Archive By Section - Movies
Review: 'Sex and the City 2'
Some of these people make my skin crawl. The characters of "Sex and the City 2" are flyweight bubbleheads living in a world that rarely requires three sentences in a row. Their defining quality is consuming things. They gobble food, fashion, houses, husbands, children, vitamins and freebies. They must plan their wardrobes on the phone, so often do they appear in different basic colors, like the plugs of a Playskool workbench. As we return to ...
Review: 'Just Wright'
It's clear we're in fantasyland early on in "Just Wright," when the New Jersey Nets play their home opener in front of a sold-out, raucous crowd on their way to winning the Eastern Conference championship. And the whole world - not just the sports media but also the trashy gossip magazines - is fascinated by the team's star player, Scott McKnight, chasing him around to find out who he's dating and speculating about what he'll ...
Review: 'Shrek Forever After'
Given that "Shrek Forever After" is the first film in the franchise in 3-D, it's surprisingly flat - and we're not just talking about the look of it. This fourth and allegedly final installment in the series is lifeless, joyless and woefully devoid of the upbeat energy that distinguished the earlier movies - well, at least the first two. If "Shrek the Third" from 2007 felt tired, "Shrek Forever After" is practically narcoleptic. Brief bursts ...
Review: 'Robin Hood'
Darth Vader. Batman. Captain James T. Kirk. Now another legendary figure gets the origin-story treatment in Ridley Scott's "Robin Hood." The world probably didn't need another version of this famous tale, even though it arrives with outstanding production values and an impeccable pedigree. Besides Scott, the script comes from Oscar-winning "L.A. Confidential" writer Brian Helgeland, and the heavyweight cast is anchored by Russell Crowe as the title character and Cate Blanchett as Marian. (Solid supporting ...
Review: 'Letters to Juliet'
Juliet might want to take her own life all over again if she knew the gooey depths to which Hollywood would sink in her name to woo an audience. The doomed heroine of "Romeo and Juliet" is the nominal inspiration for "Letters to Juliet," an unbearably predictable romance that would profane her name if it were not lifted a notch by the graceful, if inexplicable, presence of Vanessa Redgrave. The movie takes viewers on a ...
Roger Ebert review: 'Iron Man 2'
"Iron Man 2" is a polished, high-octane sequel, not as good as the original but building once again on a quirky performance by Robert Downey Jr. The superhero genre doesn't necessarily require good acting, but when it's there (as in "Iron Man" and "The Dark Knight"), that takes it up a level. Downey here gives us a Tony Stark who is cockier and more egotistical than ever. Or, and here's the key, he seems to ...
Review: 'Furry Vengeance'
It's getting difficult to tell Brendan Fraser's hammy comedies apart. Asked to explain the difference between "Monkey Bone," ''Bedazzled," ''Journey to the Center of the Earth" and his latest, "Furry Vengeance," I might plead for my mummy. Fraser has built a small, dorky industry by being an exceptionally smiley fellow. He is cheery, positive and always gives himself fully to the movie at hand - which is more than can be said for many. In ...
Review: 'The Losers'
Deadly only in its dullness, the coma-inducing, comic-book-adapted action flick "The Losers" aims to serve as a placeholder until "Iron Man 2" arrives with the summer's heavy artillery. That "The Losers" and its ragtag band of Special Forces operatives fail to achieve even that modest goal speaks to the filmmakers' utter lack of imagination as well as the busy smugness with which they offer their smorgasbord of nothingness. What's interesting about the movie has more ...
Review: 'A Nightmare on Elm Street'
Forget about the plot, the actors and the director. What you require to make a new "Nightmare on Elm Street" are these three off-the-shelf sound effects: 1. A sudden, loud clanging noise mixed with a musical chord. 2. Snicker-snack sounds, which Freddy Krueger's steel finger claws make every time they are seen. 3. A voice deepener, to drop Freddy's speaking voice to an ominous level. On top of that, you need your sudden cuts, your ...
Review: 'The Back-up Plan'
Some movies are no better than second-rate sitcoms. Other movies are no better than third-rate sitcoms. "The Back-up Plan" doesn't deserve comparison with sitcoms. It plays like an unendurable TV commercial about beautiful people with great lifestyles and not a thought in their empty little heads. So timid is this film that when it finally arrives at its inevitable childbirth scene, it bails out after two "pushes!" Jennifer Lopez has never looked better. That's about ...
Review: 'Death at a Funeral'
Oh, I know a lot of "Death at a Funeral" is in very bad taste. That's when I laughed the most. I don't laugh at movies where the characters are deliberately being vulgar. But when they desperately don't want to be - now that's funny. Consider the scene when Uncle Russell eats too much nut cake and is seized by diarrhea. And Norman wrestles him off his wheelchair and onto the potty, and gets his ...
Review: 'Kick-Ass'
Shall I have feelings, or should I pretend to be cool? Will I seem hopelessly square if I find "Kick-Ass" morally reprehensible, and will I appear to have missed the point? Let's say you're a big fan of the original comic book, and you think the movie does it justice. You know what? You inhabit a world I am so very not interested in. A motion picture camera makes a record of whatever is placed ...
Review: 'Date Night'
Steve Carell and Tina Fey play a nice, unassuming couple in "Date Night," and that's one of the reasons the movie works so well. Their Phil and Claire Foster are a normal, overworked, sincere, good-natured New Jersey couple whose lives have become routine. But they love each other, and all they really want is to hire a baby sitter and enjoy a nice night out on the town. We believe that. We're halfway prepared for ...
Review: 'She's Out of My League'
Molly is a perfect 10. Kirk is a five. This scoring is provided by his best friends, who sadly inform him, "You can't jump more than two." Because of reasoning like that, Aristotle Onassis remains a hero to fours and fives everywhere. "She's Out of My League," which is sortofa good comedy, tells the story of a five who meets a 10 who believes there is a 10 inside of him fighting to get out. ...
Review: 'Clash of the Titans'
There are too many Greek gods for me to keep straight, since as a child I didn't have action figures as a learning tool. I was prepared to take notes during "Clash of the Titans," but only wrote down a single one: "'Release the Kraken!' - Conan O'Brien." I know I was intended to be terrified by the release of the Kraken, but all I could think of was O'Brien shouting "Release the bear!" and ...
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