Action

[3] With two-time Oscar-winning director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Life of Pi) at the helm, and a cast that includes Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Nick Nolte, and Sam Elliott, you should reasonably expect a much better movie than Hulk turns out to be. I mean, wow. It’s so not good. The script begins with an abundance of exposition that never seems to stop. Bana as …

[5] Bird on a Wire is a big, goofy Hollywood action spectacular with two likeable stars at its center. Mel Gibson plays an FBI informant in witness protection and Goldie Hawn plays an old flame he left at the altar when the feds reassigned him a new identity. Now they’re reunited and on the lam from a dirty fed and his hit men. This is …

[5] Robert Shaw and Edward Fox reprise the roles originated by Gregory Peck and David Niven in The Guns of Navarone for this matinee adventure sequel. Shaw and Fox are led by Harrison Ford as a U.S. Colonel and joined by Carl Weathers (Rocky) as an arrested army sergeant on the run. Together, the team must complete two separate, secret missions — to kill a …

[8] Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke’s romantic but combative relationship fuels this road-trip action/adventure also directed by Eastwood. He’s a cop trying to transfer her from one jail to another, but both the mob and the cops want her dead, and no one cares if he dies with her.  The movie’s climax pits the two of them against the world, as Eastwood drives an iron-plated …

[4] Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as a New York City bicycle delivery man engaged in a never-ending cat-and-mouse chase with a nasty copy (Michael Shannon) for possession of a very valuable package. Premium Rush reminds me of movies like Rad and Thrashin’ — it’s not much more than a fetishistic showcase of fancy bicycling. And without any attachment to the thinly-drawn characters, the chase gets tiresome …

[5] They were re-writing the script for Jack the Giant Slayer while they shot the movie, and it shows. It’s a bit of a hot mess. I’m a fan of director Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects, X-Men) and I’m down to watch Nicholas Hoult (About a Boy, Warm Bodies) carry a film, but the film never hooked me. The only character who musters any emotional …

[8] This is an underrated comic book adaptation with slick, period production design and top-notch action choreography from director Joe Johnston (Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, October Sky).  There’s a gee-whiz ebullience about The Rocketeer that I find utterly charming.  Bill Campbell and Jennifer Connelly (future Oscar-winner for A Beautiful Mind) are attractive leads, even if their archetypal characters are somewhat shallow. Timothy Dalton’s villainous …

[3] Movies like this bring out the valley girl in me. So, like, I just don’t give a shit about Thor, okay? Watching a bunch of thee-and-thou types running around in nightgowns and armor is just silly, you know? And what is Anthony Hopkins’ problem in these movies? He’s like, Thor’s dad and the king and everything, but then he turns around and he’s all …

[8] Director Paul Verhoeven (RoboCop, Basic Instinct) continues his knack for combining violence, gore, dark humor and social commentary in this loose adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein’s serialized novel about humankind’s future war against a race of insect-like aliens. I can almost enjoy the movie for the action alone. It escalates beautifully, with plenty of exciting sequences and spectacular visual effects. But it’s the satirical …

[2] The short review: WTF? The longer review: From the first opening frame, you know right away this is a cheap, watered down, bargain basement Superman movie. (Thank you, Golan-Globus Productions!) But even if you can overlook the astonishingly awful visual effects, the movie will still disappoint you in other more substantial ways. For starters, the dialogue is pointed, the relationship between Clark and Lois …

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