It’s not that THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER is unwatchable. Quite the contrary. The special effects are stupendously unrestrained. The story is adorable, leaning towards a good-natured spoof of superhero movies as practiced in the 2020s. The performances can’t be faulted, even if Christian Bale as the god-hating ex-acolyte out for revenge is far darker, and… Read More »
NIGHTMARE ALLEY
Flames are never far from Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper), starting with those lapping near, but not too near, his heels as he exits the house that he’s just set alight over the body he’s deposited beneath the floorboards. In Guillermo del Toro’s oneiric vision of William Lindsay Gresham’s 1946 novel, NIGHTMARE ALLEY. Notice, too, the… Read More »
AVENGERS: ENDGAME
The stakes have been raised so many times with event flicks that, when approaching one, hope is always tempered with experience about what to expect, to paraphrase Samuel Johnson. With AVENGERS: ENDGAME, though, hope wins out. The spectacle is everything it should be, and the story, of necessity a meandering thing, is nonetheless sustained by… Read More »
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, VOL. II
When GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY blazed into theaters a few years back, it set a high standard for effects-laden sci-fi played for laughs. Volume II has now blazed into theaters, but that standard has not quite been met. This sequel drifts a bit into maudlin sentimentality that has no place in this particular universe, even… Read More »
WAR DOGS
The problem with WAR DOGS is that it refuses to decide what it wants to be. Jittering uncertainly between farce and melodrama, it achieves a few moments of sublime absurdity as it satirizes the business of war by hewing to, and exposing the facts of, said endeavor’s economics. Yet, when it decides to tug at… Read More »
ALOHA
ALOHA is a glorious, unkempt disaster of a film. Individual elements are ambitious, even praiseworthy, but the narrative arc of this comedy-drama about Hawaiian legends, the privatization of space, and a hunky guy with commitment issues falls apart almost as soon as the whirl-a-gig ride begins. Credit where it’s due, though, writer-director Cameron Crowe is… Read More »
CASE 39
CASE 39 takes a potent subtext about the terrors of unprepared parenthood and wastes it in a rote creepy kid flick that displays both iffy internal logic and a trifling execution. Renee Zellweger brings her best to this mess, but alas her efforts, when played out in the vacuum provided her, become at best a… Read More »
LIMITLESS
Its the dream come true. A pill that allows a person to remember everything he or she has ever seen, access it instantly, and fire off the synapses in order to use that information meaningfully in any given situation. Too good to be true? Of course. And thats the rub in LIMITLESS, a spiffy little… Read More »
HANGOVER PART II THE
The makers of THE HANGOVER 2 knew that they would have to up the ante considerably to justify another long strange trip with The Wolfpack. Alas, rather than wait for a suitably upped ante, or any ante at all, they decided to do a retread of the original, this time without the laughs, substituting humor… Read More »
HIT AND RUN
Watching HIT AND RUN, it is safe to deduce that writer, co-star, and co-director Dax Shepard is crazy mad for cars. Not just any cars, but the soup-up ones with massive horsepower, killer pickup, and torque capabilities beyond the ken of the standard-issue assembly line variety. Alas, his adoration for automobiles translates into a film… Read More »