Corey Poff

Corey Poff

Redeemed sinner. Compulsive reader. Avid writer. Theology and science fiction nerd. I blog regularly at the Ink Slinger.


Recent Reviews by Corey

John Wick
4.5 of 5 stars
1-13-2015
Gone Baby Gone
5 of 5 stars
7-15-2014
Outlander (2008)
1.5 of 5 stars
3-10-2014
Lone Survivor
4.5 of 5 stars
1-22-2014
The Purge
1.5 of 5 stars
12-3-2013
Prisoners
4.5 of 5 stars
10-28-2013
The Grey
1.5 of 5 stars
9-16-2013
Elysium
3 of 5 stars
8-12-2013
World War Z
5 of 5 stars
6-25-2013
Monsters, Inc.
5 of 5 stars
6-14-2013
Zero Dark Thirty
4.5 of 5 stars
5-22-2013
Django Unchained
3.5 of 5 stars
3-29-2013
District 9
5 of 5 stars
2-21-2013
The Words
2 of 5 stars
1-29-2013
Coriolanus
5 of 5 stars
1-11-2013
Batman (1989)
3.5 of 5 stars
12-12-2012
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
3.5 of 5 stars
11-30-2012
The Amazing Spider-man
4.5 of 5 stars
11-19-2012
Prometheus
3 of 5 stars
10-29-2012
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
5 of 5 stars
10-17-2012

 

Recent Entries by Corey

John Wick — Review

4.5 of 5 stars
John Wick

Once upon a time, before he retired, the Russians called him Baba Yaga. The Boogeyman. This and this alone should tell you that John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is not a guy you want to mess with.

Too bad nobody told Iosef Tarasov (Alfie Allen) before he killed Wick’s dog. Not just any dog, either, but a parting gift from his recently deceased wife.

Iosef’s father, Viggo Tarasov (Michael Nyqvist), is head of the Russian mob in New York. To say he’s disappointed in his son’s behavior would be a bald understatement. His mood hardly improves when Wick starts systematically dismantling his empire.…

Read The Review

Gone Baby Gone — Review

5 of 5 stars
Gone Baby Gone

“This city can be hard. When I was young, I asked my priest how you could get to heaven and still protect yourself from all the evil in the world. He told me what God said to His children. ‘You are sheep among wolves. Be wise as serpents, yet innocent as doves.’”

In a world of page-to-screen adaptions gone oh so wrong, Gone Baby Gone is proof of the good that can come from sticking close to the source material. With little deviation beyond the dictates of its own two hour running time, the film brings Dennis Lehane’s powerhouse novel to life with intelligence and grit to spare.

The story…

Read The Review

Outlander (2008) — Review

1.5 of 5 stars
Outlander (2008)

Boston Herald‘s James Verniere described Outlander as “Beowulf meets Predator” — a fair assessment, were it not for the fact that Outlander fails to live up to either one. Indeed, it fails to live up to much of anything.

The movie opens with the crash-landing of Kainan (Jim Caviezel), an alien warrior who finds himself stranded on the shores of Norway during the Iron Age. Crap. To make things worse, he manages to get himself captured by a band of seriously annoyed Norwegians. Double crap.

The proverbial cherry on top of all this crap comes with the realization that Moorwen — a man-chomping…

Read The Review

Lone Survivor — Review

4.5 of 5 stars
Lone Survivor

On the night of June 25th, 2005, a four-man Navy SEAL team - consisting of Lieutenant Michael Murphy, Sonar Technician 2nd Class Matthew “Axe” Axelson, Gunner’s Mate 2nd Class Danny Dietz, and Corpsman 1st Class Marcus Luttrell - is lowered via fast-rope into the Hindu Kush Mountains near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Their mission: track and eliminate notorious Taliban leader Ahmad Shah.

Less than twenty four hours later, only one of those SEALs is left alive.

What went wrong? Goatherds. Local goatherds, who stumble across the team in the mountain brush. After confirming that the men…

Read The Review

The Purge — Review

1.5 of 5 stars
The Purge

What if one night out of every year, the authorities declared all criminal activity completely legal? What would you do? Steal the car you’ve always wanted but never could afford? Plot the death of your boss because he’s such a royal pain to work with?

In a futuristic America beleaguered by crime and overcrowded prisons, the government has sanctioned just such a night — an annual 12-hour period in which any person may commit any crime (including murder) without fear of retribution. Hospitals are shut down. Rule of law is suspended. This night of nights, you are allowed — nay, encouraged — to…

Read The Review

Prisoners — Review

4.5 of 5 stars
Prisoners

Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) finds himself living every parent’s worst nightmare when his six-year-old daughter goes missing. The only lead? A battered RV that was parked on the street only hours before. Heading the investigation is Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal), who tracks down the RV’s driver (Paul Dano) and takes him into custody. But when lack of evidence compels the suspect’s release, and police fail to turn up any more leads, Dover decides to take things into his own hands.

A Little Q&A

Your child has been abducted. Time is running out. What do you do?

Taken answered the question…

Read The Review

The Grey — Review

1.5 of 5 stars
The Grey

Liam Neeson has an impressive resume. Think about it. He trained Batman and Obi-Wan and Darth Vadar. He is both Aslan and Zeus (which makes him a god in at least two mythologies). And he single-handedly annihilated an entire human trafficking ring during a short vacation in Paris.

Having duly weighed this in our minds, we have to ask: Who or what is going to mess with a guy like that?

Wolves. And God.

Of Plane Wrecks & Mythical Beasts

In The Grey, Neeson plays the character of John Ottway, an oil-rig worker who survives – together with several other roughnecks - a brutal plane crash in…

Read The Review

Elysium — Review

3 of 5 stars
Elysium

When your first film is a major commercial and critical success like District 9, seeds of anticipation and worry are planted in the collective mind of your audience. Questions start crowding to the surface: “Is this guy for real? Is he a one-hit wonder? Can he do it again?” Needless to say: Neill Blomkamp‘s Elysium had ginormous shoes to fill, serious expectations to meet, and a lot to live up to. Did it succeed? Yes… and no. Mostly no.

It’s Better Up There

The year is 2154, and society is divided into two classes: the wealthy, who live on a man-made habitat called Elysium, and the…

Read The Review

Hello, Zeke: A Brief Word About the Evolution of the Undead

Hello, Zeke: A Brief Word About the Evolution of the Undead

Following my review of World War Z, a discussion broke out in the comments section regarding the merits (and demerits) of the film’s approach to the zombiepocalypse. One of the most interesting things this discussion yielded was the assertion that WWZ is “barely passable” as a zombie film. Why? Mainly because there is no such thing as a fast-moving zombie. The movie shows us infected humans - crushing armies, leveling cities, chasing Brad Pitt hither and thither – but these feral chompers cannot be designated “zombies”. Real zombies don’t move like that.

To tell the truth, I’d never heard…

Read The Rest

World War Z — Review

5 of 5 stars
World War Z

When a zombie pandemic begins sweeping the globe, retired U.N. special agent Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) finds himself in the unenviable position of trying to stop it.

A lesser man would point out that facing down ravenous undead hordes was most emphatically not in the original job description. But Gerry’s better than that. He may not be the best man for the job, but he’s probably the best man alive for the job - and he’s willing to take a shot at saving humanity if it secures his family refuge aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier.

Within hours, he’s on a flight to Camp Humphreys, a military base…

Read The Review