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Black Sea: Mini-Review

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Jude Law

Jude Law takes a dive in Black Sea

 BOne of the casualties of modern technology has been the old-fashioned submarine thriller, a movie like the classic Das Boot, set in a crowded sweaty, invariably rickety vessel one tiny misstep away from springing a leak and ending the film rather abruptly. Those thrillers have pretty much disappeared along with the submarines on which they took place. So, it comes as a pleasant surprise to watch Black Sea, a 2015 thriller sent on a submarine that seems to have come straight out of 1945.

The submarine doesn’t have a name; it doesn’t need one. It does have a captain, played by Jude Law, who’s been abruptly given the boot by the salvage company he worked for. When Law learns of a German World War II submarine lost in the Black Sea with a cargo of gold bars, he decides to retrieve the gold. With financing from a wealthy entrepreneur, he buys a sub off the scrap heap, recruits a ragtag mixed British and Russian crew, and goes after the sunken U-Boat, trying to get in and out with the treasure right under the noses of the Russian Navy.

Black Sea won’t win any awards for character development. The sub is filled with stereotypes like the doom-saying corporate flunky (Scoot McNairy), the psychotic xenophobic diver (Ben Mendelsohn), and a group of Russians who speak little or no English. However, once things start going wrong, the flimsy backstories don’t matter. Instead, director Kevin McDonald generates quite a bit of suspense precisely because this is one movie in which the audience really doesn’t know how things are going to turn out. Black Sea is a slick professional thriller, anchored in reality just enough by Law’s victim of corporate downsizing to engage the audience. It’s a style of film making as dated as Law’s sub, but as seaworthy today as it ever was.
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Project Almanac: Mini-Review

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Back to the Future DeLorean

The teens in Project Almanac wish they had this nifty time machine.

DThe teenage protagonists of Project Almanac build a time machine and use it to change the past and improve their lives. The movie’s audience would have been better served if someone had actually used a time machine to prevent screenwriters from ever using the “found footage” plot device again. Even without that pointless gimmick, Almanac‘s writers would still have needed a few more trips to the past to come up with a decent script.

David Raskin (Jonny Weston) and his buddies don’t invent the time machine; they build it from plans developed by his scientist father. Once they build their machine from spare parts in David’s basement, he and his friends use it rather predictably for teenage bucket list items like acing a chemistry exam, winning the lottery, and attending a recent rock concert. However, when David decides to use the machine to correct his missteps in trying to romance fellow time traveler Jessie Pierce (Sofia Black-d’Elia), he learns a basic axiom of time travel: changing the past can have unforeseen—and unfortunate—consequences. And the more he tries to correct his mistakes, the worse things get.

Project Almanac more closely resembles a collection of YouTube videos of a group of geeks and nerds building a science fair project and attending a rock concert than an actual theatrical motion picture. Its time travel rules seem cobbled together at random from other films like Looper and Time Cop, both referenced in the often laughable script, or The Butterfly Effect. The found footage gimmick doesn’t disguise the cheapness of the special effects or the gaping plot holes, but it does distance viewers from any potential emotional involvement in the storyline. Anyone who might actually enjoy this mess will probably be more easily, and cheaply, amused by spending two hours playing random amateur YouTube videos.
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Cake: Mini-Review

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Jennifer Aniston

Jennifer Aniston looks considerably more glamorous here than she does in Cake

BEvery year, when the Oscar nominations are announced, it seems that someone worthy winds up being snubbed. This year, that “honor” goes to Jennifer Aniston, whose widely acclaimed turn in Cake, a film unseen by most of the general public prior to the nominations, was ignored by the Academy. Sadly, the Oscar voters got it wrong; Aniston’s performance is stunning. The movie itself, however, is not so stunning.

Cake is a character study of Claire Bennett (Aniston), a woman in constant pain, both physical and mental, resulting from a sever auto accident. She’s hooked on pain killers, her marriage fell apart, and she often thinks about killing herself. Her maid and occasional chauffeur Silvana (Adriana Barraza) is the only person who still puts up with her. Ironically, though, it’s the suicide of Nina (Anna Kendrick) a young woman in her support group, that gives Claire some purpose in her life, as she becomes obsessed with finding out why Nina killed herself.

Aniston’s performance in Cake is masterful on a number of levels. Every movement Claire makes can be agonizing, so the character, and the actress, must carefully plan out simple actions like standing up to minimize the pain. Claire reacts defensively to her pain, with anger and caustic sarcasm, that quickly eliminates most sympathy for her character. But she still manages to show just enough glimpses of her former self to explain Silvana’s standing by her side. However, with the exception of Aniston’s and Barraza’s performances, Cake is often routine disease-of-the-week material that’s sometimes too whimsical for its own good. In particular, dream sequences in which Aniston talks at length with Kendrick’s ghost simply don’t work. Aniston’s performance is enough to keep viewers interested in Cake, but, like Claire herself, the movie seemingly tries to drive away viewers, in this case, by a storyline that’s not worthy of its lead actress.
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The Boy Next Door: Mini-Review

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Jennifer Lopez

Jennifer Lopez points out one of the many gaping plot holes in The Boy Next Door

C-If you ever wondered what a typical Lifetime movie of the week would look like on CInemax, wonder no more; just watch The Boy Next Door. The R-rated woman-in-peril thriller has plenty of sizzle, thanks to Jennifer Lopez and her co-star Ryan Guzman, but not much of anything else, including intelligent plotting and actual thrills.

J-Lo stars as Clare Peterson, a high school literature teacher who has a one-night stand with hunky Noah (Guzman), her new next-door neighbor. He imagines they are soul mates, and, when she tries to let him down, he immediately turns into a younger male version of Alex in Fatal Attraction. Of course, Clare’s shy son sees Noah as his only friend and protector, making Clare’s situation more ticklish.

The Boy Next Door is the type of thriller in which audiences can inevitably predict what’s going to happen in the next two or three scenes. Plus, it contains the usual plot howlers such as a scene in which Noah gives Clare a “first edition” of Homer’s Iliad, a neat trick for a work that dates back at least 2,000 years before the invention of the printing press. The movie’s predictably grisly finale is enjoyably over the top, thanks to the freedom afforded director Rob Cohen by the R rating. That same freedom allows Clare and Noah’s sex scene to be as spicy as possible within the confines of Lopez’s no-nudity contract. Ten minutes of spice and mayhem, however, do not make up for the film’s other 80 minutes of predictably bland tedium.
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Mortdecai: Mini-Review

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Johnny Depp

Johnny Depp looks even sillier in Mortdecai than he does here.

D+Johnny Depp channels the vintage British comic actor Terry-Thomas in his latest comedy, Mortdecai. Doubtless, that name will not ring a bell with most of Depp’s followers, but even a Thomas fan like myself kept thinking over and over how much better the real Terry-Thomas, or even Richard Thomas for that matter, would have been in the role.

Depp plays Lord Charlie Mortdecai, a British nobleman who’s also a cad, a drunk, a cheat, a coward, a nearly bankrupt spendthrift but, fortunately for the needs of the movie, an art expert willing to help out Her Majesty’s Government in the person of Alistair Martland (Ewan McGregor). The plot revolves around a stolen Goya masterpiece that also contains the Swiss bank account number of a missing Nazi fortune, so it’s of interest to lots of bad guys. What’s of interest to Martland is Charlie’s wife Johanna (Gwyneth Paltrow), an old flame, and Johanna isn’t all that enamored of Charlie’s new mustache.

Mortdecai is a dreadful misfire on many levels. Its main running joke is Johanna’s throwing up whenever she gets close to Charlie’s mustache, which isn’t remotely funny the first time it appears in the film, let alone the tenth. However, the mustache gag is only one of a number of R-rated dismal toilet humor jokes in the film. The plot is ridiculously complicated, and the movie contains several pointless chase scenes that are neither funny or exciting. Worst of all, Depp appears more interested in proving to himself that he can impersonate Terry-Thomas than creating a humorous character.
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American Sniper: Mini-Review

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Clint Eastwood

Clint Eastwood is still in top form.

A-On one level, Clint Eastwood‘s American Sniper is an excellent action film, with set pieces that are far superior to those in recent junk like Taken 3 and Blackhat. More than that, however, it’s a surprisingly thoughtful and powerful drama that’s easily one of the best movies of the year.

Oscar-nominated Bradley Cooper stars in American Sniper as Chris Kyle, a Navy SEAL whose marksmanship skills make him the most celebrated sniper in Iraq. Kyle protects the U.S. troops in the field by keeping a constant eye out for hostile Iraqis. Anyone he sees, including women and children could easily throw a grenade or set off a suicide bomb unless Kyle stops them first. Although he gets through the war physically unscathed, the growing mental pressures he faces take their toll, on Kyle and his wife (Sienna Miller) and family.

The war in Iraq, in which U.S. troops were frequently targeted by civilians in urban areas that provided lots of cover, was unlike anything else in our history, and Eastwood perfectly captures the uncertainty and danger our troops faced, in scenes that are often incredibly suspenseful. Although American Sniper takes some liberties with Chris Kyle’s life story, viewers see what made him effective and admired by his fellow soldiers. Thanks to Bradley Cooper’s remarkably subtle performance, we also see how he was affected by the strain. Kyle doesn’t snap or go nuts; he’s just not there, especially for his family, a good bit of the time. Clint Eastwood, at age 84, knows about combat, having fought in Korea. In American Sniper, he and Bradley Cooper bring combat, and its aftermath home to a new generation of filmgoers. 
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Paddington: Mini-Review

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Nicole Kidman

Nicole Kidman has a lot of fun as the villain in Paddington

B+The funniest and most charming family Christmas movie of 2014 wasn’t actually released in 2014. Instead, for some reason, while the studios paraded Annie and the latest Night at the Museum movie before parents,  Paddington was delayed and dumped into theaters in the annual January burial ground. Fortunately, this gives parents something to enjoy along with their children through the rest of the winter.

Based on the popular children’s books, Paddington is the story of a young talking bear (voiced by Ben Whishaw) whose aunt sends him to London to find a new home. He is taken in, temporarily at first, by kindly Mary Brown (Sally Hawkins) and her more cautious husband Henry (Hugh Bonneville), who is concerned about Padington’s tendency to get into trouble. Naturally, however, Henry eventually has a change of heart, especially after Paddington is bearnapped by the director of the Natural History Museum (Nicole Kidman), who thinks that a stuffed and mounted Paddington will make a prize exhibit.

Paddington is that rare family film that is genuinely warm and charming without pandering, and it doesn’t hit viewers over the head with its lessons about family. Some of the slapstick humor will be too childish for adults, but director Paul King lets the set pieces play out slowly, letting Paddington gradually get himself into an even bigger mess. He also includes a number of quite clever jokes aimed squarely at the adults in the audience. Plus, from a technical standpoint, the CGI work is nearly flawless; the computer-generated Paddington blends in smoothly with the live actors. Paddington is one movie whose trailers don’t do it justice; it more than bears watching by viewers of all ages.
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Blackhat: Mini-Review

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Chris Hemsworth

Chris Hemsworth is the world’s buffest and least credible hacker.

CDirector Michael Mann faced two big challenges in his latest film, Blackhat. First, he had to make the acts of typing in and reading computer code interesting to mainstream audiences. Second, he had to convince them that Chris Hemsworth was actually the world’s best hacker. He wasn’t successful on either count. To make matters worse, he overdirected the actions scenes in the movie so that they were even less interesting that the scenes featuring Hemsworth hammering away at his keyboard.

Blackhat is the code name for a hacker who, in short order, sabotages a Chinese nuclear reactor and wreaks havoc with the U.S. commodities markets. China and the United States (represented by FBI agent Viola Davis) join forces to catch the hacker. The Chinese computer expert persuades Davis to release Hemsworth from prison to aid in the effort. The villain’s plot is actually rather clever, and the detective work involved in tracking him down is interesting and easy to follow. To overcome computer programming’s inherent lack of visual interest, Mann tries to jazz up the movie with his trademark dazzling visuals (the nighttime shots of Hong Kong are spectacular), and several action sequences.

Ultimately, however, Blackhat feels like an entertaining one-hour television episode blown up to a lumbering two hours. The action scenes in particular lack Mann’s usual energy. The picture and sound quality in these sequences felt amateurish, and they needed much tighter editing. Add in the wooden performances by Hemsworth and his love interest, Chinese actress Wei Tang, and the result is a movie that’s never more than mildly interesting.
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The Wedding Ringer: Mini-Review

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Kevin Hart Western CT State U.

Kevin Hart plays a real person for a change in The Wedding Ringer

B-In the new comedy, The Wedding Ringer, Kevin Hart actually gets to play a real person instead of playing, well, Kevin Hart, and the result is easily his best performance. Mind you, that’s not on the level of, say, Marlon Brando‘s best performance, but for a man who nearly got strangled by Ice Cube last year at this time, it’s a definite improvement. And, much to my surprise, Wedding Ringer itself was a sometimes touching, often hilarious comedy.

The film starts out squarely in stereotypical Kevin Hart territory. He plays Jimmy Callahan, a hustler whose shtick is posing as the best man for well off but socially challenged grooms-to-be. His latest client is schlumpy but sweet Doug Harris (Josh Gad). But what starts out as just another assignment for Jimmy turns into a budding bromance when he starts genuinely liking Doug and wondering about his own future. Hart, too, lets his comic guard down here, toning down his typical mile-a-minute banter and letting his co-stars pull much of the comic weight of the film. This gives Gad plenty of opportunity to shine in what should be his breakout film role.

The big set pieces in The Wedding Ringer, including a ridiculously overblown bachelor party that plays more like a cross between a toga party and a night at Chuck E. Cheese’s, are jarringly bad. However, a lot of the other jokes are hilarious, many of which couldn’t be shown in the trailer because the dialogue is often profanity laced. More than that, the movie is often surprisingly sweet, as Hart and Gad have a great chemistry together, and the script tweaks the usual genre formula just enough to keep audiences interested. Judged by typical comedy standards, The Wedding Ringer is mildly entertaining, but by Kevin Hart and January release standards, it’s a winner.
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Inherent Vice: Mini-Review

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Joaquin Phoenix

Joaquin Phoenix is a stoner private eye in Inherent Vice.

C-Director Paul Thomas Anderson tries to accomplish the seemingly impossible in Inherent Vice, namely, adopting one of Thomas Pynchon’s bizarre novels for the screen. The results are somewhat fitting for a movie about the 1970-era drug subculture. While at times hilarious, the movie in general plays out like a typical stoner drug-fueled fantasy: overly long, often boring and even more often nearly incoherent.

Joaquin Phoenix stars as Doc Sportello, a private eye who’s almost always drunk or stoned. He’s involved in two separate cases that really aren’t separate: finding a missing real estate tycoon and finding a missing saxophone player (Owen Wilson). Both cases have him butting heads with hard ass cop Josh Brolin. That brief synopsis sounds like a typical PI film, but Inherent Vice plays more like a remake of a Cheech and Chong movie with a considerably better cast.

The period detail in Inherent Vice in terms of music and costuming is perfect, but Anderson and Phoenix are both far too young to have any real insight into the drug culture of that era, so they try to create humor by having Doc act perpetually confused. The result is a movie that drifts from one comic moment to another, with a lot of boredom in between.
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Taken 3: Mini-Review

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Liam Neeson

Liam Neeson stars in Taken 3

C- Liam Neeson is back for the third time as former CIA agent Bryan Mills turned vengeful ex-husband and father in Taken 3. This time, none of his loved ones have been kidnapped; instead, ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) is murdered, and he’s the prime suspect. For once, Mills actually has an interesting adversary, but it’s not any of the Russian mobsters who actually killed Lenore, or the master criminal, whose identity is fairly easy to guess. Instead, it’s the cop chasing Mills, Forest Whitaker, who’s a lot smarter than cops in movies like this typically are. Whitaker has a lot of fun with the role, and Neeson, as usual, is believably tough as Mills.

Unfortunately, the action scenes in Taken 3 are a mess. Director Olivier Megaton uses lightning fast edits and shaky camera work to a headache-inducing fault, and it’s impossible to tell what’s going on in most of the action scenes. Usually in this type of movie, the action scenes make the film somewhat worth watching despite the ridiculous plot. Here, viewers hope the action scenes end quickly so they can see more of Neeson and Whitaker. Our full review of Taken 3 is now available on Silver Screen Cinema.
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