-
Carriers (2009): C
A competently helmed piece of genre derivation that substitutes a zombie plague for an airborne-viral-pandemic plague, Carriers brings absolutely nothing new to the table. In an undefined future America, once-Yale-bound Danny (Lou Taylor Pucci) and his macho brother Brian (Chris Pine) traverse the Western highways – with Brian’s girlfriend Bobby (Piper Perabo) and young Kate…
-
The Green Hornet (2011): C-
That The Green Hornet is an action-comedy devoid of excitement or laughs is depressing; that it’s a Michel Gondry film with only faint traces of idiosyncratic style, however, is just about unforgiveable. The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep auteur helms this modernized take on the masked crime fighter with…
-
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992): C+
Though brimming with overripe sexuality and photographed with an eye toward operatic horror-cinema iconography, Bram Stoker’s Dracula remains a feast for the senses that fails to satisfy the heart, libido or mind. Working from his source material’s general narrative template, Francis Ford Coppola shoots for gothic grandeur via a variety of formally sumptuous tableaus. Many…
-
Valhalla Rising (2009): B
Nicolas Winding Refn’s latest saga of primal masculine rage, Valhalla Rising sets itself in 1000 A.D. in the Scandinavian mountains, where a mute warrior slave dubbed One Eye (Mads Mikkelsen) is held captive in a cage, only allowed out to battle for sport while tethered at the neck to a wooden post. Desperate to return…
-
Hanna (2011): C+
A figurative little red riding hood searches for self, family and truth while pursued by big bad wolves in Hanna. Joe Wright’s film shares with the recent Sucker Punch a fascination with young ass-kicking girls on the hunt for empowerment and actualization, but whereas Zack Snyder’s pop-culture upchuck fetishisized via videogame and blockbuster cinema clichés,…
-
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006): C
The Fast and the Furious franchise goes Karate Kid-hokey with Tokyo Drift, a perfunctory and unintentionally goofy attempt to keep the series running without its stars Vin Diesel and Paul Walker. In Justin Lin’s cross-cultural racing drama, hot-rodding delinquent Sean (Lucas Black) avoids jail time by traveling to Tokyo to live with his father (Brian…
-
Hoodwinked (2005): D
A Rashomon-style riff on the Red Riding Hood fable that’s visualized with Make Way for Noddy-grade animation, Hoodwinked is so lacking in cleverness or humor that it makes the similar fairy tale-rewriting Shrek series seem downright Shakespearean by comparison. Director Cory Edwards’ film involves a frog detective’s (David Ogden Stiers) investigation into a goodie bandit,…
-
Scream 2 (1998): B
Scream 2 opens promisingly, with a sneak preview showing of the based-on-Scream film Stab at which an African-American couple (Omar Epps and Jada Pinkett-Smith) lob volleys about the horror genre’s racial inequity before being slaughtered by a new, copycat Ghostface killer. Ending with the sight of a victim collapsing in front of both the screen…
-
Scream (1996): B+
For a film whose genre self-awareness has now become as culturally prevalent as the very cinematic conventions it addressed, Scream remains a highly polished piece of meta-slasher mayhem. Chockablock with references to its classic horror predecessors, Kevin Williamson’s script manages the considerable feat of paying endless homage while at the same time simultaneously subverting and…
-
Stepfather 2: Make Room for Daddy (1989): C-
Rarely has a sequel followed its predecessor’s exact template like Stepfather 2: Make Room for Daddy, a thoroughly imitative follow-up in which Terry O’Quinn’s serial family-killer Jerry Blake escapes mental-hospital imprisonment – after a lengthy intro inside the facility that affords no further insight into his psyche – and then poses as a suburban psychiatrist…
