Review: ‘No Good Deed’

NoGoodDeed_IdrisElba

If you go over to the Rotten Tomatoes or the Metacritic or any other sort of review aggregator, you would see that the newest psychological battle-of-the-sexes thriller “No Good Deed” is just getting shit on left and right by pretty much everybody. Calling it things like “boring” and “derivative” and even trotting out “offensive” and “troubling” here and there, it would seem that this is one of the worst movies of the year. So am I here to throw additional dirt on the grave of this Idris Elba starring movie? Is this film really as bad as everyone is saying?

I will tell you what, I have seen movies worse than “No Good Deed” in just the last few weeks. Can I interest anyone in an additional screening of “The November Man?” How about “Let’s Be Cops?” No takers? Hmm, what a shock. Trust me when I tell you that “No Good Deed” is no worse than those movies, and actually might be better than both. It knows what it is and there really are not any pretensions from the filmmakers that this was going to be a bigger or deeper movie than it actually is. This is simply a thriller featuring a charismatic yet insane Idris Elba and a solid performance from Taraji P. Henson as the mother of two who ends up on the wrong end of Elba’s character’s wrath and anger.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘The Drop’

the-drop-banner

“The Drop” is a small little crime drama that is more about reputation and name recognition within a certain segment of society than it is about any one crime in particular. Despite the trailer making this seem like a movie about a mob-backed bar being knocked off and the bar managers being tasked with finding out who did it, there is actually more going on with multiple characters and an old unsolved crime and a puppy that was thrown away but then saved and then got stuck in the middle of an ownership dispute and there’s something also about a church closing down but that doesn’t really matter. It’s well made and well acted, it just doesn’t add up to much in the end. It’s good, just not great. And there are worse things for a movie to be.

So Tom Hardy plays some guy named Bob and Bob is just a New York boy working for his cousin Marv (James Gandolfini’s last role) bartending at his little shitty tavern, a tavern that Marv operated but no longer owned. Apparently the local Chechen mob bought out Marv’s sometime ago and they really run the show. So when some punk kids rob the bar of $5,000, the Chechens go a little overboard in their mandate to Bob and Marv to recover the money.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘The November Man’

november-man-poster

“They used to call you The November Man, because once you came through, everyone would be dead.” That’s actually said in this movie, as if it was supposed to mean something, and as you can see with your own eyes, it does NOT mean anything at all. But that’s why Pierce Brosnan’s old man grizzled (yet suave) special agent veteran was apparently called the November Man at some point and that’s the name of this movie so god DAMMIT we are keeping it in, you got me? Say the line of dialogue, you piece of shit! You want to get paid? That’s how I figured that day of filming went anyway, with Brosnan off to the side eating a plate of cheese and crackers and watching with bemusement.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Let’s Be Cops’

lets-be-cops-posterLet’s not and say we did.

Seriously though, it couldn’t be worse timing for a movie like “Let’s Be Cops” to come out right now. Thanks to recent current events, and really due to the historical actions of police departments around this country, a comedy about a white guy getting a huge ego trip via abuse of power that can be afforded to him thanks to having a badge and a gun is just not appealing right now.

It doesn’t help that this feels like a movie straight out of the 1990s. It really is as hacky and unoriginal as it gets.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Sin City: A Dame to Kill For’

SinCityADameToKillFor

So I guess “Sin City: A Dame For Which to Kill” didn’t sound sexy enough, so here we are with “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For,” the sequel to the hugely popular and pioneering 2005 surprise hit “Sin City.” When that original movie came out with it’s entirely green screened environs and over the top comic book mentality and hard boiled, R-rated approached, it hit everyone like a shotgun blast to the chest. It was new, fresh, original and different, and when it was over, we all wanted more.

But they took too long to give us more, because here we are almost a decade later and “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For” does not pack the same punch. And rest assured, they try to deliver the same impactful blow with the style and content, but it’s just not there, not like it was back in 2005. The sight of real actors working against entirely computer generated sets is no longer novel, comic book based movies are being rammed down our throats now more than ever, and also this movie recalls just as much of “Sin City” as it does the disastrous and woeful “The Spirit” (which was written and directed by this movie’s writer and co-director Frank Miller, a legend in the comic book industry and something of an anomaly in the movie industry). As it is, “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For” has all of the same over the top style and violence and intensity, but it lacks the fun and meaning and inventiveness of the original.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘The Expendables 3’

The Expendables 3 New Banner

Well they’ve made three of these things now, so I guess it is time to call it, it is official, there really is no hope for us to ever get the truly great Expendables movie we all want. No, instead here we are again, with “The Expendables 3” another incredible assemblage of a cast, most of whom are incredibly underused,  yet another boring plot, halfway decent action and some insider jokes and references to past movies. Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’

Teenage-Mutant-Ninja-Turtles-International-Poster

Well even though this is a PG-13 film featuring numerous acts of violence and many instances of gun play, as well as a scene of general mayhem and carnage which surely and undoubtedly resulted in the deaths of numerous innocent bystanders, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” the 2014 edition is still a kids movie and it feels like bad form to just come out and shit all over a kids movie. Yet sometimes these things must be done, in the name of all that is right and most excellent.

Starting out as a satirical comic series for more adult-minded folks in the early 1980s, and then quickly becoming adapted into a television show for kids, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” has somehow managed to stick around for all of these years, constantly being reinvented, new television shows made for new generations of children, a trilogy of movies made in the 1990s and a recent animated movie, Turtle Power has turned out to be a real thing, which is pretty incredible considering how insanely ridiculous this whole mutated turtles in their teenage years using their karate skills to be ninjas concept really is. Something about it resonates though and keeps people coming back for more. Which is why we are here, in the year 2014, with a big budget live action movie featuring CG-turtles, as well as a CG-talking rat guy.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’

Guardians-of-the-Galaxy-Poster-High-Res

For a good while there, “Guardians of the Galaxy” has more in common with sci-fi space epics than it does with the other Marvel comic book superhero action movies and that is definitely a good thing.  It is a fun, joke-filled romp through some crazy locations, like a space jail filled with all sorts of beasts and the inside of a huge, floating, severed head of an ancient space god. There are different alien species and kooky technology and a walking tree and a talking raccoon and for the most part it all makes for a pretty damn good time at the movies.

So why does “Guardians of the Galaxy” feel a little hollow?

Because make no mistake, there is plenty of entertainment to be had from this thing, as it has an irreverent tone and sense of whimsy that has definitely been missing in this day and age of the brooding blockbuster. This movie doesn’t take itself seriously (except for the couple of scenes that we ARE supposed to take seriously), it has a fun 70’s pop soundtrack that keeps heads bopping and toes tapping, there are more special effects and huge action scenes than you can shake a stick at (if that’s the kinda stuff you want from your movies), and there are good performances from folks who are really giving it their all, really buying into their ridiculous characters and just selling the shit of them. So what the hell else does this movie need?Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Hercules’

hercules_ver2_xlg

Well if “Hercules” gets anything right, it is having the one and only Dwayne Johnson playing the role, as he has the physicality and imposing stature required to be a conceivable half-human, half-god bad ass warrior mountain of a man, and thanks to that innate physical capability he possesses coupled with his unending charisma, “Hercules” mostly works as an entertaining piece of fantasy action. If there is anything wrong with this movie, Dwayne Johnson is not among them. And I am not just saying that because I fear this large man will read this and might possibly squish me into nothingness.

Because yes, there are some things wrong with “Hercules,” and we might as well start with the marketing versus what we go, as the movie was sold as a big fantasy movie involving Hercules battling all sorts of beasts and monsters, but the movie features all of these encounters during the opening of the movie, and in actuality, we don’t get any action involving any beasts, there is actually very little that is fantastical about this movie, it is all a great big trick, and we have all been had. This is not Dwayne Johnson as the son of Zeus battling great beasts, but instead Dwayne Johnson as a guy who is just a mercenary and who leads a small group of random people from job to job. And that is kind of lame.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Lucy’

lucy-movie-poster

There has been this idea floating around for a long time that we humans only use 10% of our brain’s power and capacity, effectively leaving so much potential and power untouched and unused, and of course it plays right into our own innate desire to see ourselves as the top of the food chain, the masters of the universe, the end all, be all of creation and/or evolution. Not only are we the best things to happen to this world, but we have so much more power to obtain, so much more to do, we can (and will!) be even better because goddammit we are humans and we have earned the right to rule all, even only utilizing a fraction of our brain.

Too bad it has been pretty thoroughly disproven that this particular idea of “brain capacity” and 10% usage is false and misinformed and just wrong.Continue Reading …