Out to own today:
Interstellar
 | "Don’t make me leave like this," Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) to Murphy (Mackenzie Foy) When the most arresting element of your movie is a supporting robot, things might have gone slightly wrong. See also Steven Spielberg's A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - Teddy ingrains in the mind compared to its surroundings. [To read more, click here.] |
Penguins of Madagascar
 | “Rico, get us out of this delicious prison,” Skipper Adorable animals as elite combat forces is the running gag/theme through this MADAGASCAR spin off. Thankfully the mawkishness that has plagued the main series is absent. Dry, verbally dextrous jokes are interspersed among the energetic action set-pieces. Runtime flashes by in a blink. What more can you ask for from a Saturday afternoon? (Perhaps a little more ambition than INCREDIBLES-lite plotting.) [To read more, click here.] |
Horrible Bosses 2
 | "I hate to break it to you, but the American dream is made in China," Rex Hanson (Chris Pine) Is the HORRIBLE BOSSES franchise an update of THE WIZARD OF OZ? On the Yellow Brick road to employment self-determination, our hapless trio must overcome a myriad of obstacles (though self-discovery is not one of the results). Kurt Buchman (Jason Sudeikis) is without a heart, Dale Arbus (Charlie Day) lacks a brain, and Nick Hendricks (Jason Bateman) is devoid of courage. I'm not good at metaphors, yelps Dale, but there's a big one staring him in the face. Motherf***er Jones (Jamie Foxx) is the Wizard resource providing vague guidance. Who is Dorothy? Maybe the analogy doesn't stretch that far. Actually, how about this: We the audience are Dorothy, meant to be transported from everyday banality and frustration to a place that may have the answers? And like the 1939 classic, there is nothing behind the curtain. Here, absolutely nothing. [To read more, click here.] |
The Grandmaster
 | “Kung Fu. Two words. Horizontal, vertical. Make a mistake, you’re horizontal,” Ip Man Director Wong Kar Wai. Action choreographer Yuen Wo Ping (THE MATRIX; CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON). Actors Tony Leung and Zhang Ziyi. THE GRANDMASTER should’ve been the martial arts flick for the ages. It wasn’t. Not even close. 1936, Southern China. Opening on a fight in extreme slo-mo. Leung’s Ip Man takes on a coterie of assailants in the rain. The water bounces gracefully off surfaces. He punches/kicks gracefully. Beaten up people fall and crash into stuff gracefully. Once you’ve seen this fight you have basically watched most of the film. Only Zhang Ziyi’s entrance enlivens proceedings, adding some emotional heft, but no way near enough. And there is a gaping hole of intellectual inquisitiveness. Pretty imagery staves off ennui, otherwise this is hardly better than vacuous; never transcending B-movie stylings and clichés. [To read more, click here.] |
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