Safe

I thought I would miss Jason Statham’s snappy one-liners, delivered with the Guy Richie, working class London brogue. But after the ridiculous set up, the plot draws you in, as bad guys raise the stakes and Statham kills as many of them as possible with karate or guns. So he doesn’t really play it English or funny, but he still kicks ass, which is good.

Lockout

Guy Pearce certainly has the physique and the witty repartee to anchor a big time space version of Escape from New York. But to make a great action movie, you must have a great villain. A villain who believes HE is the hero of the story. Alan Rickman. Dennis Hopper. Malcolm McDowell. Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. And Lockout tries its best by casting a couple of crazy Scottish dudes. But they don’t really pack the punch. The effects are fun, the action is taut, but the stakes seem low, lacking the potential urgency triggered by a first-rate movie scoundrel.

The Three Stooges

What I can’t believe is that the Catholic League would actually be offended by this! And that the Farrellys would actually remove scenes based on the objections of the Catholic league! Isn’t the point of the stooges to poke fun, and/or put a thumb in the eye of the establishment? I could go on and on. Nobody can take a joke anymore. It’s not even that the jokes are all that funny. It’s more of a kids movie than anything else. Silly and unsophisticated. So why censor it? I sure am sick of religious people getting to decide everything.

Cabin in the Woods

A completely unexpected jolt of joyful movie insanity. A meta-film that both embraces and redefines the teen-horror genre. Except that it isn't that genre. It's its OWN genre. And it's one of those movies wherein you can't discuss WHY it's so good because you'd be giving everything away. And even if you tried to describe it, people would say, "That sounds stupid." So, most people won't see this movie because of the title and because they THINK they know what it's about. But they're missing out on a vitamin shot of pure elation. It's intoxicating. Extremely fun. I highly recommend it.

Wrath of the Titans

Seen in Real-D rather than Arclight 3D, I’m pleased to say that the movie was not too dark and flying swords and chunks of lava jumped out of the screen at me appropriately, as they should. The cast is strong and bring the right amount of gravitas to the oblique tale of gods, demigods, and monsters at war for some reason. There were several effects I really enjoyed, including long-computer-aided tracking shots, an appearance by forest dwelling giants, a cool land of stone mazes, and a massive lava monster. The story and the drama don’t really resonate, it’s a forgettable movie, but I was pleased nonetheless to have seen it.

American Reunion

The American Pie movies worked because they were always 75% funny and 25% sentimental. The heart behind all of the dirty jokes was always there. The problem with American Reunion is there’s TOO much sentiment, and not enough funny. Yes, it’s fun to see the big cast reunited, and it’s always a pleasure to watch Eugene Levy awkwardly trying to impart pearls of wisdom to his well-meaning son. But the reunion lacks the really raunchy dirty jokes, firmly rooted in truth, that made the other movies so refreshingly honest.