Category: 2013
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iSteve is pretty darn stupid. The film doesn’t make any attempt not to be stupid–occasionally, one has to imagine they went for the more stupid option–but it’s not unwatchable. In a few ways, it’s a great example of why biopics don’t work. In director Perez’s version, Steve Jobs doesn’t really have a particularly interesting life.…
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Straczynski turns Moloch into the martyr of Watchmen. And he gets away with it. Moloch’s such a broken soul, it’s feasible he’d bend to Adrian’s will. As for Adrian, who practically gets more page time here than Moloch, Straczynski seems to recognize what he and Moloch have in common… they’re both illusionists. Adrian’s convincing Moloch…
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While it is exceptionally bad, Hybrids does have some really good CG composites. The fight scenes are incredible for a short; sure, the design of the evil alien monsters is laughable, but the silly monsters do exist in the physical environments. Hybrids has three problems. First–and actually least important–is it’s pointless. It’s fine if Hybrids…
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Even though Moloch appears in the original Watchmen, there’s a lot more talk about him than show. J. Michael Straczynski turns the character into a quintessential sympathetic villain. He was born with deformed ears, leading to teasing in childhood and other tragedies later in life. Straczynski uses first person narration, making the reader identify with…
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Iron Man 3 feels a lot like the end of the series, which isn’t a bad thing–Robert Downey Jr. does the hero’s journey thing quite well–but director Black handles it oddly. After spending the entire movie pairing Downey with buddies, whether love interest Gwyneth Paltrow, sidekicks Don Cheadle and Jon Favreau, his computer and even…
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There’s not much original about Oblivion. Most of the sci-fi elements are familiar, as are most of the plot twists; the unfamiliar ones play like sci-fi elements no one had been able to do before because the special effects were too expensive. None of that familiarity matters, however, thanks to director Kosinski and star Tom…
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There’s a very personal story for director Rozema behind Stardust but I’m going to avoid it for now. To understand the film without that backstory, one either needs to be a NASA enthusiast or a Star Trek: The Motion Picture fan. Rozema shows the destruction of a planet (maybe) from the perspective of the visiting…
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Bruce Willis embarrasses himself in A Good Day to Die Hard. Not a lot, but enough the movie’s occasionally uncomfortable. Usually when it reminds of the previous Die Hard entries. But not when it actually references the previous entries–strangely enough those sequences tend to work. This entry drops Willis into a big dumb spy action…
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Bullet to the Head feels a little like an eighties buddy action movie. Between Sylvester Stallone in the lead and Walter Hill directing, it should feel more like one. But Stallone plays this one mature. He might not be playing his actual age (probably sixty-five at the time of filming), but he’s definitely supposed to…
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The strong parts of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2 make the weak ones often easy to ignore. But nothing’s strong enough to overcome the weakest spots. First is the misogyny. I assume it’s straight from the comic. The filmmakers chose to embrace it (the fidelity to the source material is a lot of…
The Stop Button 