From manboys to mutants to aliens in the Wild West, the freaks came out in this year’s lousiest films.
Nicolas Cage in “Season of the Witch”
Water for Elephants
The year’s prettiest piece of crap, “Water for Elephants” is sucked dry of whatever drama and romance graced the pages of Sara Gruen’s swoony source material, leaving the dusty-shiny lensing and art direction the only elements to admire. As a pair of big-top canoodlers, Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon have oil-and-water chemistry, while Christoph Waltz, who’s typecast as Witherspoon’s villainous ringmaster hubby, is rendered toothless by the film’s insistence on rapidly tidying up conflicts and using his animal cruelty as nothing but a sentimental ploy.
Hall Pass
Disheartening evidence of the Peter-Pan inertia so prevalent in American comedy, “Hall Pass” is another crude attempt to validate the first-world problems of middle-class manboys nearing middle age. Though married to beautiful women played by great, wasted comediennes Jenna Fischer and Christina Applegate, two pals (Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis) are so bored with domesticity they need a week away from it (only to realize, in a stew of transparent pap, that they really love their wives). The whiff of male entitlement reeks to high heaven, as the Farrelly Brothers get swept up in the storm of witless gag-fests they helped to create.
Vanishing on 7th Street
Eco-allegory meets religious hogwash in “Vanishing on 7th Street,” a supernatural thriller that attempts to indict mankind’s wrongdoings but instead becomes one of them. Barely phased by his character’s apocalyptic circumstances but for when it’s time to crank up the histrionics, Hayden Christensen gives a performance as half-baked as the “Ghost”-inspired shadow demons that devour anyone who hasn’t charged their flashlight batteries.
Killer Elite
If you simply must see Jason Statham and Clive Owen numbingly square off as two growly secret agents, then be forewarned that the loud, yet lifeless “Killer Elite” also contains one of the year’s most uninvolving and incomprehensible plots, an aim for global relevance that’s entirely for naught, and yet another bottom-of-the-barrel role for Robert De Niro. Too bad the title “Just Shoot Me!” was taken.
It’s stunning how unsuccessful “Water for Elephants” is, how wide the margins by which it misses nearly every target. Adapted by Richard LaGravenese from Sara Gruen’s swoony best-seller, it’s an old-time romantic drama devoid of any romance or dramatic conflict.
If you stepped off your stoop and found that your whole urban neighborhood had gone all “Vanilla Sky” on you, with empty cars, discarded clothes and not a soul in sight, wouldn’t you just about crawl out of your skin? Well, that’s not what Detroit newsman Luke Ryder does, in part because he’s played with the grimly limited emotional range of Hayden Christensen.
If you go to the movies to go to sleep, “Killer Elite” is your hot ticket — and let’s not forget we’re talking about a shoot-’em-up espionage thriller here. So uninvolving (and frequently incomprehensible) is this supposedly fact-based film’s supposed action that you may have to close your eyes to fend off boredom-induced mania. I’m not ashamed to admit that, most often, I hadn’t the slightest clue what was happening from moment-to-moment. Why’d this guy kill that guy? Who was that guy anyway? What are the stakes? From where I sat, I saw little discernible context in the brain-straining events, but, then, maybe I just dozed off.
If you thought no “X-Men” movie could sink below the cesspool of “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” which itself was dug at the base of the leech pit that was “X-Men: The Last Stand,” then your sole reason to see “X-Men: First Class” is to believe the unbelievable.
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1. Anonymous said... on Dec 29, 2011 at 01:34PM
“R. Kurt Osenlund is the closest thing the SPR has to a nationally recognized newspaper writer. I hope this paper appreciates his work and are able to hold on to his talents. I also hope that the writer continues to review more obscure DVD releases - you do have an audience for it!”