adpirtle

FBaWtFT is as good as a film based on a spin-off novella written for charity has any right to be, and better than the ninth film in any franchise should be expected to be. It's got all the wonder and none of the bad child-acting of the original Harry Potter films. What more can be said than that?

Suicide Squad suceeds in that it is marginally better than this years other DCCU film, Batman v Superman, but thats not saying a whole lot. The combined charismas of veteran Will Smith and an up and coming Margo Robbie help to carry what is an otherwise jumbled mess, though an occasionally entertaining one. Viola Davis is good enough as Amanda Waller, but Jared Leto's Joker is the least impressive big screen iteration of tbe character.

Where Star Trek played fast and loose with science, its sequel throws it (and plot logic) out the window in favor of a high-octane action flick with too much ambition and too little heart. It doesn't help matters that the last act of the film is an intentional rip-off of the original Star Trek II. It thinks its being clever, but it's really just sad to watch. There's nothing like trying to remake the most stirring scene the original cast ever pulled off to show the flaws in the new franchise.

Star Trek is true enough to its name to provide a satisfying quasi-reboot for the decades-old franchise. The science of this sci-fi action film is very thin, but the heart's still there, in no small part because of the participation of Leonard Nimoy, who has a surprisingly substantial role.

Star Trek Beyond felt like a refreshing palate cleanser after its predecessor, Into Darkness. The latter, while obviously attempting to ape the franchise high notes of social commentary and character development, fell a bit flat by relying too much on unsurprising twists and forced nostalgia. Beyond only flirts with social commentary and steers clear of being overly self-referential. It's just a fun adventure, one that would have fit in well with the 1960's TV show.

Whether you consider this to be the third, sixth, or ninth film in the franchise, it can't be denied that X-Men: Apocalypse would have had to work hard to stay fresh, as have its predecessors since the mediocre end of the original trilogy (and the critically panned X-Men Origins: Wolverine). First Class reveled in its role as a rebooted period piece. The Wolverine mixed the superhero and Japanese martial arts genres to great effect. Days of Future Past indulged in time travel (and fan service). Deadpool was one of the funniest send-ups of any film genre in history. Apocalypse doesn't try to do anything of the sort. It's just a straight-up comic book film, one that could have been a part of any franchise, set in any decade (excepting the shoulder pads on Jean's jacket). There are some standout moments, but they're nothing we haven't already seen before (like Quicksilver's bigger big moment). The effects are decent but not jaw-dropping. The havoc is widespread but impersonal. At no moment did the fate of the world or any of its important characters seem in doubt. So it wasn't a bad film, but it could have been much better, particularly with such a contender of a villain.

Not a bad film, but not one I'd expect to win any awards. Just another workmanlike effort from writer/director Gervais. A decent way to spend an otherwise boring afternoon.

As an unabashed DC comics fan growing up, it almost pains me to admit it, but Captain America: Civil War is everything I wished Batman v Superman would have been. It's by no means perfect, but it sure is a heck of a lot more entertaining, and both the reason for the conflict and the resolution between Cap and Iron Man were handled infinitely better. Probably my favorite part of the film, though, was Tom Holland's Peter Parker/Spider-man, whose brief-ish appearance steals the show in the same way Evan Peters' Quicksilver did in the last X-Men film.

As a disaster movie, San Andreas works better than some of its recent, big-budget predecessors. That's not to say that it's a great film or anything close to it. The plot is bog standard for the genre, and some of the dialogue is so predictable that you're likely to get there before the actors at least half the time. But it looks terrific. If disaster porn isn't your thing, you'll probably be bored, but then why on earth are you watching a Dwayne Johnson film named after a fault line in the first place? Mr. Johnson is, by the way, as fun and charismatic as ever.

This is the best installment of the franchise since the original. It doesn't cover any new ground, but fans of the monster-movie genre should find more than enough to enjoy. Pratt and Howard are decent leads, and the effects have come a long way since 1993. Still no feathers, though.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Everything you love and everything you hate about Quentin Tarantino as a filmmaker is dialed up to 11 in this claustrophobic film about eight unpleasant people snowbound in a mountain cabin. The phrase 'self-indulgent' has been tossed around quite a bit in reviews of this film, and it is undeniably that. However, Tarantino remains a good teller of gory tales, and while this may be the least successful of his eight feature films, that's really more of a statement about the high quality of his oeuvre as a whole.

"Skyfall" is frankly about as good as a James Bond film can get. On top of being gorgeously shot and wonderfully acted, and being chocked full of the kind of hard-nosed action we've come to expect from Craig's Bond, the franchise has never been more emotionally powerful than in this film, not that this is a particularly high bar over which to leap.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

The fans have it over the critics on this one. Dredd is a violent visual treat. Karl Urban is perfect as Dredd, and Lena Heady is nearly as good as the prostitute-turned-crime lord Ma-ma. Olivia Thirlby holds her own. But the biggest star of this film is the way super-slow motion is mixed with a terrific soundtrack to make even the goriest scene in the film almost beautiful to watch.

Full disclosure - I'm the guy who enjoyed Terminator: Salvation, so make of that what you will. After reading the reviews, I was surprised by how much I actually enjoyed this film. The story has some plot holes (and at least one major unanswered question), but even if its script can't hold a candle to the second movie, it's certainly not the least-well-written Terminator film (that would be T3: Rise of the Machines). The effects are suitably cool and the actors are suitably cast. If there's one thing that Arnold S. actually can act like, it's a robot. Perhaps that's the picture's biggest crime - it's just suitable rather than phenomenal. It could be said that the Terminator franchise is like a rock band that peaked with their second album and has never recaptured that perfect sound. But that doesn't mean they don't put out decent records every now and then.

The early 80's were bombarded with a whole slew of 'epic sword and sorcery' films, from the visually splendid "Excalibur" to the ridiculous but inexplicably charming "The Beastmaster." But none of them were responsible for catapulting their lead to **** like "Conan the Barbarian." Sure, it's cheesy and Arnold Schwarzenegger was an even more limited actor then than now, but the 10 year old me that first saw the film thought it was the greatest thing since Star Wars, and that's all that matters. :P

The Terminator films have become so bloated with effects and one-liners that it's easy to forget it all started with this comparatively small sci-fi thriller. This is a film that does what few can, providing just enough story to keep the ball rolling without ever feeling like it's being stingy, but it's essentially just a three-character shoot-em-up in 1980's Los Angeles. It could have so easily ended up being a cheesy b-movie, but the tight direction and the way the principles throw themselves into their roles instead make it one of the better action films ever made.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

I really liked this film. I found it to be very well written and performed. I also am surprised that so many people misinterpreted it as a screed against progress. It was totally the opposite.

Interstellar is a film about, above everything else, humanity's need for exploration. It's hard to miss this fact, what with all of Matthew McConaughey's monologues on the topic in the film's first half hour or so. The blighted, dying future Earth is practically a metaphor for its navel-gazing population, so blind to the fact that they're literally farming themselves to death that they actually rewrote the history books to discourage wasteful wanderlust. So it comes as little surprise that explorers are the ones plotted to save the species in spite of itself. However, getting past the heavy-handed setup is worth it, because once the crew of Interstellar's interstellar vessel takes off, so does the movie. The visuals are always great and sometimes amazing. The care with which the film's universe is rendered is apparent. Kip Thorne, Interstellar's science adviser, really earned his paycheck here. The actual science is less perfect, but if you can ignore all the hand-waving at the beginning and ending of the film, the rest might actually teach you a thing or two. It goes without saying with a cast like this that the performances are all solid, including an unexpectedly disturbed turn by Matt Damon. Christopher Nolan shoots this film in signature stylistic fashion, and his musical right-hand man Hans Zimmer provides a suitably rousing score. The ending is more than a little derivative, but it serves.

I liked this film, and I really wish I could give it a higher score. The script is terrific, exploring the overdone zombie genre uniquely as a heart-wrenching family drama. The film focuses on both a father's anguish at having to choose the ultimate fate of his terminally ill daughter, as well as the young girl's struggle to face her impending death on her own terms. The performances are terrific, surprisingly, since I don't usually associate Arnold Schwarzenegger with art-house acting showcases like this. The aging action hero does as good a job as anyone has a right to expect him to, and his face is well-suited for the somber material. Abigail Breslin outshines him, of course, with an amazing performance assisted in no small part by a top-notch makeup department. Unfortunately it's Director Henry Hobson, making his feature film debut, who keeps the movie from being everything it should have been. With his shaky, handheld shots and dingy orange-gray palette he's obviously trying to thread the needle between artsy and scary, but he doesn't pull either off particularly well. To be perfectly frank, sometimes I have no idea what he's aiming the camera at. If you can stand the uneven quality of the direction, and you love both zombie films and melancholic character pieces, this is a must-watch. Otherwise, I'd wait until it pops up on Netflix.

I've never understood the loathing that this film generated with a significant minority of the viewing public. I found it to be both beautiful and thought-provoking, with extremely good performances by Michael Fassbender, Noomi Rapace, Charlize Theron, and Idris Elba. It's certainly not perfect, of course. Sean Harris and Rafe Spall's characters are deservedly mocked by many viewers as two of the dimmest scientists in cinema history. To be fair, the film never attempted to portray them as particularly bright, but I was left wondering how the pair landed such an important gig. Perhaps Weyland blew the budget on his gorgeous spacecraft and had to skimp on the staffing. That moderate criticism aside, it's still very good science fiction, and I'm very much looking forward to its 2017 sequel.

Mad Max: Fury Road is a rarity among rarities, a big-budget action film which not only has important things to say, but actually succeeds in doing so without derailing itself in the process. It's a septuagenarian's gauntlet thrown in the face of today's Hollywood directors. It's a $150 million love letter to George Miller's devoted fans. And it's the ultimate expression of a sociopolitical message that has been built throughout the Mad Max movie franchise, that if mankind wants to do more than simply survive, it has to cast off the shackles of toxic masculinity.

Tonally and thematically this film is more than a bit of a mess, but that doesn't keep it from being steadily entertaining. With its more hit than miss humor, hyper-stylized and choreographed violence and a solid performance by Colin Firth, it's got enough going for it to distract the viewer from its shortcomings.

Have you seen Short Circuit? Did you wish it had more gang violence, carjackings, and gratuitous gore? Chappie is a mostly enjoyable, somewhat cartoonish, surprisingly derivative effort from a director whose last two films were undeniably original. But just because something's been done before doesn't mean it can't be done again, and have fun doing it, taking some interesting (and one very ridiculous) turns along the way. The visual effects are great, particularly the rendering of the title character. The acting is also quite good, including a couple of entertaining performances by rappers Ninja and Yolandi Visser (and her pet rat) of Die Antwoord, playing fictionalized versions of themselves.

This film dispenses with any notion of hard science fiction to focus on more philosophical questions about consciousness and humanity. Its biggest failing is that it quickly stops being interested in answering them so that it can present a much more straightforward fembot thriller. I can't help thinking that the film would have been much more interesting if, instead of Ava, we had Michael Fassbender's David 8 appealing to the protagonist's morality rather than his sexual desires.

The first Avengers film was perhaps the perfect popcorn film, full of thrills and laughs without attempting to inject even the most minimal amount of thought. Its sequel manages to be deeper, both in plot and characterization. The result is a more interesting film, if not a better one.

Efficiently and unflinchingly directed by Ava DuVernay, "Selma" retells one of the Civil Rights Movement's most pivotal moments without glossing over the conflicts within the movement or the brutality pitted against it. British actor David Oyelowo delivers a powerful performance as Martin Luther King, Jr., one that should have certainly netted him an Oscar nod, regardless of the packed field, but he doesn't have to carry this film. Fellow Brit Tom Wilkinson does a great job with his role as a politically harried Lyndon Johnson, torn between personal empathy and political expedience. There has been some handwringing over the accuracy of the film's portrayal of LBJ's relationship with MLK, but I found the film to be more historically accurate than the claims of some of the late president's defenders. Carmen Ejogo wonderfully reprises the role of Coretta Scott King, which she first took up with the late activist's blessing in 2001's TV movie, "Boycott." Other big names pepper the cast (Oprah Winfrey, Tim Roth, Martin Sheen, Cuba Gooding, Jr.), but it's these three performances which are most memorable.

I can't think of a bad thing to say about this film. The direction and cinematography are very well done, making the theater in which the bulk of the film occurs a character in itself, rather than just a series of settings in which scenes happen. The screenplay is top-notch, for the most part avoiding cliches in its rather unique telling of a familiar story. The actors are terrific. Nobody holds anything back, least of all Keaton, who gives the performance of his life.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Aronofsky has drawn from a number of canonical and apocryphal texts, as well as more modern post-apocalyptic and environmentalist themes, to craft an antediluvian world which feels part Biblical, part mystical, and part Mad Max. That might sound like the makings of a hot mess, but it all somehow works, thanks to a strong script and even stronger casting. "Noah" is definitely not the story you learned in Sunday School, but it is a great movie, taken on it's own merits, as well as managing to inject some emotional impact back into a story we've become numbed to, having heard it so many times.

This exploration of rural Catholicism in post-abuse scandal Ireland is exceptionally well filmed and performed by a flawless cast, though the story is probably more impactful for those are already familiar with the backdrop in question.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

This certainly isn't a faithful retelling of the myth, nor is it a clever new take on the character. It is cheesy, predictable, and the effects aren't terribly special. That being said, I actually enjoyed this 95 or so minutes of popcorn fluff, because that's all it ever pretends to be.

The second film in this trilogy dispenses with the relative reverence of the first, and that turns out to be a good thing. Its predecessor suffered a bit because it couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a scene-for-scene retelling of the novel or a looser, action-oriented adaptation. This film resides firmly in the second camp, and everything works better for it. For example, the escape from the Woodland Realm is every bit as over the top as the last film's escape from Goblin-town, but it doesn't feel so out of place, so it's easier just to kick back and enjoy the ride. The changes from the book once again mostly work, and in this case actually make more sense. Bard the Bargeman might not be as awesome as Bard the Bowman, at least not yet, but he is much more fleshed out, and the film finally gives the Company a decent reason for needing a burglar. I could have done without the dwarf-dragon battle at the end, I really liked the addition of Tauriel. My biggest objection continues to be the over-reliance on CGI. Make no mistake, the Smaug of the title is every bit as incredible as I ever imagined he could be, but decision to animate Azog's son doesn't work out so well. I understand that it was a late decision to give what was originally a live performance a computer makeover, and it shows in how unrealistic he looks next to Daddy. Overall, this is another fine addition to Jackson's Middle-earth saga, expanding on the previous film while avoiding its pacing pitfalls.

The opening chapter of Peter Jackson's second Middle-earth trilogy is a bit of a mixed bag, but the bag itself is gorgeous. The scenery, the set design and the special effects (mostly) dazzle, and the 48fps theatrical release was, for me, a game-changer of a visual experience (YMMV). The ensemble cast (both old and new) is uniformly good, and Martin Freeman is absolutely perfect in the title role of a thoroughly domesticated hobbit pushing middle-age, who finds himself uncharacteristically swept away on an adventure. The film doesn't precisely follow the beloved children's tale it's adapting (though the first 45 minutes or so is just shy of reverential), but many of the changes are understandable, and work to make the movie more accessible. I have no idea why Jackson decided to change this from a "quest" into a "chase," but Azog makes a pretty decent bad guy. There are really only two issues that keep this film from getting a higher score from me, and they're both hard to ignore. First, of course, is the length. When I heard that Jackson was turning this slim novel into a trilogy, I still never imagined that each film would be pushing 3 hours long. The LOTR movies could get away with this, because they had so much story to tell, but this one feels a bit padded. The second problem, which runs throughout the film, at least after it leaves Bag End, is the overwhelming about of computer graphics. One reason the first trilogy was so well accepted, even by non-fantasy fans, is how grounded it felt, with lots of real locations and practical effects. This film moves away from that trend, perhaps because Jackson has a substantially larger war chest to play with. Goblin-town is particularly egregious. The Great Goblin looks fantastic, and so does Gollum, (who continues to steal all his scenes), but the rest of it just feels fake, more like a video game than a movie, especially the escape. Overall, this is an enjoyable adventure film, and a fun, if flawed, beginning of moviegoers new foray into Middle-earth.

This eighth (!) picture in the Planet of the Apes franchise gives the original film a run for its money. Building on the aftermath of the last film, this movie places Caesar at the center of the story, and it's surprising how well it works, given that he and all of his simian costars are (wonderfully) computer generated characters. In fact, the only sleight I can give this otherwise wonderful picture is that the actual human characters feel much more artificial than the titular apes.

It's a significant achievement to make a sci-fantasy film that can pass as one of the best of the genre while still being so irreverent. "Guardians" mixes impeccable production and brilliant 3D visual effects with witty, often hilarious dialog performed wonderfully by an all-star cast. The Phase Two films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe have already been great, and this one tops all three of its predecessors.