Last year, the new version of The Hills Have Eyes failed to capture the terror of Wes Craven’s original 1977 classic, but it performed well enough at the box office to convince the producers at Fox Atomic (a sub-division of 20th Century Fox) to speed up the production for a sequel. Truth be told, the result is nothing short of an embarrassing glorification of violence and torture.
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The Last Mimzy fails to qualify as the best family adventure of the year, but the film’s astronomical degree of fantasy occasionally overpowers its flaws and challenges the imagination of young cinemagoers, thus pulling them into a world packed with dazzling magic.
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I bet one big plus director Antoine Fuqua could of used on his new film Shooter is not so much the presense of a nicely cast picture, but rather a change in title. After all, the film is adapted from the first in the bestselling novels from Stephen Hunter- Point Of Impact which features Shooter‘s lead protagonist, Bob Lee Swagger, played in the film by Mark Wahlberg. I suppose the casting choice might have been inspired in part by Matt Damon in The Bourne films (and another due soon), but for some reason I can picture Wahlberg in action scenes more than Damon- and as an afterthought, I wonder if one of the final scenes in The Departed was simply coincidence. Swagger vs. Bourne? Hmmm…
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There is a scene in Rocky Balboa where the film makes the fans of the franchise – and Stallone in particular – forget all about Rocky V and IV, for that matter. It’s where Rocky Balboa comes out of retirement, not for money, glory or any reason other than pride and to face his own inner suffering, has a few minutes with his now grown son. The son had grown up never fully understanding his father’s motives for boxing, and felt himself further distanced from him due to a tragedy in the family.
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In case you just wrapped up your wedding rehearsal and plan on taking your future spouse to a movie, make sure to avoid Chris Rock’s latest one-man vehicle I Think I Love My Wife. This fairly depressing story about a married man who is bored out of his life is nothing but a simplistic drag about the lows of marriage and the secret desire to be single again.
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World Trade Center, a cinematic account of two Port Authority Police officers trapped under the collapsed twin towers after attempting a rescue and evacuation operation, is surely supposed to leave the viewer full of awe and amazement at the strength of the human spirit. What it left me with was the burning question: What in the name of all that is good and glorious has happened to Oliver Stone?
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One of the best things about Hollywoodland is, in the dramatization over the contreversial death of 1950′s actor George Reeves, many questions are raised, suspects laid out, and the film lets the viewer pick and choose the various possibilities on what really happened. The audience is never ahead of private eye Louis Simo (Adrien Brody), as he puts the pieces of an alleged puzzle together. As much as I loved this film, I…well I’m of the mindset that the film would have been more effective-if director Allen Coulter focused only on the life of George Reeves.

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People fall under two categories: Superman people and Batman people. Superman people can like Batman and Batman people can like Superman, but they can’t like them equally. Being a Batman person myself, I’ve shrugged off anything dealing with Superman. The only reason why I watched Superman Returns is because it had been a long time since the Man of Steel appeared on the big screen. Like all other Superman films, it was okay. So my enjoyment of Smallville is rather surprising. While building on the Superman mythology, Smallville creatively mixes elements from The X-Files and Dawson’s Creek.
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The Ultimate Gift spends two hours delivering a message that a recent Coca-Cola ad conveys in 30 seconds: “You give a little love and it all comes back to you.” But while the commercial passes this message on to its viewers effectively and at full tilt, the movie makes the inexcusable faux pas of incessantly repeating it in every possible variation.
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There had been a lot of buzz surrounding 300, which is based on the graphic novel written by Frank Miller. It should be clear that is where the movie’s source material comes from, as well in part from 300 Spartans (1963) and not entirely from the history books. That said, Zack Snyder’s film is not that different than the previous Miller adaptation, 2005′s Sin City in terms of eye popping CGI greenscreen use and bringing comic book panels to life.
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