Riddick

As a part of a franchise that sits firmly in the ?B-movie? section of the science-fiction genre, writer/director David Twohy?s Riddick isn?t a victim of high expectations. But in the search for fun sci-fi action and adventure with an interesting script and an ensemble of cool characters, audiences who have been waiting nine years for the film are going to be sorely disappointed.

Set years after the events of 2004?s Chronicles of Riddick - which isn?t necessarily must-see viewing before going out to see the sequel ? the new film finds the eponymous hero (Vin Diesel) stranded on a violent planet and left to survive with nothing more than his wits. Managing to find an abandoned station, he sends out an emergency beacon to try and get rescued. Unfortunately, this only serves to alert two very different teams of mercenaries to his presence on the planet, and they arrive to try and collect the bounty that?s on Riddick?s head.

The straightforward plot is a solid breeding ground for both horror and action and the film performs moderately well on those two fronts, with thrilling sequences that feature some cool creature design. But it?s when the script has to try and tell a larger story that it begins to trip up. The transparent structure splits the movie into two halves, the first explaining how Riddick has survived on the planet and the second bringing in the mercenaries, and both present their own unique problems. Without much story to push it forward, the earlier part eventually gets too slow and repetitive for its own good (watching Diesel take on CGI beasts one-by-one does get tiring after a while); and the latter half disengages the viewer by almost taking the hero out of the story completely.

By the time the entire cast is assembled on the harsh planet there are 11 mercenaries hunting Riddick, but only two have personalities that need more than three words to be described. With the exception of Jordi Molla?s Santana (who is the slightly unhinged leader of the ragtag mercenaries) and Matt Nable?s Boss Johns (the leader of elite mercenaries with a tie to Riddick?s past), every other is either incredibly dull or cannon fodder just waiting for his turn to be killed by Riddick or the monsters. And don?t hope that they can be distinguished by their dialogue either, as all of the lines are written with the same slightly panicked, mostly flat tone that is occasionally peppered with unfunny jokes and terrible one-liners.

While none of the actors make it out of the movie unscathed ? including Diesel ? Katee Sackhoff?s character Dahl, a high ranking member of the elite mercenary team, is a particularly egregious waste. While the actress has a large sci-fi following thanks to her big role on the popular series Battlestar Galactica, in Riddick she can only really be described as the ?strong lesbian chick? who occasionally punches Molla?s character, seemingly just to emasculate him. While this is bad enough on its own, it?s made much, much worse by the fact that her presence as the only woman in the movie makes her a constant target for crude sex jokes and threats (it would be one thing if this was only coming from the villainous characters, but Riddick makes more than a few advances of his own). The cherry on top, of course, is a blatantly gratuitous topless scene that seems to only exist so that the titular character can later make a joke about the color of her nipples. ?

Part of me wants to support this franchise on the grounds of how rare it is for an original science-fiction concept to get a full trilogy of theater-released feature films, but Riddick makes that damn near impossible. Made for a tiny budget compared to most modern blockbusters, the film does what it can from an aesthetic point of view and is at least visually interesting, but Twohy?s script is a total mess that seems to stumble into its best parts accidentally.

View the original article here

Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters

Right around the time Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) and his adventure-seeking crew hitchhiked on the scaly back of a rainbow-colored dragon and rode to the center of the Sea of Monsters (known to humans as the Bermuda Triangle), I officially stopped critiquing director Thor Freudenthal?s wondrous fantasy excursion and just plugged in for the head-shakingly outlandish but consistently entertaining ride.

Monster-laden oceans, centaurs, fire-breathing mechanical bulls, and Civil War-era zombies sound bizarre out of context. But parents and kids who?ve absorbed author Rick Riordan?s imaginative novels ? with their calculated balance of Greek mythology and contemporary teen angst ? will expect nothing less from this second installment in the ongoing Percy Jackson cinematic series, Sea of Monsters.

What?s unexpected, at least from my professional perspective, is the impressive special-effects work presided over by Freudenthal as he shepherded Sea of Monsters to the multiplex. While no stranger to the bestseller-to-movie process, Freudenthal?s past kid-friendly credits of Hotel for Dogs and Diary of a Wimpy Kid gave no indication of the technical prowess and visual ingenuity he brings to Percy. Riordan, obviously, deserves credit for cooking up the imaginative exploits that power Sea of Monsters in the first place. But mythological storytelling can fall flat in the wrong hands, so Freudenthal and his team deserve praise for pulling the fantastical elements off Riordan?s page, then stockpiling them in a familiar world young audience members should enjoy exploring.

Jackson, as followers know, is the offspring of Poseidon, Greek god of the sea. As Monsters unfurls, Percy and his friends are attacked at Camp Half-Blood, a safe haven that?s supposed to be protected by an ancient force field. In order to restore the protective barrier, Percy, Grover (Brandon T. Jackson), Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario) and newcomer Tyson (Douglas Smith) ? a teenage Cyclops ? must retrieve the mythical Golden Fleece from the Sea of Monsters before it falls into the perilous clutches of Luke (Jake Abel), our hero?s chief rival.

Percy Jackson comes off as Harry Potter lite, with three handsome and adventurous teenage leads cracking wise as they hopscotch from one preposterous mousetrap of danger to the next. The mythology underlying the Percy films doesn?t pretend to carry the same weight as J.K. Rowling?s text, and the performances aren?t nearly as compelling. Lerman, in particular, can be accused of going through the motions as Percy, especially when you consider the exquisitely emotional work he pulled off in the mature The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The young actor has chops, but his enthusiasm for the admittedly corny green-screen antics in the Percy Jackson universe are nonexistent. It?d be wise of Lerman to invest the same level of commitment into the franchise that?s currently paying his bills, particularly because Riordan has delivered three more Percy Jackson books that could fuel sequels if these movies continue to connect with the target YA audience.

And if Fox decides to push on, they?d also be wise to lock Freudenthal up for at least the next installment, which could adapt the 2007 novel The Titan?s Curse. Under Freudenthal?s direction, Sea of Monsters escalates its mythological hijinks without heavy-handedness or a coy wink at the audience. Charismatic character actors like Stanley Tucci, Nathan Fillion and Anthony Head relish the opportunity to play ?big? in smaller roles, and the effects work never ceases to impress. If subsequent Percy movies can rise to the level of Sea of Monsters, I predict smooth sailing for this enjoyable YA fantasy series.

View the original article here

Austenland

Jane Austen had a unique skill for crafting stories of enviable romance that were made all the more engaging by her biting wit and clever social commentary. It?s no wonder her books?like Pride & Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Mansfield--have inspired filmmakers again and again. Directors like Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice), Ang Lee (Sense and Sensibility), and Patricia Rozema (Mansfield Park) have made beautiful films from her work, vibrant with emotional honesty and poignant performances. Others translate her tales of overthinking young women into wonderfully funny modern classics, like Amy Heckerling?s Emma-inspired Clueless or Sharon Macguire?s Bridget Jones?s Diary. Still others like Robin Swicord, helmer of The Jane Austen Book Club, and Dan Zeff, director of the charming mini-series Lost In Austen, threw contemporary-Austen obsessed protagonists into familiar situations that defy the rules the iconic author laid out, achieving bubbly and rewarding narratives clearly spun out from Austen inspiration. Then there?s Jerusha Hess?s Austenland, which could fit into the last category if it weren?t so painfully stupid.

I made it a point to list all of the movies (and mini-series) above because I would recommend each and every one of them before I would ever tell anyone to watch Austenland. Based on a novel by Shannon Hale, this rom-com follows American gal Jane Hayes (Keri Russell) on what she hopes will be a life-changing romantic adventure. Jane is in her 30s, and single. (Heaven forbid!) A blink-and-you?ll-miss-it first act suggests her threatening spinsterhood looms because of two things: 1) modern men are no Mr. Darcy, and 2) she is obsessed with Mr. Darcy. To get the latter point across, her apartment is covered with various Darcy-centric memorabilia including a full-sized cardboard figure of Colin Firth as Darcy from the iconic BBC Pride and Prejudice mini-series?which I would also suggest watching instead of this movie.

To solve her love slump Jane decides to spend her entire life savings to go to Austenland, an English theme park where pathetic women pay to be romanced by actors while everyone dresses up and acts like it?s the early 1800s. Let me repeat that: she spends her entire life savings on a trip where a man is paid to pretend he?s falling in love with her. It?s like live-action-role-play meets prostitution without the sex, as if that as a concept makes any sense.

As Jane rushes off to take this trip, I had hoped the film would make some effort to explain how paying strangers to play wooing suitors would fix her life. Instead, it introduces a barrage of other characters just as confounding and senseless as Jane. Her companions/rivals for fake love are a crass and wildly wealthy American (Jennifer Coolidge) who seems incredibly enthusiastic for the theme resort even though she?s never heard of Pride & Prejudice, and a flirtatious and mysterious blonde (Georgia King) who is alternately catty and kind, depending on what the plot demands. A final reveal of who she really gives no worthwhile insight, opting instead for a lame twist that is sadly one of many.

Under the sneering countenance of the resort?s owner (Jane Seymour), the women fight for the affections of a Darcy imitation called Mr. Henry Nobley (J.J. Feild), a flamboyant Colonel Andrews (James Callis), and a dashing and oft-shirtless pirate Captain George East (Ricky Whittle). But despite Jane?s long-held desire to be in this very world, she soon grows bored of these archetypal men (to be fair, so did I), so she begins a secret affair with a lowly stable hand named Martin (Bret McKenzie). Listening to modern music in his cabin establishes him as a rebel who seems to reject the Regency-era mimicry and faux romances. Accordingly Jane falls for him hard and begins sneering at the Darcy doppelganger she?s so long wished for.

From there, Hess and Hale, who co-wrote the screenplay, attempt to mimic the kind of plot and character reversals that are a key and celebrated element of Austen?s work. We learn everything is not as it seems, but the truth is so unsurprising that it?s difficult to know if we?re meant to think Jane is incredibly stupid, or if Hess and Hale assume we are. But let?s set aside for a moment that the plot and the characters? motivations are incomprehensible. I struggle to think of any part of Austenland that would make it worth watching.

Granted, Coolidge, a fantastic comedic actress, scores a few laughs with her ugly American, and McKenzie is a charming romantic lead. But neither is given enough to play with. Instead, much of the focus goes to the tumultuous relationship between Jane and Henry. Sadly, Russell?for all her adorability?can?t save this ridiculous movie. Worse yet, she has virtually no chemistry with her Darcy co-star Feild, making their possible romance seem more a required plot point than a sparking attraction. Beyond this, Hess manages none of the insight or wit of the works she references in only the most superficial ways, and it makes for a bland and boring experience. This is all the more shocking considering Hess co-wrote such dedicatedly colorful films as Napoleon Dynamite, Nacho Libre and Gentleman Bronchos. But in her directorial debut, everything feels muted and mindless. ?

Usually I cringe when people use the phrase ?chick flick? in place of "romantic comedy" because they often mean ?a poorly written movie that is meant to appeal to women solely because it is about a female protagonist, romance and includes at least one makeover sequence with a peppy pop song blaring in the background.? But in that respect, Austenland is a chick flick. And frankly, as a woman who this is clearly meant to appeal to?I like love stories and Austen!?I?m insulted. Why can?t a movie have romance and fashion, but also have an engaging heroine and plot that makes even a little bit of sense!? It?s really not too much to ask. A bunch of the films up top managed it. Go see those.?

View the original article here

The Smurfs 2

The biggest problem with bad movies being successful is that when it comes time to make a sequel, there is no incentive to make something better. If people are willing to settle for lowest-common denominator material, there isn?t much sense in putting in extra effort the second time around. Like many terrible family films before it, this is the origin story of director Raja Gosnell?s The Smurfs 2 and, surprise, surprise, it fully lives up to its rock bottom expectations.

The story begins with Gargamel (Hank Azaria) becoming one of the world?s most popular entertainers, performing sorcery in front of crowds in Las Vegas, New York City, and Paris, but still being desperate to harness more magic from Smurf essence. In an effort to try and generate his own source of power, he creates two grey Smurf-like creatures called the Naughties (Christina Ricci, J.B. Smoove), but finds that they won?t produce Smurf essence he needs without the special spell cast by Papa Smurf (Jonathan Winters) that would turn them blue. In order to learn the enchantment, Gargamel kidnaps Smurfette (Katy Perry), who was also created by the wizard and learned the spell when she was turned into a Smurf. Banding together, Papa Smurf, Grouchy Smurf (George Lopez), Clumsy Smurf (Anton Yelchin) and Vanity Smurf (John Oliver) travel to the real world, enlist the help of their human friends Patrick (Neil Patrick Harris) and Grace (Jayma Mays), and go to Paris to try and save Smurfette.

Much like the first movie, The Smurfs 2 is exclusively filled with humor targeted at the very youngest members of the audience, leaving grown-ups no option other than to cover their faces with their palms and shake their heads. Not only does most of the comedy consist of crappy puns, the movie?s laziness really shines through in the fact that some of the jokes and gags are actually repeated multiple times without any sense of irony or cleverness. The ?catfish? joke made early in the movie when the Naughties capture Gargamel?s cat Azrael in a net is bad enough, but it?s even worse when the exact same joke is used later in the film when Azrael falls into a fountain.? It?s the kind of stuff that makes you wonder if the filmmakers even watched the final cut before it was shipped off to theaters.

Some animated films are at least able to skate by with a less-than-stellar script thanks to quality work by the animators, but in The Smurfs 2 even that aspect is a total mixed bag. There were some moments in the movie where I was honestly amazed by the rendering of the CGI characters ? featuring very life-like (albeit blue) skin and beautiful eyes ? but other moments made it abundantly clear that some of the characters are simply a collection of pixels. One would think that the animation process would be less taxing on a hybrid movie like this one, but it still seems like the team could have used a few more months to get the job done.

Terrible as the script may be, I will at the very least stand up for the film?s central theme. Playing on two separate levels ? both between Papa Smurf and Smurfette and between Patrick and his step-father Victor (Brendan Gleeson) ? the movie makes the argument that where a person comes from doesn?t matter nearly as much as the kind of person one chooses to be, and that is a legitimately great moral to teach young audiences. Of course, it?s handled with all of the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face, but the quality of the message takes away some of the sting.

I could continue on for a long time explaining the problems with The Smurfs 2, from its continued lack of development for supporting characters to the fact that a good chunk of the movie could be mistaken for a Sony tablet computer commercial, but there are far too many better uses of our short time on this planet. All we can hope for is that audiences recognize how bad the film is so that when 2015 rolls around I don?t have to write a review for The Smurfs 3.

View the original article here

We're The Millers

It's a good time to be an R-rated comedy, as the Hangover trilogy has emboldened a whole new flock of raunchy efforts that use their salty rating as part of the selling point. At a time when Ted and The Heat and Bridesmaids are giant hits, why wouldn't you throw in a few extra F-bombs to get some of that transgressive appeal? But not every comedy premise is going to translate to R-rated extremes, and We're The Millers takes what seems to be a script from a decade-old, PG-13 Robin Williams vehicle-- RV, maybe?-- and forces it unsuccessfully through the Horrible Bosses filter. A film with this many funny people in it should never strain so hard for its meager laughs.

Proving once again to be effortlessly, smarmily likable, Jason Sudeikis plays David, a petty pot dealer who, in his one moment of doing something good-hearted, gets robbed of his entire stash and all his money. Forced by his sharklike supplier (Ed Helms) into becoming a drug mule to pay back what he owes, David concocts the scheme to assemble a fake family as his cover for traveling across the Mexican border laden with many pounds of pot. After some clanking exposition he's joined in a top-of-the-line RV by his stripper neighbor Rose (Jennifer Aniston) as his fake wife, local gutter punk Casey (Emma Roberts, history's least-convincing gutter punk) as his fake daughter, and goofy neighbor kid Kenny (Will Poulter) as his fake son.

They manage to pick up the weed without much difficulty, actually, but the trouble comes after, in the kinds of obstacles that are familiar from every family-adventure comedy from The Out-of-Towners to National Lampoon's Vacation. There's another RV-driving family (Kathryn Hahn and Nick Offerman) who just won't stop trying to be their friends. There's the drug dealer (Tomer Sisley) who wants his drugs back. There's the Mexican cop (poor Luis Guzman) who wants a specific kind of favor to overlook their drug stash. There's a broken-down RV, a spider bite, some "unexpected" romance-- check, check, check.

Rawson Marshall Thurber, whose last comedy was 2004's Dodgeball, directs with requisite energy and enthusiasm, but it's the script-- written by no fewer than four people, including Hot Tub Time Machine writers Sean Anders and John Morris-- that lets down so much of the talent assembled here. Probably half of the jokes are about sex, and they're all over the map, from a squeamish sequence of Sudeikis trying to persuade his fake son to give a cop a blow job to a long scene of Aniston doing a striptease inside a warehouse, ostensibly as a diversion to help the gang escape but largely a leering, pointless opportunity to ogle Aniston's toned bod. An endless scene inside a tent watches Sudeikis and Aniston squirm at the idea of being approached by swingers, but also lingers long on Kathryn Hahn grabbing Aniston's breasts-- hey, it's hot when ladies do it, right? The film veers from that to a sickly sweet story about Kenny trying to have his first kiss, and then right back into watching Kenny practice kissing with his fake mom and sister. It's "anything for a laugh" scattershot comedy, but straining inside a framework of a plot-heavy story we're told ought to make sense.

Aniston and Sudeikis almost save it. When he's not calling her "just a dirty stripper" and she's not acting idiotic just for the sake of keeping the plot going, the two have a fantastic rapport, prodding each other with the perfect level of animosity that eventually, obviously, blossoms into love. Aside from a handful of solid visual gags and every single deadpan line from Offerman, Aniston and Sudeikis are the only things able to rise above the constant mediocrity of We're The Millers, a movie so lazy that it opens with clips from famous YouTube videos, just to prime the pump for laughs. The raunchy R-rated comedy and the family comedy have probably deserved to meet again since National Lampoon's Vacation, but the mash-up has got to make more sense than it does here.

View the original article here

The Canyons

The Canyons is a sharply uneven and often uncomfortable take on trust funds, sexual appetites and daddy issues. The film has a deep mistrust, or perhaps even dislike, of its own characters. They experiment, try to advance their own careers, judge anyone and everything and ultimately spin their wheels because they?re too broken or dumb or single-minded to do anything else. This isn?t the Los Angeles you?d read about in a brochure or even the one you?d get in a John Singleton movie. It?s the Hollywood no one is interested in talking about. It?s the girls ready and willing to fuck their way not to stardom but into a house in the hills. It?s the rich twenty-somethings who produce because they have no skills beyond their inheritances, and it?s the endless series of creepy and uncomfortable auditions every wannabe takes. It?s all deeply Bret Easton Ellis-y in all the best and worst ways, and while it doesn?t always work, it certainly has its moments.

Many of those moments start and end with Lindsay Lohan, who gives her best performance in years. Opposite James Deen, who actually has a nice charisma about him, she?s able to waffle between vulnerable and slyly controlling, depending on the mood of her character. There are a handful of scenes that she deftly controls from start to finish. Unfortunately, wonderful as those moments might be, the plot really isn?t the best offering either Ellis or director Paul Schrader have worked with. Not enough grunt work is done to earn the payoff the film is ultimately looking for, and a few of the characters really need to be in a higher percentage of the runtime to offer a greater sense of cohesion and balance. As a story, it?s just the wrong combination of marginal and grandiose to support a great movie, but an above average to pretty decent movie, it can and does shoulder that burden.

That aforementioned shaky plot follows Christian (Deen) and Tara (Lohan). He?s a sexually aggressive twenty-something with deep pockets, and she?s a failed model whose life goal is to be better off than most. Together, they invite singles and couples over for sex and casually fight off the boredom extravagant, unearned wealth so often brings. To pass the time, Tara decides to work on a movie Christian is funding, but when his assistant (Amanda Brooks) winds up dating an actor (Nolan Gerard Funk) that she used to live with, the casual foray into the film business devolves into a mess of insecurities and complicated revenge schemes. It?s graphic and sometimes outlandish.

Apart from the acting performances from the two leads, the film?s best asset is its dialogue. Sharp, biting and often very honest, many of the conversations bristle with authenticity. They never pull any punches, but they also don?t feel as if they?ve been written to intentionally shock. The right stream of words can inflate an ego, tear down a self-esteem, completely change an up and coming actor?s life path or in the best of moments, artfully comment on the Los Angeles culture The Canyons is aimed at. For example: Tara and Christian?s assistant Gina talk about movies over lunch, and the former muses that while many people in Los Angeles claim to love movies, they really don?t sit in a theater and appreciate the movies themselves. They just like being around movies, which is not the same thing.

The Canyons isn?t really a movie for one of those people who like being around movies more than watching movies themselves. It?s way too messy and uncomfortable to be fun or a potential Oscar nominee. It has a nice enough rhythm and pace to it, but there aren't a lot of goofy or redeeming asides or gags that let the viewer crack a few smiles. It's the type of subject matter you would expect to see on IFC late at night, but with an engaged Lohan owning a handful of scenes and a vibe all its own, The Canyons has something to say and should be worth a look to the right crowd.

View the original article here

The Wolverine

It?s rather fitting that director James Mangold?s The Wolverine begins with its titular hero, played by Hugh Jackman, stuck at the bottom of a pit. After all, the last time that the character got his own solo adventure the results were rather disastrous. Not only was X-Men Origins: Wolverine a horror show for comics book fans, taking fan favorite characters like Deadpool and Gambit and stripping away everything we love about them, the movie was an ugly mess with a terrible narrative. It?s a stigma that has followed the new film all the way through production, but just like in the film it doesn?t take long for Wolverine to get out of his pit once the story gets going, and when he does the adventure he has is a pretty entertaining one.

Set after the events in Brett Ratner?s X-Men: The Last Stand, the new film finds Logan as a nomad living in a state of constant grief over his lost love Jean Grey (Famke Janssen). His situation changes, however, when he is found by a young Japanese woman named Yukio (Rila Fukushima), who has been searching for him for more than a year. She convinces him to return with her to Japan where her employer, a dying industrialist named Yashida (Hal Yamanouchi) makes the mutant hero an incredible offer. In return for saving Yashida?s life during the atomic bomb drop in Nagasaki during World War II, Wolverine is given the chance to be rid of his immortality and live a normal life. But while Logan initially turns down this offer, he quickly finds himself embroiled in a plot surrounding Yashida?s granddaughter, Mariko (Tao Okamoto), who has been targeted for assassination by the Yakuza.

The Wolverine successfully avoids some of the pitfalls that the worst of the X-Men movies fell into ? particularly the urge to just load up the screen with as many different mutants as possible ? and it definitely treads on some interesting ground thematically, but it never feels like the movie is fully capitalizing on its best ideas. Grief over the death of Jean is a perfect emotional starting point for Logan in the story, but the full weight of that emotion never really hits the audience. Likewise, the Japanese setting opens the doors to samurai culture, Wolverine?s life as a Ronin (a samurai without a master) and the concept of an honorable death for an immortal, long-suffering character, but by the end it all feels very surface level. You can appreciate what Mangold and writers Scott Frank and Mark Bomback tried to do with the story, but it just never feels fully realized.

While the story winds up being fairly straightforward and not everything works perfectly, credit should be given to the film just for trying something different than anything we?ve seen from the X-Men franchise. It doesn?t always work thematically, but Mangold successfully capitalizes on his setting aesthetically, as the director takes full advantage of the nation?s unique architecture, clothing, and even language to make the movie feel unique. It?s also surprisingly refreshing that Jackman is really the only recognizable star in the film, which both helps support the story?s focus and adds an extra fish out of water layer to the narrative.

Unlike the director of the last Wolverine movie, Mangold doesn?t ignore the fact that the central hero is a hot-tempered beast with knives that grow out of his hands, and makes the movie justifiably vicious and blood-pumping. The big chase and action sequences are fun ? particularly a sequence set atop a 300mph bullet train ? but Mangold?s camera and Jackman are at their best when the raging mutant is slicing and dicing Yakuza gangsters. It?s far from R-rated, but a quality portrayal of the character?s brutality in the comics. The movie may not fully deliver on many of its themes, but it does hit squarely on the man vs. beast battle that exists within Logan.

Reactionary fanboy culture has made it so that superhero movies are usually classified as either ?the worst movie of all time? or ?high art that should be on display at the Louvre,? but The Wolverine sits squarely in the middle. What it gets right gets somewhat undone by what it gets wrong, but at the same time its worst parts are elevated by its best. It?s a simple story adequately told, and it works just well enough.

What review score would you give The Wolverine?

For our To 3D or not to 3D guide to The Wolverine, go HERE.

View the original article here