With the advent of Memorial Day Weekend, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull kicks off the holiday stretch with a rousing race through jungles of all types, promising action, reunions, and lots of booby-trapped labyrinths and ancient artifacts. This third sequel to 1982’s masterpiece, Raiders of the Lost Ark, is a fitting addition to the Jones pantheon. It clearly resides in the shadows of Raiders, and never quite reaches the fever pitch of breathtaking awe that it could achieve.

It’s by no means a bad movie. In fact, it’s really quite good. Director Steven Spielberg, Producer George Lucas, and Harrison Ford all fit back into their old clothes quite nicely, especially the latter as he puts on the famous hat and title role once again. To put it plainly, he’s still got it. Harrison Ford is Indiana Jones. He owns the role like a seasoned Rolex, and there’s no sign that he ever let it go.

Set in 1957, nearly twenty years after the events of the Last Crusade, Crystal Skull picks up in an eerily-familiar warehouse that supposedly houses a particular artifact that Soviet KGB officials seem to require. The Soviets are led by Irina Spalko(Cate Blanchett), one of the least-developed villains in the entire series. Blanchett has done well with her Russian accent, but aside from that, there’s really not a whole lot going for her. Read more »

There’s a lot to like with The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Hereafter Caspian). Unfortunately, there’s also a lot to dislike. With a mix of teen angst, childlike yearning, and rebel-gone-right personalities among the royal Pevensie brothers and sisters, our heroes (and presumably audiences) have returned once again to the world run by the most verbose lion in cinema (and literary) history. Only now, it’s more than two hundred years later than the events in the first film.

For fans of the original Narnia film, Caspian presents complete culture shock. Gone are the vast green fields and talking beavers that told of great lions. Instead, we’re met with a group of humans that behave… well… like humans. For a brief period of time, I wondered whether or not I was in the right multiplex auditorium. This was the first of many jarring distractions in what could have been a glorious cinematic experience. Read more »

Oh, how I wanted to like Speed Racer. I remembered those years in the mid-seventies when the theme song announced the beginning of a show filled with racing, chases, fights, comedy, and a little bit of love. To give the Wachowski brothers a little bit of credit, their script and directing captured beautifully the style and action of the classic anime. It’s too bad they didn’t add a decent story.

With the Summer Blockbuster season of 2008 in full swing, Speed Racer spins the wheels of the typical action film in every bad way possible. I actually lost count at the number of times I actually rolled my eyes — I think they were moving faster than the iconic Mach Five at some points.

Speed Racer stars Emile Hirsch in the title role (that was rumored to have been offered to Charlie Sheen at one point). I really don’t know how Hirsch managed to pull it off, but his Speed was actually more two-dimensional than the original cartoon. A true accomplishment. John Goodman, no stranger to cartoons-turned-into-bad-movies, fills the very large shirt of Pops Racer, and probably has the best and most sentimental lines of the film. Trust me, that’s not saying much. Read more »

Iron Man is a film that had everything going against it. It languished for years in development hell, went through no less than three potential directors, at least two other title stars (including Tom Cruise – yikes!), and eventually became the first film financed by a new film studio division of Marvel Comics. Once director Jon Favreau signed on as director, the sparks of doom didn’t stop flying even then. Robert Downey, Jr. was announced to fill the title role, and immediately tongues wagged. “Downey? he’s one messed up guy!”

Then I realized that so was Downey’s character, Tony Stark. This began a glimmer of hope. Gwyneth Paltrow was cast as Stark’s executive assistant Pepper Potts. Thus another twinkle. With Jeff Bridges added to the principle cast, there was finally something that wasn’t in the mix before: hope that it just might not suck! Read more »