Filmmaking and magic ask much the same thing of their respective audiences: we know they aren’t “real,” but we willingly pretend as though they are in order to engage our sense of wonder. Certainly, cinema is capable of leveraging such engagement to achieve a far greater impact on people than a simple card trick is, […]
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“The Hangover” series has turned out to be a lot like the titular post-inebriation state. There was an initial burst of wild fun that has given way to hours of pain and suffering that makes you wonder if the fun part was worth it in the first place. It is clear now that the first
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“Fast & Furious 6” (or just “Furious 6,” if you go by the title card) is Justin Lin’s fourth film in this cash-machine of a franchise, and by any objective measure, the director has perfected the form. As the series has expanded its focus from street racing to action-heists with street racing involved, Lin has
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I’m genuinely eager to thumb through William Joyce’s picture book “The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs,” the credited source material for “Epic,” just to see how much in common the movie has with the 1996 text. That’s because the movie plays less like an original creation than the result of its (count ‘em)
“Star Trek Into Darkness” is not a film that will be hailed for breaking any new cinematic ground. Even to this critic, who regretfully hasn’t seen 1982’s “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” which the movie apparently borrows heavily from, the story came across as little more than a chain of sci-fi blockbuster clichés.
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“The Great Gatsby” is an emphatically faithful adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel not so much in plot, but in spirit. Writer/director Baz Luhrmann remains true to the text in terms that make its source material instantly recognizable: the 1920s setting, the cast of characters, the arch of the melancholy story. But it’s only by
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“Iron Man 3,” co-written and directed by Shane Black, whose quick-witted 2005 indie “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” likely helped lead Robert Downey Jr. score the title role in this star-reviving series, is two movies in one. More often than not, such a critical observation lends itself to a scathing analysis about how a picture doesn’t
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“Big” and “loud” are two adjectives that have become synonymous with Michael Bay productions over the years, but usually they refer to cars, shootouts, and alien robots, not actual human characters, as in “Pain & Gain,” the filmmaker’s lowest budgeted film by several fold since his 1995 debut “Bad Boys.” Despite the smaller pool of
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Not two minutes into “The Big Wedding,” we know what its primary purpose is: to allow Robert De Niro to earn a paycheck for minimal work. The film begins with lackadaisical voiceover from the legend-turned-professional-phoner-iner that’s reminiscent of most of the other roles he’s collected on lately, in “New Year’s Eve” and “Little Fockers” and
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“Oblivion” is a movie certain to give you déjà vu, and not because that peculiar sensation is a plot point. This Tom Cruise vehicle sports a narrative that’s a blatant composite of countless other films, including but not limited to “WALL-E,” “The Matrix,” “Independence Day,” “Total Recall,” “Planet of the Apes,” and even director Joseph
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