Journey 2: The Mysterious Island actually isn’t too bad of a movie. Even as an adult, I found it to be fairly entertaining and although I’d hardly say anything in the acting department was great and the characters are paper thin, the adventure and fantasy elements, along with a breezy plot, makes up for any of the movie’s flaws.
Being John Malkovich is certainly a unique film and as with anything directed by Spike Jonze or written by Charlie Kaufman, it’s not going to be for everybody. Myself, I enjoyed the oddities and all, but it doesn’t have as much replay value. The Criterion Collection release has some good features and nice audio/video transfers.
New Year’s Eve is an all around poorly made movie. The writing is lazy, the interconnecting tissue between the ensemble is at best thin and just the overall plot never really had the proper flow; even Valentine’s Day seemed to have a more cohesive story.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a film that personally offended me, not so much for its use of 9/11 (albeit it doesn’t sit well) but due to a manipulative script, obnoxious, annoying and illogical characters and some of the poorest on-screen chemistry I’ve seen in a while mainly between Oskar and his father which looked and sounded entirely contrived.
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is easily the best of the series with the original and third movie after it. The action is intense, the suspense well done and the comedy is right on the money without going over-the-top. Although Tom Cruise deserves a fair amount of credit, I’m giving most of the film’s success (including financial, grossing $600 million worldwide) to live action newcomer Brad Bird bringing his expertise that has made Pixar so successful into a new world.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy excels in the acting category, and more specifically an excellent performance from Gary Oldman, but the story doesn’t hold as much water as I’d hoped. Sure, some of the storytelling was well done but there’s so much going on and the jump cut from past to present can be tough to keep up with if you’re not fully engrossed. Still, this is a good movie worth checking out at least once.
If you don’t have anything else on the shelf for your kids to watch, then Hop might be worth a rental. The DVD doesn’t amount to much either with light/fluffy features though the video and audio transfers are good.
Tower Heist has a few issues dealing the plot’s logic but thanks to a fine ensemble cast, I’m able to overlook any of the script’s shortcomings; it gets the job done with both the crime and comedy.
Writer-director Daniel Simpson’s Spiderhole offers up a great visual element but everything else is pretty much par for the course in horror and even then, it’s not that effective. However, I would’ve more than accepted the horror clichés if not for one character’s stupidity that makes little sense given what transpired earlier in the film.
Contagion has some things going for it, but mainly from an acting and technical level rather than the story. The cast is mostly good despite having a limited amount of screen time and Soderbergh’s visual style, while nothing new from what he’s done in the past, still looks stunning and gives the film a certain gravitas yet at the same time I felt like I was more or less a spectator versus becoming involved or entrenched with what was going on.