Back in 2009, director J.J. Abrams did what many thought to be next to impossible. He took the Star Trek franchise, one of the most beloved television shows/movie series of all time, and brought it back to the big screen for its eleventh appearance and somehow managed to make it fresh, original, exciting, and all-out engrossing for fans and non-fans alike. This was at a time when things were not looking particularly good for the franchise. “Star Trek: Enterprise” had already been cancelled prematurely back in 2005 and the previous feature film, “Star Trek: Nemesis,” had been a rather disappointing finale for Picard and his crew. Now, with everyone’s faith fully restored by Abrams’ previous venture into the Trek universe, he once again takes us where no man has gone before with “Star Trek Into Darkness.”...[more]...

With the plethora of superhero movies that have been released in the past few years, it’s somewhat of a miracle that audiences haven’t grown completely sick of them by now. We’ve had “Captain America,” “The Incredible Hulk,” “The Avengers,” “Thor,” and two previous “Iron Man” films, just to name a few, and now we’re faced with the highly-anticipated third entry in the franchise...[more]...

If I were to describe Rob Zombie’s film career in a word, it wouldn’t be a good one. Starting back in 2003, he first delivered two forgettable horror films (“House of 1000 Corpses” and “The Devil’s Rejects”) before butchering a remake of John Carpenter’s classic “Halloween.” This was followed by a sequel that only made a further mess of what he had started. Now he returns with his fifth film, “The Lords of Salem.” Just by looking at his track record, we can set the bar rather low in hopes of being able to at least enjoy the film a little bit, but as it turns out, trying to accomplish that feat for this film is pretty much impossible...[more]...

The first thing that is likely to catch your eye about “The Company You Keep,” the latest directorial effort from Robert Redford, is the vast amount of star power it contains. I can’t recall having seen so impressive a cast for at least the last several years. Take a look at this list: Robert Redford, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, Richard Jenkins, Terrence Howard, Julie Christie, Nick Nolte, Chris Cooper, Brendan Gleeson, Anna Kendrick, and Sam Elliott. These names, most of whom have won or have been nominated for an Academy Award, would be enough to convince most people to give the film a shot, but then again, more details on the film couldn’t hurt...[more]...

In 1947, a Norwegian by the name of Thor Heyerdahl set off with five crewmates on an epic journey from Peru in an attempt to prove that it was possible to sail all the way to Polynesia on a simple balsa wood raft. This was quite an undertaking considering that the two locations are around 5,000 miles apart. Even the idea of it sounds a little crazy, and indeed, that’s the initial reception that Thor receives from just about everyone...[more]...

“Oblivion” is one of those films that acts a bit like a clever trickster. It lures you in with promises of a fascinating-sounding premise, one that any writer would be foolish not to utilize every bit of, only to fail to deliver what it sets up. Here we have a futuristic science-fiction tale that takes place several decades into the future after a war with a race known as “The Scavs” has left the moon shattered and the Earth devastated by the effects of tsunamis, earthquakes, and nuclear weapons. Almost the entire human race has been evacuated to Titan, a moon of Saturn, with only a few left behind for security and repair purposes...[more]...

Off the top of my head, it’s hard to think of a director who is more enigmatic than Terrence Malick. He began his career in feature films in 1973 with the most straightforward film he has made thus far, “Badlands,” which told the simple tale of a pair of young criminals on the run. It wasn’t a particularly good film, but it put him on the map nonetheless. From then on, his films became more contemplative, focusing on such historical events as the Battle of Guadalcanal (“The Thin Red Line”) and the English exploration of Virginia (“The New World”). He’s even attempted to encompass the creation of the universe in relation to the troubles of an average family (“The Tree of Life”). Now he scales things back a bit to bring us a simpler tale of the difficulties of love, but knowing Malick, a simple tale doesn’t necessarily have to have a simple telling...[more]...

It seemed pretty much inevitable. Someone, at some point in time, would want to remake Sam Raimi’s classic cult horror film “The Evil Dead,” and it would be allowed to happen whether the fans wanted it to or not. When it was first announced, I had some hope that such a remake (or reimagining, or whatever you want to call it) would be a neat companion piece to the original, hopes that only increased upon hearing that it was being produced by Raimi, Robert Tapert (producer of the original), and Bruce Campbell. With their blessing, what could possibly go wrong? As it turns out, some very important things could...[more]...

“Ginger & Rosa” tells the tale of two young girls who were both born in 1945 right around the time of the dropping of the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. They’re the best of friends and are pretty much inseparable, telling each other everything. Picking up in England in 1962, we find the country gripped with fear due to the very real possibility of nuclear annihilation. Ginger (Elle Fanning) and Rosa (Alice Englert) are both members of a protest group that is trying to “ban the bomb” through marches and other peaceful means, but, as those of you familiar with history will know, the threat continues to grow as the situation in Cuba intensifies...[more]...

DreamWorks Animation has become something of a powerhouse in the world of animated kids’ films. They’ve already dazzled audiences with great projects such as “Shrek” and “How to Train Your Dragon,” two of the best animated films to come along in the last several years, and with several other entertaining works as well, including “Kung Fu Panda,” “Puss in Boots,” and most recently, “Rise of the Guardians.” For their next trip, they take us back a few million years to the prehistoric era, where life was a lot rougher and families were simply trying to live their lives day to day...[more]...

Most people are familiar with Jack Kerouac’s infamous Beat novel “On the Road,” a book that is considered a classic of literature, even if they’ve never read it before. It brings to mind several images, including drugs, sex, traveling, authors, and, of course, the long scrolls of paper Kerouac scrawled his novel on. While the ideas presented in the novel may have worked well in that medium, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to translate well to another. Now that we are faced with a film adaptation, the answer to this question becomes all too clear...[more]...

“The Call” is one of the most perplexing films to come across my path in a long time. Not perplexing in terms of its plot, which is very much straight forward, but rather in the series of dumb decisions made by multiple characters throughout the story. It might be passable to have one or two, or perhaps even more if this were a horror film, where such things are commonplace, but to have one piled right on top of the other in a thriller where we’re supposed to be buying into everything that’s happening merely changes it into something else entirely...[more]...

The best way to describe “The Bay” is as a Frankenstein experiment gone wrong. It’s an attempt to cobble together a thriller from several different media sources, but the effect is such that the story falls through the cracks, not receiving the proper amount of attention and falling to the wayside in favor of the actual method of executing it. To put it much more simply, the film becomes an exercise in style over substance...[more]...

Here’s a strange phenomenon: “Robot & Frank” is not a bad film, and yet, it’s incredibly easy to start forgetting it even as it’s playing. It’s so light and airy that there’s not really anything to grasp within it. Obviously this is not meant in a physical sense, but more so in an emotional or intellectual one. Without something in one of these areas to lock on to, what purpose would there be in taking the journey that the writer wants to take us on...[more]...

Within a few seconds of starting “Here Comes the Boom,” you’ll see the words “Happy Madison” pop up on the screen, indicating that what you are about to see will not be a pleasant experience. The production company has been behind such films as “That’s My Boy,” “Grown Ups,” “Jack and Jill,” “Zookeeper,” and “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” (the list actually goes on, but that should suffice), so there’s no reason to believe that this film will be any better, and indeed, it’s a good idea to set the bar very low. However, given their track record, even that tends not to help very much. It certainly didn’t here...[more]...