Power Rangers

Review by Bob Ignizio

Even if you believe that an edgy, more mature take on the nineties kid's TV show Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers is a good idea (it isn't), the execution in director Dean Israelite's POWER RANGERS is terrible. We're barely five minutes into the film before we get a gag about giving a bull a handjob. That was funny the first time I saw it in KINGPIN, but it seems kind of inappropriate for a movie that's aiming for a family audience. Not to mention the execution of the gag pales in comparison to the way the Farrelly's did it.

That's your first indication that this film is going to be a horrible misfire.

Angel Grove High's star football player Jason (Dacre Montgomery) is given extended detention and house arrest after stealing a rival school's mascot (the aforementioned bull). There he meets autistic genius Billy (RJ Cyler) and Kimberly (Naomi Scott), a cheerleader with anger issues. The final two rangers are Zack (Ludi Lin), a kid who skips school a lot and lives in a trailer with his sick mom, and "new girl" Trini (Becky G), who is wary of getting too close to anyone.

Trainwreck

Review by Pamela Zoslov

Seldom has a movie been as aptly named than TRAINWRECK, an assemblage of poorly fitted comedic and sentimental ideas that sputter and wobble, colliding in a ridiculous cheerleader dance number that has to be seen to be believed.


In fairness, there are many funny moments and good performances in the film debut of comedian Amy Schumer, who wrote the screenplay. Schumer, a standup comic who has a sketch comedy show on Comedy Central, has a funny, transgressive comic persona and a round-faced, broad-nosed look refreshingly uncharacteristic of leading ladies.

Inside Out

Review by Bob Ignizio

As my friend and fellow area film critic George Thomas pointed out to me, the premise of Pixar’s INSIDE OUT bears more than a passing similarity to that of a Fox TV show from the early nineties that I had forgotten about, “Herman’s Head”. In both, the set-up is that inside the mind of the main character live various anthropomorphic representations of certain character traits. Of course, it’s not the basic idea of a given story that matters so much as what is done with it, and true to form the folks at Pixar manage to whip up a clever and entertaining story that, even if it were inspired by the long cancelled TV show, puts a unique and entertaining spin on the idea.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2

Review by Pete Roche

The sequel to Steven Spielberg’s 1993 dinosaur blockbuster JURASSIC PARK warned moviegoers that “something has survived.”  Now the same holds true for meteorological cuisine in Swallow Falls, the fictitious town inundated by spaghetti twisters and precipitating pancakes in 2009’s CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS. 

Loosely based on the prize-winning 1978 children’s book by Ron and Judi Barrett, the cartoon caper sees inventor Flint Lockwood’s Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator machine convert water into burgers, pancakes, and spaghetti.  Of course, Flint’s machine (called the FLDSMDFR for short) goes haywire, and it’s only with a little help from his father and friends that the goofy scientist manages to halt the weird-weather calamity.