The buddy cop genre gets a gender twist in Paul Feig’s The Heat, much as the pre-wedding shenanigans genre did in Feig’s 2011 film “Bridesmaids.” Both films are comedies full of outrageous moments that are determined to throw subtlety out of the window. Of an airplane. Into a volcano. Yet as important as it is…
If ever a motion picture suffered enough schizophrenia for a roomful of Sigmund Freuds, it’s 2 Guns, the newest effort from director Baltasar Kormákur (“Contraband“) starring Mark Wahlberg (“Ted“) and Denzel Washington (coming off of his Oscar-nominated turn in “Flight“). While the running thread of the mismatched black and white partners forced to work together…
When we last left our intrepid tiny blue friends, they had just . . . oh, why bother explaining the plot of this film’s predecessor, “The Smurfs,” when it’s going to be difficult enough to write about this sequel’s ridiculous storyline? And, unless one is either under the age of four or in a drug-induced…
He clawed his way to the top of the superhero cinema heap more than a decade ago, back when Marvel properties were just starting their big screen takeover, but that’s a height Wolverine hasn’t reached in years. The lovably rugged X-Man had the misfortune of participating in the stinker “X-Men: The Last Stand” in 2006…
In a world where we’re used to seeing entire months — sometimes even years — unfold on screen in the space of a couple of hours, you wouldn’t expect a film that takes 90 minutes to show us only 90 minutes worth of action to be particularly exciting. Think again. Director and co-writer David Koepp…
Masculinity, tortured and wounded, is clearly the meat on which Nicolas Winding Refn likes to gnaw, but he’s salivating over the subject a little too ridiculously with his latest feature, the violent revenge drama Only God Forgives. That intriguing title never lives up to its grand potential, as Refn approaches his theme of choice with…
Just because there is a wealth of animated feature films out there does in no way mean all of them are worthy of our hard-earned bucks. Only a few are exceptional, a few more are decent, while most just float on the surface of pop culture for a few weeks as a true homage to…
