Logan

Review by Bob Ignizio

Although it exists within the X-men series of films dealing with a band of mutant superheroes, James Mangold's LOGAN is less a superhero film and more a serious, adult action film. The kind of movie Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson might have starred in in the seventies. Sure, the title character has metal claws that pop out of his hands, as well as the ability to heal from almost any wound, but this is a much different, and much more grown-up beast than your average comic book fare.

The violence is part of that, to be sure. From its very first scene, LOGAN announces its intention to earn its 'R' rating as Hugh Jackman's hirsute hero slices and dices a group of car thieves unlucky enough to have picked his limousine as their target.

Pan

Review by Bob Ignizio

Plucky young orphan Peter (Levi Miller) is whisked away from his drab and dreary life in a WWII era British Orphanage and into a much bigger world filled with magic and adventure in PAN. Peter doesn’t know it yet, but he’s the “chosen one” meant to fulfil a heroic destiny. But first he has to escape from the fairy dust mines of the immortal Blackbeard the Pirate (Hugh Jackman). Our hero is aided by Hook (Garrett Hedlund), a charming antihero who says he’s only out for himself, but shows flashes of altruism, and Tiger Lilly (Rooney Mara), a native princess who can more than hold her own with the men when it comes time to battle Blackbeard’s pirates. If this rag-tag band of rebels is to succeed in forging the prophesized alliance between the native tribe and the fairy folk, though, Peter will first have to learn to have faith in himself.

Chappie

Review by Bob Ignizio

While it is by no means the first film to concern itself with a robot possessing human-like emotions, CHAPPIE is one of the best. In the not too distant future, writer/director Neil Blomkamp imagines that the police force in Johannesburg, South Africa, has been heavily augmented by near indestructible robots designed by scientist Deon Wilson (Dev Patel, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE).

While these law enforcement machines are quite effective, they lack true artificial intelligence, something their creator is actively working on despite being told not to by his boss (Sigoruney Weaver). Deon tries his experimental consciousness software out on a damaged unit, but before he can get the bot up and running he's kidnapped by a gang of small time crooks – Ninja (Ninja), Yolandi (Yolandi Visser), and Amerika (Jose Pablo Cantillo).

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Review by Bob Ignizio

With X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, filmmaker Bryan Singer reminds us that before Marvel started taking cinematic matters into their own hands, he had already shown that super hero movies that treat their source material with respect can be successful with fanboys, general audiences, and critics alike. The X franchise is where the modern super hero film truly began, and while the series lost its way when Singer left to pursue other projects, the situation for the team of mutant heroes improved considerably with his return (in the capactiy of producer) for 2011's X-MEN: FIRST CLASS. That film was a step in the right direction, and things have only gotten better now that Singer is back in the director's chair.

Movie 43 (now on video)

**Note: we're doing our best to catch up on some of the films that slipped through the cracks here at the Cleveland Movie Blog. I believe MOVIE 43 did have a screening, but at the time no one was available to cover it. It's on Netflix instant at the moment, so I figured what the Hell, I'll check it out.

Review by Bob Ignizio

Some people like to slow down and look at automobile accidents. I have a morbid curiosity about bad movies. That's why, against all better judgment, I've watched things like GIGLI, GLITTER, and many more universally panned turkeys. Sometimes one finds campy entertainment value, as in SHOWGIRLS. On occasion, I even wind up liking movies that everyone else seems to hate, as was the case with HANSEL AND GRETL: WITCH HUNTERS. So with virtually every critic on earth declaring MOVIE 43 the year's worst film, I had to get around to it eventually. Well, it may not be my pick for the worst of the year (I'm leaning towards PLANES at the moment), but it sure isn't very good.

Prisoners

Review by Bob Ignizio

With its 2 1/2 hour running time, deadly serious tone, and a cast and crew of Hollywood heavyweights, several past Oscar nominees and winners among them, it's clear before you even see the first frame of film that PRISONERS is going for some Oscar gold of its own. One can only hope the Academy doesn't take the bait, as Hollywood doesn't need the encouragement to crank out more bloated, ridiculous thrillers like this one.


Opening with a scene that is not so much relevant to its plot as it is to its alleged themes, PRISONERS lets you know right from the start that it thinks it's an important, serious film. Survivalist dad Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) is explaining to his son Ralph (Dylan Minnette) the importance of always being prepared right after the boy has displayed his hunting skill by taking out a deer with one shot. Then we're off with the Dover family – which also includes Keller's wife Grace (Maria Bello) and daughter Anna (Erin Gerasimovich) – for Thanksgiving dinner with the neighboring Birch family – dad Franklin (Terrence Howard), mom Nancy (Viola Davis) and daughters Eliza (Zoe Soul) and Joy (Kyla Drew Simmons). Shortly after dinner, Anna and Joy will take a walk over to Anna's house and disappear.


The only clue to what happened is a shabby looking RV that Ralph remembers the girls playing on earlier, now gone from where it had been parked in front of a nearby house. After a search by the frantic parents fails to yield results, the police are called in with Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) heading up the investigation. He has a reputation for solving every case he's taken on, and it isn't long before he finds the RV and its driver Alex (Paul Dano), a simpleton whose disheveled appearance and suspicious mannerisms practically scream “movie psycho”. But there's simply not enough evidence to hold the guy, and he gets released into the custody of his Aunt Holly (Melissa Leo).


Keller is certain that Alex is the guilty party, and since he doesn't think the police are doing their job, he decides to do it for them, kidnapping Alex and taking him to an abandoned apartment building. There Kellen tortures the man, fearing that time is of the essence if the girls are to be found alive. Meanwhile Detective Loki stumbles upon another mystery from the past and finds a potential new suspect in another squirrelly looking character named Bob Taylor (David Dastmalchian).


The moral question PRISONERS makes a pretense of asking is whether Keller is justified in his actions, and what sort of effect does going down that road have on him and his friends and family. I say it makes a pretense of asking that question because, in the end, the film isn't particularly interested in answering it, or even giving the audience much in the way of food for thought on the subject. There's a difference between showing that an issue is black and white, and trying to have it both ways, and the way PRISONERS handles its central theme is definitely in the latter category. It wants to come off as having something of substance to say, but doesn't want to risk ruffling any feathers by actually taking a stand one way or the other. 


Rather than being the substantive crime drama it thinks it is, what we have here instead is a “B” level suspense thriller that takes itself too seriously and drags on far too long. Not only is it unwilling to take a firm position on Keller's vigilantism, it has nothing new or worthwhile to say about the grief parents in such a situation go through, or the sort of things that would drive someone to commit such crimes. The motivation for the child abductions is especially absurd, some hokum about "waging a war on God". Other aspects of the film are equally ridiculous - for example, apparently everyone in Pennsylvania ignores police cars that come barreling down the road with lights flashing. I know, we see that kind of nonsense in action movies all the time, but again, this is supposed to be a more serious film than that. 


And if you're hoping for at least some interesting characters to make the film tolerable, forget it. The characters in PRISONERS are thinly written caricatures at best, and in some cases so underutilized as to beg the question of why they're even in the movie. At least Jackman's “going for the Oscar” scenery chewing, Dano and Dastmalchian's central-casting creepiness, and Gyllenhaal's twitchy intensity offer some entertainment value, but that's not exactly a compliment. 
 
While the script and performances bear some of the blame, in the end the lion's share would seem to rest on director Denis Villeneuve's shoulders. After all, this is a talented cast, and it's up to the director to make sure they aren't going over the top or fading into the scenery. It's also ultimately up to the director to look at the script and recognize when things need to be pared down. If PRISONERS had been an hour and a half/hour and 45 minute straightforward action film, its implausibilities and absurdities wouldn't have grated nearly so much and it might even have been kind of fun. The intent, however, seems to have been to make a film more on a level with SILENCE OF THE LAMBS or GONE BABY GONE despite the fact that the material was in now way up to snuff, and that's simply a recipe for failure. 2 out of 4 stars

The Wolverine

Review by Bob Ignizio

For an installment in a comic book based franchise, THE WOLVERINE starts out as a surprisingly grounded, character driven film. It begins with a flashback to a WWII prison camp in Nagasaki. Just as the atomic bomb is being dropped, Logan aka Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) convinces prison guard Yashida (Ken Yamamura), who had earlier set him and the other American POWs free, to join him in the deep well where he had been kept captive. Still, some of the effects of the blast reach underground requiring Logan to shield Yashida with his own body. Logan appears seriously wounded, but thanks to his mutant healing power he quickly makes a full recovery. Not surprisingly this makes quite an impression on Yashida.

As Logan wakes from this dream/flashback, the story proper picks up many years later, apparently not long after the events of X-MEN: THE LAST STAND. Logan has given up super heroics in favor of being a hermit, unable to fully deal with having killed the woman he loved, Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), in order to prevent her from destroying the world. He gets dragged back into life by the impending death of Yashida (now played by Haruhiko Yamanouchi). Yashida sends precognitive mutant Yukio (Rila Fukushima) to find Logan and bring him to Japan for one final meeting.

Les Miserables

Review by Bob Ignizio

Even though convicted thief Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) has served his time, he soon learns he is not truly “free”. As he is told by inspector Javert (Russell Crowe), Valjean will be on parole for the rest of his life, forever branded as a thief by his identification papers. Not surprisingly this makes getting a job or even lodgings difficult, and creates a self fulfilling prophecy of sorts that the one time criminal will never be anything but. 

However, when Valjean gets caught after stealing from a church that had given him sanctuary, the Bishop lies for Valjean. He tells the arresting officers that he had given the loot to the man, an act of kindness that sends the ex convict on a journey of redemption. LES MISERABLES is the musical story of that journey.

Rise of the Guardians

Review by Pete Roche

If you thought Jack Frost nips your nose in Northeast Ohio because he’s a sadist, well…you don’t know Jack.

DreamWorks’s latest CG fantasy RISE OF THE GUARDIANS reimagines Jack (Chris Pine) as a mischievous teen who’s devoted his life to leisure.  Our story begins with The Man in the Moon transforming the boy into a “Guardian” following an icy accident that blows him right out of his boots.  Jack's hair goes from brown to white, and the walking stick he finds on a frozen pond becomes a magic scepter that turns everything it touches to snow. 

And he can fly. 

But the spirited youth isn’t quite sure what to do with his new abilities, or why he of all people received them.  So Jack spends the next three centuries running gaily about the globe barefoot, bringing winter to the world whether people want it or not.  At his best, Jack’s icy touch results in toboggan chutes and Snow Days for school kids—but he never considers his spreading cold weather a noble profession.  Nor does he question why children can’t actually see or hear him; they pass right through his ephemeral body during snowball fights like he’s a ghost.  Which he may well be. 

Real Steel

Review by Matt Finley

Chalk it up to low expectations, but the first thing I dug about Shawn Levy’s (NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM, DATE NIGHT) tale of redemption and droid-on-droid fisticuffs, REAL STEEL, is something it didn’t do: scroll out a GB’s worth of expositional text in some brutally exaggerated "future" font (you know what I mean: Earth. The year is 2027. Humans have blah blah new sport, robot fighting something blah.) From there on, the film continuously defied even my most cynical expectations. There’s no over-teched, neon-drenched cliché of an urban setting, no leather-laced light-up haberdashery, and no over-beaten horse corpse of an Orwellian government or sinister corporation… There’s just a scrappy ex-boxer, a precocious kid and a trash-picked robot determinedly (robot) fighting their way to the top of the (robo)heap. The result is a tight and undeniably joyful film that’s biggest flaw is an excess of heart – an almost welcome peccadillo given this age of oppressively smug and jaded Hollywood cinema.