Category: Monday Morning Movie Reviewer

Another late April movie I’m just now getting to, but don’t worry, this is just one of many new reviews coming out today. Plus, this film is actually really good and it’d be a shame for you to miss out on it. What Works: This film about three bodybuilders who enter a life of crime…

This film came out more than a month ago, and I’m sure everyone who cared about seeing a biopic of Jackie Robinson already has, but don’t worry, this is just the first review of many today. What Works: I think this is a solid film, but not a great one. There are some great scenes…

A slow-building, completely charming indie about two boys in the waaaay rural South (think Mississippi Delta) who travel out to an island and discover a fugitive (Matthew McConaughey, continuing his career resurgence) who needs their help. One of the boys is having some personal problems (his parents are getting divorced…his “girlfriend” barely acknowledges him when…

This film wants to be “Traffic” for online crimes instead of drugs, but the impact is softened at every turn because of a faux-Crash vibe. The film keeps telling us that everyone is human, and that soft emotional center really undercuts the movie’s would-be grittiness. What Works: Three interconnected stories following a teenager who meets…

This movie had the second highest weekend box office of all time (behind only The Avengers), far outpaced the first two films in the series, and is tearing up the international box office. And yet…does it matter that it’s just not very good? Or not only “not very good,” I would say arguably the weakest…

After weeks of duds, a movie I would actually recommend. The trailers are a little misleading (slight, vague spoilers from here) in that it makes it look like an indie-Heat with Bradley Cooper’s hot-shot beat cop chasing Ryan Gosling’s daredevil bank robber, but it’s really three different movies: Gosling’s traveling-circus-performer-turned-motorcycle-riding-bank-robber finds out he has a…

A textbook example of a bad movie with a great performance buried inside. This time delivered by none other than where-have-you-been?/always-welcome Rosario Dawson. What Works: Trance jumps off from an appealing premise: the never-compelling James McAvoy, who always sucks and sucks here, plays an art auctioneer who’s working with some hooligans to steal an expensive…

Elegant, sleek, and more than a little generic. What Works: This may be the first post-apocalyptic movie to ever be called “cozy.” There’s a relaxed, leisurely rhythm that goes perfectly with the very hi-tech style (just wait until you see what the actual villains are…to call them non-terrifying would be understating it). Tom Cruise and…

3D doesn’t add much to the experience of the original Jurassic Park movie, but I loved it as a kid and wanted to see it in theaters again… What Works:…Turns out, the real draw is seeing that T-Rex wreaking havoc on the big screen nearly twenty years later. In the 90’s, nobody could craft a suspense sequence…

Stephanie Myers (the Twilight author) strikes again. One of her books is the basis for this poorly received sci-fi film except that a lot of the same legions that stormed the theaters for Twilight didn’t show up to see this movie. That’s what really matters since nobody would much care what a critic thought of…

I didn’t expect much from G.I. Joe: Retaliation…and it sure didn’t deliver much. I hated the first movie, and, if anything, this one is even worse. Joseph Gordon-Levitt doesn’t reprise his villainous role, and Channing Tatum is in it for a total of ten minutes. [They supposedly held the movie’s release by a year so…

This is otherwise known as the movie where Disney “angels” (Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgins) fall. They, along with two anonymous and interchangeable white girls go on a drug and booze fueled Spring Break with a few of them (but not Gomez) participating in a robbery to get down there. The label of “Disney girls…

This movie is exactly what you would expect. It won’t surprise or challenge you in any way, and nothing rocks the boat as it sails toward a big family-first finish that packs a message. And yet, I enjoyed it. Your kids will love it, and I’d much rather sit through this than the last Ice…