Category: The Twenty-First Century

Think of “Trespass” this way: There’s “The Godfather” then way below that is “Green Lantern”. Then there’s 50,000 feet of crap. Underneath that is Michael Bay’s “Transformers”. Dig another 100,000 feet until you hit rock bottom and there you will find “Trespass”, a movie so bad it shouldn’t be allowed to call itself a movie. Put it in another way:…

A deadly virus rips the bloody hell out of an A-list cast in “Contagion”, a heart pounding thriller from director Steven Soderbergh. Gwyneth Paltrow goes first, after acquiring the virus during a trip to Hong Kong. Her husband, Matt Damon, is immune. But the rest of the world is not. People from around the globe…

90 minutes feel like 90 days in this disappointing suspense movie starring Adrian Brody (the Oscar winner) as a man who awakens inside a wrecked car in the middle of nowhere. With no memory of who he is or how he got there, our man must rely on his primal instincts to survive. As you…

From the billboards, you might think this is yet another vampire movie- heaven help us- when in fact it’s a cross between “Disturbia” and “True Blood”. It’s formulaic and definitely predictable, but it’s played with perfection by its cast, and it works. That’s Colin Farrell in the lead. He’s deliciously creepy as a vampire named…

The fun in this routine action flick is watching Jason Statham, Clive Owen and Robert DeNiro together in one film. But even those three can’t save “Killer Elite” from being formulaic and unashamedly manipulative. We’re told right at the beginning that the story we’re about to see is based on true events. Yet halfway through,…

Get ready for the horror event of the year. I’m only joking. In fact, there’s absolutely nothing in “Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark” that you haven’t seen before, unless you’ve never seen a horror movie before (I doubt that). I’m a huge fan of Guillermo Del Toro (who worked as a producer here), and…

If you’ve seen Paul Giamatti in “Cold Souls” or “Sideways”, you know he’s an actor who means business. In “Win Win”, a movie that prides itself by keeping its distance from Hollywood formula, Giamatti gives himself completely to a role he was born to play as a lawyer who’s having a tough time making ends…

Welcome to the 1000th movie (OK, I’m not that sure of the number) featuring the Three Musketeers. Oh brother! You saw it in Disney’s “The Three Musketeers” back in 1993, then again in “The Man In The Iron Mask”. Up to the plate in the latest version are Ray Stevenson, Logan Lerman (“Percy Jackson”), Milla…

The Smurfs, those iconic little creatures we used to watch when we were kids on saturday mornings are now the subject of this lame movie starring Neil Patrick Harris, Hank Azaria and Sofia Vergara, with the voices of Katy Perry, Alan Cumming and Fred Armisen. The extra half star rating goes for Azaria as evil mastermind…

For those who may not know, “Where Do We Go Now?” beat two well received movies starring George Clooney (yes Clooney!) to win the people’s choice award at the Toronto film festival. As a Lebanese, I feel proud. Nadine Labaki’s previous movie “Caramel” was a huge success, but never got to compete on an international…

There’s one great scene in this seriously undercooked “western” when UFO’s first make their appearance, using wires to grab cowboys, and suck them into their vessels. That we never get a scene as fun as this one is part of the frustration I felt once the movie ended. It looks slick at first, Indiana Jones…

Confession: I’m a fan of the first “Spy Kids” movie, which featured a hilarious Alan Cumming in the role of Fegan Floop. Since then, director Robert Rodriguez’s series has gotten worse, and though this third sequel was totally unexpected (the previous installment was released in 2003), let’s all pretend that it never existed. In a…