Patty Jenkins directs the lithe, lovely, and laff-grabbing Gal Gadot as the Amazon princess who helps end World War I, and also DC’s string of dark ‘n dour superhero slogs. The concept is high indeed: Greek mythology is mashed-up with Christianity to give us a Zeus who flings Ares from …
The flaws in director and co-writer Paul King’s prequel are obvious, starting with the fact that he’s taken the anarchic and unsettling confectionary overlord given to us by author Roald Dahl (and famously embodied onscreen by Gene Wilder) and turned him into a human version of his previous star, the …
The flaws in director and co-writer Paul King’s prequel are obvious, starting with the fact that he’s taken the anarchic and unsettling confectionary overlord given to us by author Roald Dahl (and famously embodied onscreen by Gene Wilder) and turned him into a human version of his previous star, the …
The final chapter in Edgar Wright's Cornetto trilogy, and very much a raised-stakes version of the first entry, Shaun of the Dead. In Shaun, a town was taken over by zombies, and the hero was forced to confront his failings. In World's End, the world is threatened by aliens, and …
Viscerality has its virtues, viz: if you’re going to make a movie about the complicated ties between sexuality and masculinity, it helps to set it against the backdrop of a culture that still equates male excellence with procreation and providing — in this case, the Xhosa of South Africa. (Not …
Long ago, Zeus used the Spear of Something or Other to defeat his father Cronos, now imprisoned in Tartarus. But now people have stopped praying, and the gods’ work — Tartarus included — is coming undone. What to do? Reassemble the Spear, of course, and make sure half-human Perseus handles …
What a concept: children's playthings with human neuroses. Oh, wait, this isn't Toy Story? Nope, just a Disney rehash of same, substituting video game characters for action figures. You know - it's what the kids are into these days, even if there is a hefty dose of Gen-X nostalgia to …
In a bit of pre-emptive metacriticism, this third entry in the “early X-Men” series that began with First Class and hit its stride with Days of Future Past sends its young, ‘80s-era mutants to the mall to see Return of the Jedi, whereupon one of them declares that third entries …
After an opening that feels like a chunky blend of The Matrix, Terminator 2, and even Thor (hello, Destroyer!), Bryan Singer's return to the world of "Mutants are people too, only better" settles into a '70s-style actor's showcase. To wit: Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, musclebound and muted; James McAvoy's Charles Xavier, …
An ambitious superhero movie, one willing to invoke the Holocaust in its treatment of a feared and persecuted minority. This time it’s mutants instead of Jews, except for one mutant who is also a Jew, and who is looking to avenge his mother’s death at the hands of the Nazis, …
There isn’t much point in reviewing a film that summarizes itself thusly: “Kick some ass, get the girl, and try to look dope while you’re doing it.” But a job’s a job: Xander Cage (Vin Diesel) is, according to this third entry in the XXX series, the guy you call …
A ten-years-on followup to the gay Israeli wartime love story Yossi & Jagger. Yossi - a closeted, aging, thickening Israeli doctor - hasn't had a lover since Jagger's death during a nighttime ambush. Lover? He hasn't had a life. (Nothing says "quiet desperation" like a scene of a man unbuttoning …
When I arrived for the screening of Nicole Holofcener's new film, I was asked, "Are you here for the grown-up movie?" It's easy to see why: here we have a story about ordinary people dealing with ordinary problems in ordinary fashion — well, almost. (Can anyone living in NYC luxury …
Diablo Cody, staking her claim as the Voice of Generation X, brings us the story of a young-adult author (well, a ghostwriter named Mavis, gamely played by Charlize Theron) who tries to go home again. You’d think — cynical, savvy X-er that Mavis is — she would know better. But …
Fish-out-of-water relationship dramedy in which the fish is a blissfully self-centered actor (played with boyish charm by Gael García Bernal), the water he’s out of is Mexico City, and the dry land upon which he is flopping and gasping is the Iowa Writers Workshop, where his frustrated wife (Verónica Echegui) …