Fans of Middle-Earth, rejoice! A new movie is out, ready to take you to that land of Elves, Hobbits, and Dwarves. It’s also making use of the new high frame-rate technology available for 3D projection, so if you’re a film tech nerd, it’s doubly exciting. This isn’t a non-stop action thriller, of course; as with “The Fellowship of the Ring,” it’s setting a trilogy in motion and starts off slow. Still, there’s a lot to love for all but the anti-fantasy crowd and hardcore Tolkien purists.
Abraham Lincoln is one of our most beloved presidents, and an incredibly complex figure. Steven Spielberg’s new film wisely focuses only on the last four months of the man’s life, and still has more than enough material to fill the film’s two and a half hours. This is a powerhouse of a movie, and it manages to be at once a historical piece, a commentary on modern politics, Oscar bait, and a fascinating study of people living in impossibly difficult times.
James Bond movies can be grouped both by actor and by tone. The most recent batch, the Daniel Craig Bond flicks, reflect Hollywood’s current love affair with the gritty and the flawed. “Skyfall,” the latest of these, gives us a Bond who can barely pass his field agent proficiency tests, whose hands shake when he fires a gun, who’s only comfortable and at home when he’s both in impossible circumstances and full of a determination fueled by righteous anger.
Directed by: David Koepp Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Dania Ramirez, Wole Parks, Michael Shannon, Aasif Mandvi Rated: PG-13 for some violence, intense action sequences and language
Jason Bourne is familiar to folks who love movies about international intrigue, spies, and highly-trained assassins. Matt Damon brought us the amnesiac operative in three films, tracing Bourne’s journey as he recovered from near-drowning, got some of his memory back, and confronted his creators at the CIA. “The Bourne Legacy” brings us a new hero in the same world, a subject in a program similar to Bourne’s, whose life is torn apart as a result of Bourne’s actions.
Let’s get a few observations out of the way up front: no, there was no reason to remake the classic nineties cheesefest “Total Recall.” Yes, the new film is technically a remake even though the entire setting and big-picture conflict are different. No, the new film isn’t as terrible as I was expecting. Yes, it’s still pretty bad.
Christopher Nolan’s epic Batman trilogy launched seven years ago with “Batman Begins,” and now it wraps up with “The Dark Knight Rises.” This is a solid conclusion for a film franchise that has been nominated for over 100 awards and earned the love of millions of fans. The final film doesn’t reach the mind-blowing heights of “The Dark Knight,” but it provides a satisfying conclusion to Nolan’s trilogy.
Once again, the Spider-Man story has been rebooted. Toby Maguire and the rest of the previous cast are gone, replaced by Andrew Garfield (aka the other guy from the Facebook movie) and a new crop of actors. It’s easy to approach this film with resentment — after all, why retell the Spider-Man origin story yet again, only ten years after the last time?
Thankfully, the team behind “The Amazing Spider-Man” seems to have gone all the way back to the drawing board, and started fresh.
There’s a lot to like about “Snow White and the Huntsman,” and a lot to dislike. This grittier take on the familiar fairy tale is likely to divide audiences into those who demand intelligence (or at least not willful stupidity) from movies and those who just want to be taken for a fun ride. If you’re in the latter group, you’re in for a good time.
The slogan of all sequels is “the same, but different,” and “Men in Black III” succeeds admirably in that department. Thankfully, it seems to have gone back to the 1997 original for inspiration rather than the lackluster “Men in Black II” from 2002. This is a fun, lighthearted, exciting movie fans will love and newcomers can still enjoy.