Category: action
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The Amazing Spider-Man 2 [2014] ★★½
Spidey fans went crazy when Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios announced that they were rebooting the series, just five years after Sam Raimi’s “Spider Man 3” hit theaters back in 2007. As a result, the first “Amazing Spider-Man” received mixed reviews by critics and fans upon release; some people praised Andrew Garfield’s performance while others…
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Captain America: The Winter Soldier [2014]
Yes! Yes! Yes! We have a winner. Apologies if I’m fangirling, but how can I not? Marvel sequels are usually a tricky business, which means I couldn’t care less about “Iron Man 2” and “Thor: The Dark World“. By that standard, the Captain America sequel should follow in their footsteps. Not this time. “Winter Soldier”,…
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Need For Speed [2014] ★★
Aaron Paul can act. If you want proof, check him out in the little seen “Smashed” or the hit series “Breaking Bad”. That said, I don’t think he belongs in “Need For Speed”, the big screen adaptation of the famous video game. As a Twitter user, I could describe everything that makes sense in this…
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3 Days To Kill [2014] ★★
Luc Besson movies tend to be, well not so great. If you’re still enthused about his 1994 film “Leon”, my apologies. I’m not. In his latest film, directed by McG, Kevin Costner plays an international spy who tries to build a closer relationship with his family when he is diagnosed with a terminal disease. The…
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300: Rise Of An Empire [2014] ★★
This may sound harsh, but I’m getting Zach Snyder’ed out, at least with his “300” series. The loose cannon vibe that hooked me up in the 2007 original has turned into a sorry excuse of a sequel/companion piece. And yet at the screening I attended, many people loved it, while others said that they were…
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Non-Stop [2014] ★★½
In “Taken”, Liam Neeson played a former CIA operative who was able to outsmart a sex trafficking ring when his daughter was kidnapped. Audiences (including me) responded well to his take-charge character. His latest film, “Non-Stop”, by Spanish director Jaume Collet-Serra (who previously worked with Neeson on “Unknown”) casts the always watchable actor in a…
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Oldboy [2013] ★½
The original “Oldboy”, directed by Park Chan-Wook is a powerful tale of revenge and a Korean cult classic. The new one, directed by the ambitious Spike Lee doesn’t deserve a review at all. It needs to be buried and forgotten. Rating: 1.5/4
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Pompeii [2014] ★★
What can you say about a movie that stars Kiefer Sutherland as a cruel Roman Senator? Some viewers (including me) may have silliness on their minds and I don’t blame them. I even felt a certain amount of wrath over the cheesy 3D effects, but the film itself isn’t as bad as I thought it…
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RoboCop [2014] ★★★
Good news, RoboCop fans. Jose Padilha’s remake adheres to the character’s roots and in a way, proves superior to the 1987 version starring Peter Weller. I admit: I had low expectations at first. As it turns out, the film was way better than I expected, and I mean way way better. The 1987 movie was…
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Lone Survivor [2013] ★★★
“Lone Survivor”, about a Navy Seal team who went behind enemy lines to kill a Taliban leader in Afghanistan in 2005 opened in limited release in December (the official wide opening date was January 10th) to qualify for year-end awards. The fact that the movie collected two Oscar nominations should suggest how good it is.…
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I, Frankenstein [2014]
Here’s a shrieking bore of a January movie that’s meant to spice things up by casting Aaron Eckhart (a decent actor) as the classic Frankenstein monster. I’m calling bullshit. After an Ok prologue that pays homage (well not entirely) to the classic Mary Shelley story, this loud, noisy, video-game like mess made my eyes bleed.…
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Machete Kills [2013] ★★
Welcome to B movie territory. The star of the show: Dany Trejo, who reprises his Machete role for yet another round. It’s a digital gorefest that expands on the fake trailer director Robert Rodriguez included in 2007’s “Planet Terror”. In part 1, Machete had to deal with Steven Seagal and Robert DeNiro. In part 2,…
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Escape Plan [2013] ★★
It would be easy to write off “Escape Plan” as the testosterone heavy version of Clint Eastwood’s “Escape from Alcatraz” and let it go at that. But unlike “Alcatraz”, which was clever and highly entertaining, this one feels impure and stupefyingly simple. Yet things begin promisingly well with Stallone playing a structural engineer who has the…
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Man Of Tai Chi [2013] ★★
Keanu Reeves’ directorial debut is a mediocre…wait for it…martial arts movie. Now there’s an original idea. Such a movie is “Man of Tai Chi”, an alternatively kick-ass and clumsy piece of junk that might satisfy fans of the genre and turn off pretty much everyone else. Reeves also plays the leader of an underground fight-to-the-death…
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Rush [2013] ★★★½
Nothing heats up the fall season like a Formula One movie directed by non other than Ron Howard (“Frost/Nixon”, “A Beautiful Mind”, “Apollo 13”) . “Rush”, starring Chris Hemsworth (aka Thor) and Daniel Bruhl (in a performance of a lifetime) is a knockout. At first, you’d think a car racing movie about two rivals wouldn’t…
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Empire State [2013]
Welcome to Dwayne Johnson’s 100th movie of the year (I’m not really sure about the number but who’s counting?). He plays a cop who tries to stop a couple of morons (that would be the dreadful Liam Hemsworth and Michael Angarano) from robbing an armored car company. That’s it for plot in this truly awful movie.…
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Getaway [2013]
Do not confuse this terrible mess with Steve McQueen’s classic movie “The Getaway”. This loud, ugly film made my ears hurt. Which leads me to this: why in hell do Hollywood studios always choose September to bury their misfires? They must think we won’t notice, distracted by the summer leftovers (I’m talking to you, “Riddick“). Well…
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Welcome To The Punch [2013] ★½
“Welcome to the Punch” is a stinker from start to finish. That’s all you need to know. Rating: 1.5/4
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Kick- Ass 2 [2013] ★½
If you read the blog back in 2010 (I doubt it), you may understand why I wasn’t looking forward to this much-hyped sequel. I thought the first Kick- Ass movie was decent enough, but I can’t call myself a die-hard fan. I guess this is my way of saying that part 2 sucks. I was…
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2 Guns [2013] ★★
Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg are a pleasure to watch in almost anything. But they’re both too good for a standard-issue action movie like “2 Guns”. I had a good time watching it, I can’t deny that, but the movie is full of possibilities and it sucks that only a few of them are realized.…
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