[6] Disney Animation puts a science-fiction twist on Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic story. The mix of 2D and 3D animation is interesting, especially when you stop to marvel at an animator’s mastery of perspective when 2D characters are seen running through 3D environments while the ‘camera’ moves all around them. The overall design of Treasure Planet is incoherent, though — you never see two of …
[7] 28 Days Later is a bright feather in the multi-colored cap of director Danny Boyle, who also gave us Trainspotting, Sunshine, and Slumdog Millionnaire. Cillian Murphy wanders post-apocalyptic England after a virus has turned most of the population into zombies. Boyle’s twist on the zombie sub-genre is speed — the zombies move like lightning. 28 Days Later unfolds very nicely and builds to a …
[7] Soldiers fight werewolves in rural Scotland in Dog Soldiers. Neil Marshall’s (The Descent, Doomsday) directorial debut is a worthwhile, claustrophobic werewolf movie featuring a sophisticated group of personalities and some of the best on-set werewolf effects I’ve ever seen. The first thirty minutes are a bit of a chore to get through, but once the characters make their last stand in a remote cottage, …
[8] Director Kevin Reynolds (Waterworld, Robin Hood Prince of Thieves) delivers his best effort to date with this telling of Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo. Jim Caviezel stars as Edmond Dantes, a man betrayed by his friend Fernand Mondego (Guy Pierce) and falsely imprisoned for thirteen years in a hellish prison. Richard Harris plays the elderly priest who accidentally burrows his way into …
[6] Jesse Bradford and Erika Christensen star in this high school version of Fatal Attraction. Bradford already has a nice girlfriend (Shiri Appleby), a nice job helping sick people at the hospital, and a promising career as a competitive swimmer. But then he falls prey to Christensen’s wiles. The two have sex in the pool and when Bradford tries to drop Christensen and return to his …
[6] My main takeaway from The Banger Sisters is this: Damn, Goldie Hawn is awesome. She shares the top billing with Susan Sarandon here, but it’s really Goldie’s movie, and she carries it superbly. The film is about old friends reuniting and overcoming their differences after decades apart. Hawn plays the one who hasn’t changed much from their old Bohemian ways, while Sarandon plays the one …
[7] Monica Belluci and Vincent Cassel star in Gaspar Noe’s brutally graphic exploration of rape and revenge told in reverse. The subject matter is worth exploring and the narrative device is interesting, especially toward the end, which carries the full weight of the film’s character development. It makes you look back over everything you just saw and reinterpret it. I just wish the camera weren’t …
[6] Dexter‘s Desmond Harrington stars in this competent psycho-sexual horror flick about a guy who confuses reality and fantasy after falling in love with a lifelike sex doll. After gaining a little sexual confidence through his interaction with the doll, he’s able to start a relationship with a real-life woman (Melissa Sagemiller), but when Harrington’s character believes the sex doll is getting jealous, things start …
[6] An prep school teacher tries to set his students on a righteous path in The Emperor’s Club. More like Goodbye, Mr Chips than Dead Poets Society, this flick focuses more on the importance of moral character than inspiration or motivation. (Don’t just seize the day; seize it well?) It’s a low-stakes morality tale, but you find yourself caring because Kevin Kline does. His performance is …
[6] [Warning: This review contains spoilers.] Spike Jonze directs this meta tale of a screenwriter losing his mind trying to adapt a book called The Orchid Thief. While his twin brother moves in and begins mirroring him in many ways, he decides he needs to find the author of the book to excavate its meaning. If you can’t already tell, Adaptation is a very hard …
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