Search for 2012

If the goal of Bel Ami was to capture a fleeting flavor of Dangerous Liaisons, the intention should be deemed a failure. Based on Guy de Maupassant's 1885 novel, Bel Ami is the meandering, unfocused tale of the rise of an unprincipled opportunist i...

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is one of those pleasant, inoffensive British movies that offers a passably entertaining two hours without providing material that could be construed as edgy or stimulating. The problem may be that it's a little too p...

The total worldwide box office gross for the first three Jason Bourne movies (The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum) is nearly one billion dollars (more if adjusted for inflation). With that kind of money in play, was ther...

At first glance, Brave seems much like an old-fashioned animated Disney princess film done using new-fangled technology. Most of the elements are in place: the plucky heroine, the faithful animal companion, a mysterious wizard, and a character-buil...

Whatever Will Ferrell may or may not be, one can never accuse him of lacking balls. The decision to release Casa de Mi Padre, Ferrell's latest starring vehicle, entirely in Spanish with subtitles, will be an acid test as to whether the actor's popu...

Celeste and Jesse Forever wants to be marketed as an "anti-romantic comedy," but, despite its somewhat unconventional storyline, it's very much about what draws people together into relationships and what pulls them apart. It explores the reality o...

Chasing Mavericks feels like two completely different movies that have been mashed together. The first, a derivative and unsatisfying coming-of-age story about a Santa Cruz boy and his adopted father figure, seems uncharacteristically weak for the ...

Chernobyl Diaries is afflicted with a fatal flaw that damages many horror films: after a better-than-average setup and a promising first half, everything falls apart. The filmmakers spend so much time figuring out the hook and establishing the atmo...

In recent years, I have become jaded about superhero movies, a genre I once enjoyed. A sameness and lack of energy permeates them, especially the origin stories. There's something perfunctory and unsatisfying about many of the big titles, leaving i...

Based on a perusal of reviews for Cloud Atlas, one might be convinced that the sprawling, ambitious, epic adaptation of David Mitchell's 2004 novel is either a masterpiece or an unmitigated disaster. The reality is somewhere in between. It's hard t...