Sabotage is a a horrible, bloody mess. As a critic, I always try to say something nice about a film but every so often I’m dumbfounded by how bad a movie is and marvel how it could have been green-lit by the studio in the first place. Sure, Sabotage has a solid cast with the former Governator himself Arnold Schwarzenegger in the lead role as Breacher, the tough-as-nails (of course) leader of an elite DEA…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: Avatar
Avatar is a movie about manifest destiny and second thoughts, a sweeping epic retelling of a classic theme about a soldier “going native” as he learns that the enemy isn’t a faceless monster, but an intelligent race. The most obvious parallel is Dances with Wolves, but director James Cameron has taken the basic storyline and created a visual masterpiece that’s almost a perfect sci-fi film. Avatar takes place 150 years in the future, on the…Read More
Review: Avatar (Avatar Day footage)
Note: My full Avatar review can be found in a different entry, this is just a writeup from when I saw the 15-minute preview of the film in mid-2009. For the full review of the movie, please go here: Dave On Film Review: Avatar Along with what was apparently a smaller number of film geeks than was expected, I dutifully showed up at the local RealIMAX “quasi-IMAX” screen (see my earlier article on RealIMAX versus…Read More
Review: Terminator Salvation
I’ve written before about the Curse of the Sequel, and when you’re doing a fourth installment of what we modern film people call a “franchise”, it’s doubly difficult to have a film that’s interesting, engaging, and consistent with the mythos of the earlier movies. It can be done: the new Star Trek movie is an example of a great addition to a huge franchise. It can also be messed up, as was the case in…Read More