The fanboys (and girls) will likely be satisfied, and those others of us who trudged through the rest of the movies will find it a more entertaining and quicker-paced conclusion (certainly compared with the insufferably slow Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009), and the interminably boring Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (2010)). Things come to an end, but because I didn’t much care about the characters, it really wasn’t very dramatic or triumphant or even sad. Truth be told, I did feel a twinge of regret that the vast resources of money and filmic talent could not have been put toward adapting more worthy material!
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Tags: Battlestar Galactica, Darth Vader, George Lucas, Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, JJ Abrams, JK Rowling, Legend of the Seeker, Lost, Luke Skywalker, movie, Ronald D Moore, Star Wars, Sword of Truth, Terry Goodkind
Serviceable comic book fare, Captain America: The First Avenger tells a simple story which is better executed than its predecessor Avenger movie, Thor. It’s not as jingoistic as you might expect, given the name. The hook is that Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) was selected to become a superhero not because he knows how to beat up the bad guys, but precisely because he isn’t a bully and doesn’t want to kill anybody, even if they are Nazis.
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Tags: Captain America, comics, movie, The Avengers
I spent most of this film’s running time worrying about the Bluetooth headset that I’d misplaced somewhere … to summarize the plot, Jack (Sean Penn) wakes up, walks to work, travels up an elevator, has some meetings at the office, rides back down the elevator, and walks back home as the sun starts setting. During the day, he reminisces about growing up in 1950s suburban Texas. The good parts are random scenes evoking childhood feelings, and a pretty cool but irrelevant CGI sequence showcasing the birth of the universe and of life on Earth. But nothing really hangs together
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Tags: movie, Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
Woody Allen still churns them out, this time a rom com souffle located in Paris, with a garnish of 1920s nostalgia. Owen Wilson is actually not bad as a put-upon writer, and Marion Cotillard is the luminous love interest. Add some jokes for the Hemingway/ Picasso/ Dali/ Fitzgerald crowd, and Allen’s fashioned a movie that would appeal to lovers of last year’s similarly light and fluffy The King’s Speech.
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Tags: Midnight in Paris, movie, Woody Allen
Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old-Virgin, Knocked Up) only produced rather than directed, but it has the same core formula: smart potty-mouthed script, hilarious gross-out set pieces piling joke on over-the-top-joke, and a likeable loser protagonist whose pride, fall and emotional growth provide the film’s pathos. The main differences this time are the female leads (compared with the usual male leads) – including a fearless star turn from SNL comedienne Kirsten Wiig – and the classically ‘chick flick’ subjects of weddings, bridal parties, BFFs and a budding romance. Certainly entertaining enough, watchable by women and men alike, though not quite as laugh-out-loud funny as its sibling films.
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Tags: Bridesmaids, chick flick, gross-out comedy, Judd Apatow, movie, Paul Feig
Best of the 2011 comic book movies so far (though that’s not a huge endorsement), this prequel revives the flagging X-Men franchise with by-the-numbers competence. While not as exhilirating or quirky as Vaughn’s last superhero flick Kick-Ass (2010), the action keeps moving, interspersed with the contrasting back-stories and philosophies of the upper-class idealist Charles Xavier/Professor X (James McAvoy) and the concentration camp survivor-realist Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto (Michael Fassbender). Goes beyond standard superhero scripts by dealing with themes of prejudice and xenophobia, and repeating the ‘smart action’ of the first flick (2000), where the mutant’s abilities are used in interesting and sometimes surprising ways.
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Tags: comics, First Class, Matthew Vaughn, movie, superheroes, X-Men
“Ho-hum, ho-hum, I’d rather have a bottle of rum” than watch this snoozefest! Director Rob Marshall (Chicago) has fashioned something better than Pirates 2 and 3, but that’s not a high bar. There’s one action scene that is half-exciting (Jack Sparrow’s (Johnny Depp) escape from the London palace) but the rest seems to drag, which is a problem for an action flick. The plot’s not as convoluted as the prior 2 installments, but it still doesn’t make sense …
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Tags: Disney theme park, Johnny Depp, movie, On Stranger Tides, Penelope Cruz, Pirates of the Carribean, Rob Marshall
Slightly better than average for a big-budget superhero movie, especially considering Thor is positively B-list among the comic pantheon. Not bad CGI action, watchable faux-Shakespearean Asgard scenes (directed by Kenneth Branagh no less), but the movie falls apart when the action is on Earth. You’re supposed to buy that Thor (Australian newcomer Chris Hemsworth) learns humility and falls in love with a mortal (Natalie Portman), but it just doesn’t seem as believable as even the sci fantasy scenes of the Norse gods come to life.
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Tags: Chris Hemsworth, comics, Kenneth Branagh, movie, Natalie Portman, Thor
Above average, intelligent sci fi thriller wherein Jake Gyllenhaal makes up for his appalling turn in Prince of Persia. Interesting premise, with characters and back story you can care about, though the ending is perhaps a little too saccharine. If you digged Inception, then you’ll probably like Source Code (a little less mind-bending, a bit more action and explosions) …
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Tags: Duncan Jones, Inception, Jake Gyllenhaal, movie, Source Code
Stylishly shot action thriller with a teenage waif (Saoirse Ronan) in the role of Jason Bourne. Not much of a plot, not many answers, not much emotional connection and identification with the audience, atrocious German and American accents from Australian actors Eric Bana and Cate Blanchett, but it has some nicely set up cinematography with references to dark fairy tales, e.g. the main villain emerging from within the darkness of a wolf’s gaping maw.
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Tags: Bourne, Cate Blanchett, Eric Bana, Hana, Joe Wright, movie, Saoirse Ronan
The fanboys (and girls) will likely be satisfied, and those others of us who trudged through the rest of the movies will find it a more entertaining and quicker-paced conclusion (certainly compared with the insufferably slow Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009), and the interminably boring Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (2010)). Things come to an end, but because I didn’t much care about the characters, it really wasn’t very dramatic or triumphant or even sad. Truth be told, I did feel a twinge of regret that the vast resources of money and filmic talent could not have been put toward adapting more worthy material!
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