It’s no surprise that the blockbuster The Bourne Identity has inspired more than one subsequent tough guy action thriller. While The Gunman isn’t a complete rip-off, there are definitely a number of aspects of the story that are inspired by the exploits of Jason Bourne. The title character of The Gunman is Jim Terrier (Sean Penn), a sniper who assassinates the Minister of Mining in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, and is then immediately whisked…Read More
Review: The Next Three Days
Despite advertising to the contrary, The Next Three Days isn’t anywhere near as much about convicted murderer Lara Brennan (Elizabeth Banks) as it is about her obsessed husband John (Russell Crowe), who is convinced of her innocence and is willing to do anything – including break her out of jail – to restore their idyllic life together. It’s a darn good action thriller too, though a bit slow in the first half. Once John’s plan…Read More
Review: The A-Team
There are some movies that are good date films but are really “guy films”, then there are guy films that are really just for men and would most likely go down in the annals of bad dates if you, a guy, were to bring a gal with you. Yeah, that’s sexist, but think of The A-Team as the guy version of Sex and the City 2 and you’ll understand what I mean. Based on the…Read More
Review: Clash of the Titans
I wanted to enjoy Clash of the Titans. The previews highlighted some terrific special effects and certainly Greek mythology is a fertile field of sweeping sagas, epic stories of men challenging the gods and strange, amazing creatures. Unfortunately, there were two problems with the movie, problems that doom an otherwise entertaining adventure film: the retrofit 3D effects and the poor performance of Sam Worthington in the title role of Perseus. Perseus is a demi-god, the…Read More
Review: Ponyo
The original story of The Little Mermaid is about a mermaid who dreams of some day becoming a human. Ponyo is based on the same theme, but this time it’s a goldfish called Brunhilde who dreams of becoming human. This isn’t Disney computer-assisted animation as usual, however, but rather the amazing hand-animated world of Japanese legend Hayao Miyazaki. You’ve probably heard of Miyazaki, he’s had three films in relatively wide distribution here in the United States: Princess…Read More