries to get serious, the tonal shift is pretty abrupt and disrupts the flow of the flick. The movie on the whole has this issue…parts of it work while other parts just don’t. I know that it has its heart in the right place in telling a very Canadian story, but the execution is just too hit and miss. I suppose it’s a combination of the script by Jay Baruchel and Evan Goldberg (working off of Doug Smith’s autobiographical novel) as well as Michael Dowse’s direction never fully jiving together in any compelling way. I was always interested in the story, but it just never tells it in a way that fully satisfies you. One thing that isn’t an issue is Seann William Scott’s surprisingly good lead performance. He sells you on the inherent kindness of this packaged hockey thug with a heart of gold. He suffers from not really having any kind of character arc, but his acting is almost good enough to overcome that. There are certainly things to like here, but there’s definitely a number of issues as well that kept me from fully embracing the flick.
Read more on Film Review: Goon (**½)…
 As a film reviewer, I seem to stumble into the same conversations time and time again when I share my thoughts on a film adaptation of a widely acclaimed and/or massively successful book I have yet to read. I often find the talk comes to rest with the individual who has read the book informing me…”Well, you haven’t read the book, so…”.
In the case of a film like The Help for example, several folks made mention that I simply did not like the movie near to the level of someone who experienced the book. In the case of Twilight, I am often told that I simply don’t get it. And now we have The Hunger Games, a cinematic adaptation of the massively popular Suzanne Collins trilogy, which is also the most eagerly anticipated film to arrive in months. And I have yet to read the book. So, pardon me “Hunger Games” fans as I tread ever so lightly through the next few paragraphs.
And to those Twilight Saga fans out there…
This is how you make a proper book-to-film adaptation.
Read more on The Hunger Games (****)…
Categories: Film Reviews Tags: 2012 releases, Action, Donald Sutherland, Dystopia, Elizabeth Banks, Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Lenny Kravitz, liam hemsworth, Science Fiction, Stanley Tucci, Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games, Woody Harrelson
 I’ve always enjoyed the work of pseudo-cult filmmakers Jay and Mark Duplass. From ‘The Puffy Chair’ to ‘Baghead’ to ‘Cyrus’, they’ve gone from pioneers of the Mumblecore movement to a talented duo that could very well be headed towards major mainstream success in the somewhat near future. With ‘Jeff, Who Lives at Home’, I personally feel that this is their finest work to date, and perhaps their most accessible one as well. It’s their most mature outing, an existential, funny, and moving tale of destiny and family told over one crazy day. The Duplass Brothers fully believe in the mindset of their protagonist Jeff (played beautifully by Jason Segel in his finest performance to date) that everything is connected, and they illustrate it in some subtle and amusing ways. Like their other works, this is more about characters than story, but the balance is more even than usual. Some of their DIY filmmaking tricks (notably the random close-up/zoom-in) is still in play, but I personally don’t mind one bit. This is also their highest profile cast to date, featuring Ed Helms, Judy Greer, and Susan Sarandon in addition to Segel. They all do fine work, and Greer as always is a scene stealer. This is a real winning film and easily one of the best films I’ve seen so far in 2012.
Read more on Jeff, Who Lives at Home (***½)…
 21 Jump Street, based on the hit 80s series, is the latest spinoff to make it on the big screen, and boy is it fantastic.
Being a huge fan of the 80s sitcom that made Johnny Depp a star, I had many worries when I first heard that Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum would be in the new updated version. My first concern was the casting of Channing Tatum; he isn’t known as the most talented actor but this is by far the best decision he’s ever made. I always said this guy was good at comedy, mainly because he’s great at playing dumb. Let’s be honest, it’s true. My second concern was Jonah Hill going over the top and taking the original series and turning it into a raunchy movie that had nothing to do with the show, but he proved me wrong as well.
Read more on 21 Jump Street (***)…
 First thing’s first…the title of the memoir that ‘Being Flynn’ is based on would have been the best movie title in history (that title was Another Bullshit Night in Suck City…beat that). That silly disappointment of mine set aside, this is a dark dramedy (much more drama than comedy though) that sometimes doesn’t quite hit its mark, but is undeniably powerful and features a terrific Robert De Niro performance to boot. Paul Dano is mostly good here as well (though parts of his performance recall Nicolas Cage…and not his best work either, but I’ll get to that later), creating a pair of acting performances for the film to launch itself from. The movie itself has some issues, but in the places it comes up short in, the emotion and stark realism of the tale take over and assist in making Paul Weitz’s latest flick a success. Weitz achieves this power without going overboard on sentimentality, and actually doubles down on the grit most of the time. It’s a story of a son and his father, whom he only truly gets to know later in life while they’re both going through some major life changes. In some ways, this is the glass half empty version of ‘Beginners’, though I think Mike Mills made a superior work overall. Weitz’s maturity as a filmmaker is on fully display here, and getting such strong work from De Niro is well worth acclaim as well. For about the first two thirds of the movie, you’re not quite sure what you think of this flick, but it wins you over in the end.
Read more on Being Flynn (***)…
 Filmmaker Tony Kaye has become in some circles legendary for his battle with Edward Norton over the final cut of ‘American History X’. There doesn’t seem to be a firm record of what happened, but essentially he’d been seeking to dramatically re-edit the film (potentially excising Norton completely from the movie), and the studio opted to have Norton keep the film closer to the original cut. Kaye has disowned the film, and really has never been in the public’s eye as a filmmaker since then (he’s only made the abortion documentary ‘Lake of Fire’ and a few almost unseen films). He’s back now with a more high profile project in the education drama ‘Detachment’, and while there’s a lot to like here, it perhaps serves as further evidence that Kaye shouldn’t be given complete control over a project just yet. There are things to like in this movie, notably the lead performance of Adrien Brody, but the overall product is too schizophrenically directed and flawed while also being glacially paced and wasting the rest of the ensemble cast. Kaye is trying to make some important points about how broken the American education system is and the issues faced by both students and teachers, but his effectiveness is muted by the film’s deficiencies and the final product turns out far too preachy. I’d give him a passing grade on the whole, but it’s not quite enough to get a recommendation out of me.
Read more on Detachment (**½)…
Categories: Film Reviews Tags: 2012 releases, Adrien Brody, Blythe Danner, Christina Hendricks, Detachment, Early Review, James Caan, Lucy Liu, marcia gay harden, Tim Blake Nelson, Tony Kaye
 ‘Silent House’ is a bit of a frustrating cinematic experience. At its best, the film can ratchet up the tension and fear like the best of the genre. At its worst however, the film falls flat with its climax and kills off some of the goodwill from the first three quarters of the flick. Plus, the method of shooting the movie will divide audiences. Filmmakers Chris Kentis and Laura Lau have not only elected to use an ultra shaky camera to film the proceedings, but they’ve opted to present it as if it’s one long and unbroken take (it’s not actually, but that’s another thing for later). The technique is interesting for a time, but eventually wears thin and sort of becomes a detriment to the work. It’s kept from mediocrity by a very good lead performance by Elizabeth Olsen. She’s got a bit of Laurie Strode in her here (Jamie Lee Curtis would be proud), but the script lets her down. For every instance of the movie exhibiting a good sense of atmosphere, something else gets in the way. I liked parts of this movie, but other parts frankly came close to pissing me off. The project is a mixed bag, and one unlikely to have much appeal outside of the horror genre. Those looking for a movie that can cross over will be sorely disappointed here.
Read more on Silent House (**½)…
 A rather pleasant little film that never quite lets you shake off the feeling that you’ve seen this movie before, ‘Friends With Kids’ has a lot to offer, but little of it is particularly extraordinary. This is a relationship comedy with surprisingly effective dramatic underpinnings, but all throughout I kept waiting for the film to break out from being merely good and enter into the territory of being great. That moment never came though, and I honestly was a bit on the disappointed side with Jennifer Westfeld’s directorial debut (she previously wrote both ‘Kissing Jessica Stein’ and ‘Ira & Abby’). Now, perhaps that’s just due to how much I love the film ‘Kissing Jessica Stein’, but Westfeld’s writing isn’t as sharp as it was there. She wrote herself in the lead and thrust a lot of talented actresses into far less rewarding supporting roles. If she had switched with co-star Kristen Wiig, for example, I think the sparks would have flown more. Alas, that was not to be, and all in all I can’t complain much. She still has good chemistry with co-lead Adam Scott, and the entire ensemble does their best when together. This story of friends, yes…dealing with having kids and growing up is a perfectly enjoyable movie. It just could have been so much more, especially when you consider what half of this cast achieved in ‘Bridesmaids’ just last year.
Read more on Friends With Kids (***)…
 A gregarious sci-fi epic that does enough things right to make for an entertaining film, ‘John Carter’ has a number of small missteps that don’t detract from your enjoyment, but do manage to keep the film from being anything really special. Andrew Stanton’s transition from Pixar animation to live action direction is a mostly successful one, but he has some growing pains, there’s no doubt about it. An incredibly interesting blockbuster flick that can’t always live up to its promise, it winds up settling for just being good when it could have been great. Granted, this is a story (based on a book by Edgar Rice Burroughs called “A Princess of Mars”) that has been attempted as a feature for more than half a century, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling here and there that it could have used a little bit longer in the oven. The issues are never large, but they hold back the work. The aforementioned Stanton’s writing and directing aren’t quite as good as I was hoping for, but it’s easy to see he’s got a live action future ahead of him. A pleasant surprise was the acting, which goes over the top at times but always stays on the right path. I was especially skeptical of Tyler Kitsch and Lynn Collins as the leads, but they’re actually pretty good. The special effects are excellent, even if the 3D is somewhat unnecessary (like that’s a new complaint these days anyway), making for a visual treat on the eyes. Disney hasn’t been marketing this film very well, but have no fear, the movie they’re hiding isn’t a bomb by any stretch…it’s just a hard sell. If you take the way that J.J. Abrams took his ‘Star Trek’ reboot and applied that sensibility to ‘Star Wars’ and filtered it a bit through the lens of last year’s ‘Cowboys & Aliens’, that should give you a small idea of what you’re in for here (even if Disney seems confused by what it is, going by how they originally placed a release date embargo on this flick for some reason…I actually saw the movie back at a screening in February).
Read more on John Carter (***)…
Categories: Film Reviews Tags: 2012 releases, Andrew Stanton, book adaptation, Cirian Hinds, Disney, Dominic West, Early Review, James Purefoy, John Carter, Lynn Collins, Mark Strong, Samantha Morton, Taylor Kitsch, Thomas Haden Church, Willem Dafoe
 Maybe I’m getting old and becoming a little bit of a crabby film critic. True, I’m not even 25 yet (that comes in about a week), but for some reason the debauchery that ‘Project X’ is rife with didn’t strike me as fun or crazy, but just as stupid and boring. Even if that wasn’t an issue for me, watching a party you can’t participate in is. At a certain point, the film stops trying to tell a story or be an entertaining film and just tries to put as many random party events into an 88 minute running time as possible, logic and realism be damned. The thing is, this is supposed to be a found footage type flick, so it contradicts itself right from the start. Even without these issues, this secret movie project that Todd Phillips was so keen to make (even though he only produced it) fails on multiple levels. It’s not original, it’s not creative, it’s not funny, it’s not especially well made, and it’s just plain mean-spirited. A few random moments have their charms, but by and large there’s almost nothing to like here. Those aforementioned moments only serve to keep this from being a truly bad flick. I can’t say I hated this movie, but I really wasn’t entertained. Maybe it’s just meant for me? Whatever the case, it’s not going be getting a very kind review from me, but I’m going to be fair…
Read more on Project X (**)…
 The twist at the end of ‘Thin Ice’ is pretty good if you look at in a bubble. Unfortunately, the film itself isn’t good enough and the twist is a little bit out of place, making for a disjointed feature. Some of this likely has to do with alleged studio tampering (filmmaker Jill Sprecher recently emailed Roger Ebert to state that the cut of the film hitting theaters isn’t her vision and there was massive interference), and it shows in the final product, but even so this still isn’t quite as good a flick as it could of been (especially due to the ending coming a bit out of nowhere and being really well done, if a bit too much like the ending of ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ in broad strokes). Now, while the writing and directing are perhaps only average due to tampering, the acting is actually pretty good, so that saves things from being a mediocre mess. Greg Kinnear, Alan Arkin, and Billy Crudup do excellent jobs (especially Crudup, who steals quite a few scenes) selling less than amazing characters to you. This is a crime tinged black comedy that’s inspired by the likes of ‘Fargo’ and ‘The Ice Storm’, but it’s inspiration doesn’t match with its execution. This isn’t a bad movie at all, and I don’t have too many big issues with it, but enough pieces of the puzzle are missing for me to opt not to recommend it to you folks.
Read more on Thin Ice (**½)…
 That Snowtown is a deeply upsetting experience doesn’t even begin to describe the kind of movie it is. The film – marking the feature debut of a clearly talented Justin Kurzel – is an account of Australia’s most notorious serial killer John Bunting, who led a gang of damaged, impressionable young men to murder eleven people in the small community of Snowtown throughout the 90’s. Snowtown is not by any conventional definition a procedural, and in fact barely qualifies as a crime thriller.
It’s more appropriate, I suppose, to consider it more in the realm of horror, except even then it conforms to none of the conventions of the genre to build its very real sense of tension. More focused on the psychological prisonhouse Bunting built up among his followers (and even then zeroing in on only one of his subjects), Kurzel directs with remarkable restraint and a technique one normally doesn’t see from even seasoned filmmakers. But it nevertheless goes to very dark places that will haunt the uninitiated. Read more on Snowtown (***½)…
 The latest comedy from the Judd Apatow stable isn’t quite up to what the usual standards represent, but ‘Wanderlust’ is a sufficiently weird mix between cult filmmaker David Wain and the Apatow sensibility. It doesn’t hurt that the talented cast (led by Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston) is extremely game for what Wain and his co-writer Ken Marino have cooked up for them. It’s certainly a somewhat mainstream Wain project (much like ‘Role Models’, only weirder), but it’s pretty out there at times. If this sounds like a bit of a mixed bag, it’s because it really is one. It often lacks focus and doesn’t really have a big comedic high point to really get the funny shooting out at you. That being said, I laughed a lot during this 90 minute flick, and got 3 or 4 really big belly laughs, and if a comedy can do that, you tend to be very forgiving of it. I’d never argue that it’s a great film, but it’s not hard to call it the funniest movie of 2012 so far. There hasn’t exactly been much competition so far, but it certainly does its job and entertains you from start to finish. I’d never say to mistake this for some comedy masterpiece, but the acting, directing, and writing are all working on all cylinders to make you laugh…and the effort is not in vain.
Read more on Wanderlust (***)…
Categories: Film Reviews Tags: 2012 releases, Alan Alda, David Wain, Jennifer Aniston, Justin Theroux, Kathryn Hahn, Ken Marino, Lauren Ambrose, Malin Ackerman, paul rudd, Wanderlust
 The idea behind the action flick ‘Act of Valor’ isn’t a bad one at all. Making a film about the heroics of the military using real soldiers and tactics is something at least a little new. It’s just the execution that’s on the bad side. The script is incredibly awful, the direction is poor, and the acting is perhaps even more stilted than is to be expected. Combine all that with a way oversimplified view of war and the end result is something reverential to its subject matter without being worthy of it. Co-directors Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh started off with a terrible script by Kurt Johnstad and did nothing to improve it at all. They ram every cliche home without the smallest bit of irony, film the battle scenes in a way that prevents you from usually being able to tell what’s going on, and somehow manage to keep you from identifying at all with these real life heroes…pretty much the point of the entire film.. This is more like watching a friend play the video game “Call of Duty” than watching an actual film. Now, individual moments work and it’s hard to argue that the movie doesn’t have its heart in the right place (unless you want to make the case that this is just propaganda and glorifies something that shouldn’t be glorified, but I’ll leave that to a different sort of discussion), but it’s just not done in a way that makes for an enjoyable or quality film.
Read more on Act of Valor (**)…
 A action tinged romantic comedy completely devoid of competent action, romance, or comedy, ‘This Means War’ is about as stupid as movies get. I’d say that it’s no surprise considering the director is McG, but I dislike him less than most critics, and actually really enjoyed his “serious” effort ‘We Are Marshall’. Here, he’s being as lazy as possible (and so are scribes Timothy Dowling, Marcus Gautesen, and Simon Kinberg as well), and it really does show. At no point does this mindless flick manage to be at all entertaining in the least. Really, you spend most of the film shaking your head and being disgusted at the actions of the 3 principle characters. Stars Reese Witherspoon, Chris Pine, and Tom Hardy are wasted and play pretty terrible people. I’m not sure what’s worse, the awful individuals we’re supposed to think so highly of, or the talented performers who don’t even bother to try. Witherspoon is sleepwalking through a role hardly distinguishable from a number of her previous jobs, Pine is just upping the jackass quotient from his portrayal of Captain Kirk in ‘Star Trek’, and Hardy is wasted so much it doesn’t seem like he knows what to do. That’s an unforgivable offense on the part of this team. When you waste Tom Hardy like this film does, you know you have a pile of junk on your hands. I’ll confess that I was mildly hopeful that this would be a light piece of popcorn entertainment with some fun to be had (ala ‘Mr. and Mrs Smith’)…how wrong I was.
Read more on This Means War (*½)…
 ‘Perfect Sense’ is a movie that can’t be faulted for trying to do too little. A hybrid of recent films like ‘Another Earth’, ‘Blindness’, ‘Contagion’, and ‘Melancholia’ (with a little bit of ‘Children of Men’ thrown in for good measure), but perhaps even more ambitious, this apocalyptic romance has almost unlimited potential, but it can’t quite pull it all off in the end. The work is admirable, but somewhat unfulfilling. There’s something admirable about trying to make an end of the world flick that deals with the loss of the senses, but it never completely comes together. The individual sequences of the senses going are like little short films, but the romantic narrative that ties it all together is on the weak side. That isn’t the fault of leads Ewan McGregor or Eva Green, but it’s a bit of a failing on the part of director David Mackenzie and writer Kim Fupz Aakeson. The germ (no pun intended) of their idea is one with which any number of films could have been made. The one they came up with is both arty and safe at the same time, so it has a rather disjointed feeling. I harbor no animosity towards this film, but I have a hard time coming up with any passion for it either. It’s just such a mixed bag.
Read more on Perfect Sense (**½)…
 A distant relative of the Bourne style of filmmaking, ‘Safe House’ is a bland knockoff that doesn’t really do anything to make itself worthwhile, but never manages to particularly push you away either. What we have here is a thoroughly mediocre action movie that’s always watchable but never especially interesting. It doesn’t help that the two main characters, despite noble efforts from Ryan Reynolds and Denzel Washington, never become 3 dimensional and keep us always at arm’s length. Reynolds fares better than Washington, but neither are the issues here at all. Director Daniel Espinosa and scribe David Guggenheim turn in workmanlike efforts, showing an understanding of the genre, but never the concept of how to improve upon its conventions. This is the type of movie that you’ll mix up with any number of similar features in a few years. It’s bland and forgettable, but with a good enough pace that it takes most of the movie before you start to realize how little has happened and begin to check your watch. I like nothing more than when a supposedly standard action flick winds up doing something different, even to a small degree, but here we have a film content to be supremely average. That may be okay for the filmmakers, but I wanted more.
Read more on Safe House (**)…
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I realize that there’s only limited use in reviewing the 3D re-release of James Cameron’s Oscar winner (and formerly highest grossing film of all time) ‘Titanic’. I’m positive that no one is going to base whether or not they see it on my review/star rating, but since I wasn’t a film critic in the 90′s when it was initially released, this is my chance to approach it as ‘Titanic’ the film, not ‘Titanic’ the cultural phenomenon. For me, this is a ridiculously overlong, flawed, inconsistently acted, and ultimately frustratingly unsatisfying look at the ill fated maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic. Cameron is a gifted filmmaker, but he’s always been more of a director than a writer…nowhere is that more apparent than with this film. Yes, the special effects are still great, and the 3D doesn’t hurt the film at all (thought it doesn’t help it all either), but this re-release just feels completely unnecessary to me. I realize that women are the target audience and those who saw the film 3 or 4 times initially will no doubt go back for another viewing, but just looking at it as a film on its own terms, it’s just not worth the fuss. There’s also no reason on Earth that this film should be 3 hours and 15 minutes long, but I’ll get to that later on. I’ll concede that the movie completely works for some people, but for me I mostly found it to still be the cloying mess that turned me off initially. Few winners of the Best Picture Oscar are, in my eyes, more overrated than this one.
