August 24, 2007
Illegal Tender
(out of four)
For a straight-A college kid, Wilson DeLeon Jr. isn't all that smart. Somehow, he managed to go 21 years without asking how his single stay-at-home mom could afford the mansions they lived in, or why the family had to relocate every few years like refugees in a witness protection program. But as soon as two assassins show up at the front door, he's suddenly full of questions.
Illegal Tender is the sort of crime movie in which nothing, not one detail, has been observed from real life; it's composed entirely of fantasies and falsehoods lifted from bad movies and hip-hop videos. It wants to be Scarface but makes The Pacifier look plausible by comparison. (Do real bodyguards ever aim their guns sideways?)
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Posted by Peter Debruge on August 24, 07 at 10:41 AM | Comments (0)
August 17, 2007
The Ten
(out of four)
When it comes down to it, almost all movies deal with transgression in one form or another. The Ten is a comedy about breaking all 10 of the Commandments, one at a time.
The movie serves as The State comedians David Wain and Ken Marino's response to The Decalogue, a 10-hour collection of very serious Polish films about sin and salvation by director Krzysztof Kieslowski. As Wain and Marino rightly point out, there weren't a lot of laughs in The Decalogue — but then, there are even fewer in The Ten.
Posted by Peter Debruge on August 17, 07 at 10:54 AM | Comments (0)
December 25, 2006
Black Christmas
(out of four)
Horror movies have come a long way in 30 years, although you wouldn't know it by watching this brain-dead Black Christmas remake, which recycles the serial-killer-in-a-sorority-house plot from the original without any improvement in style or story. Bob Clark's 1974 version has acquired its cult following largely in retrospect, with horror fans celebrating the seminal slasher movie for doing it first. With Halloween, four years later, John Carpenter not only did it better, he also picked a more appropriate holiday. Yet devotees insist that Christmas is the superior film.
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Posted by Peter Debruge on December 25, 06 at 11:45 PM | Comments (0)
October 06, 2006
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
(out of four)
Don't get too attached to any of the nubile young twentysomethings in horror prequel The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. Expectedly grisly pic provides the origin story for Thomas Hewitt, aka "Leatherface" — which means these kids are little more than chainsaw fodder for the Ed Gein-inspired cannibalistic killer. Whereas the three Star Wars prequels set up key events foreshadowing young Anakin's turn to the dark side, implication here is that Hewitt was always evil. In light of the 2003 Michael Bay-produced remake's $80 million box office take, expect this entry from Rings helmer Jonathan Liebesman to scare up healthy numbers.
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Posted by Peter Debruge on October 6, 06 at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)
August 25, 2006
Beerfest
(out of four)
Know your limits. That warning applies just as aptly to alcohol binges as it does to the comedy stylings of the Broken Lizard troupe, who shamelessly overextend the reaches of their talent in their latest low-concept romp, Beerfest.
The movie, as the name implies, is a frat boy's fantasy, the story of two brothers who travel to Germany to unload their father's ashes and accidentally stumble upon a super-secret competition to determine the world's most dedicated beer drinkers. It's Elizabethtown meets Animal House (no emo boys, lots of topless chicks), an irreverent Dodgeball-style sports sendup from the Super Troopers crew.
Posted by Peter Debruge on August 25, 06 at 09:55 AM | Comments (0)
August 18, 2006
Accepted
(out of four)
When applying for college, no one wants the skinny envelope, the one that contains a single sheet of paper with the words, "We regret to inform you..." You want the fat package, stuffed with a letter that begins, "Congratulations," and lots of colorful pictures of your bright college future.
Bartleby Gaines (Justin Long) doesn't have a bright college future. He got the skinny letter — eight of them to be exact. Rejected from every university he applied to, Bartleby hatches a plan: Why not invent his own school, accept himself and spend his dad's tuition money however he wants? Ferris Bueller took a day off; Bartleby Gaines is about to coast through his next four years!
Posted by Peter Debruge on August 18, 06 at 11:14 AM | Comments (0)
August 04, 2006
Barnyard
(out of four)
Just about anyone can make an animated movie these days. Case in point: Barnyard, the loud, sophomoric and stunningly crude (both in visual quality and content) new computer-generated cartoon from writer/director Steve Oedekerk, mastermind behind Patch Adams and the Ace Ventura sequel.
Animators everywhere should take Barnyard as a call to action. If Oedekerk can do it, so can they, and while there's no guarantee they could do it better, they'd be hard-pressed to fare much worse. Not all of Oedekerk's credits are as insufferable as those collaborations with Tom Shadyac. He also co-wrote Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius with director John A. Davis, who demonstrated a week ago that you don't need Pixar-caliber visuals to tell a good animated story in The Ant Bully. Cutting-edge CGI never hurts, but a little creativity goes a long way.
Posted by Peter Debruge on August 4, 06 at 10:33 AM | Comments (0)
April 14, 2006
The Wild
(out of four)
A lion, a giraffe and a few other outspoken animals escape the Central Park Zoo and sail their way back to Africa in The Wild. If it sounds like you've seen this movie before, that's because you have.
But I'm going to try to write this review without mentioning the "M word" because computer-animated films take years to make, and this isn't the first time two concurrently produced toons have resulted in uncanny similarities (A Bug's Life and Antz or Finding Nemo and Shark Tale come to mind).
Posted by Peter Debruge on April 14, 06 at 09:27 AM | Comments (0)
March 10, 2006
The Libertine
(out of four)
It's difficult not to like Johnny Depp, but in The Libertine, the actor insists. ''You will not like me,'' Depp instructs his audience outright in the film's opening monologue, delivered to camera in what feels like a 17th century precursor to the reality-show confession booth.
Such gutsy self-consciousness might feel right at home on stage, where The Libertine all too obviously originated. But first-time director Laurence Dunmore might have done better to take a more conservative approach with his debut, rather than so carelessly forsaking his audience's goodwill from the outset.
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Posted by Peter Debruge on March 10, 06 at 11:15 AM | Comments (0)
November 11, 2005
Derailed
(out of four)
How is it that movies have numbed us to the act of murder, and yet still allow us to feel outraged every time a rape occurs on screen? Derailed, which begins as a sunny meetcute between a bored family man (Clive Owen) and flirty ex-Friend (Jennifer Aniston), chugs along innocently enough before a very graphic rape scene interrupts the story and forces it to do as the title suggests.
Posted by Peter Debruge on November 11, 05 at 07:50 AM | Comments (4)