Hall Pass: 2 out of 5
The Farrelly Brothers are really starting to annoy me, but at least this was better than their previous disaster “The Heart Break Kid.” This film had a lot of jokes here but most of them really fell flat. When they weren’t dick or shit jokes they were ones that I’ve basically heard before. Oh and then they tried to have some emotion in the film that didn’t work either.
Tag: cinema
Sucker Punch review
Director:
Zack Snyder
Cast:
Emily Browning
Abbie Cornish
Jena Malone
Vanessa Hudgens
Jamie Chung
Rated: PG-13
And to think, I was one of the people that defended Zack Snyder after Watchmen.
Sucker Punch is the story of Babydoll “Browning,” a girl who after accidentally killing her sister when she was actually trying to kill her step father who was jealous of her since she was going to inherit her mother’s money (This all happens in the first 10 minutes by the way), is sent to a mental institution. However, upon arrival it turns that she is able to escape into her own dreamscape, which becomes an under ground strip club run by Blue Jones (Oscar Isaac).
Babydoll knows she needs to get out of there and in one of her dreams a Wise Man (that’s actually his name) played by Scott Glenn lets her know that she needs to collect five items to escape. To do so she enlists the help of four of the other girls that are there. When she’s collecting the items she goes into another dream and makes capturing the items extremely over the top.
Unknown review
Director:
Jaume Collet-Serra
Cast:
Liam Neeson
Diane Kruger
January Jones
Aidan Quin
Bruno Ganz
Frank Langella
Rated: PG-13
Why does Liam Neeson have such major problems when he goes to Europe?
Unknown follows the story of Dr. Martin Harris (Neeson), who is attending a science summit in Berlin with his wife Elizabeth (Jones). After getting off the plane and arriving at the hotel, Martin realizes that he forgot his bag at the airport and gets into a cab to go grab it real quick. However this small mistake turns costly when the cab gets into an accident and Martin is taken to the hospital.
Upon awaking Martin doesn’t have much memory of what happened to him but it eventually returns slowly. He finally goes to the hotel where the summit and his wife are suppose to be. However, upon arrival he finds that his wife doesn’t remember him and there is another man who has taken his place. Now Martin must fight for his identity and get to the bottom of what is really going on.
The Roommate review
Director:
Christian E.Christiansen
Cast:
Leighton Meester
Minka Kelly
Cam Gigandet
Alyson Michalka
Rated: PG-13
Gasp, a horror movie where nothing happens.
The Roommate follows Sarah (Kelly), a young girl who has just entered college and is staying at the dorms on campus. Sarah eventually meets her roommate Rebecca (Meester). At first Rebecca seems like a nice enough girl, but as time passes Sarah begins to find Rebecca more and more clinging and controlling.
Eventually, Rebecca starts interfering in Sarah’s personal life pushing away any friends that she has. This becomes even more evident when Sarah finds a boyfriend in Stephen (Gigandet). After this Rebecca becomes even more drastic in her attempts to make Sarah her’s only.
Sanctum review
Director:
Alister Grierson
Cast:
Richard Roxburgh
Ioan Gruffudd
Rhys Wakefield
Alice Parkinson
Rated: R
The Poseidon Adventure in a cave!
Sanctum follows the character Josh (Wakefield), a young man who has been brought to a cave expedition by his father Frank (Roxburgh). Frank’s expedition is going deep into one of the biggest, unexplored caves in the entire world. Frank has made it very far into the cave already and has plans to dive deeper.
Before the team can go deeper, though, a large rain fall comes down blocking most of their entrances. Because of this, the team must dive deeper into the cave to find a way out of it. However it is uncharted and very dangerous.
REVIEW: ‘Somewhere’
The latest film I experienced was “Somewhere,” written and directed by Sofia Coppola who also helmed the 2003 film “Lost in Translation.” “Somewhere” seemed to be technically sound, but unfortunately, is flawed underneath.
REVIEW: ‘The Company Men’
With public anger over the financial meltdown of 2008 directed at corporate executives, it may seem unfeasible to create a movie that makes an audience feel sorry for them.
However, “The Company Men” manages to pull it off
2010 Summer Movie Awards
The amazing conclusion of the “Toy Story” trilogy ended up getting the top prize this summer, while the action epic “Inception” won seven awards.
The action flick “The Expendables” also won three.
REVIEW: ‘Karate Kid
Director:
Harald Zwart
Cast:
Jaden Smith
Jackie Chan
Taraji P. Henson
Wenwen Han
Rated: PG
Every so often, a critic has to eat crow when they see a movie they thought was going to be bad and it turns out to be good. This is one of those cases.
In this remake, the audience follows the character Dre Parker (Smith) who is moving to China since his mother was hired at a new job. His first few days there are a little rocky until he meets a girl named Mei Ying (Han) and the two become friends. However, this leads to trouble, mainly from a bully named Cheng.
The conflict eventually leads to Dre to fighting Cheng, who studies martial arts. As a result, Dre also wants to learn martial arts and begins training under a maintenance worker, Mr. Han (Chan).
REVIEW: ‘Killers’
Director:
Robert Luketic
Cast:
Ashton Kutcher
Katherine Heigl
Tom Selleck
Catherine O’Hara
Rated: PG-13
After seeing this I felt like I had been punked out of my money when leaving the theater by Mr. Kutcher.
The film follows Jen (Heigl, who while on vacation with her parents meets another single named Spencer (Kutcher). Although they have an awkward meeting, the two hit it off and eventually get married.
Their relationship starts off well enough, but after settling into their lives things begin to change. This is mainly due to Spencer being a spy and having people out to kill him. The result is Spencer going on the run with his wife.
The film is a complete mess in terms of its story telling. Not only does it feature cliches in the action and romcom department, the filmmakers couldn’t seem to decide on a good tone for the flick, either. Sometimes it seems to lean toward a more satirical look at marriage and other times it goes for over the top action comedy and it simply never meshes.
The script was lacking, too, with much of the dialogue trying to come off as witty, but feeling more mean spirited, making much of the picture unlikable. Additionally, the film features a twist toward the end that crashes the whole thing even more.
The worst offenders in the film, though, lie with the performances. Heigl, for example, did nothing with her character but shriek, yell and whine. This became grating really fast and made her intolerable.
Kutcher, meanwhile, was basically just playing himself which isn’t saying too much. Kutcher isn’t awful in comedic roles, but he just doesn’t have a high level of screen presence and he also doesn’t have chemistry with Heigl.
The action in the film was likely the best part of the movie. Despite the acting being bland and annoying and the story and the script not holding much weight, the action sequences were actually somewhat competently made.
In the end, that’s not much of a saving grace. The action might have at least made this watchable, but all of the other issues along with that horrific plot twist at the end push this one far down. 1 out of 5.
This review was first produced for the KSDM-KGHS Radio Station in International Falls, Minn.
Matthew Liedke on Film 