Going where everyone has gone before.. A former Starship captain-turned-alien tries to reignite interstellar conflict between humans and aliens. It gets Kirk off his bored ass, into action posedown mode. STAR TREK: BEYOND doesn’t seem to know what to do with itself, much like Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine); after 966 days in space, he’s feeling jaded fulfilling the … Read More
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL
Casper The Frenzied Ghost. The one with the Burj Khalifa. By this fourth MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE film, all the adventures are jumbled together in our heads; the only way to tell them apart is by each film’s stunts. 1996’s MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE had the fish tank restaurant, the suspension gag and the helicopter-bullet-train climax; II had free-climbing, bike stunts and the knife-to-the-eye … Read More
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FALLOUT
People Shooting Other People from Offscreen. (ALTERNATE TITLE: Adventures Of The World’s Most Expensive Stuntman.) Tom Cruise skydives. Tom Cruise fights in a toilet. Tom Cruise rides a motorbike through Paris. Tom Cruise jumps across rooftops. Tom Cruise climbs a rope to a flying helicopter. Tom Cruise flies a helicopter while fighting. Tom Cruise dangles from a cliff… Y’know, I … Read More
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III
The Running Spy. Running. If you like running, you’ll love MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III. Because that’s all that Tom Cruise seems to be doing in it. Besides running, Cruise is also being IMF espionage agent Ethan Hunt. (When he tells someone that IMF stands for “Impossible Missions Force,” we realize how ridiculous it sounds, and why everybody’s trying to kill him). … Read More
STAR WARS: EPISODE VII – THE FORCE AWAKENS
I willfully waited for the fervor to die down. So I wouldn’t have to deal with ubergeeks in Wookiee masks and errant lightsabers up the nostril, while trying to sit comfortably surrounded by idiots wearing Imperial armor or a three-man rancor costume. I succeeded, and EVENTUALLY saw the movie whose hype exceeds its content, in a bare cinema where I … Read More
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – ROGUE NATION
Mission TomCruise-able. You know what the real Mission: Impossible is? Trying to get insurance for Tom Cruise. Oh, there is eventually a signature in blood on the dotted line, or this film would not be greenlit, but can any layman truly speculate what devil’s percentage of the box office these insurance companies are demanding in return – to insure a … Read More
MONTY PYTHON: AND NOW FOR SOMETHING RATHER SIMILAR
Monty Python – The Autumn Years. Their legs are grey, their ears are nulled, their eyes are old and bent. IT’S. Monty Python’s Flying Circus 2014. Oh, and one of them’s been dead for over 25 years like a very naughty boy. MONTY PYTHON: AND NOW FOR SOMETHING RATHER SIMILAR is a documentary by IMAGINE, a BBC TV series (Season … Read More
THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER
Moulage of the Ripe Cheddar. THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER: where characters we care not one whit for embark on a journey we have absolute zero interest in. After two movies, author C.S. Lewis’s epic saga of the magical Narnia universe is going nowhere fabulously fast. And by that I mean, director Michael Apted (THE … Read More
STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS
The Wrath Of Cumberbatch. Hold up a mirror to STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN and you get – STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS. We get Spock and his infamous line in the first ten minutes, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”; we get the crisis which can only be diverted by someone illustrating that … Read More
PAUL
Kind Encounters of the Close Third. It’s a buddy comedy of the crude kind, a road movie of the chase kind, a close encounter of the third kind! Hey, isn’t that Roger from AMERICAN DAD? Or do all aliens just look alike to me?… Two Brits on a pilgrimage to famed UFO sites in Nevada pick up a real extraterrestrial … Read More
ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS
On its merry way to extinction… Part road movie, part dinosaur actioner, and fully gushing with family values, ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS is the third and most spectacular in the ICE AGE series – and probably the least interesting. If you’re not as tired of these characters as I am, you’ll enjoy Manny the Mammoth (Ray Romano), Sid … Read More
STAR TREK 2009
All-New, All-Improved, Same-ole Same ole. If this don’t keep the fanboys happy, nothin’ will.How do you approach a movie as sodden in mythos as the STAR TREK franchise? The approach must be as trepidatious for film makers as it is for geekboys and weekend viewers alike. Every inch of a production under the STAR TREK aegis would reek of esoterica … Read More
RUN FATBOY RUN
Running Gag. I have a newfound respect for that unfunny dork, David Schwimmer, after RUN FATBOY RUN. Schwimmer directs Simon Pegg as Dennis, a man who ran from his pregnant bride at the altar five years ago and now decides to win her back by beating her current boyfriend at his own game – marathon running. The plot only seems … Read More
HOT FUZZ
Buzz Fuzz. In 2004, the zombie comedy (“zomedy”?), SHAUN OF THE DEAD, hit us like a shovel to the face. HOT FUZZ is like that same shovel – to the bollocks. Harder, heavier, grittier and gruesomer than SHAUN, Brit import HOT FUZZ throws down action badder than Hollywood’s baddest bad boys – and it’s a comedy. The same team that … Read More