The bad boys are back and, despite pre-emptive acknowledgements about how time is catching up with Miami’s most bombastic comedy duo of cop partners, the action is as fresh and fun as ever in BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE. If the schtick between “sensible” Mike and buffoonish Marcus isn’t quite as fresh or fun, transmogrifying… Read More »
SAN ANDREAS’ Flight of Fancy
If nothing else, SAN ANDREAS is one of the finest advertisements ever made for the importance of emergency preparedness. Those who survive the state-long earthquake that erupts on the eponymous fault line are either those who know to duck under a table or shelter by a solid wall, or those who are related to those… Read More »
SANCTUM
James Cameron neither wrote nor directed SANCTUM, but his fingerprints as the executive producer of same are all over it. Visually, it’s an exhilarating experience. As for the storytelling, the word lugubrious comes to mind. The writing is stiff and ridden with clichés, with cheese-ish motifs overwhelmed by swelling, overwrought music cues that forge straight… Read More »
KING ARTHUR
The legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table conjure up words such as magic, stirring, spellbinding, and timeless, none of which apply to Jerry Bruckheimer’s cinematic rendering. Except, maybe, the timeless part, because sitting through this seems like an eternity. Bruckheimer and director Antoine Fuqua have taken gold, as in the… Read More »
FANSTASTIC FOUR
It’s Ioan Gruffudd for whom I feel the most sorry. He’s a fine British actor who distinguished himself in, among other efforts, the most recent television adaptation of THE FORSYTE SAGA. In FANTASTIC 4, he’s relegated to the role of an earnest, if super smart, beagle. As the first installment of what the studio… Read More »