Archive for Release Year: 2008

30 posts from 26 August 2024 to 11 June 2017.

  • Recount

    The Thick of It meets Kevin Spacey headdesking repeatedly.

  • Body of Lies

    US frames innocent muslim for terrorist attack, is all for nought

  • Journey to the Center of the Earth

    Not-adaptation cash grab for 3D

  • Bangkok Dangerous

    Light drama meets tourism postcard with murders.

  • The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

    Still four kids, but with extra large scale battles with hundreds of dead.

  • The Strangers

    Unspeakable horror. Almost literally, the 3 bad guys have less than 3 lines in total.

  • City of Ember

    Goddamn fantastic cast doing jack shit to elevate this to beyond young adult fantasy for kids. Teens saving their world, that turns out to be a Fallout Vault with more incompetent people. Martin Landau and Bill Murray have a lot of fun chewing the scenery.

  • Hunger

    Similar to Bronson, but focused on IRA prisoners.

  • Quantum of Solace

    Back to thin plots layered on copious amounts of action scenes.

  • Deception

    A bog standard thriller with the requisite twist and counter twist towards the end.

  • Hancock

    Analyse This retrograde script. Old and busted ideas dressed up in fine leather and CGI.

  • The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

    A fine drama, buried beneath mountains of makeup and special effects. It’s really just technical muscle flexing.

  • Um Amor de Perdição

    The Cliff’s Notes version. Über-depressing, almost makes you weep for idle rich aristocrats.

  • The Ruins

    This is the worst episode of The Twilight Zone (the killer plants), upgraded to a watchable infection-based horror film. A nice first outing.

  • Die Welle

    Heil Teacher! The simplifier in chief. Group dynamics do most of the work, it only needs a small push.

  • Eagle Eye

    Pre-Snowden, pre-January 6 insurrection techno thriller. It’s a very competent cast with a silly script. Baby’s first Enemy of the State, Fun!

  • In Bruges

    Fucking Bruges. Interplay of bizarre humour and gruesome violence.

  • Veneno Cura

    What’s this, I don’t even… That cold opening sets the tone, but it gets progressively weirder and weirder. Goes to very dark places, but never raises above voyeurism and gratuitous shock value.

  • Death Race

    An industrial small scale version of Mad Max: Fury Road. Sure, there’s a plot in here somewhere, but it’s all about stuff blowing up.

  • The Eye

    A remake of a Pang brothers film, that’s something that you don’t see every day. Jessica Alba is a sight for sore eyes, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Rachel Ticotin still has that Total Recall vibe.

  • Doomsday

    Like Escape from New York and Mad Max 2 had a baby, and that baby got shot in the eye, turning into a female cyborg Plisken, working undercover for the opposition government faction. So much exploding body parts…

  • Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

    Oh, what a lovely day. I’m expected in film Valhalla.

  • Wanted

    Juvenile Timur is already stylish, but this is too raw and “eastern European”. It’s not distilled into blissful and inventive visual transcendence like his next films. Angelina Jolie plays a mean ruthless Trinity.

  • 10,000 BC

    Makes Stargate seem a documentary. The hodgepodge of references to ancient stuff is crazy. Of course the alpha couple are Canadian dudes with dreadlocks, for budgetary reasons, rather than outright racism.

  • You Don't Mess with the Zohan

    This is too tasteless for me to be angry about the Israel-Palestine relations portrayed here. It’s all about dick jokes and codpieces.

  • Inkheart

    An adaptation of a German book series, for kids. Wreck It Ralph with public domain characters, or The League of Extraordinary Gentleman for girls.

  • Burn After Reading

    Play it, Tuli!

  • Babylon A.D.

    Mary Mother of (twin) Christs. It’s an “adaptation” of the escape from Egypt, where Mary is played by Michelle Yeoh and Joseph by Vin Diesel. But Baby Jesus is actually Mary, it’s confusing.

  • The Dark Knight

    The only film where David Dastmalchian does not play the most tortured soul.

  • Tropic Thunder

    Crosses the line into bad taste, but then it keeps running and running, until it rolls over into awesomeness again. The anti-Lebowski.