Darkman is a cheesy but really fun throwback to the B-movie horror days of Hollywood. Liam Neeson is wonderful and turns in a great performance considering the amount of make-up he had to work under while Sam Raimi, far from perfect direction, shows what would come with his Spider-Man franchise.
The Shadow had plenty of potential but thanks to budgetary constraints and a screenplay that probably could’ve used a polish, that’s all this film is left with. But now 20 years later, it receives new life on Blu-ray to the point hopefully it finds a new audience and Hollywood takes another stab considering the advancement in visual effects with value to the dollar.
is a poorly made thriller that wants to be Misery but without the top-notch acting and well-written screenplay adapted from a Stephen King novel. I can’t say I hated this movie yet I have no issues saying it’s really bad, just not bad enough to get angry over. There’s no doubt this one will get lost in the fray of other terrible films, though the cover will probably garner some interest.
“Crossing Lines” as a drama isn’t bad but it is a show carried by its characters which are mostly well done and finely acted led by William Fichtner and Marc Lavoine. The stories do seem culled from “Criminal Minds” but even so, they are compelling enough to make each episode entertaining.
Carrie had the potential to be good with two fine leads in Chloe Grace Moretz and Julianne Moore but instead it proves to be yet another remake that wasn’t needed. Not helping matters is a cast that failed to make much of an impression and in the case of Moretz, had one particular scene which was silly.
Thief is a solid crime-drama from Michael Mann and a wonderful performance from James Caan, perhaps one of the best of his career.
Prisoners is certainly one of the better movies to come out of 2013, though I do think it was a tad overrated given the hype. However, the performances from Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal are brilliant and the atmosphere brought by Villeneuve and DP Deakins is absolutely absorbing.
The Lone Ranger might’ve been a good movie but on a much smaller and simpler scale but instead the filmmakers attempted to recreate some of the conditions which made the Pirates of the Caribbean movies monumental successes down to Johnny Depp playing yet another make-up wearing quirky character. The action scenes aren’t that fun and get a bit tedious.
I Spit on Your Grave 2 is, to say the least, a disturbing movie and like most sequels, the writers and director attempts to amp up the anguish to the next level which it mostly does.