Category: Directed by James Mangold
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Dial of Destiny opens with a very long prologue flashback to 1945, setting up Harrison Ford (a CGI-de-aged Ford) having Toby Jones as a best buddy in the forties during the war and running afoul of Nazi scientist Mads Mikkelsen. The flashback’s technically successful; de-aged Ford looks pretty good (the eyes are off, and the…
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Cop Land either has a lot of story going on and not enough content or a lot of content going on and not enough story. Also you could do variations of those statements with “plot.” Writer and director Mangold toggles Cop Land between two plot lines. First is lead Sylvester Stallone. Second is this big…
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The strangest thing about Logan, at least in terms of the plotting, is how director Mangold is desperate to reference a film classic–one with a plot perfectly suited to what he’s purportedly trying to do with Logan–and he doesn’t follow it through. In any of the neat ways he could. Instead, he goes for obvious…
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The extended version of The Wolverine adds some twelve minutes to the theatrical version. I can’t quite remember the differences, but mostly it just makes the film seem longer. Mangold hasn’t got a good pace for it; the fault for that problem, however, lies with the screenwriters. The film opens with a flashback, moves on…
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The Wolverine suffers from too many pots on the stove, a director in Mangold who can’t manage said pots and some really, really silly things. Like giant monsters silly. The film’s at its best during a long chase sequence–both in terms of run time and story time–when Hugh Jackman is protecting Tao Okamoto throughout Japan.…
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Cameron Diaz only gets to be unbearably obnoxious–her usual persona–when Tom Cruise is off screen during Knight and Day, which, luckily, isn’t often. Amusingly, Cruise’s absence coincides with supporting cast member Maggie Grace’s principal scene and seeing her and Diaz together is chilling… Attack of the content-less blondes. Luckily, Cruise is around for most of…
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Another remake where they credit the original screenwriter as a contributing writer in order not to call it a remake. Halsted Welles wrote the original 3:10 to Yuma’s screenplay… not sure why Mangold and the producers thought Michael Brandt and Derek Haas, writers of some vapid action movies, would match him. I assume Brandt and…
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I unintentionally watched the Roger Ebert cut of Kate & Leopold. I originally saw it at a sneak preview with the plot intact. Ebert saw it around the same time and threatened to complain or whatever if they didn’t cut it. It works all right, but the original cut is available on DVD. I thought…
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Sylvester Stallone’s a small town sheriff taking on dirty New York cops after internal affairs guy Robert De Niro inspires him to be a better cop. Beautifully made, some wonderful performances, but it doesn’t quite come together. The director’s cut adds thirteen minutes of not significant enough to make a difference side plots. DVD.Continue reading…
The Stop Button 