While Ridley Scott was busy filling THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, his saga of the Crusades, with sweeping vistas of warfare, oceans of soldiers bent on carnage, and forests of siege engines gliding purposefully towards embattled Jerusalem, he forgot to add a story that would engross an audience. Or even work up a ripple in interest.… Read More »
Search Results for: coherence
STAR WARS EPISODE III — REVENGE OF THE SITH
STAR WARS EPISODE III — REVENGE OF THE SITH is marginally better than its two predecessors. But to put that in the proper perspective, that’s like saying that typhoid fever is marginally better than the ebola virus. It is a difference without a meaningful distinction. The point of EPISODE III is to explore the specifics… Read More »
A SOUND OF THUNDER
A SOUND OF THUNDER isn’t just a bad movie, it is one that is so hopelessly ridiculous, so relentlessly inept, that it sullies the art of filmmaking as a whole. It may have even knocked the concept of art itself down a few notches. That is also mangles a classic Ray Bradbury short story only… Read More »
STAY
The failing of most very bad movies is that there was very little in the way of thinking that went into them. That is not the case with STAY. This overbearingly pretentious piffle has been overthought so much in its attempt to be clever and deep that rather than being engaging or mysterious or even… Read More »
GET RICH OR DIE TRYIN’
I can see why this seemed like such a good idea. Jim Sheridan, a director who has made brilliant films about the strife and violence in Northern Ireland and has done so without becoming maudlin, put at the helm of a film that deals with the gangsta culture of violence in contemporary New York. The… Read More »
THE LAKE HOUSE
It’s not that THE LAKE HOUSE, based on the Korean film SIWORE, is an insipid bit of romantic fluff, it’s just that it drags by much like the two-year gulf between our chronologically crossed would-be lovers. And when a film is 108 minutes long, that’s not a good thing. Never mind that its own internal logic starts to… Read More »
SHOOTER
At some point during an action/adventure/thriller flick, the audience is forced to make a choice about the suspension of disbelief. If the film in question is either a strict, but smartly written procedural or an over-the-top fantasy, such decisions are easy. Think the impudent hyperbole of 24 or the taut psychological games of BREACH. Alas,… Read More »
PERFECT STRANGER
There was a reason that we were all warned as kids to be wary of strangers and PERFECT STRANGER reinforces that. Lifeless, plodding, pat, and predictable when it’s not being preposterous, this dreck is an assault on the audience’s intelligence. It doesn’t so much unfold as run out of steam, not that it had much… Read More »