I should start by clarifying which version of the oft-told Hercules story we’re talking about, because it’s not the animated feature from Disney and it’s most assuredly not the banal early 2014 The Legend of Hercules with Kellan Lutz in the title role. I’m talking about the summer release with the always popular muscleman Dwayne Johnson in the title role, as released jointly by Paramount and MGM. First the perhaps surprising news: I quite liked and enjoyed…Read More
Review: Jack the Giant Slayer
I can only imagine the early production meetings… “guys, we need a storyline that’ll let us show off some really cool new visual effects, something that everyone will know but that we can bring into the modern era.” “Okay, but it better not cost a mil to get the book rights this time.” “Okay, okay. Hey! How about Jack and the Beanstalk?” “Wait, are we talking a cartoon?” “No, live action. Big, epic, scary, in…Read More
Review: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
It’s a cinematic rule of thumb: the further into a series, the worse the film. There are a lot of reasons for this but the primary is that the first film in a series always introduces the characters, the world they inhabit, and the basic tension between them. In the Pirates of the Caribbean series, we first met Johnny Depp’s memorable Captain Jack Sparrow in The Curse of the Black Pearl, and it was a…Read More