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brett michel
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Spy vs. Spy territory
What promises to be a modern Jules and Jim (until you realize it's directed by a 43-year-old who calls himself "McG") quickly devolves into Spy vs. Spy territory, only with incompetently staged and edited action and little of that ol' Mad magazine zing.
Run and gun
Made for a modest budget of $17 million — and feeling like it (who needs convincing explosions in an action movie?), Dante Lam's latest still gets the job done from a run-and-gun standpoint.
An extremely exploitative and incredibly bad tale
Too soon? For Stephen Daldry's 9/11 drama, the right time is "never."
The horrors of human nature
Many a teleplay for The Twilight Zone threatened atomic Armageddon, and though Frontier(s) director Xavier Gens nukes New York in the opening shots of his latest thriller, he finds more inspiration in the horrors of human nature as seen in the old TV show's episode "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street."
Worthy of an IMAX screen
Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) returns to the screen in dramatic fashion as new teammate Jane (Paula Patton) and the returning Benji (Simon Pegg) break him out of a Russian prison.
Cameron Crowe's film version of Benjamin Mee's memoir
Matt Damon plays Mee, a journalist who decides that he and his daughter (a precocious Maggie Elizabeth Jones) and sullen teenage son (Colin Ford) need a new start after the death of his wife, so he spends his life savings on a house in the country.
Guy Ritchie's return to the world of Sherlock Holmes
A new game is afoot in director Guy Ritchie's return to the world of Sherlock Holmes, but Robert Downey Jr.'s first outing as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famed sleuth puts Shadows in the shade.
Tale of a Robitussin-addicted man-child
David Gordon Green's latest finds him working in the scruffy comic realm that's shrouded his past couple of pictures in a pot-smoke haze.
Easily Sandler's worst film
Director Dennis Dugan's second Adam Sandler vehicle of the year turns out to be even worse than Just Go with It.
A generic riff on the Crazy Heart template
Borrowing the name of a Clash song with which it has nothing in common, this generic riff on the Crazy Heart template by writer/director David M. Rosenthal ( Falling Up ) also cribs from Sofia Coppola's Somewhere .
Martin Sheen embarks on a treacly sweet emotional hike
Charlie Sheen finally drops dead in The Way . Oh, my mistake — that might be the subject of a future documentary, and not of this treacly inspirational drama starring his 70-year-old dad, Martin.
Exhilarating action
The latest action epic from Hong Kong new wave director Tsui Hark ( Once Upon a Time in China ) is a fact-based historical drama set in 689 AD, a period when "all hell was about to break loose," according to the dense narration that opens the film.
Don't go swimmin' in the swamp at night, kids.
Why this dreck isn't debuting on SyFy is a mystery, but if Creature were made for the cable channel it might at least have an interesting title.
The Traffic of viral outbreak movies
For all the death and panic, this is a relatively quiet film.
Two brothers face off
It's brother against brother in this latest inspirational sports drama.
Big wheels
If you didn't think it was possible to get some stares from jaded onlookers here in the streets of Boston, you haven't been strapped into Medusa, a heavily modified '72 Buick Skylark equipped with a massive silver engine sprouting through its hood, a PA system, external surveillance cameras and, oh, twin exhaust pipes that shoot diesel-burning flame 30 feet into the air.
London crawling
As a group of teenage thugs approach their intended victim (only their eyes are visible as they glare at the trainee nurse who's walking the cold south London streets alone on the way home from her shift), you'll be forgiven if you recall the recent wave of rioting in the UK.
Meow!
July had just nabbed a chocolate-chip cookie from a table set up for a conference of visiting doctors. She was surprised — not only by the fact that one of the physicians had recognized her — but that the woman had also already seen July's latest, which is set to open in the Boston area next Friday.
An uninspired rip-off
It may be a 3D movie set in a world populated by computer-animated blue-skinned natives, but this isn't Avatar .
Disney dusts off the bear of little brain
If you don't mind paying full price for something so brief, you'll be delighted to find a musically driven film the whole family can enjoy.
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