PLANET 51 is a perfectly sweet film that kiddies will adore. Their adults, on the other hand, may find it more of a slog. The story is predictable, the characters are stock. Both those failings are mitigated by good, if not dazzling, animation, and a mechanical rover, cleverly named Rover, that is in the mold… Read More »
THE A-TEAM
The biggest mistake in making a testosterone-fueled action fantasy is to have it take itself too seriously. THE A-TEAM doesnt fall into that trap. Instead, it takes everything that was fun about the series on which it was based and amps it up into stratospherically ridiculous heights. And it does so with an irresistible insouciance… Read More »
TOTAL RECALL
TOTAL RECALL is a pleasant revisiting of Philip K. Dicks short story, I Can Remember It For You Wholesale that also, and with a whole heart, acknowledges its cinematic predecessor of the same name. While that version was plastic and kitschy, not unlike its star, Arnold Schwartzenegger, this one takes a grimmer view of a… Read More »
PLAYING FOR KEEPS
PLAYING FOR KEEPS is a slow drip of a movie that refuses to make up its mind about what it wants to be as it circles the drain. Less than the sum of its parts, it essays the rom-com, the domestic drama, and the heartwarming personal redemption genres all at once, and manages to hit… Read More »
THE ILLUSIONIST
Click here to listen to the interview with Neil Burger (15:34). A man in shirtsleeves sitting in intense concentration on a bare stage. The audience watching in rapt silence. Police lining the aisles ready to act. Thus begins THE ILLUSIONIST, a tale of sleight-of-hand, misdirection, and magic in many senses of the word. The only… Read More »
NEXT
NEXT is a lackluster bit of nothing that fails to work up much interest in itself, much less in the audience unfortunate enough to be watching it. Based on an excellent story, “The Golden Man”, by Phillip K. Dick, this adaptation by ary Goldman, Jonathan Hensleigh, and Paul Bernbaum gut what is best in Dick’s… Read More »
I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU CHUCK AND LARRY
I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU CHUCK AND LARRY is another self-indulgent, unfunny wallow in what Adam Sandler thinks is funny. From the first fart joke (10 minutes in) to the second fart joke (11 minutes in), to the self-congratulatory deus ex machina ending that is supposed to redeem the previous excruciating two hours, it is a… Read More »