Whenever I think of “talking monkeys,” I immediately call to mind the 1995 movie The Prophecy in which Christopher Walken and Viggo Mortensen used that term to disparagingly refer to human beings. (I often find that stupid or annoying people whom I encounter are no better than talking monkeys.) This term takes on an entirely […]
As humanity struggles for survival, simians take the first steps toward dominance in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. It’s 10 years after mankind infected itself with a fatal virus that was initially designed as a wonder drug for all manner of brain disorders. Instead, it quickly spread across the globe, taking humans to the brink of extinction. Now, […]
The poorest survivors of a global meltdown fight an oppressive class system aboard a perpetual-motion train in Snowpiercer. The year is 2031. With global warming growing worse 17 years ago, the people of Earth conceived a grand plan to restore the world’s climate. They sprayed the atmosphere with a chemical that, instead of solving the […]
A variation of a popular saying is “nothing exceeds like excess.” In the case of summer blockbusters, it almost seems like a game for directors to see how much they can cram into the running time to please the eyes and ears if not the mind as well. When I saw the trailer for Transformers: […]
An adolescent viking and his pet dragon encounter a disturbing clan that threatens the peace in How to Train Your Dragon 2. 2010’s animated film How to Train Your Dragon was one of my five best for the year. It introduced us to the story of young Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel), the awkward but inventive son […]
Wait a minute! Didn’t I just see and review a movie about time travel?! Yes, it was X-Men: Days of Future Past, yet here I am again with another review about a plot that jumps in time. Maybe I’m in a time loop, so I’d better try harder to get it right this time and […]
A noncombatant Army officer is compelled to take part in a final offensive against invading aliens, only to relive the battle countless times, in Edge of Tomorrow. Earth’s been invaded by an alien race that’s suddenly stalled after nearly eradicating much of Europe. The commander leading the unified fighting forces, General Brigham (Brendan Gleeson), decides on an […]
Great fairy tales, even the darker ones, completely take you out of the theater to a place where you’ve never been before and reward you with a fable and unique, fantastic characters. I think back to the experiences that I had when I first saw Shrek, Labyrinth, Beauty and the Beast and any number of […]
Time travel movies and others that play with temporal realities are successful or not based on the strength of the plot. You could have the best cast in the world, and it will all end up lost to time if the story doesn’t make sense or, even worse, is too complicated. Some of the best […]
Godzilla movies were regular entries in the monster movie marathons that they’d put on the air late at night or on lazy Saturdays spent in front of the TV. I loved these movies because Godzilla would inevitably destroy everything in sight and often fight other creatures in those plots where he was actually saving humanity […]
Marvel‘s venerable web-slinger returns to protect the city from Electro, the Green Goblin and OsCorp in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. I grew up with what’s called “Retro Spider-Man” — an animated series that originally ran from 1967 to 1970. Even with its occasionally outrageous plots and rather low-quality animation, every kid in the neighborhood was a huge […]
It’s no secret that I’m underwhelmed by origin stories when it comes to superhero movies. I understand why they exist, and I tolerate them with every reboot of the Spider-Man and Batman franchises. I prefer the films where they assume that you already know something about the characters and just plop them in the middle […]