Taking aim squarely at a society that demands that its women be obedient, or at least self-effacing, ELLA ENCHANTED, based on the classic book by Gail Carson Levine, uses the archetypal story of Cinderella to skewer convention with that most deadly and effective of weapons: humor. Theres not a trace of bile or vitriol, either,… Read More »
HELLBOY
There are a lot of tentacles in HELLBOY, squiggly, slimy-looking, Lovecraft-inspired killing machines with a taste for human flesh. Actually, any flesh. And theyre done with a nod to special effects legend Ray Harryhausen. Theres just a suspicion of his brand of stop-action movement that makes for a bit of 50s-style nostalgia amid the impending… Read More »
VAN HELSING
VAN HELSING is a film that does not do things by halves. One might, in principle, admire the way it pulls out all the stops early on, but the results, a hemorrhaging husk that eventually dissolves into the same sort of dust as the staked vampires that people its running time, prevents admiring it in… Read More »
HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN
Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) spends a lot of time being knocked cold in the third installment of J.K. Rowlings Harry Potter series, HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN. Its hardly surprising, between mishaps at Quiddich matches, the Dementors, particularly nasty creatures that Ill get to later, and the amount of story to get though,… Read More »
THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW
THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW understands that its premise, a cataclysmic climate change that happens in less than a week, is hard for even the most sympathetic audience to swallow. It thoughtfully has its characters mentioning that its all very odd and to be suitably surprised by it all. Given that expositional permission, the audience is… Read More »
CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK, THE
As THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK opens, Vin Diesel, playing the eponymous Riddick, is faced with impossible odds in a life-and-possibly-death situation. He prevails with a combination of strength, cunning, and attitude that is a lethal weapon in and of itself. And there, boys and girls, is the film in a nutshell. Of course, it doesnt… Read More »
SPIDERMAN 2
I so want to like SPIDERMAN 2 with the unreserved satisfaction that I found with the original. Here is a franchise that is unafraid to tackle serious, real-life issues such as the stickiness of human interaction and dwindling bank accounts, while still pursuing serious reel-life fun. Alas, where the original SPIDERMAN dealt metaphorically and with… Read More »
I, ROBOT
The best speculative fiction considers what it means to be human and I, ROBOT, comes tantalizingly close to rendering that conundrum on screen. Alas, not close enough. The film, which has the honesty to bill itself as merely suggested by the story of the same name by Isaac Asimov, is a pale simulacrum more interested… Read More »
SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW
The most amazing thing about SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW is that the art direction isn’t the end of the story. Using sets created digitally and added to footage of actors emoting in front of a blue screen, writer/director Kerry Conran has fashioned an eye-popping roller coaster of a film that is a… Read More »
FINAL CUT, THE
There is something disconcerting to have a life summed up in the number of hours lived, or to have scenes from that life played out with subtitle indicating the persons name and age, age in years, months and hours. It those moments that provide the grist for THE FINAL CUTs mill, a film that takes… Read More »
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