Tags: Antisocial Aliens
D |
** |
-3|
Adults*
I don’t mind that
Prometheus raises big questions without ultimately answering them. Unanswered questions are part of life, and there’s no reason you can’t have them in art. I do mind that
Prometheus raises big questions and has virtually nothing interesting, insightful or thoughtful to say about them. If the questions aren’t interesting in this film, why should anyone care whether they’re answered in another one?
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The Avengers in 60 seconds: my “Reel Faith” review.
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Battleship in 60 seconds: My “Reel Faith” review.
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C+ |
**½ |
+0|
Teens & Up
It’s all acceptably diverting, and not actively unpleasant like the 2002 sequel. There are no grand twists or revelations comparable to the truth about the “galaxy” in the original. What the film could most use, I think, is a wide-eyed uninitiate like Linda Fiorentino in the original or Rosario Dawson in the sequel — but one from 1969, which would offer a fresh twist on the outsider’s experience of the MIB’s nutty world.
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A |
***½ |
+2|
Teens & Up
If
The Avengers isn’t necessarily the
best superhero movie ever made, it is unquestionably the
most superhero movie ever made — and, in that capacity, it is more than well-made enough to take comic-book entertainment to unprecedented levels.
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C+ |
**½ |
+2-2|
Adults
Putting Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford in Stetsons is clearly an excellent idea. Both men have faces made for Westerns, rugged and rough-hewn. There is a sense of stoic reserve and working-class grit about them; neither is the sort of man one can only imagine being an actor, or leading a life of privilege.
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C+ |
**½ |
-2|
Teens & Up
Gone are the days when a movie like
E.T. could open to a mere $11 million, build on word of mouth, and go on to earn more than $350 million in North America. Obviously, Abrams remembers those days. In a way,
Super 8 is as derivative and familiar as anything in theaters today, only the movies it’s copying are all over a quarter of a century old: Spielbergian fare like
The Goonies,
E.T.,
Gremlins and
Close Encounters, with echoes of earlier and later films.
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C |
**½ |
-1|
Kids & Up
As a tale of female empowerment and male comeuppance,
Monsters vs. Aliens might have been provocative, like, 50 years ago. Today, nothing seems more subversive — and unlikely — than a family film with a heroic leading man who’s the equal of the leading lady — one boys can look up to without having to learn a lesson about male weakness. Now that’s a movie I’d like to see.
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C+ |
**½ |
+0|
Teens & Up
I don’t object in principle to Keanu–Klaatu’s message. It’s just not a very interesting or enlightening thing for an ambassador from the universe to say. It’s sort of a letdown, not unlike like having the pope show up at your house only to check the batteries in your smoke detectors. There’s nothing wrong with that. You just hope he has more on his mind.
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C+ |
*** |
+1-2|
Teens & Up
Light on plot and story logic but strong on narrative thrust and fantastic imagery, it’s the most effective of the three films… Alas,
Zathura is also a family film
of the contemporary family as well as
for it.
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C+ |
**½ |
-1|
Adults
Individual set pieces are riveting, and one seldom doubts that if alien tripods were actually wreaking havoc on the Earth, this is indeed very much what it would be like. Afterwards, though, one is left with little more than ashes.
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B+ |
***½ |
+0|
Teens & Up
Based on the whimsical comic book series of the same name,
Men in Black looks superficially like another
Independence Day-style big-budget summer special-effects
extravaganza with a catchy three-letter acronym. Yet
MIB
is smarter, leaner, funnier, and more human than most entries in
the genre, relying less on spectacle than on the chemistry of the
two leads and the wit of the script for its appeal.
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B- |
**½ |
+2|
Teens & Up
Signs has the
heart that was lacking in
Unbreakable, but stumbles badly
in its treatment of the paranormal, in this case the world of
"X-Files" / "Twilight Zone"
sci-fi. Glaring
practical problems increasingly sap the movie’s plausibility,
until eventually suspension of disbelief becomes possible only by
not thinking about it.
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C- |
** |
+0|
Teens & Up
Beyond more action and bigger effects, the sequel brings
nothing new to the table. You’ll wait in vain for satirical
"revelations" about the presence of aliens among us to match the
wit of the jokes in the original about cab drivers or the World’s
Fair. Instead, we get limp gags like the one about the Post
Office being staffed by aliens. (Why? Is it a joke about postal
efficiency? The "going postal" stereotype? The fact that they
make rounds? What?)
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F |
0 |
+0|
Teens & Up*
Here is the closest thing to a positive statement I can make about
Battlefield Earth: Although it is an adaptation of a novel by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the sect of Scientology - and although it stars John Travolta, one of Hollywood’s most high-profile Scientologists and a long-time champion of this project - Battlefield Earth is not a cryptic tract or allegory of Scientology.
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