Badness and Sadness on the Superhero Superhighway. It’s like that rock star yell: “Are you having a good time?” And despite the mistakes, the bad harmonies, the hot sweat, the elbows in your groin, you scream back, “YEAH!” Because the energy of the performance and the sincerity of your heroes make the journey worthwhile. GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL.2 captures … Read More
BRAVEHEART
Mel gets medieval on our asses… When the Legend becomes fact, print the Legend. — from THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE. War is Mel. Reprising his MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME hairdo, donning a slimming skort, pumping up the man-ceps and dropping an accent that is either Scottish or some form of Indonesian elvish, Mel Gibson brings the thunder as … Read More
GLADIATOR
Unleashing Helle. Truly GLADIATOR is the stuff of great fiction; a story so well-orchestrated and superbly told, there might well have been in Roman history a general who became a slave, a slave who became a gladiator, a gladiator who won an Oscar. But – as they used to say in ancient Rome – “only in Hollywood…” Russell Crowe is … Read More
SMOKIN’ ACES
It’s a mad mad mad mad assassination. The logic precept Occam’s Razor tells us that “Plurality should not be posited without necessity.” In other words, “Simpler is better.” But SMOKIN’ ACES fell asleep during physics class and won’t go near any logic precepts. A walloping actioner with way too much exposition, there is more unnecessary dialogue here than in the … Read More
AVP: ALIEN VS. PREDATOR
AVP: Audience Versus Padding. The question is not whether an “Alien” can overcome a “Predator” (ignorant semantics, as the two non-human species in this film are both “aliens” and “predators”); the real battle is pitting the movie’s Audience against its interminable Padding scenes. Can – we – survive? With my leg bloodied from the onslaught and a gaping wound in … Read More