Quick-hit film reviews: Winter 2014
- Million Dollar Arm (screened on 4/2) - D+. We're baseball-focused here, so I wish I could recommend Million Dollar Arm. Sadly, I can barely recall it. Go watch Moneyball instead.
Draft Day (screened on 4/3) - C+. The front office wheeling and dealing is actually pretty fun to watch, even if it's laughably implausible. Where the movie stumbles is the love interest. There is zero chemistry between Kevin Costner and Jennifer Garner, who seems to have no real point to her role other than to show up every once in a while and pout.
Oculus (screened on 4/9) - D+. Oculus was original a 30-minute short. Writer/director Mike Flanagan got a studio budget to turn it into a feature film, but the idea just wasn't ripe for the stretching. We end up with long stretches of exposition drag and far to few thrills.
The Raid 2 (screened on 4/11) - A-. ON MY TOP 10 MOST ANTICIPATED OF 2014 LIST. The Raid 2 isn't nearly as lean and mean as The Raid: Redemption. That film was a jab of adrenaline straight into your heart. No big setup; just hit the ground and start kicking butt. The Raid 2 has loftier ambitions. It wants to create a mythos, and this approach has positives and negatives. You lose the pure propulsive energy of the first film, and since that's what got me so excited for this film, I have to ding The Raid 2 just a smidge (I gave The Raid: Redemption a straight "A"). What's gained, however, is a build to one of the most insanely awesome third acts I have ever seen, where all that character-building in the admittedly draggy second act pays off big time. Action junkies, you owe it to yourselves to check this out.
Transcendence (screened on 4/15) - F. ON MY TOP 10 MOST ANTICIPATED OF 2014 LIST. I could write a review. I could spend hundreds—nay, thousands of words warning you to avoid this film atrocity, this war crime in Hollywood's battle to claim your ten dollars. But I suspect that's precisely what Transcendence wants me to do. It's the only explanation for a film this "hammer the nail further into my eyeball, I can still see, damn it!" bad. And I refuse to play along.
Brick Mansions (screened on 4/23) - C-. Don't waste your time. The action is rote, you're expected to root for a despicable drug dealer, and Paul Walker (R.I.P.) gives a dull performance. Instead, see Luc Besson's District B13 (Banlieue 13), the film that Brick Mansions is remaking. The actor who plays Walker's sidekick in Brick Mansions (David Belle) is the star of District B13. He's the one you want to watch: the dude's got some serious parkour moves.
Locke (screened on 5/12) - C. As an acting showcase for Tom Hardy, Locke is a rousing success. The film is just him driving in his car for 85 minutes, and to Hardy's credit, he fills the time with his presence. Sadly, he can't fill in a meaningful story.
Godzilla (screened on 5/13) - C-. When the only interesting character dies a quarter of the way into the film and the narrative torch is passed to a piece of wood masquerading as Aaron Taylor-Johnson, you have a recipe for boredom. Seriously, could this film's ultimate protagonist have been any duller? By the time Godzilla finally showed up to spew blue lightning (which, admittedly, was cool), I was almost asleep.
Edge of Tomorrow (screened on 5/21) - A. I took Edge of Tomorrow off of my Top 10 Most Anticipated Films of 2014 at the last minute because concerns over the script (which passed through tons of writers' hands) turned me off. Boy, was that a mistake. This film freaking rocks. It's got pulse-pounding action. It's incredibly intelligent. It's funnier than most comedies I have seen in the last few years. It's a complete experience. If Edge of Tomorrow had been released during my childhood, it would without a doubt have become a "referential film" (the kind you refer back to when you're talking about the "glory days of film" from your youth). Please, see this film. Pay to see it, if you can. It rocks. Rocks.
Chef (screened on 5/22) - B+. This was a real feel-good surprise. Jon Favreau is at his best when he's making little indies like this, in my opinion. The "father and son bond on a road trip" story may not have been unconventional, but it was highly effective. And if you don't feel like getting out of your seat and dancing to the salsa soundtrack, you simply have no foot-tapping soul.
Deliver Us from Evil (screened on 5/29) - D+. Deliver Us from Boredom would have been a more appropriate title. And please stop marketing these cheap horror films as "based on a true story." It isn't.
The Fault in Our Stars (screened on 6/3) - A-. I haven't read the book, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that this wasn't some sappy melodrama about beautiful, suffering teens, but rather a truly touching story about fully developed people living their lives to the fullest in the days left to them, with all the joy and ugliness that entails. Powerful and affecting.
The Signal (screened on 6/5) - D. Man, I wish I could recommend The Signal. Writer/director William Eubank is a Cleveland product who always shoots his films here. He has written a story here that he obviously feels passionate about, and I dig that it's going for a Cube vibe. (What do you mean, you haven't seen Cube?) But the actors are so flat. We never get a sense that these three friends really care about one another, and that kills things later on when the story hinges on their loyalty to each other. And I'm sorry to say, but there are some dumb-as-nails problems with the script. How do you get your legs sawed off and replaced with bionic ones and not notice this for, like, a month?
