With the combined might of uber-producer Jerry Bruckheimer, Jake Gyllenhall’s rockin’ abs and respected director Mike Newell (Donnie Brasco, Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time hits Memorial Day weekend with a big question mark: will this video-game based movie finally pass over the threshold of wretched to mediocre and inspire a franchise in vein of Pirates of the Caribbean? I’ll always argue a movie’s success should be based on its merits as …
Category: Reviews
Shrek and Shrek 2 can easily be referred to as animated classics and have, like nearly every feature film in the Pixar canon, set the standard for tone and design in computer-animated movies for the last decade. Using irreverence as fuel – almost making concerted efforts to be the anti-Disney, and buoyed by an eclectic list of effective voice talent, the first two Shrek films were able to appeal to adults and kids with its fairytale mix of sweet and …
I had this big introductory paragraph parsed out about how difficult it is to make sequels that don’t suck in Hollywood and how it’s even harder to push out a comic book sequel considering the rabid throng of fans frothing in the background, waiting to pounce if their beloved story isn’t up to par with their expectations. I imagine this type of stress might cause the bookkeepers in Tinsletown to drink Mylanta like an ice-cold pitcher of summertime Kool-Aid and …
When I was ten, I used to have a lot of imaginary adventures with my friends. Many times we’d be army guys, stuck in some impossible situation, fighting against overwhelming odds, and, I’m embarrassed to say, there was usually a lot of overacting along the way…enter The Losers. The latest movie by relatively unknown and unproven director Sylvan White, The Losers began in 1970 as a war comic set during WWII and then re-imagined in the ’90s with its heroes …
Next to the Star Wars saga and the Indiana Jones films, there was no other movie I loved more in the 1980s than Clash of the Titans. After watching Perseus turn the Kraken into stone with Medusa’s severed head, I was obsessed with Greek mythology. I gobbled up any book I could find at the school library. I even dressed up as Perseus on Halloween in 1982. I was 100 percent sure the third-grade ladies would be swooning over me …
First, a warning: Loaded with the stuff eyes love gnoshing, Clash of the Titans should be seen in two dimensions, not three. Filmed top to bottom for a 2D release, Clash of the Titans composition, lighting, effects and edits were created for the unaided eye. As a result, Clash of the Titans retrofitted 3D presentation is a dim, vision punishing mess of double imaging and off-kilter depth; slipshod artifacts that disrupt viewing to the point of souring it. Technological grumbling …
Between Kung Fu Panda and How To Train Your Dragon, Dreamworks Animation is on to something. Thankfully jettisoning the “story built around jokes” framework that’s been their bread and butter since Shrek, How To Train Your Dragon hews more closely to the better connective practice of building an emotionally resounding story. The result is an animated family film that follows a predictable “find your place in the world and teach your community a lesson in the process” trope, but does …
Despite being a taught action-thriller and one of the best films of 2010 (granted we’re only two and half months into the year), only two things will be buzzed about Paul Greengrass’ (The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum) new Matt Damon-starring movie, Green Zone: Shaky/Queasy Cam and politics. Fortunately, most competent viewers will ease past the low-hanging, easy-to-reach baseless pedestrian criticisms and savor the unapologetic story Greengrass and screenwriter Brian Helgeland (The Taking of Pelham 123) deliver with frantic …