These days it seems that originality is something that Hollywood inadvertently misplaced and subsequently forgot about decades ago. With sequels and remakes elbowing each other to get onto theater screens, is it any wonder that Tinseltown looks like a Frankenstein’s monster, stitched together with the decaying body parts of far better films? If this describes your take on the film industry, Hancock may be just the thing you need. To be sure, Hancock mines the superhero mythology and pays homage to the rich folklore on which it feeds and sustains itself, but what it does with the raw materials is thoroughly, refreshingly unique. (more…)

We’ve had movies based on real life, novels, comic books, video games and even toys. But Kit Kittredge: An American Girl may be the first movie based on a doll. If that sounds like an empty-headed and unoriginal source for a motion picture, you’d no doubt be right. However, what director Patricia Rozema does with the stories written to accompany the hugely popular American Girl dolls is nothing short of magical. Kit Kittredge is one of the best kid’s movies to come out in years. (more…)

When Did You Last See Your Father? is autobiographical, based on a book by an author who shares a name with the film’s central character. The film tells us in the first few seconds that it is based on a true story. It is an odd admission for so interiorized a film. There are no grand events, historical characters or memorable passages. Just the sort of deeply personal recollections important only to those few people who experienced them — and to the audience privy to them in this plaintive, reflective and affectionate ode to bruised memory and emotional catharsis. (more…)

You have heard it said that there are but two constants in the universe: death and taxes. It’s time a third constant was added to the list: Pixar can do no wrong. Pixar’s films have always been fueled by an expansive, unrestrained, berserker imagination. With WALL∙E, they’ve taken yet another giant leap, adding scalding wonder and awe. (more…)

Chances are you will walk out of Wanted murmuring, “We’ve seen this before, haven’t we?” You won’t be alone. Wanted, while certainly not a remake of The Matrix films, nonetheless borrows heavily from their aesthetic and it is this aesthetic that will stick with you long after the story has faded. Is it possible to find something completely absurd and yet also be swept away by it? All in all, Wanted does not work. To enjoy it, one must forgo the untidy sum and revel in the remarkable parts. (more…)

Against my better judgment, against my hardened presumptions going in, against all that is right and holy and decent in the universe, I have to admit that I…ahem…actually liked The Love Guru. (more…)

Get Smart, the new movie starring Steve Carell, may share a name and concept with the iconic 1960s television series about a bumbling Cold War spy, but beyond that, this frivolous and unamusing mess so mangles its source material that it doesn’t deserve to be called an homage. (more…)

Sometime after the phenomenal success of The Sixth Sense, it became popular to hate M. Night Shyamalan. Some critics, bemoaning what they see as a one-trick-pony, have turned it into something approaching sport. I’ve never jumped on that bandwagon. I love Shyamalan’s eerie, expansive imagination. I’m the one critic who thought The Village was a misunderstood masterpiece. In fact, it wasn’t until Lady in the Water that I felt Shyamalan made his first cinematic misstep. So I went into The Happening predisposed to rub shoulders with greatness. What I walked out of was one of the worst films I have ever seen. (more…)

We may never know what drove Ang Lee, identified with artistic achievements such as Eat Drink Man Woman, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Sense and Sensibility and Brokeback Mountain to helm the 2003 blockbuster, Hulk, but whatever his reasons, the film was a sprawling critical and popular disappointment, interested more in cerebral psychobabble than rip-snorting action. Marvel Studios, flush from their colossal success with Iron Man, will not make the same mistake twice. (more…)

This is an abridged version of a review I wrote for Christianity Today Movies. To read the rest of this review, click here.

Genghis Khan (meaning “universal ruler”) was the title given to the Mongol warrior, Temudjin, a 13th century tribal chief who echoed the accomplishments of Alexander the Great and founded an empire that swept across the breadth of Central Asia, China, Russia, the Middle East and even Eastern Europe. Employing audacious battle strategies and novel cavalry tactics, he earned a reputation in history as both a brutal warmonger and a munificent administrator, subjugating millions while also expanding Mongol culture. His empire lasted more than 150 years after his death, and although the following centuries saw a decline in his empire, his last ruling descendent wasn’t deposed until early in the 20th century by Soviet forces. (more…)

Most films live up to expectations. Some utterly disappoint. Others are pleasant surprises. Kung Fu Panda falls into the latter category. There’s just no way an animated action-adventure comedy about a chubby, under-achieving panda seeking martial arts greatness should have worked. However, instead of collapsing under the weight of its own formulaic mediocrity, Kung Fu Panda offers genuine excitement and indisputable thrills. (more…)

Being a film critic means you have to sit through far more bad films than you do good ones. Somebody has to bravely sacrifice himself in order to save others. Still, I’m not ashamed to say that I’m a glass half full sorta guy. Although I know it is a foregone impossibility, I try to approach every film with the attitude that it is going to be a winner and I am going to be wildly, even blissfully entertained. But as optimistic as I try to be, there are some films that you know are going to be a complete waste of time. Oddly enough, these films frequently feature Adam Sandler and his unrepentantly evil sidekick, Rob Schneider. (more…)

What makes Christopher Bell’s Bigger, Stronger, Faster* so compelling is its bait-and-switch premise. It sets you up to believe one thing in the beginning and then spins you around to reveal a completely different conclusion by the film’s end. Bell’s summation is profound yet devilishly simple, obvious yet incessantly overlooked. He takes a subject matter that shouldn’t have the stamina to endure as a feature film — steroid use in America — and crafts from it a thoughtful, insightful and consistently entertaining documentary. (more…)

Sex and the City, the movie, feels like a glorified television episode in the best possible sense — utterly unchanged in spirit from its small screen roots yet just ambitious enough to validate its big screen adaptation. For the uninitiated, the film is unlikely to inspire, but for fans of the Emmy-winning HBO series, I can confidently guarantee that you will come away indisputably delighted. (more…)

The Strangers has no plot to speak of. It can be summed up in one word: survival. Supposedly based on a true story, the film follows the events of a single night in which James Hoyt (Scott Speedman) and Kristen McKay (Liv Tyler) pay a visit to the secluded Hoyt vacation home. Playing off universal fears, the lovers discover to their horror that a trio of masked strangers has invaded the one place they feel most safe. More apparitions than human beings, now you see the strangers, now you don’t. Almost a play in that most of the action takes place in a few, confined spaces, the strangers sadistically toy with their victims the same way a cat plays with an outmatched mouse. (more…)

This is an abridged version of a review I wrote for Christianity Today Movies. To read the rest of this review, click here.

The Children of Huang Shi is a bit of an odd duck for a summer release — a thoughtful, true-life historical drama tucked conspicuously into a season of explosions, guns, computer generated monsters and invincible superheroes. That it will be lost among the thunderous cacophony is a foregone conclusion. That it deserves to be is, perhaps, the only surprise. (more…)

If you take away nothing else from this review, please remember this: do yourself a favor and dampen your expectations. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull cannot possibly be as good as you dream it will be. Even if — especially if — every critic in the nation gushed in unbridled adoration, it still cannot stand up to the ferocity of your fevered imagination.

The truth is, the latest addition to one of the most beloved movie franchises of all time is not an abomination. But it is, unquestionably, superfluous and arguably needn’t ever have been made. (more…)

This is an abridged version of a review I wrote for Christianity Today Movies. To read the rest of this review, click here.

Weird and wonderful, The Fall is nothing short of a contemporary The Wizard of Oz, a hypnotic and intoxicating tale of ravishing beauty and spellbinding imagination. (more…)

Why is it that so many beautiful period films are also bloodless lumps of emotionless clay? Why is it that so many directors choose to rely on their impeccable and deservedly spectacular visuals but completely ignore the fact that without engaging characters we might as well be watching a National Geographic special? Before the Rains is an exquisitely beautiful film with a sturdy story and fine performances that sputters to a stop just before the finish line, the fuel tank of our interest and concern dry as a bone. (more…)

When Speed Racer works, it is like nothing you have ever seen. And when it careens off the track, cartwheels end over end through the air and disintegrates upon impact with the hard, unforgiving earth, it is still like nothing you have ever seen. I’m not saying I liked the film, but I have to revere its outlandish audacity. (more…)