Exhaustive list of three-sentence reviews, Volume III

CRANK: HIGH VOLTAGE (2009)- This movie left me torn; there are very brief flashes of brilliance, but CRANK was also chock full of racist caricatures of all stripes, splashes of misogyny, and an overwhelming sense of forced wackiness. Jason Statham perfectly captures the character of the immense leading prick, whose profession is seemingly the only plot detail I might have been missing out on not having seen the first installment. I would challenge co-directors Mark Nedelvine and Brian Taylor tone down their schtick a half dozen degrees for their next picture and see what happens, as it would surely be much more enjoyable.

EVENT HORIZON (1997)- Many folks whose opinions closely mirror my own on sci-fi and horror genres have recommended checking this out to me in the past, so it was a pretty steep disappointment to finally take in this half-baked horror flick. The cast is the most enjoyable aspect of the film, as Larry Fishburne, Sam Neil and Jason Isaacs (who later played Lucius Malfoy in the Potter films) chew through scenery like so many milk-soaked graham crackers. The plot, about a space rescue mission attempting to locate an experimental spacecraft, starts strong and then falls apart as Neil's Dr. Weir's motivations and true origins remain unnecessarily obfuscated through even the lame "twist" ending.

FAME (2009)- Having watched only the first half of the original FAME (1980) after finishing this, I am offended at this limp remake. While the original FAME features gritty sets and cinematography, characters who are provided with actual backgrounds, and several story arcs varying between the comical and the brutal, neo-FAME instead spotlights lamely sexualized teen robots, a seemingly unending parade of unneeded musical set pieces, and a New York city that looks a lot like Toronto. Most offensive is the wholesale replacement of the lower class origins of the original's characters, instead replaced by an elite group of selfish and interchangeable automatons.

FUNNY PEOPLE (2009)- Adam Sandler has always struck me as an actor capable of a lot more than he is willing to normally commit to, an idea inspired by his dually subtle and intense performance in PUNCH DRUNK LOVE. FUNNY PEOPLE, while tonally quite different from PUNCH DRUNK, also offers up a nuanced Sandler performance in the form of a selfish, lonely, and self-destructive comedian whose character surely draws a lot from Mr. Sandler's actual life and success. Like all of director Judd Apatow's work, FUNNY PEOPLE is slightly uneven throughout, but the characters and situations that they subject themselves to ring truer to life than almost any other big budget comedy.

I CAN DO BAD ALL BY MYSELF (2009)- This was the first time I have ever encountered anything by Tyler Perry and I enjoyed it a good bit, lacking in subtlety though it may be. I CAN DO BAD slips and slides tonally all over the map from slapstick comedy to heartfelt drama to balls-out musical, and while the experience is somewhat jarring, all of the components are well-crafted as individual elements and result in an enjoyable whole. Hope Olaidé, as a troubled teen acting as a surrogate mother to her two younger brothers, and Taraji Henson, in the role of a self-destructive lounge singer and initially unwilling adoptive mother, offer excellent portrayals of women forced down similarly difficult paths in life.

LAW ABIDING CITIZEN (2009)- Despite knowing better, I really hoped that LAW ABIDING CITIZEN would be something more than a dumb revenge-themed cat and mouse procedural given that it was set in Philadelphia and starred that guy from 300 (who has yet to make another good movie). Not only did it fail at that, it outright fell flat at being entertaining or making any sense, for that matter. The only aspect of the film that I even took any note of was director F. Gary Gray's restraint in not showing any of the potentially very gory SAW-like torture scenes, and that is truly not saying much for a film. (Bonus sentence: From visiting links from this picture's IMDB entry, I discovered that they are remaking TOTAL RECALL, which is one of the worst ideas in the history of cinema, followed closely by the idea that this film's writer, Kurt Wimmer , should be in charge of writing its script.)

MOON (2009)- Atmospheric science fiction is a genre that has fallen greatly from grace since it's heyday of the '70's and '80's, aside from a sparse number of recent offerings like Soderbergh's 2002 SOLARIS remake and Danny Boyle's 2007 slow burner, SUNSHINE. MOON continues in the revival as a (briefly) mysterious and gauzily shot tale of space madness and corporate greed. While Sam Rockwell does everything he can with the role of Sam Bell, an astronaut/space miner eager to reunite with his family, the film unveils its secrets far too rapidly and obviously to wring out the full psychological tension that the film could have potentially mined.

THE STEPFATHER (2009)- Not much can be said about THE STEPFATHR that isn't already revealed in the trailer: stepfather guy meets mom, kills elderly neighbor, terrorizes her/her kids. If you go into this expecting dumb entertainment and nothing more, you will come out unscathed. Here is another sentence to meet my quota of three sentences.

TERMINATOR SALVATION (2009)- While many dismissed TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES as an awful entry into the franchise, I found it's extremely clever writing, novel premise, and willingness to portray John Connor in a negative light as a refreshing change from James Cameron's previous two blunt slugfests (which were both excellent in their own right). SALVATION, on the other hand, lacks both the creative and humorous writing of RISE as well as the visceral brio of the first two installments; were a few details and names changed, this would have been on par with any other generic mid-budget sci-fi movie of the last ten years. Michael Ironside, who has been in some of the best sci-fi pictures of the last ten years, is utterly squandered in the two scenes he appears in, and the rest of the cast is so lacking in charisma that the third act's dramatic finale is easily forgotten by the time the credits roll.

THE THING (1982)- John Carpenter is responsible for several of my favorite childhood movie experiences and what I consider to be the best science fiction picture of all time, so I was hesitant to elevate my expectations for THE THING when I first saw it several years ago. While THE THING is a vast tonal departure from his other output of the era, totally lacking in any comic relief, Carpenter proves his mastery of restraint and tension here, with a story whose shrouded details and loyalties result in a mass of hysteria and suspicion that ends in tragedy on a personal, or possibly global, scale. The atmosphere of THE THING is perfectly realized with both sound and image, making the viewer feel like one of the research team members trapped in a seemingly impossibly fatal situation.












TWILIGHT (2008)- Much like my original viewing of HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE, watching TWILIGHT was inspired not so much by an interest in the subject matter or storytelling but rather gaining a perspective on the cultural discourse that it inspires. While Potter & co. pleasantly surprised me with a tale that would make Joseph Campbell proud, TWILIGHT offered not only low production values and poor characterizations, but also a story that made me feel like an old woman as I asked myself, "What is wrong with kids these days?" since Bella and Edward's relationship is clearly abusive on several levels. The only aspect of the film that I enjoyed was the idea of a vampire family, a concept which was not very thoroughly fleshed out aside from a couple of short asides.

WORLD'S GREATEST DAD (2009)- While Robin Williams has indeed been in a few good movies over the years, his presence in a cast usually means you're going to end up with a JUMANJI or perhaps a BIRD CAGE. He has a history of playing everything atrociously over the top, from gay caricatures to sentimental schmaltz, and DAD is no exception, as he takes on the role of a pathetic go-nowhere high school teacher who uses his son's death by auto-erotic asphyxiation to further his own dreams of becoming a professional writer, a role he inhabits almost freakishly easily with his frumpish physique. Director Bobcat Goldthwait (yes, that guy) takes a bitterly misanthropic view of his subjects without every offering any sympathetic characters or moments of hope, thus rendering the film unpleasant for all but the most hateful of souls, even through the anti-climax of a nude Robin Williams diving into a pool like an oafish, elderly version of Benjamin Braddock.

YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN (2008)- Quite a different beast from FUNNY PEOPLE, ZOHAN is much closer to the films parodied to hilarious effect in the above-reviewed Apatow picture (the idea behind MERMAN was genius). The vigor with which Sandler inhabits the role of an Isreali secret agent-cum-NYC hairstylist is hard to not enjoy, and the message of peace between Jews and Palestinians is admirable, though quite confusingly staged. I consider this to be the A SERIOUS MAN of the "sex with old lady jokes" genre of comedy films.