After Earth
[ Hits:43 ]
Review: After Earth is an M. Night Shyamalan film. The director’s signature film is still The Sixth Sense and many would agree that his best years, while love-or-hate projects, surround this film. His most recent “blockbusters” have not lived up to his heyday with invisible, biological retaliation in The Happening and a wishy-washy animation to live-action adaptation of The Last Airbender.
Unfortunately, After Earth is not his comeback. The film may leverage the sentimental father-son team of Wil...
|
  |
Albert Nobbs
[ Hits:466 ]
Review: Glenn Close garnered an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Albert Nobbs, a butler leading a secretive life of servitude in the hope of opening a tobacco shoppe in Dublin. While beautifully filmed and spurred on by an intriguing premise and great production values, Albert Nobbs lacks focus and leans too heavily on the ensemble's collective talent.
The concept would have possibly worked better if they had veiled it in Gothic horror like Jane Eyre (2011) or applied more claustrophobic and vo...
|
|
Alice in Wonderland
[ 2010 ] [ Hits:1463 ]
Review: Lewis Carroll wrote what some conspiracy theorists believe was a tale about the effects of hallucinogenic drugs. Perhaps the whole who ha started with Go Ask Alice about a teenage girl’s spiral into drugs in the ’60s, coupled with a song called White Rabbit. Whatever… Disney adapted it and they do Alice in Wonderland plays in churches, must be okay.Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland seems more concerned with Alice’s chastity and transition into womanhood at the age of 19, as she escapes ...
|
|
Already Dead
[ 2007 ] [ Hits:754 ]
Review: Already Dead is an average revenge thriller that doubles back on itself. After a man’s wife is brutalised and his son is murdered, he pays for the opportunity to be alone in a room with the killer. The cast aren’t extraordinary, apart from some familiar faces in Til Schweiger (King Arthur) and Christopher Plummer (Inside Man). Ron Eldard (House of Sand and Fog) leads the charge as Thomas Archer and is a fairly durable lead actor. He’s aided by Til Schweiger for the majority of the film and...
|
|
American Gangster
[ 2007 ] [ Hits:904 ]
Review: Ridley Scott introduces American Gangster, an epic American crime film based on a true story. Detective Richie Richards (Crowe) makes in-roads into Frank Lucas’s (Washington) heroin empire in Manhattan. Drug abuse is rife during America’s involvement in Vietnam, and Lucas smuggles narcotics from Thailand only to establish a monopoly with ‘Blue Magic’ a purer, cheaper alternative for U.S. junkies during the 1970s. Scott is supported by Academy Award winners, Denzel Washington and Russell...
|
|
American Reunion
[ Hits:826 ]
Review: American Pie followed four young high school students as they tossed their wild oats to the wind in a last ditch effort to enter college without their virginity. The mix of gross out comedy and spirited coming-of-age school nostalgia was infectious, instantly igniting film careers and spurning several sequels with diminishing returns, until American Reunion...
Most high school reunions happen a decade after school and American Reunion comes 13 years after the freshly baked American Pie in 1999...
|
|
An Education
[ 2009 ] [ Hits:862 ]
Review: An Education is the story of Jenny, a precocious teenage girl living in suburban London in the 1960s. This coming-of-age drama deals with her transition from school girl to refined woman, as a well-to-do suitor nearly twice her age sweeps her off her feet. The education she receives is one on morality, ethics and coping in the big bad world. While the premise does open itself to teen exploitation in the same league of The Babysitters, it's mild in comparison with Lolita and is as prim and proper...
|
|
Angels & Demons
[ 2009 ] [ Hits:660 ]
Review: Angels & Demons is the follow-up to the movie adaptation that capped the global phenomenon known as The Da Vinci Code. Tom Hanks reprises his role as Robert Langdon and Ron Howard takes the director’s chair again. This time the Da Vinci Code team are prepared and armed with criticism from their previous project, making Angels & Demons an action/thriller with a revenge plot between the Catholic Church and the Illuminati. If an age-old vendetta wasn’t enough, the stakes are raised by a hi-tech...
|
|
Anywhere But Home
[ 2008 ] [ Hits:903 ]
Review: Anywhere But Home a.k.a. Four Christmases is a comedy directed by Seth Gordon (The King of Kong), starring Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon. The leads are supported by no less than four Oscar winners playing their parents, including: Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Jon Voight and Mary Steenburgen. Anywhere But Home is like Meet the Fockers: Christmas Edition and attempts to reel in some big comedy moments with its ensemble. Vaughn plays Brad, an attorney who would rather fake humanitarian work th...
|
|
Apollo 18
[ Hits:641 ]
Review: In the same low budget found footage horror subgenre as The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity comes Apollo 18. The horror science-fiction thriller plays up the fact that the U.S. has never returned to the moon and shows evidence to suggest that there may just be signs of alien activity on the moon.
Apollo 18 is directed by Spanish editor-turn-director, Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego. It's Lopez-Gallego's first English language film and while his editorial experience may give him an edge, it's ...
|
|
Apt Pupil
[ 1998 ] [ Hits:744 ]
Review: Apt Pupil comes from the pages of the self-titled book by the master of horror Stephen King. The story is more involved than some sort of unidentified evil. The evil Stephen King writes about, is the evil within all of us. World War II was laced with atrocities that will probably never be lived down. The Nazi concentration camps were a few degrees short of Hell on earth, and anyone that survived them would probably say the same. Unspeakable acts of genocide were committed on a large scale, and t...
|
|
Argo
[ Hits:278 ]
Review: Ben Affleck has been to Hollywood and got the t-shirt. As an actor, his career has been tumultuous - racking up a hit-and-miss list with roles ranging from romantic leads to superheroes. As a writer, his career started as a one-hit wonder, winning an Oscar with Matt Damon for Good Will Hunting. As a director, he's quickly becoming a Hollywood great in the same class as Clint Eastwood with Gone Baby Gone, The Town and now Argo.
Affleck has also become a family man over the last seven years, afte...
|
|
Arthur
[ Hits:735 ]
Review: What ever happened to the old adage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”? The original Arthur is a Dudley Moore comedy classic with that hauntingly beautiful theme tune, Arthur’s Theme by Christopher Cross. So why spoil it by camping things up with Russell Brand? As a stand-alone movie, the new Arthur is lightly amusing, playful, upbeat and fun at best. However, when a movie tries to capture the essence of an original – a fairy dies. That fairy is Russell Brand, who while entertaining...
|
|
Asterix at the Olympic Games
[ 2008 ] [ Hits:1046 ]
Review: Asterix at the Olympic Games is the third film starring Christian Clavier and Gerard Depardieu as much-loved cartoon characters, Asterix & Obelix. The Gauls are French, so it seems only fitting that the film be made in French, however much of the comedy is lost in translation. This forces the comedy to be slapstick, which makes up for the distracting dubbed dialogue. Hitting Romans out of their shoes is funny in Asterix because in a cartoon world anything is possible, however it seems much more ...
|
|
Australia
[ 2008 ] [ Hits:747 ]
Review: Australia is a Baz Luhrmann film of epic proportions. Not only is it 165 minutes long, but it follows in the slipstream of other classic titles such as Gone with the Wind. Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman headline the cast in their native country and are supported by fellow Australian, David Wenham. The movie’s sweeping shots of Australia are glorious, and add to the grand Western feel of the Outback. Luhrmann’s colourful costumes and youthful zest from Romeo & Juliet, Strictly Ballroom and Mo...
|
|
Avatar
[ 2009 ] [ Hits:1169 ]
Review: Avatar is the space between dreams and reality, fantasy and science fiction, cowboys and indians. James Cameron's latest film since Titanic is a dazzling spectacle of computer-generated photographic imagery and vivid contrasting themes. The film's mesmerising visuals capture a world of their own much like Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings Trilogy with 3D effects giving the audience a sense of heightened reality. Cameron has been tinkering away at this project for more than a decade, proposing hi...
|
|
Away From Her
[ 2007 ] [ Hits:626 ]
Review: Away From Her is an adaptation of Alice Munro’s short story “The Bear Came Over The Mountain” as a married couple in their 60s find themselves separated from each other, when one is instituionalised with Alzheimer’s disease. It’s a film about life, love and marriage. A retired couple living in Canada find themselves drifting toward the end of their relationship. Grant (Pisent) is deeply in love with Fiona (Christie) and the two have built a solid marriage over 45 years. Fiona has Alzhe...
|
|
Back to Gaya
[ 2004 ] [ Hits:1048 ]
Review: Back to Gaya a.k.a. The Snurks is a fun-filled, fantasy animation from the writers that brought you A Bug’s Life and Hercules. It’s good-natured family entertainment with voice talents from the likes of Patrick Stewart and Emily Watson. Also known as Boo, Zino & The Snurks, the film takes on an original story with new characters to some interesting levels. The animation is reminiscent of Jak X, and has a similar fascination with racing buggys. Why Boo, Zino & The Snurks? Well, those are the ...
|
|
Bad Teacher
[ Hits:699 ]
Review: Cameron Diaz moved from modeling to acting, starring opposite Jim Carrey in The Mask, followed by her role in the Farrelly brothers jaw-dropping There's Something About Mary, flickering between comedy and romance in the 2000s - ever the sweet and fun-loving angel. Now she's decided to flirt with danger, doing a complete 180 degree turn on her Hollywood persona to deliver something edgier, nastier and unexpected.Just like Jennifer Aniston's role as a dentist, sexual deviant and evil temptress in ...
|
|
Bakgat! 2
[ 2010 ] [ Hits:2303 ]
Review: Bakgat! surprised audiences with its bubbly and infectious local blend of American Pie and The Karate Kid. This was an Afrikaans comedy with a formulaic feel good approach that worked because of its novelty, its likable cast and its classic high school characters. Love, sport and nostalgia fused to make a movie with a lot of heart and a load of laughs. Bakgat! was so successful that it warranted a follow-up sequel to the happy ending.Now that Wimpie (Botha) is in University... life has become co...
|
|
