You searched for "film review" – Page 2 of 5

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2008/09/07/film-review-mamma-mia/

Posted: September 7, 2008

Brosnan has already taken heat for his vocals, which very quickly get out of his depth; Firth gets off easier with a lighter turn in "Our Last Summer", and Skarsgard only chips in with a throwaway part in the final "Take a Chance On Me". … ABBA fans, as I was, will remember the songs, with slight changes to lyrics assisting the storytelling, and it has a few very touching moments, especially with "Slipping Through My Fingers," one of ABBA's best-written songs, and "Our Last Summer". … It's not Shakespeare -- well, it sounds a little Shakespearian, but I'm pretty sure the Bard of Avon didn't have his actors singing "SOS" and "Dancing Queen", and probably avoided penis jokes…

Film review: Escape Plan

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2013/10/20/film-review-escape-plan/

Posted: October 20, 2013

The one standout performance -- and really the only emotional hook for the audience -- is Sam Neill as the doctor at the detention facility, who drinks to distance himself from the ethical questions of what happens around him. … After a gritty and lengthy prison sequence in which revelations come at a realistic pace, the last 10 minutes of the film suddenly shifts to a hipster caper tone and pace to wrap up a number of somewhat-incredible loose ends. … This looks like stunt casting, made all the more obvious by the trailer for the next Stallone film that accompanied the film, Grudge Match, which will feature Stallone and Robert DeNiro as two boxers thirty years past their prime…

Film Review: Terminator Genisys

https://hotair.com/archives/crankytrex/2015/07/03/film-review-terminator-genisys/

Posted: July 3, 2015

Sometimes it wonderfully subverts stupid action tropes like having the police actually show up to try and stop people from rampaging down a freeway for once, and then other times it'll turn around and have the evil cyborg toss the good cyborg around rather than just killing it immediately with its special abilities. … Composer Lorne Balfe treats every slightly important moment like the climax of the film so even the parts that should be quiet pauses come across like the last gasp before the finale, which only serves to exacerbate that feeling of everything being rushed. … For maximum lethality it wields three different Arnold Schwarzeneggers, one CGIed to match the original 80s body builder, one touched up to resemble peak-90s Ahhnold, and one left to look like the aging former Governator we have today because the living tissue covering the metal endoskeleton ages just the same as he has…

Film review: Ender’s Game

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2013/11/03/film-review-enders-game/

Posted: November 3, 2013

The moral ambiguities of this decision become acute at various points, but more surprising is the question of whether Ender Wiggin and his cohorts have been told the truth about the aliens -- and which side is fighting for survival. … The film telescopes a lot of the book, as a film must do to fit into the two-hour format (unless your name is Peter Jackson, whose trailers nearly run two hours), but I was assured that the film retains the spirit and characterization in the novel. … Author Orson Scott Card waited until he could make sure that his vision of the story and characters prevailed, and the best part of that wait has been that technology has caught up to his imaginings…

Film review: Inglorious Basterds

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2009/08/30/film-review-inglorious-basterds/

Posted: August 30, 2009

Part of Leone's intent in making them was to move beyond the stock characters that had stultified American westerns, in which he succeeded, although didn't get his artistic due for years afterward. … Most of the Sergio Leone movies with Clint Eastwood dealt in interesting characters and anti-heroes, especially A Fistful of Dollars, which challenged the audience to pick any side at all. … Quentin Tarantino says that his latest film, Inglorious Basterds, is a spaghetti western set almost accidentally in World War II. After seeing it, that description sounds like an excuse for the somewhat entertaining but mostly senseless film, which runs towards vengeance porn rather than a spaghetti western…

Film review: Act of Valor

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2012/02/25/film-review-act-of-valor/

Posted: February 25, 2012

That film used a few authentic firefighters in speaking roles and had more backstory and subplots, but it took very seriously its responsibility to tell about the bravery and toughness of firefighters everywhere, and what they have to face. … The SEALs think their mission is over until their commander gets intel from a phone captured during the rescue and discovers that the Chechen terrorist leader has plans to attack inside the US, using suicide-bomb vests that can defeat any metal detector. … The film opens in cross cuts between a SEAL team on leave and a CIA operative who gets captured in Costa Rica after she tracks down a Russian drug smuggler -- and discovers that he's also facilitating for a Chechen Islamist terrorist group, which just conducted a successful attack on a school in the Philippines…

Film review: Hands of Stone

https://hotair.com/archives/jazz-shaw/2016/09/05/film-review-hands-stone/

Posted: September 5, 2016

" In reality, by the early 80s it was well known (if not widely discussed) precisely how corrupt and toxic of a force Don King was in the sport of boxing, waist deep in organized crime ties and resorting to outright violence to enrich himself at the expense of the fighters he handled. … His upbringing in poverty and early exposure to crime and violence lead him to professional boxing, where he excels in the lightweight division, eventually leading to his meeting with Arcel and his rise to multiple world championship belts and an equally dramatic fall from grace. … Arcel's back story provides theater goers with a deep dive into the struggling and frequently corrupt world of professional boxing from the fifties up through the eighties, complete with the massive, corrosive influence which organized crime exerted on the sport, as well as nearly costing Ray his life at one point…

Film review: Warm Bodies

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2013/02/10/film-review-warm-bodies/

Posted: February 10, 2013

The humans who have not become infected have retreated behind high walls and defend themselves from any contact with the zombies/sinners, and will eventually get overwhelmed by the growing population of zombies, thus having little hope, either. … Some of the zombies have become so bereft of hope that they became unredeemable -- the Bonies -- and the others are so lost that they can't communicate with each other and end up preying on the humans when they find them, just to get a "taste" of human contact. … The film starts off in the same kind of hip, ironic vein as Zombieland as we follow R (Nicholas Hoult, X-Men: First Class, About a Boy) on a typical day in the airport, which he and other zombies have haunted since a medical apocalypse separated humans, zombies, and even lower creatures called Bonies who have entirely given into their sickness…

Film review: Soul Surfer

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2011/05/15/film-review-soul-surfer/

Posted: May 15, 2011

The film is almost relentlessly optimistic; Robb's Hamilton doesn't seem to grieve much for her loss (which, of course, may have been true in real life), and after reading the timeline at Hamilton's site, the film seems to have put the trip to Thailand out of sequence. … It features a top-notch cast, including solid supporting performances from Dennis Quaid and Helen Hunt as Hamilton's parents, and another from Kevin Sorbo as the father of Hamilton's lifelong best friend Alana Blanchard (another world-class surfer), whose quick action saved Hamilton's life. … Unlike most films of this genre, Hamilton doesn't suffer a single crisis of faith and then experience an epiphany; instead, she's seen as perhaps being too determined to prevail at first, and disillusioned when she discovers she can't compete, at least not the same way as she did before…

Film review: Project Almanac

https://hotair.com/archives/jazz-shaw/2015/02/08/film-review-project-almanac/

Posted: February 8, 2015

(David's sister apparently has no interest in time travel beyond getting revenge on a girl who bullies her in high school.) The more the butterfly effect spirals out of control and the more problems they cause in the present, the more extreme and ridiculous their attempted solutions to fix things becomes. … The principal actors have a hard time pulling off being teenagers (Weston is 26 and D'Elia is 23 and, while very youthful, seem a bit seasoned for 17) the motivation for some of the characters' decisions stretches credulity a bit. … Along with his two geeky friends, his sister and David's love interest, Jessie, (Sofia Black-D'Elia) the teens set out to construct the machine and launch into the time travel business to enrich their lives and ostensibly help out humanity if they ever get around to it…

Film review: American Sniper

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2015/01/20/film-review-american-sniper/

Posted: January 20, 2015

It's a story that isn't limited to one American sniper, but hundreds of thousands of veterans of this long war regardless of their politics or enthusiasm for the policies which took them into combat. … Where the film particularly excels is its depiction of Kyle's struggles through his deployments, how he keeps drifting farther from his wife Taya (Sienna Miller), and how engaging with his fellow veterans after his fourth tour finally brings him back to his humanity. … We see American troops in Iraq questioning the point of the war; Kyle's own brother, returning after a tour in the Marine Corps, offers a particularly pungent and concise explanation of how he feels about Iraq, to Kyle's puzzlement…

Film review: The Spectacular Now

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2013/09/01/film-review-the-spectacular-now/

Posted: September 1, 2013

The performances are mostly amazing, especially Miles Teller (21 & Over, Rabbit Hole) as Sutter and Shailene Woodley (The Descendants, "The Secret Life of the American Teenager") as Aimee, on whom the film mainly rests. … The biggest relationship issue Sutter has is with himself, which comes to a point of realization when faced with the potential loss of a job in a men's clothing store -- a very poignant scene, and heartbreaking for the insight Sutter gets when forced to face himself honestly. … This film has some echoes of Say Anything, but without the precious quality of the 1989 film, and without the focus on cliques that other teen coming-of-age films usually provides -- like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, for instance, which had a similar tone as this film does…

Film Review: The Hurt Locker

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2009/06/28/film-review-the-hurt-locker/

Posted: June 28, 2009

Unlike all of the other films about Iraq, The Hurt Locker does not take a position on the politics of the war; instead, it focuses on high-tension situations for an occupying force and the populace, and the dangers of fighting an insurgency. … Will James (Jeremy Renner) arrives at Camp Victory to assume leadership of a three-man team, and his reckless style immediately clashes with his two teammates, J.T. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty), even while it wins him the admiration of his CO (David Morse). … The new film The Hurt Locker gives viewers a gritty, realistic work at the tensions in a bomb unit in Iraq when a new team leader replaces one whose by-the-book approach failed to save him from getting killed by an insurgent…

Film review: The Good Dinosaur

https://hotair.com/archives/crankytrex/2015/11/30/film-review-the-good-dinosaur/

Posted: November 30, 2015

None of those characters really seemed to hold the interest of the kids in my theater either since they talked among themselves most of the way through, and if you have little ones that don't like thunderstorms, they'll probably be too scared by some of the storm effects to really enjoy it. … Yes, having had a few more million years to stick around thanks to the asteroid missing Earth, the dinosaurs have figured out basic agriculture and some limited construction, and the film is actually pretty clever about finding ways for the dinos to use their bodies to accomplish tasks for which we would use tools. … Normally that's a big red flag for a film, but Pixar has such a fantastic track record and the trailer was so good that I went into this one with all the excitement you would expect from a guy who has "CrankyTRex" for a Twitter handle…

Film review: Ben-Hur

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2016/08/20/film-review-ben-hur/

Posted: August 20, 2016

The scene where Judah and Esther are reunited after his escape from slavery will give audiences motion sickness, as Esther's face revolves around the frame as if the scene took place on the ship rather than in a Jerusalem doorway. … Even so, the role of Jesus (Rodrigo Santoro) is much more a part of the story, making the Christ allegory much more explicit, no doubt a deliberate choice from exec-producer Roma Downey, who has produced increasingly impressive Biblical entertainment. … Paul Feig's Ghostbusters reboot was probably doomed from the start, given the fact that most of the original film's fans from its 1984 release are still around, even without the ill-advised politicization that took place after the mediocre trailers hit YouTube…

Film review: Son of God

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2014/03/02/film-review-son-of-god/

Posted: March 2, 2014

Passion wove non-Scriptural depictions of Satan into the narrative to emphasize the mystical, but Son of God misses relevant Scripture and chooses instead to emphasize Jesus more as a very powerful rabbi/preacher with great personal charisma instead. … Darwin Shaw (Peter) and Sebastian Knapp (John) give brilliant performances, as does Amber Rose Revah as Mary Magdalene (and the film distinguishes between Mary Magdalene and the adulterous woman saved by Jesus from stoning), and Greg Hicks as Pilate. … With a runtime of 138 minutes, the producers obviously could not include everything from the Gospel, but they neglect to show Pilate sending Jesus to Herod Antipas and Antipas returning him, a significant part of the Passion in which all authorities reject Him…

Film review: Pacific Rim

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2013/07/14/film-review-pacific-rim/

Posted: July 14, 2013

" A nonsense interpersonal conflict between two pilots comes right out of Top Gun; I was surprised not to hear "You can be my wingman anytime!" when the subplot plodded to its inevitable conclusion. … When I left the theater, I immediately thought of the cheesy animated series Gigantor, which I watched as a kid, and I was unsurprised to discover later that director Guillermo del Toro used it as an inspiration. … Giant mechanized systems called Jaegers had given an edge to the united forces against the invaders, but a series of failures caused governments to give up on the two-person Machsuits and their heroism…

Film review: Repo Men

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2010/03/21/film-review-repo-men/

Posted: March 21, 2010

(If that doesn't move audiences, it still provides plenty of action.) The underlying theme seems a little hostile in a subconscious way to the private medical device market, which is interesting given that market's success in creating live-saving and life-enhancing devices at price points low enough for almost anyone to get replacement hips, knees, and so on, but there isn't anything overtly political in it at all. … Without giving too much away, it's rather difficult to believe that any company -- no matter how unregulated -- would bother sending people like Remy and Jake to retrieve by force what could simply be deactivated remotely, forcing the client to either die immediately or come back to them to get payments addressed again. … Jake's not happy about Remy's dream to shift to sales and a quieter lifestyle, but all of that is forgotten when Remy's heart gets damaged in a botched retrieval mission -- and Remy suddenly finds that repossessing organs is difficult to do when you have your own "autoforgs," as the devices are called in the film…

Film review: Atlas Shrugged

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2011/04/17/film-review-atlas-shrugged/

Posted: April 17, 2011

Update: I deliberately avoided reading reviews of the film until after I saw it first, but one of the first places I checked after writing my review was Reason Magazine -- and I was surprised to find a range of reactions to it, from Kurt Loder's panning to Brian Doherty's qualified endorsement, with a more enthusiastic reaction from Matt Welch thrown in as well. … Speaking of friends, one of the actors in the film is Navid Neghaban, who played the villainous husband in The Stoning of Soraya M. Navid will join me on Tuesday to discuss the film on The Ed Morrissey Show, which starts with Andrew Malcolm at 3 pm ET. … Dagny Taggart (Taylor Schilling) needs to save her family's railroad empire from her incompetent brother (Matthew Marsden), and turns to steel producer Henry Rearden (Grant Bowler) for a revolutionary new metal for aging and unreliable tracks…

Film review: Dark Shadows

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2012/05/12/film-review-dark-shadows/

Posted: May 12, 2012

Bonham Carter's character feels like make-work; her character seems extraneous to the conflict and certainly to its resolution, and while her performance is good (as is Pfeiffer's), there isn't any reason for her to be there. … (To say that she still carries a torch for her vampire is a rather large understatement.) Barnabas has to dispatch construction workers, hippies, and other assorted bit players, but he has trouble getting rid of his rival, and she has just as much problem getting rid of Barnabas ... if that's what she really wants to do. … Freed when construction expands around the Maine hamlet of Collinsport -- a town founded by his family in better days -- Barnabas awakens to a much different world than the one he knew two centuries ago…

Film review: Gangster Squad

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2013/01/13/film-review-gangster-squad/

Posted: January 13, 2013

The result of this moral abdication is a series of violent battles in which we are supposed to root for law enforcement to act like a rival gang, a series in which bullets get sprayed all over the screen without even a stylish, original depiction (as in The Untouchables) as some sort of compensation. … For that matter, skip The Untouchables and watch the infinitely superior L.A. Confidential , which dealt with the same issues in nearly the same time and place -- but put the thugs in the right moral position, and managed to get the Cohen story more accurately than this movie did even as a subplot. … We get the old and forgotten veteran (an almost unrecognizable Robert Patrick), the rookie Latino (Michael Peña), and the Charles Martin Smith-esque geek in Giovanni Ribisi, along with a couple of additions in Anthony Mackie and Ryan Gosling as the jaded, cynical, almost-but-not-quite corrupt cop whose inner honor will win the day…

Film review: The Gulf of Silence

https://hotair.com/archives/jazz-shaw/2020/12/08/film-review-gulf-silence/

Posted: December 8, 2020

A fictional framework allows me the luxury of speculating without the risk of being wrong and then having the film become dated; it also allows me to say things that the more neutral tone of something like "The Phenomenon" cannot. … In actuality, you cannot make a proper "documentary" about the UFO phenomenon because ultimately you are either making a documentary founded on, at best, speculation or hedged bets, or you are simply interviewing witnesses, and that is not a documentary about UFOs, that is simply a documentary about people who claim they have seen UFOs. … Upon its release, the movie became the subject of considerable speculation in online forums, with some viewers seeing it as strictly a work of narrative fiction, while others claimed that it was a "documentary in disguise" revealing information about the United States government and UFOs…

Film review: The Hunger Games

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2012/03/24/film-review-the-hunger-games/

Posted: March 24, 2012

The people in the districts come straight out of The Grapes of Wrath and Matewan, while the Capitol looks more like a more lively version of the Eternals in Zardoz, whose wealth is only exceeded by their garish and conspicuous consumption, and equally exploitative consumption of the "tributes" who will play in the games. … There are elements that remind one of "The Lottery," the famous short story by Shirley Jackson, films like The Running Man and Rollerball, perhaps a dash of The Handmaid's Tale and a bit of The Truman Show, and almost every post-apocalyptic dystopian fantasy ever filmed or even contemplated. … The rest of Panem consists of twelve districts, exploited by the wealthy and indolent ruling class in the Capitol, which both intimidates the districts and entertains them through the annual Hunger Games, a Survivor-type reality show that takes one boy and girl from each district and forces them to kill each other, until only one "tribute" is left alive…

Film review: The Front Runner

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2018/11/20/film-review-front-runner/

Posted: November 20, 2018

The idea of getting a young, energetic, and charismatic candidate -- the impulse that fueled the interest in Hart as a presidential candidate, and later Clinton too -- is based on getting a shortcut to victory through pop-culture celebrity. … Even though most of the audience will recall all of these events as they come up on the screen, Reitman's film will keep you on the edge of your seat, mainly for its insight into the characters -- and especially Hart's complicated role at the center of the controversy. … Unfortunately for Hart, he also foreshadowed Clinton's darker side with a little Monkey Business of his own, which ended his presidential aspirations as the media began pressing more sharply on personal matters in politics…

Film review: Battle of the Sexes

https://hotair.com/archives/jazz-shaw/2017/10/07/film-review-battle-sexes/

Posted: October 7, 2017

The film may take some liberties with how that match played out and the reasons for the results, but it's a part of the tale people rarely hear about because even though it was broadcast on CBS Sports, it didn't attract massive attention the way the King match did. … Their journey toward meeting on the court in Houston is revealed as far more of a publicity stunt, with Riggs not particularly caring all that much about proving men are the superior gender as much as getting the limelight back on himself in the twilight of his public life, while King is more focused on establishing female players as worthy of equal pay and respect, prioritizing that far above who actually wins the match. … Yes, the focus on Billie Jean King's exit from her marriage and into a lesbian relationship (and the trials of not being able to be "out" and still have professional sports sponsors during that era) does absorb the film far more than the actual tennis match or its cultural significance or lack thereof…

Film review: The Great Gatsby

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2013/05/12/film-review-the-great-gatsby/

Posted: May 12, 2013

Left unspoken is that Gatsby's entire approach to woo Daisy back practically admits to knowing that corruption, and he misses the chance she offers him for them both to escape it -- by running from the trappings of wealth. … That's not a criticism of actor Elizabeth Debicki, but of the script; the character disappears almost entirely after her role in roping Nick into helping Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), and with it part of the character development of Nick. … The classic story of old and new wealth, conspicuous consumption, and the shattering of illusions, myths, and lives has only rarely been tackled by Hollywood (just 5 times, including this version), but it's practically designed for the big screen…

Film review: The Cabin in the Woods

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2012/04/14/film-review-the-cabin-in-the-woods/

Posted: April 14, 2012

However, if you like the horror genre, enjoy seeing archetypes turned on their head, or just like inventive and creative story-telling leavened with genuine humor, then you could do a lot worse than stop by the The Cabin in the Woods this weekend. … For now, let's just say that Goddard and Whedon have a lot of fun taking common memes in horror movies, especially the teenage-slasher films of the Halloween/Scream/I Know What You Did Last Summer variety, and making them an actual, intentional part of the plot by introducing a completely new -- and sometimes darkly hilarious -- element. … Well, if you think you know, you're in for some big, nasty, and frequently funny surprises in The Cabin in the Woods, a new film co-written by Joss Whedon (Firefly, Serenity, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and the debut directorial effort for co-writer Drew Goddard…

Film review: Side Effects

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

Posted: February 24, 2013

In the end, it's about short cuts and the need to fill destructive desires rather than live life in a straightforward manner, and the disaster that causes for everyone around those who succumb. … Side Effects has a warmer feel to it than Traffic, at least at first, as Emily Taylor (Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) welcomes home her husband Martin (Channing Tatum) from prison after serving time for insider trading. … With all sorts of people taking short cuts to happiness and pleasure, including pills and get-rich-quick schemes, can we tell what's real and what isn't by mere observation of behavior?…

Film Review: Jurassic World

https://hotair.com/archives/crankytrex/2015/06/14/film-review-jurassic-world/

Posted: June 14, 2015

On the plus side, Jurassic World can be quite funny at times (on purpose.) Chris Pratt's interactions with Bryce Dallas Howard's character are often rather charming, and despite Joss Whedon's whining, her being uptight and him being relaxed works really well, and it makes perfect sense since she's essentially the person in charge of keeping the place running. … He's a former military guy who has managed to more or less tame some raptors, and he's asked by the park's owner to come assess the strength of the defenses surrounding the park's latest attraction, a new dinosaur called Indominus Rex (sponsored by Verizon Wireless), which was created by splicing a bunch of other stuff together. … Whereas the original film has the park undergoing a test run with a tiny staff such that a little malfeasance combined with having unpredictable giant creatures around could easily lead to the nightmare scenario it presented, Jurassic World has state-of-the-art everything, tons of employees, and tens of thousands of attendees…

Film review: The Lucky One

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2012/04/21/film-review-the-lucky-one/

Posted: April 21, 2012

Jay R. Ferguson isn't given much humanity as the deputy/ex-husband, and other than Adam LeFevre's small role as the ex-father-in-law/judge, the other characters are straight out of stock. … We have the deputy sheriff who dislikes the drifting veteran, especially with his proximity to his ex-wife Beth, as well as the powerful local former in-laws that more or less keep Beth in line when it comes to her son Ben. … After traveling on foot from Colorado to Louisiana to find Beth -- a task that seems incredibly easy, given the lack of clues in the photo -- he then somehow can't bring himself to explain why he's there…

Film review: Cowboys and Aliens

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2011/07/31/film-review-cowboys-and-aliens/

Posted: July 31, 2011

When the aliens show up, the cattle baron -- a Civil War veteran -- has to team up with the fugitive and the townspeople to find his son and their missing kin and do battle with the aliens. … The film starts off with a cattle baron who likes to throw his weight around (Harrison Ford) trying to intimidate the local sheriff (Keith Carradine) into releasing his immature, spoiled son who shot a deputy and very unwisely picked a fight with a seriously dangerous fugitive (Daniel Craig) with amnesia. … The same can be said for a movie with a title like Cowboys and Aliens -- with the concept fully disclosed in the title, the people who go to see it will almost certainly love it, while others will avoid it…

Film review: For Greater Glory

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2012/06/10/film-review-for-greater-glory/

Posted: June 10, 2012

The film doesn't provide the answers as much as it shows the main characters struggling with the questions, and actors such as Garcia, Cabrera, Kuri, and Verastegui provide vibrant performances to spark contemplation of these questions among the viewers. … Enrique Gorostieta (Andy Garcia), a general who had fought for the winning side in the revolution, chose to lead the Cristero rebellion, and the film focuses mainly on Gorostieta, two of his lieutenants, and a young boy named Jose Sanchez del Rio, who was later beatified by the Catholic Church. … Calles attempted to enforce the anti-clerical laws put into Mexico's 1917 socialist Constitution by demanding the expulsion of foreign priests, banning public demonstrations of faith (including the wearing of clerical garb), and making criticism of the government by priests punishable by five years in prison…

Film review: The Case for Christ

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2017/04/07/film-review-the-case-for-christ/

Posted: April 7, 2017

Given that this is explicitly a conversion story (and that Strobel's book sold 14 million copies over the last two decades), that outcome isn't exactly a mystery, but the film isn't intended to be a mystery anyway. … Convinced that his wife has been brainwashed by a cult -- being just a couple of years removed from the Jonestown massacre -- Strobel decides to apply his journalistic expertise to debunk the central core of the Christian faith: the resurrection of Jesus Christ. … The new film The Case for Christ, based on the real-life conversion story of former Pulitzer-nominated journalist Lee Strobel and taken from his 1998 book of the same title, provides further evidence of this maturation…

Film review: The World’s End

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2013/09/08/film-review-the-worlds-end/

Posted: September 8, 2013

Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine, and Eddie Marsan offer distinct personalities and hilarious performances, and Rosamund Pike is terrific as Freeman's sister and the object of desire for both Pegg and Considine. … Since I didn't know anything about the film, the major plot twist midway took me by complete surprise, and I found myself repeating the same "WTF?" expressed by most of the characters up to that point. … My best friend since high school lives on my street, but we don't get together often enough these days, so I suggested that he and I go see the film yesterday when both of us were in town at the same time…

Film review: The Young Messiah

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2016/03/11/film-review-the-young-messiah/

Posted: March 11, 2016

Vincent Walsh and Sara Lazzaro deliver solid performances as Joseph and Mary, but Adam Greaves-Neal gives a terrific performance as Jesus, complemented by an equally good turn by Finn Ireland as James, the older cousin who loves Jesus but resents him a little as well, and who starts explaining why everyone treats him a little differently. … The speculative nature of this enterprise runs plenty of risks of offense to millions of faithful moviegoers, but the Nowrastehs have navigated through the dangers to present a lovely perspective on the Holy Family, in a narrative that foreshadows the ministry of Jesus presented to us in the Gospels. … The Young Messiah, a new film from Cyrus Nowrasteh opening today, attempts to fill the gap and succeeds in presenting a touching and engaging film that will remain with movie-goers of faith long after they have left the theater…

Film review: The Magnificent Seven

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2016/09/27/film-review-magnificent-seven/

Posted: September 27, 2016

At worst, The Magnificent Seven is a fun way to pass 135 minutes, a paint-by-numbers horse opera with actors who get the most out of the material, even if that material makes it a generic Western wearing the clothes of another film. … Haley Bennett plays the young widow who inevitably turns out to be a crack shot (that's not much of a spoiler, really), but Vincent D'Onofrio as mountain man Jack Horne is either brilliant or bizarre ... and probably both. … The Magnificent Seven's outsiders just seem a little more outsiderish than in the original version, even if one has to wonder why the clearly not-poverty-stricken townspeople in the 2016 edition couldn't manage this fight on their own in the first place…

Film review: Iron Man 3

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2013/05/05/film-review-iron-man-3/

Posted: May 5, 2013

Unlike most trilogies, one doesn't have to have followed the series to understand what's happening in Iron Man 3, but it does help to have seen Marvel's The Avengers. … Don Cheadle is ... well, Don Cheadle-level terrific, and Rebecca Hall offers a couple of surprises as Maya Hansen, a one-night fling of Stark's who returns to seek his assistance. … This time, Ben Kingsley and Guy Pearce come on as villains, with Pearce given an almost Edward Nygma-esque character but in a much more serious vein than in Batman Forever…

Film review: Battle: Los Angeles

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2011/03/12/film-review-battle-los-angeles/

Posted: March 12, 2011

It's probably accurate; the language was appropriate for the setting, which is likely why I didn't really notice it -- and speaks even more to the uselessness of the MPAA rating system. … The entire film is shot in the rapid-cut, pseudo-documentary style that is completely annoying early in the film when it makes no sense, but adds to the realism when the war breaks out. … Before the movie started, we had some fun playing The Pitch Game, where (as my friend explained) one tries to figure out what the one-sentence pitch for the film must have been to the studio by combining two well-known movies to explain it…

Our next film review: Grouch

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2019/10/14/next-film-review-grouch/

Posted: October 14, 2019

Meanwhile, we'll just have to comfort ourselves knowing that somewhere out there, someone's working on a gritty, realistic origin story of John Jugworth Jones III. … SNL spared few resources to get this right, including the use of David Harbour to emphasize the potential malevolence of [checks notes again] a puppet that lives in a garbage can. … Which, when you think about it, is about as necessary as telling a gritty, realistic story of a comic-book super-villain who dresses up like a card in a deck…

Film review: World War Z

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2013/07/07/film-review-world-war-z/

Posted: July 7, 2013

Furthermore, he gets evacuated to a UN flotilla; I'm unaware that the UN has its own navy, especially one sitting off the coast of the Atlantic seaboard of the United States, manned with what seems to be American military personnel. … Mireille Enos isn't given much to do as Lane's wife after the first 30 minutes, but Daniella Kertesz picks up the slack considerably as Segen, an Israeli soldier that teams up with Lane after he saves her from zombification. … The few still alive either hide in darkened houses waiting to be bitten by the sick and transform into what they fear, or get evacuated to help fight the plague that threatens to destroy humanity…

Film review: Free State of Jones

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2016/10/08/film-review-free-state-jones/

Posted: October 8, 2016

I'd be very reluctant to have my 14-year-old granddaughter watch this, although the story is powerful enough to hope she'll want to see it when she's better prepared to deal with the ugliness of war and hate. … Davis has married a white woman, but the state of Mississippi argues that Davis is not descended from Newton's first wife Serena (Keri Russell), a white woman, but from his second common-law wife Rachel (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), a former slave. … Eventually he has to hide in swamp country in Jones County, where he joins up with runaway slaves and other deserters to form a company of men and women, both white and black, to defend their land…

Film review: Star Trek: Into Darkness

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2013/05/19/film-review-star-trek-into-darkness/

Posted: May 19, 2013

The only exception to this character development is Pine's Kirk, which still comes across for much of the film like a resentful rebel too focused on young-adult angst, rather than an arrogant-yet-talented military leader-explorer. … Given that IMDB lists Benedict Cumberbatch's character as "Khan," it's not going to be much of a spoiler to draw the connections between the original movie series' first sequel and the first sequel of the reboot. … Stripped of his command, he prepares to serve as First Officer under his mentor Christopher Pike, but an attack on a Star Fleet archive leads to an attack on Star Fleet command itself by a mysterious officer within one of the fleet's covert operations…

Film review: Paul, Apostle of Christ

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2018/03/26/film-review-paul-apostle-christ/

Posted: March 26, 2018

Other than a few gentle moments between Paul and Luke, and a later scene between Paul and his warden, the entire film effectively paints Christianity as an enterprise on a knife's edge, about to fall into despair and destruction. … He begins writing down Paul's observations, which Luke will later use to write Acts of the Apostles, and they both come into contact with a Roman prison warden (Olivier Martinez) who faces a life-and-death crisis in his own family. … Both of these cover modern-day dilemmas facing Christians, but Paul Apostle of Christ takes audiences back to the roots of the faith by focusing on its most prolific apostolic teacher and organizer, Saul/Paul of Tarsus…

Film review: Mary, Queen of Scots

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2018/12/31/film-review-mary-queen-scots/

Posted: December 31, 2018

Jack Lowden perhaps gets the most mileage as anyone other than Ronan and Robbie as Darnley, whose romantic nature quickly turns to naked ambition, although he's also at the center of one sex scene that is flat-out laughable and another that's cringeworthy at best. … A more realistic portrait would have created a very different dynamic and a real irony: while Mary's missteps embolden and infuriate the men in her court and undoes what little power she actually had, Elizabeth strengthened her own power in a man's world in the kingdom next door. … Her Protestant half-brother Lord Moray controlled the throne and the lords, which she failed to recognize, and his support for Mary was meant to leave her as a figurehead to settle a highly volatile domestic political situation…