Category: 2/4
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Passion [2013] ★★
What happens when you mess with a very mean Rachel McAdams? See “Passion”, the new movie from Brian De Palma and find out. I didn’t believe a word of it. But with Noomi Rapace (“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” trilogy) as Isabelle, an ambitious creative director working for bossy Christine (McAdams), there’s enough erotic…
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Admission [2013] ★★
Pairing likable Paul Rudd and the hilarious Tina Fey in “Admission” would seem to be a perfect comedy setup. The results, however, are less than perfect and that’s a bummer. Fey plays Portia Nathan, a Princeton admissions officer dedicated to choosing only the best. Later on she runs into into school teacher John Pressman (Rudd), a former college…
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The Lone Ranger [2013] ★★
It’s pointless to describe “The Lone Ranger” because even it doesn’t know what it wants to be. The result is a long, often confusing film with an underwhelming performance by Armie Hammer as the title character. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Gore Verbinski (“Pirates of the Caribbean”) wanted to have fun with the concept of a western/action…
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White House Down [2013] ★★
Another action movie featuring the president of the United States? Seriously? From the peak of “Air Force One” to the low of “Olympus Has Fallen” (sorry about that), we’ve seen it all. The makers of “White House Down” tell us we haven’t seen the version starring Channing Tatum as a wannabe secret agent who tries…
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Spring Breakers [2013] ★★
How you feel about “Spring Breakers” will have a lot to do with your age and gender. If I were a hormonally charged 16-year-old boy, I might think it was a wish-fulfillment movie featuring lots of good-looking naked girls. Director Harmony Korine managed to convince a couple of Disney stars (ha!) to wear bikinis for 90 minutes…
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The Purge [2013] ★★
Everybody wants to make an original horror movie these days. If anyone could reinvigorate the concept, it’s James DeMonaco (“The Negotiator”) and that’s what this writer/director tries to do in “The Purge”. And he almost pulls it off with his nifty premise: in 2022, and once a year, all crime is legalized for a period of…
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Bullet To The Head [2013] and The Last Stand [2013] ★½
1- Bullet to the Head: This film is Sylvester Stallone’s way of saying “I make crappy movies but you pay to see them anyway”. He plays a hitman who teams up with a…wait for it… detective (Sung Kang from “Fast and Furious”) in order to bring down a common enemy. Can you guess what happens next? But…
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Now You See Me [2013] ★★
Ain’t that a kick in the head: “Now You See Me” has the coolest cast in town and a solid premise yet halfway through the film my mind started to wander. Instead of being pulled into the story I felt myself drifting away from it. The movie starts out promisingly enough though. In a companion piece to “Ocean’s…
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After Earth [2013] ★★
90 minutes may feel like 90 days in this slow and sometimes painfully boring post-apocalyptic movie from director M. Night Shyamalan, the perpetrator of such terrible films as “Lady in the Water”, “The Happening” and (oh dear Lord) “The Last Airbender”. In “After Earth”, Will Smith plays Cypher, the leader of Nova Prime, the planet…
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Fast & Furious 6 [2013] ★★
The Fast and the Furious franchise ran out of gas halfway into “Tokyo Drift”. Yet the filmmakers decided to revive it by bringing back the original cast in 2009. Not a bad idea, especially if you’ve seen “Fast Five” (which remains my favorite so far). So what’s new here? Nothing much. But if you care about…
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Oblivion [2013] ★★
Here’s a hit and miss sci-fi film that leaves you wishing it was better than it is. Why? Because director Joseph Kosinsky (“Tron: Legacy”) wussies out on a sharp premise. Because he wastes a killer cast that’s ready to rock the shit out of it. Never happens. This is not to say that “Oblivion” doesn’t…
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G.I Joe: Retaliation [2013] ★★
Sounds like fun. A sequel to the 2009 surprise “hit” based on the popular children’s toys and cartoons. Cool right? Not right. But here’s a little confession: I actually wanted this one to be good. Or at least decent. Or at least a reminder of what got us all fired up about the Joes in…
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Olympus Has Fallen [2013] ★★
For about an hour, before the movie crashes and burns in a bonfire of exaggeration and stupidity overkill, “Olympus Has Fallen” shapes up as a fun ride. I’m not a huge fan of director Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day” was massively overrated in my opinion), but the guy knows how to pump the action pedal. Hell, he…
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Identity Thief [2013] ★★
I wouldn’t call “Identity Thief” a great comedy, but I had a lot of fun watching Melissa McCarthy, who effortlessly commands the screen and proves once again that she’s a real comedian. As an employee at a financial business in Denver, Jason Bateman is cast in the role of straight man, and while he’s good, the main reason…
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Safe Haven [2013] ★★
People crave romantic movies, be they dramatic or funny (the box-office numbers prove it) and novelist Nicholas Sparks has provided the raw material for a number of such films including “Dear John”, “The Lucky One”, and most successfully, “The Notebook”. I think it’s fair to say that moviegoers know what to expect when they see one of these…
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Broken City [2013] ★★
“Broken City” should have and could have been a lot better. I mean just the idea of Mark Wahlberg playing a cop who is used then discarded by the mayor (Russell Crowe) sounds like a dream popcorn movie. But the movie, directed by Allen Hughes (“From Hell”, “The Book of Eli”) goes down in a sea…
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Killing Them Softly [2012] ★★
I’m a bit late reviewing this movie, but having seen it a while ago I can safely say that it was one of the most disappointing films of 2012. It isn’t a requirement that you like a movie’s central characters, but it usually helps develop rooting interest. That’s one reason “Killing Them Softly” comes up short: it’s…
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Zero Dark Thirty [2012] ★★
Finally Hollywood has produced a movie that dramatizes the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. Lol as if you didn’t see that coming. In a nutshell, “Zero Dark Thirty” is the most overrated movie of 2012. Overrated because it’s been nominated for a best picture Oscar and everyone is talking about director Kathryn Bigelow’s wonderful achievement.…
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The Possession [2012] ★★
“The Possession” was one of the better horror movies released in 2012, but that’s not saying much. I’m a huge fan of Producer Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” films, but his latest attempt feels awfully repetitive and corny. The plot is pretty basic fare: Jeffrey Dean Morgan is a divorced man, his daughters live with their mother…
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Parental Guidance [2012] ★★
OK family movie with predictable slapstick moments is strengthened by Billy Crystal and Bette Midler’s performances as grandparents who find themselves having to take care of their three grandkids when their parents (Marisa Tomei and Tom Everett Scott) go away for work. Works better if you’ve never seen “Cheaper by the Dozen”, “Daddy Day Care”,…
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