A rollicking, surreal, and existential kids’ Western that worships at the altars of Sergio Leone, Hunter S. Thompson, and Chinatown, Rango drowns under the weight of discordant objectives and influences. With his crooked neck, bug eyes, and Hawaiian shirt, reptilian Rango (boisterously voiced by Johnny Depp) is a Ralph Steadman…
Conceived by author James Frey as the beginning of a potential blockbuster franchise, I Am Number Four is nothing but a million little pieces from prior superhero series and the Twilight saga. D.J. Caruso’s generic adventure, co-written by Frey under a pseudonym, concerns John Smith (Alex Pettyfer), a hunky blond…
Despite the biodoc implication of its title, Bhutto is not just a portrait of the late Benazir Bhutto but also a chronological recap of Pakistan’s anarchic history. Duane Baughman’s nonfiction film pays reverential tribute to Bhutto, who, after the 1979 execution of her prime minister father, became the first woman…
After its predecessor’s vain attempt at newsworthy health-insurance and mortgage-lender commentary, this latest Saw again strives for relevance via the trendiest gimmick available: 3-D! Or, rather, post-production conversion 3-D, which further uglifies its flat, gloomy aesthetics, and thus proves in keeping with the overall cruddy nature of Lionsgate’s annual horror…
Robert De Niro’s alarm must have finally gone off — in Stone, the actor seems more awake than he has in years. De Niro is Jack, a prison corrections officer who, abandoning all professional and common sense, foolishly screws himself by screwing Lucetta (Milla Jovovich), the wife of cornrowed arsonist…
Horses make lousy protagonists, what with their inability to speak, emote, or do much of anything other than run or stand around. No surprise, then, that Secretariat employs its subject as merely a vehicle for a human victory-over-adversity story, which, in this based-on-real-events case, involves owner Penny Chenery (Diane Lane)…
Robert De Niro’s alarm must have finally gone off — in Stone, the actor seems more awake than he has been in years. De Niro is Jack, a prison corrections officer who, abandoning all professional and common sense, foolishly screws himself by screwing Lucetta (Milla Jovovich), the wife of corn-rowed…
Animal Logic, the digital-effects studio responsible for both dancing penguin phenomenon Happy Feet and Zack Snyder phenomenon 300, creates more anatomically accurate anthropomorphic protagonists and expressionistic landscape panoramas in Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole. Directed by Snyder and based on Kathryn Lasky’s children’s books, Legend of the…
Despite the presence of Mouse House starlet Selena Gomez, Ramona and Beezus is less Disney than Hallmark Channel, a loose adaptation of Beverly Cleary’s first novel in her beloved kid-lit series that’s wholesome to the point of dull. Without much in the way of a governing narrative structure, Elizabeth Allen’s…
The story in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time hinges on a dagger that can rewind time, a narrative conceit that taunts those who endure this cacophonous, frivolous adaptation of a video game series. This latest summer spectacle is filled to the hilt with producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney,…
