Watchmen, the new, well-overhyped film from Paramount Pictures, is as faithful an adaption from its all-too-revered graphic novel source as could be. This is both the film’s greatest success as well as its greatest flaw.

Once considered the “unfilmable” graphic novel, Watchmen held a status of reverence which has placed it among the “100 Greatest Novels” by Time Magazine. Unlike most superhero movies, its source material is far less widespread, with a mere twelve issues making up its entire pantheon. Interesting, too, is its rabid fanboy devotion which will surely pick apart every scene with a kind of hair-splitting fervor that’s often reserved for legalistic religious scholars.

Zack Snyder picked up the director’s reins for Watchmen, having wowed mostly-male audiences with the overly graphic 300. Unlike most superhero films, none of its characters are on the lips of the average American (quick, can you recite the complete back story of the first Night Owl?), which makes this film an especially great challenge for any writer or director. Read more »

Wanted, the new action film from Universal Pictures, is a crowd-pleasing action film that’s sure to keep the adrenaline pumped in audiences everywhere. Before I continue with this review, perhaps I should confess my own secret love for underdog-turned-badass movies since there’s that twelve-year-old in me that will never grow up.

Films like Wanted appeal to just that kid-on-the-cusp-of-adulthood mentality that most adult men share, driving all of us to wonder just what we’ve done with our lives. Since most of us who shell out our eight bucks to see this kind of movie aren’t interested in anything but violence, guts, sex, and profanity, director Timur Bekmambetov (with his first American film) delivers all of these elements within the first five minutes of the narrative.

That’s not to say it’s a bad movie, really. Bekmambetov’s style is clearly an attempt to capture the equally-adult comic book in film, a task which is largely successful. Having never read the comic (I know, they’re supposed to be called “graphic novels,” but frankly, I don’t care. They’re comics.), I was able to look at the film as its own entity. Since the vast majority of the film’s audience is equally ignorant of its source material, that’s probably a good thing. Read more »

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 »

I’ve never been so angry after seeing a movie. I really, really wanted to hate Transformers. I was ready to pan it with every negative word I could muster. After all, it’s a Michael Bay film. Pearl Harbor was bad beyond imagination. The Island was best left undiscovered. And Armageddon was well, a big mess.

With that, you can imagine how I was ready to unload with both barrels on Bay’s latest film. Imagine my complete and utter frustration when I came to realize that I actually liked the movie.

Transformers is a summer action film which is clearly aimed at a testosterone-driven audience. I don’t know, maybe it’s the fact that I screened the film in a theatre filled with local soldier boys, geeks, dweebs, and their pals who came to see lots of explosions and hear bad dialogue. Indeed, they got their money’s worth. Read more »