You searched for "film review"

https://hotair.com/archives/jazz-shaw/2016/12/27/film-review-passengers/

Posted: December 27, 2016

Pratt and Lawrence perform well as the romantic couple, even if the facts of their circumstances should really have scotched any attempt at a lasting romance (at least in my opinion.) The remaining players are Michael Sheen (who nearly steals the show as the robot bartender) and Laurence Fishburne, who does a serviceable job as the sole crew member who eventually awakens. … (The physics behind a swimming pool which is suddenly put into a zero gravity environment while you're swimming in it are certainly questionable and plenty of Reddit threads have popped up discussing that scene.) The fact that a mechanic who builds houses can suddenly master the intricacies of cryogenic pods and gravity driven deep space engines is left to the the viewer's tolerances in terms of losing yourself in the story. … (This is the reason I chose the trailer embedded above instead of some of the others which focus more on the action and science.) Even the primary plot device of the film, which is the technical failure of the ship's equipment, is a contrived, twisted scenario designed to create tension between the two primary characters…

Film review: Risen

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2016/02/22/film-review-risen/

Posted: February 22, 2016

Rather than offer an earnest and straightforward retelling of the Gospel as in Son of God, or fantastical Biblical action films such as Noah or Exodus: Gods and Kings, we get a view of the story from the skeptic's perspective. … When asked why, I replied that this trailer hinted at an interesting approach -- perhaps a Law and Order: Judea of sorts -- and a recognizable cast, which independent Bible-based films sometimes lack, and often don't really need. … Roman tribune Clavius returns from putting down another Judean partisan militia to Jerusalem, where Pontius Pilate assigns him a pressing task -- to ensure the death of a Nazarene ascetic that had just been crucified that morning…

Film review: Wanderlust

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2012/03/03/film-review-wanderlust/

Posted: March 3, 2012

The always-luminous Malin Akerman (Watchmen, 27 Dresses) feels more like a token free-love babe, but Lauren Ambrose manages to get above the material to project a vulnerable and slightly loopy Earth Mother (almost literally) in a smaller role. … The Lorax is an adaptation of a Dr. Seuss book on conservation that's preachy enough in its short form, and the thought of sitting through a 90-minute padded-out lecture didn't appeal to me at all; Project X looks like Can't Hardly Wait meets The Hangover and was even less appealing. … This week I decided that I would start seeing a new movie each week as a way to engage more on the entertainment industry, after having a conversation over a week ago with Steven Crowder in which he challenged me to follow through…

Film review: Gravity

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2013/10/06/film-review-gravity/

Posted: October 6, 2013

The low-earth orbit area has a number of satellites whose destruction could create this problem, but (a) the telecom satellites suggested in Gravity as part of the chain reaction are 22,000 miles up in geosynchronous orbit, and (b) the debris field wouldn't shift altitudes like it does in Gravity. … The debris field seems to change orbits too, moving from the Hubble orbit of 353 miles to the International Space Station's of ~270 miles, all the way to the fictional Chinese platform which drops to 8o or so miles up as the debris hits the station just before the station hits the atmosphere. … The realistic considerations of thrust and momentum play big roles in the harrowing events that take place, playing on the worst fears of anyone who hasn't been in space imagines that adventure to contain…

Film review: Prisoners

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2013/09/22/film-review-prisoners/

Posted: September 22, 2013

(Loki is a reference to the prankster Norse god, but perhaps that's just irony here.) Even with that, though, the film offers an intriguing look at spiritual warfare and at redemption -- note the plural of Prisoners well -- even if it's a muddled and inconsistent look at it. … Second, in a sequence near the end of the film, Detective Loki decides to drive a victim to the hospital at breakneck speed on a snowy night while being injured himself -- rather than just call for an ambulance and back-up. … Besides the film length and the heavy-handed way that the film handles Christianity (see below), though, Prisoners is very satisfying as a thriller, although at times the film tries to fit a little too much into the mystery…

Film review: Rush

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2013/09/29/film-review-rush/

Posted: September 29, 2013

Howard uses plenty of visual tricks in the action sequences to give us a sense of the adrenalin rush, as well as the confusion and danger, but plays the rest of the sequences more straightforwardly, rather than use Shaky Cam throughout the film. … " They certainly jousted through their parallel careers, but it's the discipline of Lauda that allows him not only to return just six weeks after nearly dying in the crash, but also to win two more world championships -- his final crown coming five years after Hunt last competed in a race. … Instead, it turns out to be more the story of his nemesis and eventual comrade, James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth, Thor, Cabin in the Woods), whose racing career would end less than three seasons later but who later had a second career as a BBC commentator…

Film review: Oblivion

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2013/05/11/film-review-oblivion/

Posted: May 11, 2013

Oblivion telegraphs a few of its punches; the backstory Jack tells in narration doesn't seem to make too much sense right off the bat, and all of Oblivion's trailers give away part of the game. … It's only when Jack runs across a book while fighting off what he thinks are aliens, and then has a chance to rescue a woman who often appears in his dreams (Olga Kurlyenko), that Jack's humanity begins to emerge from his drone-like existence as a drone repairman. … But with just two weeks left before their mission ends, Jack starts getting more and more attached to Earth -- and suddenly, a blast from the past triggers a chain of events that has him questioning everything…

Film review: Parker

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2013/01/27/film-review-parker/

Posted: January 27, 2013

Jennifer Lopez has a more substantial role as a down-on-her-luck real-estate agent who senses a break, and plays the part well -- but the character seems more in the way of the story than integral to it. … Instead of the stylish cynicism, artistic cinematography, and snappy dialogue of Payback or Point Blank, though, Parker has the feel of a paint-by-numbers heist flick. … (As an aside: an old school friend of mine, Duane Epstein, will shortly release a biography of Marvin titled Point Blank.) That film was remade with Mel Gibson in 1999 as Payback, a flawed but stylish noir piece that is one of Gibson's better films…

Film review: Chappaquiddick

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2018/04/07/film-review-chappaquiddick/

Posted: April 7, 2018

He complains that his family wanted him to jump into the race after the death of his brother, he whines about his father's overbearing manner and desire for him to lead a "serious life," and then after the accident laments the possibility that his greatness might never get expressed ... with hardly a thought of Mary Jo Kopechne. … For those who have never heard the story or the details of what happened, the truth may come as a shock, especially given the 40 years of political life Kennedy had after he abandoned the young woman and hid the accident for several hours -- hours in which Kopechne might well have been rescued. … Those familiar with those details will not find any new surprises in the film, but instead a highly realistic walkthrough of the events of July 18-19 and the subsequent events up through Kennedy's nationally televised speech a week after Kopechne's death…

Film review: Avatar

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2009/12/20/film-review-avatar/

Posted: December 20, 2009

It mostly comes later in the movie, when the commander of a military base attempts to rally the humans in response to what he calls "terrorism," talks of making a "pre-emptive strike," and promises a "shock and awe" effort. … Let's start with the best aspects of the film, and the best of its best is the CGI for the scenes on Pandora with the Na'vi, an indigenous race on a planet whose natural resources are coveted by "the Corporation," an East India Trading Company for the 22nd century or so. … Perhaps that advance promotion was unfortunate, because James Cameron has made an entertaining popcorn movie that moves quickly and creates a beautiful vision of a forest world with its stunning CGI…

Film review: Sully

https://hotair.com/archives/jazz-shaw/2016/09/25/film-review-sully/

Posted: September 25, 2016

(Warning: there's plenty of background on this issue at that link, but it will probably spoil more of the film for you if you read it.) They did ask him about drinking and his home life, but they ask every pilot that after there's been an incident. … That's provided in full from various perspectives throughout the film and it doesn't disappoint, but the real story is about the aftermath of the event, particularly the investigation by the NTSB into the details of the incident. … I won't bore you with the details of what the story is about because if you didn't hear about the forced water landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in 2009 and what it took for Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger to land that bird on the Hudson River in one piece, you probably don't have electricity or leave your house enough to watch movies anyway…

Film review: Fracknation

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2013/01/20/film-review-fracknation/

Posted: January 20, 2013

From the farmers of the Delaware River Basin, for whom fracking hysteria has meant a loss of crucial income, to experts like James Delingpole, who somehow makes a fairly reasoned case that the anti-fracking people are the tools of Russian President Vladimir Putin (for whom the natural-gas market provides political leverage), most of the voices entertained here make a good deal of sense. … Irish journalist McAleer narrates and serves as host to this briskly paced, low-budget and mischievous pic, presented as a rebuttal to Josh Fox's Oscar-nominated "Gasland," a docu that has been instrumental in building political resistance to a process seen by different factions as a godsend and an antidote to Big Oil. … (It's amazing how little some lawyers know about the First Amendment.) Instead of speaking with Hollywood actors and the UAE (which provided some funding for Promised Land), Phelim speaks with the farmers in the supposedly-blighted areas of Pennsylvania, New York, and the Delaware Rivery Valley, as well as experts on fracking, water science, and environmental agencies…

Film review: Noah

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2014/03/31/film-review-noah/

Posted: March 31, 2014

Ray Winstone plays the main antagonist Tubal-Cain as the embodiment of Al Pacino's rant at the end of The Devil's Advocate but with a lot more subtlety than Aronofsky demonstrates or deserves, and provides a revenge subplot that could have come out of The Patriot or Braveheart. … And let's not forget the redemption of the rock monsters/angels, who get beamed back to Paradise for their heroic efforts to stomp out human beings ... or perhaps were just too stupid all along to try to peel back their rock covers until they were in the middle of a battle. … Noah goes from his Biblical characterization, as the man God chooses to safeguard the best of humanity for a fresh start to creation, to a man obsessed with the idea of killing every human being possible -- including his freshly-born twin granddaughters…

Film review: Unbroken

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2015/01/14/film-review-unbroken/

Posted: January 14, 2015

Unlike the impression left at the end of the film, Zamperini in real life was hobbled by the emotional scars of his torture, especially at the hands of The Bird, who in real life was significantly more bizarre and sadistic than shown in the film. … There are a few allusions to Zamperini's misbegotten youth, his transformation via his older brother Pete (John D'Leo and Alex Russell, both in good supporting performances) and his rise as a teenage track phenom who made it all the way to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, but mostly as a set-up to his survival in two notorious camps and his personal battle against The Bird. … Unbroken, a film by Angelina Jolie from the Laura Hillenbrand biography of the same name, tells the story of Louis Zamperini, a man who lived an epic life of service, survival, glory, agony, and redemption…

Film review: The Interview

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2014/12/28/film-review-the-interview/

Posted: December 28, 2014

The only other cast members of significance are Diana Bang as Sook, a DPRK functionary who becomes Rogen's highly-unlikely love interest, and Lizzy Caplan as the CIA agent that recruits the two worst cases of arrested development in America for the assassination. … Finally, as the film comes crashing to its conclusion, it's difficult to miss the parallels to Moon Over Parador, a Richard Dreyfuss-Raul Julia comedy that didn't get a tenth of the attention The Interview received, but a film that delivers on a shaky premise at least ten times better, and gets plenty of laughs without a single reference to defecation or anuses. … The decision by some smaller theater operators to show the film demonstrated some courage and defiance, and the uneventful showings of The Interview exposed the lack of corporate intestinal fortitude in the larger chains in the face of hardly-credible threats…

Film review: The Giver

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2014/08/16/film-review-the-giver/

Posted: August 16, 2014

While some of the events are predictable -- this is a dystopian fantasy written for middle-school audiences, after all -- The Giver is still worthy enough to go to the theater to see it, especially in this season of explosive special effects, comic-book characters, and general vapidity. … Taking a cue from Pleasantville, a film which asked similar questions but wrapped them up in ultimately incoherent political and cultural arguments, the film starts off with no color at all, just a monochromatic testament to the operating ideology of Sameness -- a system which insures from the top down that no deviation from the average will ever take place. … Imagine a world in which all human emotion has been muted through pharmaceutical interventions, where even family life gets dictated by the "community," and where aspiration, hope, and faith have been replaced by elders who control not just who does what but who lives and dies…

Film review: The Muppets

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2011/11/25/film-review-the-muppets/

Posted: November 25, 2011

" The Muppets set out on a road trip to get their group back together, fix the theater, and raise the money to protect it and their own names, as the rival Moopets look to take their place with Richman's help. … The Muppets have long since gone their separate ways, so when brothers Gary (Segel) and Walter (a Muppet voiced by Peter Linz) travel to Los Angeles with Gary's girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams) to see their studio, it's a wreck that's about to be seized by ruthless billionaire Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) who wants to destroy it to drill for oil. … At some level, though, I'm sure we also loved the connection to our quickly-departing childhoods, made easier by the genuinely high quality of the supposedly shoestring production values, plus the never-ending string of celebrities who willingly played along with the joke…

Film review: The Undefeated

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2011/06/06/film-review-the-undefeated/

Posted: June 6, 2011

If the other technical issues didn't distract from the message, the running time might not be much of a problem, but as it is, only those who already passionately support Palin are likely to stick around for the whole movie -- most of whom already know the background from Going Rogue. … Interesting archive footage featuring Palin alternates with stock nature footage, acted vignettes such as sand being shoveled onto someone's face on a beach, artistic representations of cigar-chomping politicians in back rooms, lions taking down a zebra and munching on it for dinner, and so on. … People who appear in the film as commentators, like Mark Levin, Andrew Breitbart, Tammy Bruce, and Meghan Stapleton, have their images jumping around on screen constantly, changing from straightforward color to overexposed monochrome and back again, against harsh white backgrounds…

Film review: Up

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2009/06/07/film-review-up/

Posted: June 7, 2009

One last note: I would swear that the artists who created Carl and Muntz deliberately made them look like the older versions of Spencer Tracy and Kirk Douglas, respectively. … It opens with two children in the Depression era, meeting and playing in a dilapidated house in which they pretend to be their common hero, famed explorer Charles Muntz, traveling through South America. … In fact, it starts off with a surprisingly poignant and touching sequence, which gives the film more emotional depth than one might expect in a movie aimed at children…

Film review: “The Phenomenon”

https://hotair.com/archives/jazz-shaw/2020/10/07/film-review-phenomenon/

Posted: October 7, 2020

Prior to the release of the film, Lue Elizondo, who ran AATIP, went out on social media, heartily endorsing the film and suggesting that it provides a peek at information that he wished he could tell the world himself but is barred from doing so because of his nondisclosure agreements. … Fox does spend some time on several of the more famous UAP/UFP incidents from around the world, uncovering details that many of us hadn't previously heard, as well as bringing current updates from some of the key players into the mix. … Fox takes one of the deepest dives imaginable into the realm of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, UFOs, or whatever you're calling them these days and it contains some eye-opening revelations even for those who follow this subject closely…

Film review: The King

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2019/11/16/film-review-king/

Posted: November 16, 2019

Unfortunately, the film doesn't square a contradiction within the contradiction this presents, but the question itself can never be fully answered, as Henry realizes -- and this lends more purpose to the preceding two hours of The King than it promised to that point. … England and France had engaged in The Hundred Years War for, well, many years before Agincourt, and far from being a reluctant imperial king, Henry fought a second campaign major in France afterward to establish the Plantagenet claim to the French crown. … One almost expected an elderberry reference in the series of personal insults Pattinson heaps on Chalamet in their scenes together, to which Chalamet is permitted no greater reaction than to get a bit more glum and haunted…

Film review: The Avengers

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2012/05/05/film-review-the-avengers/

Posted: May 5, 2012

Fans of the Marvel series on which the film was based should enjoy themselves, but everyone else had better lower their expectations to that of an average comic-book movie. … With a couple of momentary exceptions -- including a very funny one near the end with the Hulk that had me laughing out loud, and a cameo from a veteran character actor that is the slyest of inside jokes -- nothing unexpected happens. … The Avengers mainly succeeds on the latter point, thanks to elaborate effects and primarily the work of Robert Downey Jr, whose Tony Stark is by far the most interesting of the characters in the film, including the antagonist Loki…

Film review: The Raven

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2012/04/28/film-review-the-raven/

Posted: April 28, 2012

(One of the victims in the film, with whom Poe had a bitter rivalry, actually outlived Poe in real life and wrote a horribly libelous but popular biography that concocted his supposed drug addictions.) Otherwise, The Raven might work for Cusack fans, but otherwise probably makes a better Netflix choice. … For all of the brain power between Poe and Fields, it never really occurs to either to try to get ahead of the murderer's plan to leave clues through serial killings -- only to dutifully trudge from murder to murder in order to find the clues that will lead to Emily, before she gets killed last. … Luke Evans' portrayal of Detective Fields seems pretty quick to discount the disreputable Poe as a suspect, and Evans himself gives an uncanny Clint Eastwood impersonation through most of the film, and that's not a compliment…

Film review: The Purge

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2013/06/09/film-review-the-purge/

Posted: June 9, 2013

Henry (Tony Oller) doesn't last long anyway, and the story line exists only so that DeMonaco can offer viewers a couple of long, creeping shots up Adelaide Kane's legs all the way to her Japanese-schoolgirl miniskirt in makeout scenes. … As the Sandins prepare to lock themselves down in their huge McMansion, Stepford Neighbor (Areija Bareikis) shows up to act out a passive-aggressive skit with Mary Sandin (Lena Headley) so that you know she'll be back to settle a score. … From the hoary and dully predictable slasher-film action, to the scenery chewing from the main villains, and finally to the Sarah Palin-esque masks that some of the purgers inexplicably don for their antics, it's as derivative and intelligence-insulting as it is didactic and wholly uninteresting…

Film review: The Counselor

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2013/10/27/film-review-the-counselor/

Posted: October 27, 2013

(No, I am not kidding; it should win the Elizabeth Berkley-Showgirls Award for least titillating sex scene of the year.) It's not for teenagers or children, and not for a lot of adults, either. … As Ruben Blades says in a cameo appearance, the decisions made in the beginning of the film pretty much dictate everything else that follows afterward, with no sense that the characters can or will do anything to change the direction of the plot. … A lawyer whose outgo outstrips his income makes the decision to get involved in a drug deal to score a quick fortune, believing that he can simply go back to his normal life afterward…

Film review: Joker

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2019/10/12/film-review-joker/

Posted: October 12, 2019

The stretched-out fall of Arthur leaves less room to contemplate the rise of Joker, which makes the first part of the film an at-times frustratingly slow character study, leaving audiences stuck in the head of someone to whom they really can't relate at all. … Thomas Wayne is not a terribly sympathetic character, a change from the DC canon in which Batman's father is usually described in near-martyr terms, and the city's uprising as well as Arthur's own sympathies seem vaguely more in line with Antifa and Occupy Wall Street than Proud Boys and MAGAists. … Taking a cue from Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, Todd Phillips has given the Batman canon another gritty, more realistic origin story to explain its greatest antagonist in Joker -- disturbing, affecting, but perhaps more ultimately nihilistic film than either Phillips or star Joaquin Phoenix intended…

Film review: Resistance

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2020/04/20/film-review-resistance/

Posted: April 20, 2020

The film starts in Strasbourg with a callow Marcel obsessed with his art rather than the world around him, one of the occasional paint-by-numbers tropes noted above, and assuming at first that the rescue of more than a hundred Jewish children from Germany to France will suffice. … This taut and haunting biopic has a few paint-by-numbers tropes, but Jesse Eisenberg's performance as Marceau helps the film to rise above them and make for a genuinely moving experience (via Christian Toto, whose own review can be read here) … " The recently released film Resistance tells the story of how the world's greatest mime risked his life in the French Resistance in World War II and saved the lives of scores of Jewish children…

Film review: Yesterday

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2019/07/08/film-review-yesterday/

Posted: July 8, 2019

Coming as it does in a season where comic-book stories and Roman-numeraled films dominate the choices, Yesterday provides adults with a choice that will challenge their intellects rather than insult or ignore them. … (Jack's struggles to master it are a nice parallel to it as well.) Joel Fry provides some comic relief at the heavier moments as Jack's ne'er-do-well friend/roadie Rocky, and Ed Sheeran provides some more fun as himself in what is significantly more than a cameo. … Himesh Patel's Jack has to confront all of these questions while he just struggles to comprehend the forces he sets in motion, and there isn't a moment along the way where the audience doesn't root for him to get the correct answers -- before it's too late…

Film review: Pixels

https://hotair.com/archives/crankytrex/2015/07/26/film-review-pixels/

Posted: July 26, 2015

Throw in the creepy adult virgin obsessed with conspiracy theories (Josh Gad) and Brennan's jackass rival who's still stuck in the 80s (Peter Dinklage) and they've got a full team of lame gamer stereotypes to take on the likes of Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. … Rather than actually expanding the short film into a larger story, Sandler basically drops his usual tropes into the mix like awkwardly placed Tetris blocks to create yet another retread where he plays some loser caught up in a silly situation that ultimately allows him to woo a pretty woman. … Normally they pick a video game and make some generic action piece with extremely loose connections to the source material, but this time they decided to build upon a French semi-animated short film about about a plethora of classic arcade games coming to life to attack New York City…

Film review: Argo

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2013/02/24/film-review-argo/

Posted: February 24, 2013

(The real-life Chambers chose Argo as the film title because of a love of knock-knock jokes, the punchline of which becomes a running R-rated joke.) This is a CIA film from beginning to end, one of the few success stories that we know from that period, even if we only found out about it years later. … He suggests a cover story that even he and his friend assess as the least bad option: create a film production company, publicize the phony film so that the trade journals pick it up, and then issue fake Canadian passports to the Americans and fly them out of Iran as the film crew. … CIA operative Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck, who also directed) specializes in exfiltration, and faces perhaps his most daunting mission ever -- getting the six Americans hidden by Canada out of Iran, when every Iranian revolutionary wants to find an American spy…

Film review: Epic

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2013/06/02/film-review-epic/

Posted: June 2, 2013

It's a fun film if you have school-age kids who can handle intense situations and action, and thankfully Epic is one kid's film that doesn't try to beat you to death with an ideological stick. … Steve Tyler has a song number and significant screen time as Nim Galuu, a critical character to the plot and perhaps one of the more original characters in the film, and acquits himself well. … MK, as she likes to be called now that she's almost old enough to be on her own, wants nothing to do with her father's work, but after her dog runs out the door, MK runs into the very beings her father has been seeking…

Film review: Creed

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2015/11/27/film-review-creed/

Posted: November 27, 2015

Other flourishes, such as overlays that give ring stats whenever Adonis crosses the path of more established fighters, are a little too stylish for a film looking for grit, but viewers will happily overlook those when the action gets rolling. … Despite the original film and the first sequel being excellent character studies, first of the despair of poverty and oblivion and then of the fright of losing it all, the franchise became a joke (note: I did not see the last film in the series, Rocky Balboa). … The sequels to Rocky did exactly that, especially in the third and fourth films, and turned what had been an underdog to which everyone could relate into some sort of superhuman machine, able to singlehandedly defeat the Soviet Union and avenge the death of friends in the ring…

Film review: The Highwaymen

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2019/03/30/film-review-highwaymen/

Posted: March 30, 2019

Harrelson's presence in this deconstruction is all the more interesting, two decades after his participation in the controversial Natural Born Killers, but he also just happens to give a pitch-perfect performance in The Highwaymen. … While Governor "Ma" Ferguson (Kathy Bates) promises the media that Texas will capture Bonnie and Clyde, it's clear from the start that Hamer's mission is to kill them, full stop, before their gang can kill any more police officers. … The film, which debuted on Netflix yesterday after a small theatrical release on March 15th, strips the pretenses away from both sides of the brief war in the Midwest and gives us an insight not just into what actually took place, but our own propensity for mythologies…

Film review: The Heat

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2013/06/30/film-review-the-heat/

Posted: June 30, 2013

The plot and the action take a back seat to characterization and humor, which makes the graphic and realistic violence that pops up a few times more shocking -- almost yanking viewers out of the story, especially one execution scene. … Amazingly, even though one can almost see the buddy/cop/fish-out-of-water genre checkboxes being marked off as the film proceeds, The Heat actually works, both as an action film and a comedy, mostly because of the skill of McCarthy and Bullock in creating characters that connect with viewers. … When the FBI needs to go to Boston in order to take down a mysterious drug lord, they send their best agent to deal with the case ... mainly because no one can stand having uptight Sarah Ashburn (Sandra Bullock) around…

Film Review: The Martian

https://hotair.com/archives/crankytrex/2015/10/04/film-review-the-martian/

Posted: October 4, 2015

It's not to the point of The Martian feeling rushed, but it could've benefited from a few more minutes of screen time to help even out the pacing a smidge, especially if they could've added some more Watney stuff to break up a particularly long section that cuts away from him to handle NASA drama. … Since Damon does such a great job of making Watney a likable character, it's really easy to root for him as he figures out ways to overcome the myriad of challenges he faces as a man left for dead on an inhospitable planet, and it's remarkable just how much the film can convey about this guy when almost all his dialog involves him telling the various recording devices in his Mars habitat what he's doing and why. … It's so much more interesting to watch a smart, confident, and capable person use their wit and will to survive than it is to follow along with some unprepared crybaby as they stumble through a situation beyond their control like Sandra Bullock did in Gravity…

Film review: Into the Woods

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2015/01/03/film-review-into-the-woods/

Posted: January 3, 2015

As perhaps befitting Grimm's tales that provide three of the four narratives (Jack and the Beanstalk is the only exception), the film becomes dark, tragic, and oddly cynical -- which is why, in the local children's theater production I saw a couple of years ago, the second act was not performed. … The Bakers argue over whether the wife should take part in the adventure, for instance, and eventually the Cinderella romance founders on the vanity of Prince Charming (a surprisingly excellent performance from Chris Pine). … Into the Woods blends the familiar fairy tales of Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Cinderella and connects them, literally in the woods, and figuratively by the Witch (Meryl Streep), who needs to be freed from a curse…

Film review: Marley & Me

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2008/12/26/film-review-marley-me/

Posted: December 26, 2008

The Little Admiral is 6 and might be too young, but she was four when Cory and Angel had to be put down, and we bought a wonderful book to explain the process; I'd say she would understand it and could handle the ending. … He's funny and charming as he is in most of his films, but he fleshes out this character, his ambivalence to success, his resistance to accepting middle age, and especially his attachment to Marley. … For me, as a dog person, I wanted to see the movie, but at the same time I knew that dog stories do not end happily -- and I dreaded reliving the passing of our own dogs two years ago, especially Cory…

Film Review: Ant-Man

https://hotair.com/archives/crankytrex/2015/07/17/film-review-ant-man/

Posted: July 17, 2015

Christophe Beck kicks things off with a classic Latin funk riff and then settles into a swanky jazz orchestra feel for the score that is reminiscent of a 70s-era spy film, which works incredibly well because the overall plot of Ant-Man is sort of an Ocean's 11/Mission: Impossible-style heist to stop a guy who wouldn't be totally out of place as a Bond villain. … It has wit, charm, and just the right amount of camp to make for yet another fun time at the cinema courtesy of the one studio that still thinks it's ok to embrace the goofier aspects of its comic book origins and take risks on characters that seem as silly as Ant-Man. … Writing about a movie called Ant-Man feels incredibly strange since the title sounds less like a new comic book superhero film and more like a 50s B-Horror flick people used as an excuse to make out at the local drive-in, but it is indeed the latest offering from those crazy people over at Marvel Studios…

Film review: San Andreas

https://hotair.com/archives/crankytrex/2015/05/30/film-review-san-andreas/

Posted: May 30, 2015

Naturally he's estranged from his wife, played by Carla Gugino, because of a tragedy in their lives, and they of course have a college-age daughter (Alexandra Daddario) to which he's trying to stay connected even as the two women are about to move in with the new boyfriend, etc. etc. … Even though this is perhaps the one movie where strapping the camera to a cocaine-fueled hamster might actually make sense, Peyton takes the time to give us long, wide, steady shots throughout the film, like the one in the trailer looking down upon the California countryside as it rolls like an ocean. … Summer movie blockbuster season is now well underway, and this weekend's contender is San Andreas, a movie that features the destruction of large chunks of California via earthquakes instead of budget blowouts and ridiculous regulations…

Film review: October Baby

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2012/03/16/film-review-october-baby/

Posted: March 16, 2012

The subsequent medical tests, and the reading of her private journal by her parents, lead to a clash in which she discovers for the first time that she was adopted, and that she survived an abortion at 24 weeks. … October Baby tells the story of a young college student, Hannah (Rachel Hendrix), who has had numerous health issues in childhood but emerged as a generally healthy young adult when supported with proper medical care -- at least until she collapses during a school play. … When one hears about a film like October Baby, which deals with the aftermath of a failed abortion and the impact it has on the lives of those affected, certain conclusions about it will emerge before even entering the theater…

Film review: John Carter

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2012/03/11/film-review-john-carter/

Posted: March 11, 2012

Interestingly, I recognized Ciarán Hinds and James Purefoy from their work on the brilliant miniseries Rome as Julius Caesar and Marc Antony, respectively -- and in John Carter, their roles have a similar relationship, although much more benign. … Getting the nuances of the different tribes and races of Mars took a little time -- the Tharks, the humanoids from the city-states of Helium and Zadonga, and the Therns, who in the film are a malevolent and potentially immortal force -- but was not a large hurdle. … After all, a film about a Civil War veteran ending up on Mars does sound a bit ridiculous in a Cowboys & Aliens way, but John Carter actually works better than that movie, thanks to the literary foundation given to it by Edgar Rice Burroughs, from whose novel "A Princess of Mars" the film was derived…

Film review: Man of Steel

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2013/06/23/film-review-man-of-steel/

Posted: June 23, 2013

And while Terence Stamp's psychotic and megalomaniacal Zod will always be memorable, Shannon makes Zod a little more understandable -- and therefore a lot more consequential, especially in his zeal to protect and propagate the Krypton race even at the cost of genocide. … Perry White (Laurence Fishburne) goes from a yellow-journalism dinosaur to a responsible modern editor, for instance, and Martha Kent (Diane Lane) and Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner) become slightly less saintly and more significant. … The changes, though, integrate well into the storyline and make it a lot easier to dispense with the cheesiness that comes from having a Perfect Being Without Character Flaws at the center of a story, also ridding the story of its central deception in the alter-ego storyline that pretty much casts Lois Lane as an idiot in other incarnations…

Film review: Slumdog Millionaire

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2009/02/15/film-review-slumdog-millionaire/

Posted: February 15, 2009

I think it's a better movie than Benjamin Button, which I liked but didn't feel was Best Picture material, and perhaps better than Doubt, which should have gotten a nomination this year. … Jamal relives his life of extreme poverty, explaining how his brother and the girl he has loved since childhood became the Three Musketeers -- and how each wound up on a different path to survival. … When Jamal Malik, an uneducated young man from the worst slums in Mumbai, suddenly hits it big on India's version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, police interrogators attempt to torture a confession out of Jamal to find out how he cheated before he can go back and answer the final question and win 20 million rupees…

Film review: Bottle Shock

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2008/09/10/film-review-bottle-shock/

Posted: September 10, 2008

Along the way, though, it also delivers plenty of laughs, mostly from Rickman and Dennis Farina, who plays a different kind of character from the usual cops and gangsters. … Knowing the story, the film could easily have become rather dull and predictable, but instead of focusing all of the attention on the contest, Bottle Shock uses it instead as a bookending device to tell the story of Napa Valley. … California was not France, and never would be, and for most, Gallo and its cheap jug wines perfectly embodied the poseurs of the New World -- or it least it did, until a blind taste test in France known as the Judgment of Paris rocked the oenephile world…