When the first Men in Black movie came out in 1997, my dad and I built a homemade neuralizer for me to play with. We took a piece of hollow silver pipe, drilled a hole in one end near the top, secured a red light in it, then ran wires down the middle of the shaft to a button on the back. It didn’t actually wipe anyone’s memory, of course, but I didn’t care – I had my very own neuralizer, and it was awesome. I loved the first Men in Black movie. I had Will Smith’s theme song memorized (who am I kidding? I still do), and I was excited about the sequel when it came out a few years later. But the mediocrity of Men in Black 2 turned my devotion to the series into total apathy, and I haven’t bothered revisiting those movies since then. A lot of people my age had similar reactions.

Now it’s 15 years after the original and 10 years after the second movie, and director Barry Sonnenfeld and stars Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are back again for more alien action in Men in Black 3. Why? Because they can, I guess. There doesn’t really seem to be a great reason for this movie to exist, other than the genesis of it came from Will Smith and he’s powerful enough to make it happen. No one was clamoring for a sequel, especially after a pretty questionable second attempt. Against all odds, Men in Black 3 is not a terrible movie. But it feels like a movie that knows it barely has any reason to exist, cribbing a Back to the Future time travel story and providing just enough of a narrative to keep us interested.

The film starts with Boris The Animal (Jemaine Clement from “Flight of the Conchords”) breaking out of a high security prison. He’s got a chip on his shoulder, but not much beneath that – Agent K (Jones) shot his arm off 40 years prior and sent him to the maximum security facility, and Boris is out for revenge. He finds out a way to travel back in time and kills K, which is quite the shock to Agent J (Smith), who wanders into MIB headquarters the next day looking for his partner…but everyone tells him he died in 1969. Turns out K also installed a huge force field over Earth in 1969, but since he was killed by Boris, Boris’ race comes crashing down to Earth, destroying civilization. So in a Back to the Future-inspired plot device, J has to travel back one day further in 1969 so he can kill Boris before he kills Agent K. Once there, he accidentally meets up with the younger Agent K (Brolin) and eventually teams up with him in order to save the world.

If that sounds confusing, I assure you the film does a far better job of explaining it than I did. In fact, the time elements are so by-the-numbers that the movie feels like Time Travel for Dummies. Time travel movie junkies (myself included) love the complicated nature of crossing timelines and cause-and-effect paradoxes that often come up in these stories; here, everything is pretty easy and goes pretty much according to plan. There’s not a lot of time (heh) to spend thinking about the consequences of anyone’s actions, and even though the big reveal at the end (which I won’t give away) causes us to rethink what we know of the first two movies (specifically Agent K’s motivation in recruiting J), the movie doesn’t bother to address these points beyond surface level.

There’s also a guy named Griffin (Michael Stuhlbarg), an alien who can see all possible events in all possible timelines simultaneously, that comes along to offer some exposition to the audience, but the film isn’t concerned with complicating things too much. It’s a simple, entertaining movie, and that’s about it. Sonnenfeld brings his familiar visual stamp, and the score is pretty much just the main instrumental theme played 400 times throughout the movie, so it all seems designed to make you go, “Oh yeah, I remember these movies!” There are some good setpieces and the 3D was surprisingly decent (but still ultimately unnecessary unless you love wasting money), and Smith is his usual wise-cracking self, back on screen after a five year absence.

But the real stars of this film aren’t Smith and Jones (the latter of which is only in the movie for about 20 minutes): Josh Brolin as a young K and Rick Baker’s makeup and creature effects are the main draws here. Brolin is really great, impersonating Tommy Lee Jones but also allowing us to see a side of this character we’ve never seen in an MiB movie before. He’s straight-faced but jovial, and we’re genuinely curious to find out what happens in this man’s life that turns him into the sourpuss we know from the other films. (Don’t worry, that question is answered.)

Baker’s work, on the other hand, is much more subtle. The seven time Oscar winner has designed over 100 new aliens for this movie, many of which only appear on screen for a few seconds, but he’s almost singlehandedly responsible for making the MiB Headquarters such an iconic location because of all the craziness going on in the background. His crowning achievement this go-around is Jemaine Clement’s Boris The Animal makeup, rendering the comedian almost unrecognizable. Unfortunately, all this makeup may have hindered Clement’s performance, as his Boris is completely devoid of everything I assumed they cast him for in the first place: wit, sarcasm, comic timing, etc.

There must be something in the air in Hollywood, because this is the second big-budget movie in two years to involve a story that takes place around the moon landing mission, the other being Transformers: Dark of the Moon. The back half of this movie, much of which takes place in Cape Canaveral, works pretty well from both story and character perspectives, especially considering that when filming began, the screenwriters had only finished the first act. (Word to the wise: this is not a good way to make movies, it just so happened that they got lucky this time.)

I’m still at a loss as to why the film exists, but I suppose it’s not a big leap when you realize a movie studio spent hundreds of millions of dollars to capitalize on nostalgia that no one really wanted in the first place. (Ahem, Battleship.) Men in Black 3 isn’t so bad that you’ll want to neuralize yourself, but you can borrow mine if you still want to try. Until next time…

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Taylor Kitsch isn’t exactly having a banner year. He’s the star of one of Disney’s all-time worst box office bombs, John Carter, and now he’s leading the troops in Universal’s Battleship, which is not only one of the worst blockbusters in recent memory, but also one of the most idiotic movies I’ve ever seen. It makes John Carter look like The Godfather. It’s not that the plot is stupid – we’ve seen alien invasion movies before, and some of them are actually good – but the filmmakers seem to be the only ones who don’t realize they’re making a movie out of a damned board game. This one was dead in the water before it even left port.

(Spoilers throughout this review.)

For the purposes of brevity, I won’t fully explore how ludicrous it is that a major movie studio spent upwards of $200 million dollars making an adaptation of a board game. And not only that, but inexplicably, while adapting a freaking board game into a screenplay, the writers failed to include the one line that is actually associated with this property: “you sunk my battleship!” It’s never uttered by anyone, and with Liam Neeson playing an admiral, I shouldn’t even have to point out how much that line writes itself. In fact, the absence of that line in Battleship is actually a good indicator of the film as a whole. There are two ways to go with a movie like this: embrace the craziness and make something that’s fun and over the top with a hint of self-awareness, or make everything as dramatic and serious as possible and sap all of the fun out of it. Guess which option these filmmakers chose?

Director Peter Berg is equivalent to broken pieces of a mirror pulled from a Michael Bay afterparty, scattering Transformers reflections across the screen with half the style and none of the character. (When I’m glorifying Sam Witwicky as an interesting character in comparison to the ones in this film, you know you’re in trouble.) Battleship is an ugly movie, and Berg is ultimately the one responsible. Excessively tight close-up shots of humans collide with spinning garish metal, and the result should be evidence to the Michael Bay haters out there that despite Bay’s public persona, he’s actually a craftsman when it comes to shooting action sequences. There’s no life to be found in Berg’s cheap imitations.

There was absolutely no point in this movie which I cared what happened to any of the main characters, especially Kitsch’s rebellious “hero” Alex Hopper. The entire film is supposed to be about how he learns to become a team player so he can impress his girlfriend’s dad, but he never earns anything he gets. When the aliens attack, Hopper’s brother and a ton of other soldiers are killed and he essentially inherits control of the ship. But the hotheaded young officer has to be literally grabbed by the collar and shaken by his subordinates in order to avoid leading everyone to their deaths. He’s unlikable, entitled, and entirely void of charisma. A good actor may have been able to skate by on charisma alone, but Kitsch was handicapped even further because of a terrible script. Maybe the movie has a hidden meaning that condemns the notion of failing upward, but that would require far too much thought for this project. It’s a good thing the film doesn’t show us how Kitsch works his way up to a lieutenant in the Navy*, because even the best writers couldn’t have convinced us of this character doing anything worth rewarding.

But the best writers were busy or too expensive, so Universal hired Jon and Erich Hoeber, the brothers who wrote the geriatric spy movie RED. These two must have been raised by effing Schwarzenegger or something, because they’ve got a hard-on for the concept of old people kicking ass; this is evidenced by Battleship’s stroke of batshit crazy, laugh-out-loud insanity: a climax involving 80-year-old veterans running a battleship while AC/DC blares in the background.

I honestly don’t know where to start when addressing parts of this film that don’t make any sense, so I might as well begin with the aliens. Their motivation is never made clear, and we get a tiny glimpse of their backstory during a mindmeld with Hopper that is never referenced in the story after it occurs. They have advanced technology, which includes a Terminator-esque visual display that identifies items as safe or hostile. These readouts also make no sense, because one minute the aliens are destroying random cars full of civilians on a highway, and the next they’re taking out military bases. I understand the whole “destroying the weapons” thing, because that could be some sort of The Day The Earth Stood Still anti-weapon message…but Battleship has no message, because it has no brain with which to present it.

As with a lot of mindless blockbusters, the physics here are questionable at best. Trust me, I’m fine with that when a movie has a sense of self-awareness or even a sense of amusement at what it’s doing, but Battleship’s overly serious tone only succeeds in making everything look ridiculous. At one point, the aliens unleash a high-pitched blast that sends literal shockwaves through the bridge of a ship hundreds of yards away, causing glass to break and the soldiers on that ship to fall to the ground screaming in pain. But a lifeboat carrying the film’s main soldiers is a mere twenty feet from the source of the noise, and while they grab their ears for a second, they soon appear never the worse for wear. Even a scene in which the communications are down and our heroes have to essentially play a game of Battleship on command screens from the bowels of a destroyer is boring and forgettable. I’d have loved all of these elements if they were executed well, but that would have required a completely different set of filmmakers altogether.

The supporting cast was useless and annoying (Rihanna chief among them), and even Neeson’s presence wasn’t enough to salvage anything decent from this waterlogged disaster. For the record, Battleship also has maybe the most unnecessary post-credits sequence in cinema history, but I wouldn’t recommend waiting through to see it for yourself. Though the movie was fighting an uphill battle from the start, it really didn’t have to be this bad. Toss in the “you sunk my battleship!” line, and the entire tone of the film could have changed. It’s amazing how much power a tiny phrase has, but unfortunately Berg and his crew weren’t interested in acknowledging the absurdity of a movie based on a board game. Thank God Universal cut ties with Hasbro and jumped ship on future board game adaptations. Until next time…

*For an excellent example of a time jump from hotshot young punk to soldier, see J.J. Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek.

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I wasn’t expecting much from Dark Shadows, the latest in the ubiquitous onslaught of vampire films, so to say the film lived up to my expectations may be a bit misleading as far as its overall quality. Tim Burton’s latest collaboration with Johnny Depp is good enough to amuse, but not quite good enough to do anything else. It’s not overly funny, though it’s supposed to be a comedy, and it’s not scary at all, though it has elements of horror running through it as well. So the result is a hodgepodge of tonal inconsistencies, and though it has brief moments of the Burton we used to know, Dark Shadows is, ironically, a vampire movie with no bite.

Depp plays Barnabas Collins, a member of an industrious English family that moves to America to start a fishing business. When he spurns the love of his household servant, Angelique (Eva Green), he’s messed with the wrong girl: she’s actually a witch, and proceeds to murder his parents, kill the love of his life, turn Barnabas into a vampire, and then bury him alive for 200 years. Yikes. He’s released in 1972, and the rest of the movie is a series of culture shocks mixed in with a meandering story about Barnabas attempting to restore the family to its former glory. The modern-day Collins family is kind of a mess: Michelle Pfeiffer plays the matriarch, barely keeping their floundering business afloat; Chloe Moretz plays a testy teenager with an attitude; Gulliver McGrath is David, a young boy who can see ghosts; and Jonny Lee Miller plays the young boy’s philandering father. The rest of the supporting cast includes Helena Bonham Carter as a live-in doctor who is supposed to be helping David, Jackie Earle Haley as a drunken servant, and Bella Heathcote as Victoria Winters, David’s nanny and the new love interest for Barnabas.

Burton and Seth Grahame-Smith, the screenwriter, seem much more interested in comedy than horror here. They’d be lost, however, without Depp’s performance as the proper 18th century Englishman; his delivery of verbose dialogue provides fodder for many humorous encounters with 1970s technology, such as when he sees a car for the first time coming at him through the forest and yells at Satan, “mark me not with your strange luminance!” Ultimately, though, these moments alone aren’t enough to keep us laughing throughout. There’s only so much of that one gag we can take before it starts to fall flat, and while the rest of the cast is undoubtedly talented, the script doesn’t give them much to work with in the way of comedy.

Also inconsistent are the rules of vampiric lore, which seem to be played as a punch line when convenient and ignored elsewhere. Barnabas literally catches on fire at one point when he’s hit by a beam of sunlight (typical in the vampire mythos), but other times he carries on conversations while standing in the sun, sometimes not even fully covered by an umbrella or dark clothing. It’s a sign of laziness on the screenwriter’s part, wanting to have it both ways so Barnabas can operate during the day and interact with the 70s setting instead of being confined to the night (as he should have been). And speaking of inconsistencies, the love story between Barnabas and Victoria Winters seemed totally out of nowhere and completely unearned. There’s a revelation near the end that, despite describing the reasoning for her character being there, still doesn’t really make a ton of sense, and then a series of events during the film’s climax that is still baffling to me. Proper setup and payoffs apparently weren’t high on anyone’s priority list.

Eva Green’s performance is the only other worth mentioning, since she did some great work as the jealous witch. Her character is one of the few that I felt really committed to the classical melodrama the film was attempting to recreate (there’s a nice scene at the beginning when she turns Barnabas into a vampire), and her cracking facade near the film’s end was one of the coolest visual effect tricks in a movie that was surprisingly boring in that regard (especially considering Burton’s proclivity for cartoonish designs).

There’s a nice message in Dark Shadows about how family is the only true measure of wealth, but sadly that’s one of the few things that’s actually clearly presented in this zany story. Burton and Depp have been in a comfortable groove for a long time, and I can’t help but wonder if they’d both be better off working together in a totally different type of movie, one that ditches the gothic setting and idiosyncratic characters in favor of something fresh and new. At the same time, though, I appreciate the fact that Burton has carved out a place for himself in the movie landscape, as it’s always difficult for artists to establish a voice in this marketplace. I just wish he’d sing a different tune once in a while. (Big Fish, anyone?) Until next time…

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The Dictator is a bit of a departure for Sacha Baron Cohen. In previous movies in which he’s played the lead (Ali G, Borat, Bruno), Baron Cohen has interacted with members of the public who were completely unaware that he was playing a character. He still plays a larger-than-life character here, but this time, the film he inhabits is completely fictional. Does this change in comedic style work as well as his previous efforts? Read on to find out.

Sacha Baron Cohen stars as Admiral General Aladeen, the supreme leader of the fictional Republic of Wadiya. Ben Kingsley plays an advisor who was passed over for leadership some years prior, and he puts a plot in motion to get Aladeen out of the way. (Of course he does. He’s Ben Kingsley. See: Persia, Prince of.) See, there’s oil in Wadiya that Aladeen refuses to sell to outside nations, but Kingsley’s character is wheeling and dealing behind the scenes and stands to make billions in commission if he can start selling it to other countries. During a trip to New York City, Aladeen is supposed to speak in front of the United Nations, but he’s replaced with a body double and left for dead outside the city, setting up the major conflict of the film: can the real Aladeen, now unrecognizable without his iconic beard, make it to the UN in time to stop a new Wadiyan constitution from being signed?

With all of that out of the way, let’s return to the question posed at the beginning of this review. Does a completely fictional narrative work as well as Baron Cohen’s previous efforts? Not quite. In satire, which The Dictator most certainly is, I’ve always found interactions with real people over the course of a film to paint a broader picture of the general population’s consensus, therefore turning the looking glass back on ourselves and allowing us to examine our culture’s ignorance, apathy, prejudices, or whatever the issue may be. It may not be completely representative of the entire nation’s opinions, but at least there are real people that you can point to as concrete examples and say, “look, these people actually believe what they’re saying.”

In a fictional narrative, that element is gone in favor of actors speaking pre-written dialogue, and there’s just something about that method that takes the bite off the criticisms Baron Cohen tries to make. At the end of The Dictator, Admiral General Aladeen gives a long speech which, in so many words, condemns the leadership of the United States as a type of dictatorship. It works, and it’s even sadly funny, but I think watching real people’s behavior is a much more subtle way to critique society’s impulses rather than going with a pre-planned speech.

Putting its stylistic choices aside, I think The Dictator has a few great moments of comedic brilliance in it. With Borat, I was put off by the cultural phenomenon it became in the weeks and months after its release, but returning to that movie years later, I found it hilarious. I’m guessing something similar will happen here, but in the meantime, Baron Cohen knows his audience and knows how to play up his strengths. His blustery buffoon character is at his best when he’s completely out of his element, and Baron Cohen knows how to walk the line between gross-out humor (which there is a bit of here, but not as much as previous films) and one-liners. He’s also got a solid supporting cast this time around, including John C. Reilly as a racist American officer, UCB co-founder Ian Roberts as a police officer, Anna Faris as the Brooklyn-based hippie love interest, and even Megan Fox playing herself in a cameo appearance.

But this movie is really a coming out party for Jason Mantzoukas, who you may recognize as Rafi from the FX series “The League” or from a bit part on “Parks and Recreation.” He plays Wadiya’s former head of nuclear science who now lives in New York City’s Little Wadiya, and he helps Aladeen with his plan to reclaim his position as supreme leader. Mantzoukas’ comic timing is spot-on, and he is responsible for some of the film’s funniest moments. He essentially plays the straight man to Aladeen’s wild man, and watching him get flustered at Baron Cohen’s stupidity was a personal highlight of this movie. There’s a great series of gags that play out in Little Wadiya that I won’t ruin, but they all involve flashbacks of Aladeen having members of his country assassinated. You’ll know it when you see it.

Is The Dictator Sacha Baron Cohen’s best film? It’s tough to say, especially with comedies. Though the lack of unsuspecting real people might not be as funny as the alternative, perhaps this is a step in the right direction for the auteur. It shows that he’s willing to step outside of his comfort zone a little, and I think watching him grow as a comedian may be more important than watching him play the same games in his self-constructed sandbox over and over again. Until next time…

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Samuel L. Jackson’s brief cameo at the end of Iron Man in 2008 forever changed the possibilities for superhero films. No longer did every franchise have to be a distinct entity – multiple movies could now take place in the same fictional universe, and the collective imagination of fans everywhere exploded at the potential for a massive crossover event bringing everyone together in one film.

With The Avengers, Marvel has achieved a seemingly impossible task: not only did they spend years building the foundation that supports this film by bringing together A-list stars from different franchises, but they managed to turn a project that could have collapsed under the pressure of its own ambition into one of the most crowd-pleasing superhero movies ever created.

Look no further than the 2002 series “Firefly” and its spinoff film Serenity for proof that Joss Whedon was the perfect choice to corral all of these monumental heroes into one storyline. Whedon is one of the best writers in the business, and he really excels at crafting meaningful relationships among ensemble casts and writing strong female characters, two things that were a requirement for a successful film adaptation of The Avengers. He was helped here by a terrific stable of actors, veterans of the industry who understand one of Marvel’s greatest strengths in these properties: the ability to keep the story critical to the film but allow enough humor that it won’t suffocate under its own seriousness.

The character work in The Avengers is fantastic, especially considering this particular team-up is jam-packed with characters that have already had entire films devoted to their singular adventures. Whedon gives each of them multiple moments to shine, and everything that we loved about them in previous films is on display here (and oftentimes it’s even improved). Even in scenes near the beginning of the film that contain massive amounts of setup and exposition, he manages to insert little “Whedonisms” to lighten the mood; there’s a gag with a $10 bet between Captain America and Nick Fury that’s a really small moment overall, but it brings a lot of humor to a sequence where people are just sitting around spouting information. Tony Stark has never been wittier, and Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner actually has a personality outside of sulking in corners and fighting the beast inside him. (The Hulk is funny this time, too!) Natasha Romanoff is far better drawn than she was in the disastrous Iron Man 2, so ScarJo fans can rest easy.

The action sequences are spectacular and choreographed so that we know where our heroes are at all times. (That in itself is a pretty incredible feat because the sheer scope of this movie is so huge.) The climax is breathtakingly constructed, mixing spectacle and destruction with legitimate character moments and not letting the (admittedly awesome) visual effects take over the movie. There are memorable setpieces spaced throughout the movie, resulting in easily the most entertaining Marvel film so far.

Because there is so much ground to cover, I did feel a little like Loki’s villainous intentions were a bit unclear. He’s working with some sort of alien race, but we don’t ever find out why the destruction of Earth is so paramount to their greater mission. Also, how did Thor even arrive on Earth for this movie? At the end of Thor, they establish that the bifrost has been destroyed. I understand how things wrap up at the end of The Avengers, with the Tesseract from Captain America playing a key role in the travel element, but there was so much happening that they didn’t have time to get into the hows and whys of things like that. Granted, I’m not sure that I would have wanted them to if it meant cutting out anything from what we see in the final film; it’s easy to see how Whedon’s first cut was over three hours long, and I’d love to see that movie in its entirety at some point if it ever gets released.

But ultimately, the few tiny gripes I have are cancelled out by the sheer geeky thrills in this movie. Marvel is the new Babe Ruth: they called their shot, and freaking blasted it out of the park. At long last, The Avengers finally came together on screen and, thanks to the only man who could have made it succeed, it surpassed all the hype. I probably don’t need to tell you that this film deserves to be seen on the big screen to get the full impact, but I guess I just did (and you can skip the 3D – it’s passable, but not great). The Avengers is everything I wanted it to be and more, and I sincerely hope that a few years from now I’ll be writing about The Avengers 2 written and directed by Joss Whedon. But until then, we can thank him for giving audiences the most fun movie of 2012. Until next time…

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There is a simplicity to many of Jason Statham’s films that a lot of his fans surely appreciate. As an action star, he’s a throwback to the icons of the 70s and 80s, stoic heroes who could wander into a bar, kick a man’s ass for looking at him funny, then silently sit down and finish his drink. The heightened Crank films, and perhaps some of the more insane martial arts sections of The Transporter series, seem to contradict this notion, but make no mistake: Statham is as close as modern audiences are going to get to these stars of old without throwing on a Blu-ray of The Dirty Dozen. His newest film, Safe, feels like a movie ripped from the 70s, with corrupt cops and embattled gangs criss-crossing New York City and Statham and a little girl caught in the middle of it.

Statham plays Luke Wright, “The Big Apple’s hardest cop, once upon a time.” Something went down in his past that got him kicked off the force, and he took a job as an MMA fighter to endure nightly beatings as penance for his misdeeds. But when he fails to take a dive in the film’s opening minutes, Russian gangsters who don’t take kindly to losing a lot of money make Wright’s life a living hell. They leave him alive, but threaten to kill anyone he befriends over the years. So he becomes a hobo, wandering the streets of New York, looking over his shoulder. He’s about to end it all when he meets Mei, a young Chinese girl who has the innate ability to memorize any number she sees. This, of course, has made her very valuable to Chinese gangsters, who have sent her to NYC to keep the books for their syndicate. When a deal between gangs goes south, Mei escapes and Statham protects her from the ruthless thugs who will do anything to get the information in Mei’s head.

The film does some interesting things in the way it brings these two characters together, cross-cutting between Wright and Mei in a way that makes their meeting seem inevitable. The editing is quick and direct, locking these two characters into a relationship in which only the other can help them escape their problems. Writer/director Boaz Yakin (if you’re looking for a quasi-bizarre filmography, check this dude out) brings a determined swagger to the film, fully aware that we’re there for the fight sequences but surprising us with an engaging story before the fists start to fly. And when the brawls do happen, they’re ferocious and – most importantly – they actually move the story forward instead of happening for motiveless reasons.

All that being said, this is still a B-movie. There’s a cheesy post-9/11 subplot and dialogue like, “Luke Wright is a ghost…a very deadly ghost,” and enough sleazy politicians and corrupt cops to fill a half dozen Pacino movies. Safe is also rated R for a reason: Statham isn’t afraid to shoot guys in the head at close range, and though the film shies away from gore, there’s something unexpected and kind of shocking about the way he’s willing to take care of business. He’s heroic, but we’re not quite sure if he’s a hero. In fact, this is the first time since The Bank Job where one of Statham’s films can be categorized as a regular action movie instead of carrying the sometimes-dismissive baggage of being referred to as a “Statham action movie.”

There’s nothing particularly cinematic about the way Safe is depicted. Even its New York City backdrop is hidden for the most part (rumor has it the film was shot in Philadelphia), so we rarely get any real sweeping sense of scope or even the kind of loving city identification Affleck heaps on any of his Boston-set films. But even with that, and the tired concept of a child with a magic ability as the centerpiece, Safe manages to be an entertaining thriller with a few twists that will leave Statham fans satisfied. Until next time…

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I love it when movies take ridiculous dramatic liberties with real-life people and events. Not so much in something like The Social Network, wherein the people depicted are still alive in our real world, and the movie plays so close to reality that it could be deemed troubling; more like in Inglourious Basterds, where seeing an over-the-top scenario play out in a fully realized cinematic world can excite the imagination and even be a cathartic experience. James McTeigue’s The Raven technically falls into this category by offering one possible series of events that led to Edgar Allan Poe’s mysterious death, but the film itself is so monotonous and predictable that it ultimately cancels out whatever excitement the premise holds and turns into a slog of a murder mystery more interested in capitalizing on the success of the Saw franchise than living up to its potential.

John Cusack’s performance as Poe is the only thing that makes the movie tolerable. His incarnation of the famous poet has a constant chip on his shoulder, begging to be recognized for his work. Cusack himself speaks with a mellifluous musicality to his voice, and he sounds totally different than everyone else in the movie. While I’ll admit that this choice bothered me upon first hearing it, I quickly realized it is actually by design; what could be viewed as an inconsistent manner of speech between characters is actually a interesting aural trait that separates the highly intelligent and creative Poe from his less gifted peers. He also has a bit of a sense of humor here, something this entire film could have greatly benefited from. “If I would have known my work would have such an effect on people,” Poe muses at a crime scene, “I would have devoted more time to eroticism.”

Unfortunately, we’ve reached the end of my compliments about this movie. Because of my previously mentioned proclivity toward liking premises like this, I really wanted to like The Raven, but it didn’t quite turn out that way. The plot involves a painfully standard forbidden romance between the down-and-out Poe and a beautiful young heiress (Alice Eve) with a disapproving father (Brendan Gleeson), and a serial killer that takes inspiration from the twisted killings in Poe’s short stories. A police detective (Luke Evans) enlists Poe’s help to track the killer, and when Eve’s character is captured and buried alive, things start to get personal.

Though I acknowledge the irony that Poe’s original works are a huge part of the reason we have horror cinema in the first place, and the body horror aspects certainly influenced the Sawfranchise, I can also acknowledge the lack of originality on the filmmakers’ part to make that seem fresh. It’s John Carter syndrome all over again: just because something “came first,” doesn’t mean it’s not the filmmakers’ responsibility to give modern audiences something that isn’t a rehash of a bunch of things we’ve seen before. All of the grotesque murders in this film don’t have nearly the impact that they should because we’ve seen this all done before, and in a very similar style to how it happens here. Yes, this is a period piece, but similar narrative procedural elements override fancy costumes and production design in this case.

The rest of the movie is a fill-in-the-blank mystery that never demands anything interesting from its actors or the audience, resulting in a sluggishly-paced “thriller” that rarely even provides cause for a raised eyebrow, let alone edge-of-your-seat excitement. The supporting performances aren’t worth talking about; even Gleeson, an excellent actor, is stymied here by a lackluster script written by Ben Livingston and Hannah Shakespeare.

Sadly, The Raven is the nail in the proverbial coffin of my opinion of James McTeigue. He’s a director who showed loads of promise in V For Vendetta, his directorial debut, but as I’ve watched him step out of the shadow of The Wachowski siblings (his mentors), it’s becoming increasingly clear that McTeigue doesn’t have the same impact as a director without their influence. The Raven is a film with an interesting premise that feels like it was run over by a truck full of boring ideas, leaving remnants of its potential lying shattered among the tire tracks of banality. Until next time…

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The Five-Year Engagement is cut from the same cloth as 2008′s Forgetting Sarah Marshall and shares many of the elements that made that film successful. It was co-written by Sarah Marshall writer/star Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller (who directed both FSM and this movie), and has a cast that effortlessly embodies the movie’s characters. Along with a certain sweetness that permeates both films, there’s also something here that most romantic comedies are sorely lacking these days: characters that actually feel like real people. Thanks to Segel and Stoller’s writing and the easygoing and likeable cast, I can easily imagine life for these characters both before the film starts and long after it ends, a feat to which I’m not sure any movie in the “Katherine Heigl” subgenre of rom-coms could lay claim.

Emily Blunt and Jason Segel star as Violet and Tom, a couple one character later describes as being “almost perfect for each other.” Tom is a chef at a sleek San Francisco restaurant and works with Alex (Chris Pratt), who I swore was his character’s brother, but realized upon looking it up he’s just his best friend. Violet is applying to grad schools to become a psychologist, and in the opening scene, the two get engaged and take the audience through a flashback of the night they met. Violet quickly gets accepted to a graduate program, but much to the dismay of her sister (Alison Brie) and mother (Jacki Weaver), the new program is all the way in Michigan, so the wedding is delayed. Tom gives up a head chef position and ends up working at a local college sandwich shop while Violet studies with her new professor, an arrogant ladies’ man named Winton (Rhys Ifans), and with wedding plans perpetually pushed back, you can see where the conflicts would arise.

I don’t want to make this film out to sound groundbreaking or anything, because it definitely follows a standard formula for these kinds of movies. If you’ve seen four or five romantic comedies in your life, chances are pretty good you’ll be able to chart out every major plot point in this film before you see it. But the same thing could be said about a lot of action movies after watching their trailers, and ultimately, enjoyment comes down to the execution. Segel and Blunt are wonderful to watch (and, I suspect, inherently likeable in almost any role because of their infectious personalities). The supporting cast is made up of a ton of funny people, including Brian Posehn and Chris Parnell as Tom’s creepy and sometimes-inappropriate friends and Kevin Hart and Mindy Kaling as Violet’s co-workers who are obsessed with masturbation and gossip, respectively.

Pratt and Brie are especially hilarious, but I’ll admit that my fondness for them stems heavily from being an avid fan of their NBC shows “Parks and Recreation” and “Community.” (Despite the fact that I may be blinded by bias, Brie’s English accent is impressive and consistent throughout the movie, even during an adorable scene in which she and Blunt speak to each other in Sesame Street character voices because children are nearby.)

Stoller seems to have mastered the art of directing talented comedians, employing his typical reserved style and allowing the performances to outshine the flashiness of the direction. There’s always something authentic about his films that seems to justify their existence outside of a simple premise or one sentence synopsis, and if I were to pinpoint that specific element, I’d say it’s a sense of heart. We care about what these characters are doing because they’re so well-crafted and well-acted; as we watch them for two hours, their relationships matter. I’ve seen a few criticisms that point out this film’s thesis is basically “settling is good enough,” but I don’t actually think that’s what’s being said here at all. Yes, one of the characters might have said those words (or similar ones) in the movie, but if you look at the larger picture and see what these two mean to each other, I think a more positive message can be taken away from this experience.

The Five-Year Engagement deals with some complicated issues but never gets bogged down with them, always remembering that it’s a comedy first and foremost. A decent premise, honest characters, and a really funny script put this movie way above the average romantic comedy. Until next time…

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The nice thing about Lockout is it moves fairly quickly. The not so nice thing about Lockout is…it moves fairly quickly.

Most of the 95 minutes whiz right by until the underwhelming, and disorganized, climatic sequences. It’s as if the filmmakers slammed on the brakes in the car but all their passengers are still flailing around inside. Then again, what do you expect when you take a plot points from the Die Hard and Escape from New York/L.A. franchises and toss them up into space? Hell, they even ripped some angles from 1993’s Demolition Man (still a guilty pleasure of mine).

The generic story takes place on a space station that is now the country’s maximum security prison. Every sadistic inmate is cryogenically frozen these days and this gets the attention of the President’s journalistic daughter, Emilie (Maggie Grace). She flies up there to see if this treatment is having negative side-effects on the prisoners. Of course, the prisoners somehow manage to arise from their chilly naps and overrun the station.

While all the top brass realize the President’s pride and joy is being held captive up there, they cut a deal with special-ops man named Snow (Guy Pearce). Snow is accused of being a traitor to the U.S. but his apparent skills are just what they need to breach the hostile space station and secure Emilie. The constantly wise-cracking Snow accepts the terms of the mission, for he may have his own agenda for heading up into space.

If it wasn’t for Guy Pearce channelling his inner-John McClane persona from Die Hard; and splicing that with Kurt Russell’s demeanor from Escape from L.A. (not New York), this flick would be worthy of a walkout halfway through. The only other element that keeps one interested is the presumed leader of the resurrected inmates played by Vincent Regan. He has a quiet, yet deadly, charm about him and that’s with the script giving the guy just a few blurbs of dialogue here-and-there and occasionally putting a bullet in someone’s head.

Aside from those two redeeming qualities, the rest of this is a jumbled and shaky (thank you cinematography) clipboard of random boring action sequences with a little bit of conversation tossed in between. It’s essentially one giant trailer. So for those that would like some rationale or just a smidge of elaboration on a storyline, don’t even bother strolling into this sucker. There is not a shred of backstory on how society came to this point and/or why Guy Pearce is such a badass. It is what it is; a mindless B-movie that had the benefit of affording some passable CGI.

Overall, Lockout is the ideal movie jaunt for some adrenaline junkies. But even they will forget about this mash-up, despite Guy Pearce’s charismatic delivery, before they press their hands upon the theater exit doors.

RATING: 2 out of 5

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If by some miracle you’re reading this without having seen any trailers, TV spots, or clips of The Cabin in the Woods, do yourself a favor and keep it that way before you see the movie. In a world of leaked set photos, trailers for trailers, and general marketing overload, I tend to lean toward avoiding as much of that stuff as I can for most movies anyway, but this movie unquestionably deserves that treatment. There are few films these days that offer up as many twists as The Cabin in the Woods, and there’s nothing quite like that revelatory feeling of being completely surprised at the movies. For fans of horror movies, and even those who just have a cursory knowledge of the cliches of the genre, this is a must-see.

Drew Goddard (the writer of Cloverfield) is making his directorial debut here, and he’s got a perfect writing partner for the sort of genre deconstruction that pervades this movie: none other than “Buffy” and “Firefly” creator and The Avengers director Joss Whedon. As detailed in this great piece at The Playlist, Whedon has been working in the industry for a long time and has a unique screenwriting voice; this collaboration with Goddard provides one of the freshest takes on the tropes of horror movies I’ve ever seen, as the duo manages to find that magical balance between parody and crafting an entry into the genre it’s sending up.

The story here is as basic as they come: five friends take a trip to an isolated old lake house, and scary stuff starts happening. But The Cabin in the Woods isn’t content with just rehashing tired stereotypes; instead, it features a separate narrative that runs parallel to the main story that completely subverts everything we’ve ever known about horror films and how they work. There are also a ton of references to other horror films – the cabin looks eerily similar to the one from The Evil Dead, for example, and the entire third act is loaded with enough great imagery for horror fans to sift through for months on end, dissecting every last wink and nod to the films that informed this one.

The dialogue is smart and funny, and the whole cast – particularly Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford playing characters that I won’t even mention – seems like a great fit for the material. Fran Kranz (“Dollhouse”) does especially great work, and the beautiful Kristen Connolly provides the heart of the film while also being an audience interpreter for what’s going on. For those not as keen on horror flicks who may fear the entire movie is one long scare-fest, think again: Whedon and Goddard infuse the story with plenty of humor to counterbalance the intense moments (of which there are definitely a few).

The whole thing culminates with one of the best “Eff You” moments to authority committed to screen since R.P. McMurphy roamed the halls of the mental institution in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. To give away anything more would be to rob you of the joy of experiencing this gem on your own, so see this movie as quickly as possible so nobody has the chance to ruin it for you. I know it’s still early, but with its wholly original take on the conventions of horror films, The Cabin in the Woods is an early contender for one of the most fun and interesting movies of the year. Until next time…

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