Jack Reacher is an above-average crime thriller with an effortlessly beguiling performance from Tom Cruise. At times it lacks compelling motivation, or sophisticated action, but for what it lacks it aims to replace with a good helping of drama, mystery, and a high body count.

“Jack Reacher has the distinction of being little more than it initially appears to be: a clumsily condensed mystery/thriller novel made into a movie that offers little more than every other clumsily condensed mystery/thriller novel made into a movie.” —James Berardinelli

Storyline

An innocent-looking brute…

“Good Morning!”

“What do you mean? Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?”

It has finally happened, a little out of order perhaps, but it has happened none-the-less, and it was good. What is possibly J.R.R. Tolkien’s most notable, or known work, certainly his first notable work, has come to the big screen. And it was not a small undertaking either. The same, much lauded production values, acting talent, story telling, sense of style and scope, and epic feel have…

Witless, unfocused, and arguably misogynistic as well as misandristic, Playing for Keeps is a dispiriting, lowest-common-denominator Hollywood rom-com.

It’s a wonder why decent actors get paired with fatuous productions, such as this one. If you care to know more about how poorly the film sells itself, then partake in the rest of my review.

“Dear Hollywood, Please make better movies. Thanks.” -Ron Kraus

I saw Ron’s comment on YouTube for the official release of Playing for Keeps’ trailer. And I want to parrot Ron. Hollywood, what were you thinking? Get it together.

Playing for…

This is not going to be a long review. I doubt it will even be a medium review. This film will be lucky to get 500 words out of me. Let’s dive in.

Yap Yap Yap

I’m not usually one pushing for more action and less drama, but goodness gracious I thought I was going to die in my chair in that theater before anything ever happened in this film. It seemed as if all the characters ever did was talk about things I did not care about, share with us mundane details of their very low lives. And I just didn’t care. Sure it’s probably realistic, I mean think about all the things we like to talk…

Tim Burton’s Batman is a strange animal: too dark to be enjoyed as pure camp, and too absurd to be viewed as serious entertainment.

Discarding the outright goofiness of 1960s TV series, Burton takes a grimmer, gloomier approach to the Batman mythos. The result is both fantastically stylish and frustratingly hollow: a celebration of style over substance that dazzles the eye without ever engaging the mind or heart.

The Super

Batman won an Oscar for Art Direction & Set Decoration, and it’s not hard to see why. The elaborate gothic-industrial design of Gotham City is slick and atmospheric…

In a world — a humorous world — where aliens not only exist, but many of them live on earth, someone needs to police and monitor their activity, someone has to keep us safe, someone has to watch over us. That is the job of the Men in Black.

Having enjoyed Men in Black and Men in Black 2 quite a lot, I looked forward with great anticipation to Men in Black 3 (henceforth referred to as MIB 3). Unfortunately I was never able to catch it in the theater. So I was happy to catch it via iTunes rental this past weekend.

MIB 3 had, as far as I’m concerned, some pretty big shoes to fill. No the…

Rise of the Guardians is a 2012 American 3D computer animated fantasy adventure film based on William Joyce’s The Guardians of Childhood book series. Produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures, it was released on November 21, 2012 and received mixed to positive critical reception.

Set about 200 years after the book series, the film tells a story about the Guardians who enlist Jack Frost to stop Pitch, the Bogeyman, from engulfing the world in fear and darkness. This film features the voices of Chris Pine (Jack Frost), Alec Baldwin (North [aka Santa Claus]),

You thought you knew him. America’s 16th President. The Great Emancipator. Writer of the Gettysburg Address. Wearer of top hat and chin curtain beard. But as he declares in opening lines of this “However history remembers me, if it remembers me at all, it shall only remember a fraction of the truth.”

The rest of the truth is this — Honest Abe was a vampire hunter, driven to action by his mother’s death at the hands (or should I say teeth) of the undead. Bet you didn’t learn that in history class.

And before we go any further, I may as well make an introduction: Abraham Van Helsing, meet…

A film adaptation of a supposedly “unfilmable” novel, Ang Lee’s Life of Pi achieves the supposed impossible — it’s an astonishing technical work that’s also emotionally inciting.

Life of Pi is a 2012 American adventure drama film based on Yann Martel’s 2001 novel of the same name. Directed by Ang Lee, the film is based on an adapted screenplay by David Magee, and stars Irrfan Khan, Gérard Depardieu, Tabu, Suraj Sharma, and Adil Hussain. Visual effects are by Rhythm & Hues Studios.

Critics and the public are loving Pi, and this comes at no surprise. The characterization of the zoo…