It begins with rapid titles. “WB,” “DC,” The Batman, all flash up on screen quickly, before an opening point-of-view shot through binoculars takes in a well-dressed man in an opulent mansion. Watching, observing, planning and judging, this extended shot is unsettling in its voyeurism, especially as the viewer shares the perspective of this watcher, who…
The heated romantic passion of Charles Martin’s best-selling romance novel “The Mountain Between Us,” turns lukewarm in its cinematic version of the same name that stars Kate Winslet (“Collateral Beauty”) and Idris Elba (“The Dark Tower”) as a couple of strangers stranded in the frigid high-mountain snow of the Rocky Mountains. Alex Martin (an excellent…
Have you ever been so happy to be wrong? I remember when “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” was being advertised, and I wanted no part of it. I loved the original series in its high and lows, but the Tim Burton remake had completely soured my desire for any new take on what…
The war continues between ape and man in War for the Planet of the Apes. As you may recall “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” saw the apes escape containment, “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” had a tenuous agreement break between apes and a human encampment due to an overzealous ape, and…
For the third time in recent history (with the same lead actor no less), director Peter Berg takes a contemporary event — U.S. troops in Afghanistan in “Lone Survivor,” an oil rig disaster in “Deepwater Horizon” and now with Patriots Day, the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing — brings it to the big screen and leaves…
In The Drop, Tom Hardy offers a subdued performance as a bartender in a two-bit dive that gets held up by crooks who apparently don’t realize that they’re stealing mob money. The subsequent investigation slowly stirs up old neighborhood stories and tragic secrets. Hardy’s Bob Saginowski is an area lifer; he and his cousin Marv…
As head ape Caesar stands atop the rubble of a symbolic tower toppled moments before in a last ditch attempt by fearful humans to wipe out his kind, human benefactor Malcolm (Jason Clarke) confronts him in a fruitless bid to stop further fighting saying, “War isn’t what [he] want[s].” Mournfully, Caesar looks upon him and…
