Movie Reviews
Saw 6 Review
Has there ever been a movie franchise as user-friendly as the “Saw” films? “Saw VI,” the latest installment, may have a new director (Kevin Greutert), but the writers Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, collaborating on their third consecutive “Saw,” make sure that it’s as customer-service-oriented as ever.
Somewhere within the Saw universe’s ridiculously convoluted back story is a film showing how the dying “Jigsaw Killer” John Kramer (Tobin Bell) won the lottery, set up corporate offices, and hired legions of worker elves to build a “torture district” the size of Disneyland. It would be a helluva lot more entertaining than watching his uber-secret second protégé (Mandylor, Mandylor, Costas Mandylor) tiptoe around the events of the previous films, which was all that the abysmal Saw V really had to offer…read more [DreadCentral]
I really don’t want to talk about the plot, because if you’ve seen a few of these films, then the point of how to have fun with them is the twists and turns of the stories. Saw VI is a very satisfying sequel for a handful of reasons. One of the complaints of the last few sequels, were people felt each entry was incomplete because the film’s would leave plot points left unanswered. Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton make Saw VI into a caper for the previous films, finally answering some long wondered questions, while juggling an interesting solo story. We get questions answered, which should please the long time fans, and tells a sick little moralistic tale that goes back to the origin of Jigsaw. Saw VI won’t win over any newbies, but it doesn’t have too. If you’re late in this game, go back to the beginning. Maybe that’s good advice for all of us Saw fans, because you’ll appreciate this film a lot more, with all of the subplots fresh in your mind…read more [KillerFilm]
Where The Wild Things Are Review
The children’s classic “Where the Wild Things Are” is only nine sentences long. The new, live-action film version is more than 90 minutes long. You might expect that clever director Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) and trauma-tested co-writer Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) would pad the story with extraneous detail to captivate modern kids and their parents.
Where the Wild Things Are is about a child’s innocence brushing up against reality’s prickles. As king, Max (solidly played by newcomer Max Records) inherits the wonder of power, bossing around the monsters in fits of rumpus fun. The child-like tyranny of fun is easy, but the party’s sheen wanes, and Max faces the actual responsibilities of leadership. When forced to deal with being a caretaker, mediator, and confidant to his kingdom’s dysfunction, Max is in way over his head. The monsters of his fantasy world engage in the same frustrations and pettiness he sees in adults of his real childhood, and the solutions to their problems reveal deeper fissures in the group’s fabric. It seems as though Max’s come-to-life toys have become manifestations of his own emotional baggage…read more [Twitchfilm]
Spike Jonze WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE is brilliant. It is strange, wild, wicked, terrifying… it is an absolute classic. I remember growing up with the book by Maurice Sendak, and it having a very warm place in my heart. Even today I remember it. I loved the idea that monsters were just like us, they feel and they are oftentimes misunderstood. And as beautiful as the book is, Jonze managed to take that beauty and create a near flawless piece of fiction that lingers somewhere between reality and the fantastic imagination of childhood. I couldn’t have been more pleased with the outcome as it brings out what made the book a classic work of fiction, but it also brings a very emotional and human element to the story of Max and the “wild things”. This is a movie going experience that should not be missed. Young or old, this is a magnificent motion picture that may well end up being the best film of the year come December…read more [Joblo]
Law Abiding Citizen Review
Remember Charles Bronson in Death Wish? Law Abiding Citizen offers a taste of no-mercy vigilante family-man justice 3.0. Ten years after his wife and daughter were slaughtered in front of him, Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) kidnaps one of the perpetrators, straps him down to a torture table, and saws off his limbs (and other things). Then he sends a video of the atrocity to Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), the slick, out-for-himself Philadelphia prosecutor who cut too soft a deal with the killer…read more [EW]
When “Law Abiding Citizen” feels comfortable enough to be a blunt object of suspense, it comes together splendidly. Pitting the harsh realities of the modern justice system against the suburban cry for blood from a soccer dad, Kurt Wimmer’s screenplay nurtures a pungent odor of injustice that sets up the plot in an exhilarating manner. Morally frozen lawyers? Tired, careless judges? Wimmer manipulates audience reaction superbly, bringing the story to a wonderful boil as Nick stands firm to his case-winning percentages and Clyde sulks away, beaten down by the system that was supposed to heal his aching heart. Now there’s a proper set-up for a bracing thriller that respects the fine art of revenge…read more [brainorndorf.com]
Zombieland Review
Zombieland’s not much of a horror movie. There are some really good scares in the first act, and it’s set in a world that’s been devastated by zombies (but not, I think, the undead. These zombies seem to be much more like the Rage-infected types from 28 Days Later and less like the ghouls of George A. Romero’s films), but if you’re hoping for a really gory, juicy, splattery zombie movie, look elsewhere… read more [CHUD]
Falling closer in tone to “Shaun of the Dead” than “28 Days Later” or the George Romero movies, “Zombieland” has its tongue planted firmly in its rancid cheek while still delivering the visceral goodies.
It’s an admittedly tricky balance that’s pulled off with energetic panache by first-time director Ruben Fleischer and the writing team of Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. It also has perfectly pitched performances, including the cameo of the year by Bill Murray. But more about that in a bit… read more [THR]
Pandorum Review
Now in theaters everywhere is Pandorum, the third film by Christian Alvart, yet the second to hit theaters – a coincidence or maybe something a bit more telling? While Pandorum is far from a bad movie, it’s so incredibly generic that it’s hard to recommend to anyone outside genre fans looking forward to seeing it… read more [Bloody Disgusting]
The film starts with two space crew members Bower (Ben Foster) and Payton (Dennis Quaid) waking up from a multi-year hyper-sleep to discover that the ship they are on is dying in power resources. Neither of them can remember the mission due to the fact that they have been sleeping for so long which has the side effect of mild to severe memory loss. Bower volunteers to try to get to the ship’s core reactor up and running as it comes on and off to give the ship spurts of power. Bower and Payton both realize that this must be done to get anywhere as their doesn’t seem to be anyone answering their lines of communication… read more [We Are Movie Geeks]
Surrogates Review
In “Surrogates,” FBI agents (Bruce Willis and Radha Mitchell) investigate the mysterious murder of a college student linked to the man who helped create a high-tech surrogate phenomenon that allows people to purchase unflawed robotic versions of themselves—fit, good looking remotely controlled machines that ultimately assume their life roles—enabling people to experience life vicariously from the comfort and safety of their own homes. The murder spawns a quest for answers: in a world of masks, who’s real and who can you trust?
Willis still takes a beating better than any action star in the business. But there are really only two significant action sequences in what’s otherwise a murder mystery set in a future world. Oh, and pretty much everyone now owns a surrogate robot body—usually a blandly prettier version of themselves—through which they can live vicariously, feeling everything good that the surrogate experiences, but insulated from any damage it might sustain…read more [Comcast]
The Informant Review
“The Informant” is a true story of the highest-ranking corporate whistleblower in US history, with Matt Damon as Mark Whitacre, a rising star at an agri-industry giant who imagined himself to be some kind of secret agent by exposing his company’s price-fixing to the FBI in the 90s. Only Whitacre wasn’t all that he seemed, neglecting to mention to the FBI the $9.5 million he’d siphoned off from the corporate coffers.
Directed by Steven Soderbergh, The Informant! stars Matt Damon as Mark Whitacre, an employee at Illinois-based ADM (Archer Daniels Midland), a company that produces food additives, among other things. Whitacre, a Ph.D. from an Ivy League school, works in biochemistry, but eventually climbs the corporate ladder and finds himself working behind a desk making a very comfortable living. That is until one day, he finds himself in a mess of trouble when the company’s lysine production is threatened by a virus in the bugs used to produce the lysine. It is Whitacre’s job to make the problem go away, lest the company continue to lose millions of dollars each and every month…read more [Empire Movies]
Steven Soderbergh’s new film, The Informant, takes a serious issue and plays it for laughs. This is a strange choice, given the current economic climate and the greediness of the higher ups in corporate America, and it only occasionally works. The film’s tone is constantly being shifted from one extreme (goofy comedy) to another (serious drama), and one has to wonder if the film believes in its subject, or even cares for him. That man in question is Mark Whitacre, employee of the food producing Archer Daniels Midland, a company that was suspected of price fixing in the mid 1990s. Whitacre, suspecting illegal activity, went undercover for the FBI for two and a half years, and wound up doing more harm to himself than the company he was trying to report; he was guilty of as much stuff as they were. Was he naïve, mentally ill, or just plain dumb? Confusingly, the film implies all three…read more [411mania.com]
