New in theaters this weekend Friday February 8, 2013
Last Weeks top Box Office:
1 – Warm Bodies
2 – Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
3 – Silver Linings Playbook
4 – Mama
5 – Zero Dark Thirty
Benaroya Pictures, Lee Daniels Entertainment, Millennium Films,
Matthew McConaughey, Zac Efron, David Oyelowo, Macy Gray, John Cusack, Nicole Kidman
Jack Jansen (Zac Efron) helps his brother Ward (Matthew McConaughey) who is a reported investigating a convict, Hillary Van Wetter (John Cusack) on death row in rural Florida. Hillary’s confident, Charlotte Bless (Nicole Kidman) convinces Jack that Hillary is innocent, and he tries to convince his brother of that as well. Meanwhile, Jack is really attracted to Charlotte who either likes him, or is just playing him to free her boyfriend Hillary.
This is a dark film, and one that tries to develop their characters really well. Macy Gray has a part here that is one of the better things in the film as a maid who is watching over the boys. She’s sort of a narrator to the film. But there isn’t much going on here. The rural south setting is nicely done, and it does have a creepy swamp type of feel, but the story was really strange to me. I didn’t really care about any of this, and I didn’t care whether Hillary was guilty or not. Nicole Kidman’s character is really strange, and I never did figure out what she was going for. John Cusack is usually pretty decent, but he was sorely miscast in this film, as he had no clue how to play the menacing killer he was supposed to be. All in all, the movie just left me flat.
I really just wanted this to end. Most of the time it was really boring, but then ever so on it would make you so angry at the characters that you really hate them. I didn’t enjoy it very much, and I can see why it was mostly overlooked. I can’t recommend this mess. I didn’t really enjoy it at all.
EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog
Movie Rentals Releasing Tuesday February 5, 2012
Room 101,
Katie Featherston, Kathryn Newton, Stephen Dunham, Matt Shively, Alexondra Lee, Sara Mornell, Brady Allen, Aiden Lovekamp, Alisha Boe
The story continues. It’s been 5 years since Katie killed her family and stole baby Hunter and disappeared. Hunter has been missing since then. Now it’s 2011 and we’re following a new family in Henderson, Nevada. Alex (Kathryn Newton) and her family are just fine until a strange lady and her even stranger little boy, Robbie, move in across the street. Robbie is really creepy and he takes an unnatural interest in Wyatt, Alex’s adopted little brother. Strange things start happening around the house, and if you remember #3, you’ll know who the group of older ladies are who gather at the house across the street.
Actually the first Paranormal activity was not too bad mostly because it was so very unique and we had no idea what the heck was going on. #2 wasn’t so hot, and was a bit of a let down, and #3 might be the best of the four. This one is pretty decent. It has some real tension, and with the technologies of 2011, there a lot more options on how to wire up your house to catch the strange goings on. The weakness I guess is that it’s so predictable this time. After 4 of these, anyone in the audience could write the script. But even though it’s obvious to us, they can still startle us and make us jump. The tension mounts and builds to a fever pitch. It’s not as good as the third one, but it’s still worth watching. Turn the volume up, turn the lights off, and watch this one in the dark.
Another great kudo goes to the makers of this disk (The Universal folk). Unlike most of the recent films, this rental DVD has BOTH the theatrical version, and the extended unrated version. I am so sick of getting rental disks that have all the features stripped out and replaced with a non working menu that merely chides us to buy a copy if we want any DVD special stuff. I’ve ranted about this before, but it one of my pet peeves. We pay rental fees, decent ones, and we don’t want hundreds and thousands of DVD’s in the closet for films we only want to see once. No one has time to watch all the DVD’s in the box in the closet. It’s a major rip off and unfair. That’s my opinion. So thanks to the makers of this one for giving us a choice of which version we wanted to watch.
EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog
Summit Entertainment, Intrepid Pictures, Galavis Film
Henry Cavill, Bruce Willis, Sigourney Weaver, Oscar Jaenada, Caroline Goodall, Rafi Gavron, Joseph Mawle, Shira Scott, Jim Piddock, Emma Hamilton, Roschdy Zem, Verónica Echegui
Will (Henry Cavill) is a high pressure Wall Street investor, but he’s on a vacation with the whole family in Spain. Will and his Dad, Martin (Bruce Willis) butt heads constantly and have a hard time seeing eye to eye. Will leaves the family yacht to run a few errands, but when he returns he finds the yacht missing along with his family. There’s a mystery that his Dad seems in the middle of, and something about a missing briefcase in this exciting thriller.
This film disappointed me quite a bit. I saw the actors and expected a decent action film, but this was kind of a ripoff of “Taken”. But Bruce Willis is no Liam Neeson, and Henry Cavill, as Will, wanders around doing lots of action, but seeming totally lost and wondering what’s going on most of the time. So there is no real bad ass character, and most of what happens is luck. Sigourney Weaver’s character is totally screwed up. I have no idea what she’s really trying to do. Mostly a mish-mash, it’s not a horrible story, but it’s not that great. That’s probably why you’ve never heard of this one. I sometimes find a hidden gem out there in these obscure films, but this one is obscure for good reason. Bruce Willis is probably the best performance of the film, but it doesn’t last very long. As soon as his part is over, there’s not much going on from that point on. Unless you’re a die hard Bruce Willis fan, or a just an action-thriller junkie, skip this one.
EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog
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