Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category

Short Take: A fun adventure from beginning to end, but suffers from the lack of courage

Director: Jordan Vogt-Roberts

Screenwriter: Chris Galletta

Cast: Nick Robinson, Gabriel Basso, Moises Arias, Nick Offerman, Marc Evan Jackson, Erin Moriarty, Megan Mullally, Alison Brie, Eugene Cordero

Length: 1h 33m

Frustrated with their lives at home, two teenagers named Joe (Robinson) and Patrick (Basso) decide one summer to run away into the woods and live on their own. Together, also joined by a mysterious and bizarre boy named Biaggio (Arias), the teens build a house, “forage” for food, and have the adventure of their lives.

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Short Take: An intriguing concept that gets bogged down by an overly complicated plot

Director: Louis Leterrier

Screenwriters: Ed Solomon, Boaz Yakin, Edward Ricourt

Cast: Mark Ruffalo, Mélanie Laurent, Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine

Length: 1h 55m

A mysterious hooded figure gathers together four talented magicians (Eisenberg, Fisher, Harrelson, Franco) and turns them into a team called The Four Horsemen. During a big Las Vegas show, they pull off the trick of stealing 3 million euros from a Parisian bank. FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Ruffalo) and Interpol agent Alma Dray (Laurent) are tasked with finding any explanation for the heist beyond magic. They’re helped by a former magician now devoted to exposing the secrets behind the trickery, Thaddeus Bradley (Freeman), but as the group pulls off one heist after another, Rhodes slowly discovers there might be something more sinister at work. Read the rest of this entry »

Short Take: Proves to be about a lot more than the franchise’s humble beginnings would suggest

Director: Justin Lin

Screenwriters: Chris Morgan

Cast: Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Dwayne Johnson, Sung Kang, Tyrese Gibson, Luke Evans, Ludacris, Gina Carano

Length: 2 hours 10 minutes

When a new crew of fast-driving thieves – led by Owen Shaw (Evans) – wreak havoc in London, Federal Agent Hobbs (Johnson) calls in Dominic Toretto (Diesel) and his retired crew to help stop them. However, Dom is attracted to the job by more than just the full pardons Hobbs has promised if they succeed, as his former crew member and girlfriend, Letty (Rodriguez), seems to have survived her apparent death in Fast & Furious, and is now working with Shaw. Read the rest of this entry »

Short Take: Dazzling visuals and a great cast fail to hide the script’s major flaws

Director: J.J. Abrams

Screenwriters: Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof

Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Benedict Cumberbatch, Anton Yelchin, Bruce Greenwood, Peter Weller, Alice Eve

After a mysterious terrorist (Cumberbatch) attacks Starfleet, Captain James T. Kirk (Pine), First Officer Spock (Quinto), Lt. Uhura (Saldana), and the rest of the crew aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise make it their mission to find him and bring him to justice. They soon find that not only is the terrorist more dangerous than they bargained for, but that there is a larger conspiracy at play.

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Short Take: A fun ride that makes up for the atrocious Iron Man 2, yet doesn’t live up to all its potential

Director: Shane Black

Screenwriters: Drew Pearce, Shane Black

Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Guy Pearce, Don Cheadle, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Kingsley, Rebecca Hall, William Sadler

Length: 2h 10m

The world is facing a grave new terrorist threat, and it goes by the name of The Mandarin (Kingsley). The precocious Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man (Downey Jr.), is at a loss in figuring out how the maniac has left no evidence of how his efforts have caused so much destruction. And after Tony is forced to take one attack personally, he invites The Mandarin to make him his next target – which he does.

In reeling from an explosive ambush at his home, Tony discovers that Aldrich Killian (Pearce) – a genius he once ignored – is in cahoots with The Mandarin, turning humans into living bombs. With the help of Col. James Rhodes, a.k.a. Iron Patriot (Cheadle), Tony must uncover The Mandarin’s master plan and thwart it, all the while dealing with unsettling anxieties left over from his adventure with The Avengers. Will Tony redeem himself for underestimating the evil potential of Aldrich Killian, and spare the world of any more terror from The Mandarin? There’s only one way to find out.

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Short Take: A love letter to sci-fi classics that forgets to have its own story

Director: Joseph Kosinski

Screenwriters: Karl Gajdusek and Michael Arndt

Cast: Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko, Andrea Riseborough, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Melissa Leo, Zoe Bell

Length: 2h 4m

The year is 2077. Earth has been devastated after a nuclear war with extraterrestrial forces, and the human race has migrated to live on one of Saturn’s moons while a select few have stayed behind to clean up the mess. Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) is one of these people. Two weeks away from the end of his contract on Earth, however, he begins to discover some unsettling truths about the planet’s current state, and he finds that he may be the only person who can make things right.

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Short Take: A rare remake with genuine inspiration beyond its predecessor, and the most impressive gore effects this side of Tom Savini

Director: Fede Alvarez

Screenwriters: Fede Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues

Cast: Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jessica Lucas, Elizabeth Blackmore

Length: 1h 31m

Mia (Jane Levy), her brother David (Shiloh Fernandez), and a few of their friends are retreating to an old family-owned cabin deep in the woods in order to seclude Mia from everyday life. The reason for this is because Mia is trying desperately to force herself to kick her drug addiction, but needs the others’ help. Once at the cabin, however, evidence of an evil presence reveals itself in the form of a book with demonic incantations. After reading from the book the group begins suffering an onslaught of the foulest, most gruesome terrors they could ever imagine, until only one of them is left to survive the emergence of evil incarnate.

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Short Take: Acclaimed Korean director Chan-Wook Park’s reputation should remain very well intact with this outstanding English-language debut

Director: Chan-Wook Park

Screenwriter: Wentworth Miller, Erin Cressida Wilson (contributor)

Cast: Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode, Dermot Mulroney, Jacki Weaver, Nicole Kidman

Length: 1 hour, 39 minutes

After the untimely death of her father (Dermot Mulroney), 18-year-old India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska) and her temperamental mother (Nicole Kidman) find their world shaken by the sudden arrival of her father’s long-lost brother Charlie (Matthew Goode). Once he takes up residence with the bereft, India finds herself changed by his presence – but in a way she doesn’t quite yet understand.

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Short Take: Gripping and engrossing, but deservedly controversial.

Director: Katharine Bigelow

Screenwriter: Mark Boal

Cast: Jessica Chastain, Joel Edgerton, Mark Strong, Kyle Chandler, Jennifer Ehle

Length: 2h 37m

The United States’ War on Terror began after the attacks of September 11^th, 2001, with the leader of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, embracing responsibility. Over the next decade, bin Laden was the most wanted man in the world. Maya (Chastain), the spearhead of every initiative designated to finding bin Laden, started out green with on-the-ground intelligence dealing, but quickly found her footing. Her tenacity and resilience pays off in the end, but not before terrorist threats take an incalculable toll on both her and her fellow countrymen. But as the hunt comes to its long awaited end, she must grapple with what comes next.

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Short Take: Another generic Nicholas Sparks adaptation that can’t be saved by any amount of pretty scenery or interesting supporting cast members

Director: Lasse Hallström

Screenwriter: Leslie Bohem and Dana Stevens (screenplay), Nicholas Sparks (novel)

Cast: Julianne Hough, Josh Duhamel, Cobie Smulders, David Lyons

Runtime: 1 hour 55 minutes

Katie (Hough) arrives in Southport, North Carolina on a bus traveling from Boston to Atlanta. On the lam from the determined Detective Tierney (Lyons) and sporting a new hairstyle, she decides to live a low profile life in the town. She works at a local restaurant and buys a cabin in the woods, but she catches the attention of Alex (Duhamel), a shop-owning, damaged single dad. Though she resists his charms at first, with some convincing from her friendly neighbor, Jo (Smulders), she stops resisting even as her mysterious past threatens to ruin her new life. Read the rest of this entry »