Mario

Mario; Viewing this in its horrible English language dub makes it seem like Mario’s Elijah Wood lookalike brother Simon is a crazy, deranged person with fantasies in his head. The scenery is nice but the scenes are oddly cut and amount to one bizarre moment after another. Strange heap of garbage; D

A Minecraft Movie

A Minecraft Movie; Battles between a banal attempt to craft a comprehensible story out of nonsense and Jack Black and Jason Mamoa rollicking along in a bromantic fantasy. The absurdity teeters from sheer boredom to incredulous eye gouging visuals. None of it really works but what could we expect?; D

Petit Jésus

Petit Jésus; What has potential to be a clever, introspective family dramedy or a hilarious, farcical comedy of errors, or both, instead settles into benign, harmless trifle that neither produces any big laughs nor pulls on any serious heartstrings. Mildly funny, mildly moving, mostly boring; D

Trolls Band Together

Trolls Band Together; The film no one asked for returns w/blender of pop tunes only mildly pleasing in the first place, hoping for a hit of nostalgic dopamine before realizing the songs are only tolerable in bite size form. Animation cuts corners to keep cash grab profitable; D

Blade of the 47 Ronin

Blade of the 47 Ronin; CW show production values make for a feature film that feels like B roll stunt work stitched together loosely around a nonsensical narrative that fails to engage or entertain. Sad to see dedicated performers relegated to make this bland fare; D

Darby and the Dead

Darby and the Dead; Tries to be a Paranorman Mean Girls but despite its talented cast, fails miserably by devolving into worst teen movie tropes w/little heart or humour. There’s a great story lying in aspects of the themes but the script goes to the most obvious banal places; D

Zombies 3

Zombies 3; Overstaying its welcome, having lost its charm derived from its fine, young stars, this franchise has gone past camp, beyond ridiculous and can’t even offer up a song or dance number to save it from itself. Abysmal end (hopefully) to what was once silly, sweet fun; D

Space Jam: A New Legacy

Space Jam: A New Legacy; Forgets everything that made the original fun. James makes Jordan seem like a great actor, the toons aren’t used effectively and the story elements are lacklustre. More effort went into populating backgrounds with WB IPs than anything worthwhile; D

Downhill

Downhill; A fitting name for a film that seems promising at first by casting the dream team of Louis-Dreyfus and Ferrell, only to squander their comedic AND dramatic capabilities with a D.O.A. script of two characters unworthy of our empathy or attention. Completely unlikable; D

The Virgin Suicides

The Virgin Suicides; Exhaustingly solemn and emotionally bereft, populated with characters we couldn’t care less about on account that we never truly get to know them. Says very little about a very serious topic, making it seem more of a fashion shoot than tragic reality; D

Men in Black: International

Men in Black: International; Script and direction seriously fails the talent of the leads. Would love to watch Tessa Thompson and Chris Hemsworth in anything but this disaster. Retains none of what made previous MIB films fun or visually interesting. Unfortunate misfire; D

Room For Rent

Room For Rent; Dismally plodding film that makes several conceits in the script and fails to make use of it all. Comedic cast is left to languish in the scripted nonsense, struggling to deliver a tone that’s neither funny nor creepy at the times it tries to be; D

Allegiant

Allegiant; Like watching a book be read aloud by boring characters. No. It IS a book spoken aloud with boring actors. Sci-fi FX are lame; D

G.I. Joe: Retaliation

G.I. Joe: Retaliation; What did we do to deserve this? Trailer is > the movie. Designed to sell toys. Two hours I will never get back; D

The Chamber

Directed by:  James Foley
Starring:  Chris O'Donnell, Gene Hackman, Faye Dunaway, Robert Prosky
Running Time:  1h 51min

John Grisham's lawyer books turned movies have officially become tiresome.  Now I could have said this back when The Pelican Brief was first released but now it can't be denied.  Grisham serves us yet another tale involving a young lawyer against all odds, fighting for justice, with the aid of a nice female helper.  Should he be working for his client?  Will he beat the odds?  WHO CARES?  There wasn't a single character in this movie that was worth caring for or even worth watching.  O'Donnell is extremely stiff as he delivers his lines in the same tone, regardless of emotion.  His handling of the big Grisham monologue is empty.  Hackman is reduced to looking sad and then yelling.  It's a shame that Grisham's films attract such great talent and hard-earned $$$.

Grade: D

Fair Game

Directed by:  Andrew Snipes
Starring:  Cindy Crawford, William Baldwin
Running Time:  1h 30min

An obvious attempt to target the testosterone crowd, this movie does just that.  It delivers action, sex, more action, and Crawford amazingly being soaked in water throughout the entire movie.  We are to believe that it takes place in a span of two days yet she seems to change at least six times.  Her first attempt at acting is a poor one but she holds her own against the rest of the horrible cast, including Baldwin.  Only one good scene and that's the comedy provided by a 7-11 clerk.  When guys want to see action and sex it is usually when they are separated.  They want to see Cindy in bed and the hero kicking ass without her.  This movie has too much Cindy the hero and to see Baldwin as a hero is just as hard.  Where's Arnold when you need him?

Grade: D

Feeling Minnesota

Directed by:  Steven Baigelman
Starring:  Keanu Reeves, Cameron Diaz, Vincent D'Onofrio, Dan Akroyd, Delroy Lindo
Running Time:  1h 39min

Cameron Diaz does her best Keanu Reeves impression which leaves us with two emotionless, monotone, dull as shit romantic leads.  This film is written in the style of "what do we do now?"  It's as if the writer had an interesting premise which amounted to about five minutes, and kept tacking on another five minutes of stupidity every time the previously braindead five minutes started going nowhere.  D'Onofrio supplies the only laughs in this romantic comedy that isn't romantic or funny.  His one scene with Lindo is the only thing worth watching.  Well, Diaz is beautiful but totally wasted playing dumb with Keanu's typecast dumbness.  I'm proud to say that I didn't pay a cent to see this!

Grade:  D

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Transformers: Dark of the Moon; Can we just agree 2 pretend that we saw this & give the billion dollars to foreign aid? Album is better; D

Transformers 2: Rise of the Fallen

Directed by: Michael Bay

Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, John Turturro

Running Time: 2h 30min

Um, why did i go see this exactly? My wife made the comment that i looked completely unimpressed and offended the entire time watching this. Bigger and dumber than the original. I may just sell my old eighties toys if this keeps up. Gotta love that cast though. They really chew the scenery, knowing that their time on screen is just so there's something to cut away to between F/X shots. Not that it matters when there's more than enough jump cuts and rapid fire edits to outdo the entire French New Wave movement. This is what those auteurs would have referred to as, Le Crap.

Grade: D

Inkheart

Directed by: Iain Softley

Starring: Brendan Fraser, Eliza Bennett, Paul Bettany, Helen Mirren, Rafi Gavron, Andy Serkis

Running Time: 1h 46min

Perfectly cast, yet so disturbingly wrong. Straight out of the pages of the deeply involving series of children's books, Inkheart begs to be translated to film, yet makes such a feat very difficult due to the elements that make the book such an interesting read.

First off, Inkheart is a reader's read. A book for book lovers. The allusions the author makes to classic children's literature give much pleasure to a well read book enthusiast. Unfortunately, this doesn't make for good movie making. Instead, the talent involved in Inkheart, the movie, would have done well by referencing classic children's films, in lieu of the classic novels quoted in the text. Apart from the tornado sequence that evokes The Wizard of Oz, there isn't a lot of clever winks and nods happening.

Rather, it feels more like Fraser can't escape his Mummy series casting, as he plays reluctant hero to a series of computer generated FX, which is a shame, because he is well cast as Mo, the "Silvertongue" that reads books to life. Serkis makes a great villain and Bennett is wonderful in the lead role of Mo's daughter, a very plucky and tough heroine to nail down, and part of the reason why the book works so well. Bettany is smart casting for Dustfinger, as he can play both sides of the fence with equal skill and clever dialogue delivery. The coup de grace is the casting of recent Oscar winner Mirren, who can slip into the skin of ornery Elinor with much delight.

Yet, despite all the spot-on casting, none of the performances materialize, as each actor is boiled down to bare characteristics, with just enough screen time to barely string along the narrative. Suspense is limited, and key strengths of the book (effortless shifts in narrative perspective, balancing elements of old and new settings and surroundings, slow reveal of character, motive, and history) fall by the wayside. Had the adaptation been given the care, love and attention as The Lord of the Rings trilogy or the Harry Potter films, Inkheart would have been a real triumph and the birth of a new trilogy based on a child's classic. Instead, we are left wishing for something more.

Grade: D