If the world ended tomorrow and you only had enough time to grab three movies, which would they be? If you answered, “Independence Day,” “Minority Report,” and a copy of “Star Wars Episode I” that only plays the pod race scenes, then you’ll enjoy “Oblivion.” Otherwise, you’ll spend two hours rolling your eyes at the […]
To hear Mark Elloff’s audio review of this movie, click below. Offering what may be the most boy-targeted movie of the year, Steven Spielberg manages to reshape the “Indiana Jones” mold into a new high flying adventure. It is not the most concise screenplay ever written, but manages to satisfy fans of the comic while […]
By Mark Special to The Dagger The latest Jason Statham project finds him playing the type of intense action role that has made him famous, this time in a remake of a Charles Bronson vehicle from 1972. Elite hitman Arthur Bishop (Statham) is given the task of eliminating his mentor, Harry McKenna (Donald Sutherland), at […]
(Giles Keyte/Focus) It requires careful skill to be an assassin: exemplary marksmanship, precision in movement, and certainty in intention. The same can be said of successful filmmaking, and even of convincing performance. It’s a good thing, then, that Focus Features’ The American, a meticulously crafted, retro-styled exercise in vigilance and meditation, subsists on those who […]
(Andrew Schwartz/Columbia) “Who is Salt?” inquires the promotional push for the latest Angelina Jolie-starring spy thriller from Columbia Pictures. It’s a question we ponder often during the film, and one whose answer is well explored, unexpected, and not so simple, really. The story proper begins like a punch-line: so a guy walks into the Central […]
Inception (Warner Bros.) (Warner Bros./Stephen Vaughan) So here’s the problem with Inception. Molded from remarkable ambition and complexity, the film must spend a considerable amount of time introducing and explaining its significant set of rules and procedures. At the same time, Inception requires us to understand these rules—to grasp this intricate swirl of concepts—in order […]
The A-Team (20th Century Fox) (Michael Muller/20th Century Fox) Whipped, nipped, and tucked into submission, The A-Team is an expensive-looking, high-gloss action bonanza, so calculative as to feel mechanical, and so unobtrusive or unchallenging in any way that it’s almost spooky. Four renegade army types team up for militaristic operations under the US Army’s banner […]
Robin Hood (Universal) Apparently, we’ve had it wrong all along. To take from the rich and give to the poor, as a classic understanding of the Robin Hood tale might suggest, was not an attempt by the benevolent marksman to redistribute the wealth of his land. In Ridley Scott’s eponymous origin fable, working from a […]
