Topic: Movie review

Hancock: big jerk, bigger mess

By David W. Shelton | July 3, 2008 |

In a summer where superheroes clearly have staked their territory, Hancock makes the biggest mess of all of them. The weird thing about this mess is that it’s what the film intended. Part superhero movie, part whacked-out theology, and part jerk-gets-redeemed story, Hancock has so many irons in the fire that the audience just doesn’t know what the hell is going on.

Director Peter Berg turns in a celluloid train wreck that’s filled with the overuse of the gutter version of “anus” to such an extent that it becomes a one-joke film. Okay, we get it. John Hancock (Will Smith) is a jerk. He’s the king of potholes, dodging airplanes, and sloshing around with a big bottle of booze. He’s homeless, and hates the world around him. Now, I don’t know if he’s a jerk because of these things, or that being a jerk led him to being  homeless, but frankly, I wasn’t really compelled to care.

I don’t know what it is about today’s filmmakers that feel the necessity to drive in the obvious (that Hancock is a jerk) to the point where even a headache would be a relief. The fact that the first time we hear the word is from a small child is supposed to be funny, but again, it’s stating the obvious. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Arts and Leisure, Opinion | No Comments

“Wanted” promises action; delivers

By David W. Shelton | July 3, 2008 |

Wanted, the new action film from Universal Pictures, is a crowd-pleasing action film that’s sure to keep the adrenaline pumped in audiences everywhere. Before I continue with this review, perhaps I should confess my own secret love for underdog-turned-badass movies since there’s that twelve-year-old in me that will never grow up.

Films like Wanted appeal to just that kid-on-the-cusp-of-adulthood mentality that most adult men share, driving all of us to wonder just what we’ve done with our lives. Since most of us who shell out our eight bucks to see this kind of movie aren’t interested in anything but violence, guts, sex, and profanity, director Timur Bekmambetov (with his first American film) delivers all of these elements within the first five minutes of the narrative.

That’s not to say it’s a bad movie, really. Bekmambetov’s style is clearly an attempt to capture the equally-adult comic book in film, a task which is largely successful. Having never read the comic (I know, they’re supposed to be called “graphic novels,” but frankly, I don’t care. They’re comics.), I was able to look at the film as its own entity. Since the vast majority of the film’s audience is equally ignorant of its source material, that’s probably a good thing.

«Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Arts and Leisure, Opinion | No Comments

A WALL-E World we can all believe in

By David W. Shelton | July 1, 2008 |

Part E.T., part Short Circuit, the new Pixar film WALL-E evokes the fondest memories from both of those 1980’s too-cute-to-forget films. Both charming and intelligent, movie-goers will welcome this delectable blend of technology and emotion, and will be drawn into a story that is as heartwarming as it is educational.

WALL-E carries on the mantle of perfection that Pixar has established with Monsters, Inc. and Ratatouille, and actually manages to take the animation to new heights. Director Andrew Stanton, who masterfully told the ultimate (fish-)Father’s Day story with Finding Nemo, has hit his stride with this simple story of a garbage robot who ultimately saves the world.

The lead character is the title robot, whose name, WALL-E, is an acronym for “Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth-Class.” Its — wait, his — sole purpose was to clean up garbage and pack it away in neat, little cubes. Since the human race had left the planet on a giant spaceship seven centuries before, the little robot had plenty of work cut out for him. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Arts and Leisure, Opinion | No Comments

‘The Andromeda Strain’ revisted in slick A&E miniseries, now on DVD

By Christine Anne Piesyk | June 27, 2008 |

I’m not usually a fan of remakes, especially for a film I loved in its original form. The 2008 A&E production of Michael Crichton’s The Adromeda Strain overcame the odds to be at least as good as the original, if not better. It’s all a matter of perspective.

Crichton’s best novel of the same name was a taunt, tense, pre-computer age sci-fi thriller with Dustin Hoffman as scientist and protagonist Jeremy Stone, head of the Wildfire Biohazard Response team.

In this upgraded version, Director Mikael Salamon stuck to the story (Wow, what a concept!) and used 40 years of improved and expanded technology to rev up the action and adapt the film to 21st century science. It’s a place where the fiction is less improbable, the fantasy more believable, and, in the age of conspiracy theorists, corruption, terrorist threats and a new thrust toward space exploration are easily interjected into the film. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Arts and Leisure, Opinion | No Comments

Hulk 2: Now that’s more like it!

By David W. Shelton | June 21, 2008 |

The Incredible Hulk (hereafter Hulk 2) is the second of the big Marvel Comics adaptations for this year, following closely on the heels of the wildly successful (and far better) Iron Man. The filmmakers would love for us to forget a few things, though—namely the 2003 Ang Lee film, Hulk. For me, that’s not too difficult a task.

Marvel Studios is clearly in the process of establishing something never before attempted in major blockbusters, the creation of a Marvel Universe similar to their comics—er—graphic novels that have been in print for generations. But enough for fanboy mindtwists for now.

Hulk 2’s opening credits present a re-telling of the origins of the big green guy, but it bears little resemblance to the last film. Indeed, it looks a lot more like the opening credits of the megahit 1970’s TV series. I suppose this is the first indication that director Louis Leterrier was actually going to tell a story that would be fun, a trait that was seriously lacking in Lee’s film. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Arts and Leisure, Opinion | No Comments

Prince Caspian falls short of “greatness”

By David W. Shelton | May 23, 2008 |

There’s a lot to like with The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Hereafter Caspian). Unfortunately, there’s also a lot to dislike. With a mix of teen angst, childlike yearning, and rebel-gone-right personalities among the royal Pevensie brothers and sisters, our heroes (and presumably audiences) have returned once again to the world run by the most verbose lion in cinema (and literary) history. Only now, it’s more than two hundred years later than the events in the first film.

For fans of the original Narnia film, Caspian presents complete culture shock. Gone are the vast green fields and talking beavers that told of great lions. Instead, we’re met with a group of humans that behave… well… like humans. For a brief period of time, I wondered whether or not I was in the right multiplex auditorium. This was the first of many jarring distractions in what could have been a glorious cinematic experience.

Perhaps this is a good time for a few disclosures. I’m probably one of the few English-speaking men in the western pantheon who has not read any of the Narnia books. My own history with Narnia was (until the previous film) the animated film that apparently stuck to the book almost to the letter. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Arts and Leisure, Opinion | 2 Comments

Indiana Jones: big adventure, big nostalgia

By David W. Shelton | May 23, 2008 |

With the advent of Memorial Day Weekend, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull kicks off the holiday stretch with a rousing race through jungles of all types, promising action, reunions, and lots of booby-trapped labyrinths and ancient artifacts. This third sequel to 1982’s masterpiece, Raiders of the Lost Ark, is a fitting addition to the Jones pantheon. It clearly resides in the shadows of Raiders, and never quite reaches the fever pitch of breathtaking awe that it could achieve.

It’s by no means a bad movie. In fact, it’s really quite good. Director Steven Spielberg, Producer George Lucas, and Harrison Ford all fit back into their old clothes quite nicely, especially the latter as he puts on the famous hat and title role once again. To put it plainly, he’s still got it. Harrison Ford is Indiana Jones. He owns the role like a seasoned Rolex, and there’s no sign that he ever let it go.

Set in 1957, nearly twenty years after the events of the Last Crusade, Crystal Skull picks up in an eerily-familiar warehouse that supposedly houses a particular artifact that Soviet KGB officials seem to require. The Soviets are led by Irina Spalko(Cate Blanchett), one of the least-developed villains in the entire series. Blanchett has done well with her Russian accent, but aside from that, there’s really not a whole lot going for her. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Arts and Leisure, Opinion | No Comments

No, Speed Racer, No!

By David W. Shelton | May 10, 2008 |

Oh, how I wanted to like Speed Racer. I remembered those years in the mid-seventies when the theme song announced the beginning of a show filled with racing, chases, fights, comedy, and a little bit of love. To give the Wachowski brothers a little bit of credit, their script and directing captured beautifully the style and action of the classic anime. It’s too bad they didn’t add a decent story.

With the Summer Blockbuster season of 2008 in full swing, Speed Racer spins the wheels of the typical action film in every bad way possible. I actually lost count at the number of times I actually rolled my eyes — I think they were moving faster than the iconic Mach Five at some points.

Speed Racer stars Emile Hirsch in the title role (that was rumored to have been offered to Charlie Sheen at one point). I really don’t know how Hirsch managed to pull it off, but his Speed was actually more two-dimensional than the original cartoon. A true accomplishment. John Goodman, no stranger to cartoons-turned-into-bad-movies, fills the very large shirt of Pops Racer, and probably has the best and most sentimental lines of the film. Trust me, that’s not saying much.

«Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Arts and Leisure, Opinion | No Comments