Screen Rant » Movie Reviews

‘The Woman in Black’ Review

Kofi Outlaw — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:29:46 +0000

Screen Rant’s Kofi Outlaw Reviews The Woman in Black

In The Woman in Black we find Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe taking on a more adult supernatural tale, about a vengeful ghost that haunts a small town in the English countryside.

When widower lawyer Arthur Kipps (Radcliffe) is dispatched to the east coast town of Crythin Gifford to settle the affairs of the late Mrs. Alice Drablow, he goes knowing the task is his last chance to prove to his boss that grief hasn’t crippled his ability to work. It’s that same perseverance that keeps Arthur going when he begins to notice the trend of strange occurrences happening in and around Crythin Gifford: children locked in their houses like prisoners, townspeople treating him as if he ...

Click to continue reading ‘The Woman in Black’ Review

‘Chronicle’ Review

Ben Kendrick — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:00:29 +0000

Screen Rant’s Ben Kendrick reviews Chronicle

Found-footage films have become an increasingly bankable and a low risk prospect for movie studios. Audiences continue to fill theater seats in search of the next compelling found-footage franchise – even if a film doesn’t sport high production values or recognizable actors. That said, the genre has typically enjoyed its biggest successes with horror fans – and is mostly untested in other film categories.

With Chronicle, first time feature-film director Josh Trank tries to deliver compelling character drama and entertaining onscreen action – as well as prove that there’s more opportunity in the genre than just spooky jump scares.

As moviegoers become more selective about the never-ending flood of superhero and found-footage “me too” projects available to them, it would be easy to ...

Click to continue reading ‘Chronicle’ Review

‘Man on a Ledge’ Review

Kofi Outlaw — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:53:22 +0000

Screen Rant’s Kofi Outlaw Reviews Man on a Ledge

Man on a Ledge has a title that pretty much explains its central premise: escaped convict Nick Cassidy (Sam Worthington) re-surfaces in an expensive Manhattan hotel, and suddenly steps out onto the ledge outside his window. At first it seems that Nick is intent on ending his life, but a series of curious decisions (as well as an unusually composed demeanor for a potential jumper) lead disgraced police negotiator Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks) to discern that this mysterious jumper is actually a part of something much bigger.

That “something” involves Nick’s former life as a prominent NYPD cop who was convicted of stealing from ruthless businessman Deavid Englander (Ed Harris), and paid the price with a long prison ...

Click to continue reading ‘Man on a Ledge’ Review

‘The Grey’ Review

Ben Kendrick — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:00:42 +0000

Screen Rant’s Ben Kendrick reviews The Grey

When stylized action director Joe Carnahan (The A-Team and Smokin’ Aces) began preparing a no-holds-barred, man-versus-nature film in the wilds of Alaska, more than a few cinephiles scratched their heads.

Then, when word began to spread that Carnahan’s dramatic thriller The Grey was being positioned as Oscar-bait for star Liam Neeson, while at the same time promising an intense and “horrific” survival story, potential moviegoers began to take serious note.

It’s easy to see how The Grey collaborators ultimately affected the final onscreen result – as the film excels in a number of ways (tense and gripping life or death scenes as well as a noteworthy performance from Neeson) but also falls short in several others (such as character ...

Click to continue reading ‘The Grey’ Review

‘Red Tails’ Review

Ben Kendrick — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:53:56 +0000

Screen Rant’s Ben Kendrick reviews Red Tails

Considering the number of times that George Lucas has produced an Indiana Jones or Star Wars film over the past 35 years, it might come as a surprise when some moviegoers discover that his production company, Lucasfilm, actually makes movies that don’t include Henry Jones, Jr. or a member of the Skywalker family. Even more surprising might be the fact that Lucasfilm’s latest project, Red Tails - a big budget chronicle of the Tuskegee Airmen – has actually been in the works for nearly 25 years.

So, after a quarter of a century, has Lucas (and freshman feature-film director Anthony Hemingway) put together a solid movie that entertains while also honoring the struggles and sacrifices of the African American World War II fighter ...

Click to continue reading ‘Red Tails’ Review

‘Underworld Awakening’ Review

Kofi Outlaw — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:09:08 +0000

Screen Rant’s Kofi Outlaw Reviews Underworld Awakening

True to its title, Underworld Awakening (aka Underworld 4) finds Selene (Kate Beckinsale) waking up 12 years after humanity’s discovery and “purging” of the vampire and Lycan (werewolf) hordes living in their midst. Selene finds herself in a world where vamps and wolves are near extinction, and humans keep tight control of things, methodically searching for and destroying the last of “the infected.”

However, before Selene can even get her bearings she is swept up in a rescue mission involving a young girl named Eve (India Eisley), who is more powerful than anyone imagined. It’s up to Selene to protect Eve from those who would harm her – be they human, Lycan, or the vampire coven itself.

Underworld 4 looks and feels like ...

Click to continue reading ‘Underworld Awakening’ Review

‘Haywire’ Review

Ben Kendrick — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:48:41 +0000

Screen Rant’s Ben Kendrick reviews Haywire

Fans of mixed martial arts (MMA) are likely already familiar with Gina Carano – a highly ranked Middleweight fighter (and ex-American Gladiator “Crush”) who was recently scooped up by director Steven Soderbergh for an action-heroine role.

Now, Soderbergh and Carano are set to deliver their combined effort: The action-espionage film Haywire, which mixes the director’s sharp visual style and intriguing character drama with Carano’s heavy-hitting and downright brutal fight choreography.

Like much of Soderbergh’s work, Haywire stumbles here and there – but ultimately delivers a unique moviegoing experience that is both intelligent and especially exciting to watch. Concerns over Carano’s casting (which some detractors believed would be representative of style over substance) are quickly put to rest as the newcomer actress easily presents a performance that balances some of the most ...

Click to continue reading ‘Haywire’ Review

‘Contraband’ Review

Kofi Outlaw — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:39:27 +0000

Screen Rant’s Kofi Outlaw Reviews Contraband

Everything about Contraband can best be summed up in the word “average.” There’s nothing too great about this B-movie action/heist flick, but nothing too terrible about it, either. While it is overly ambitious in some respects, it ultimately lands in that middle ground of mindless (and instantly forgettable) genre entertainment, despite its shortcomings.

Mark Wahlberg channels his usual soft-spoken tough guy screen persona as Chris Farraday, a former master smuggler who has settled down into a law-abiding life as a working dad and loving husband to his gorgeous wife, Kate (Kate Beckinsale). When Kate’s little brother Andy (Caleb Landry Jones) is forced to dump a shipment of cocaine during a high-stakes smuggling run, he lands himself, Chris, and Kate on the hook of local thug Tim Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi).

Chris’ attempt ...

Click to continue reading ‘Contraband’ Review

‘The Devil Inside’ Review

Ben Kendrick — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 18:30:09 +0000

Screen Rant’s Ben Kendrick reviews The Devil Inside

The Devil Inside is presented as assembled found footage that follows twenty-something Isabella Rossi (Fernanda Andrade) as she reunites with her mother, Maria Rossi (Suzan Crowley), and searches for an exorcist that can free Maria of a long-running demon possession. Maria has been locked away in a Catholic psychiatric ward, following an attempted exorcism that resulted in the murder of three people 20 years prior.

However, as Isabella spends more time with Maria in the ward, strange occurrences begin to escalate as a dormant evil finds a convenient batch of new visitors to terrorize.

Some moviegoers will no doubt be ready to compare The Devil Inside to the 2010 film The Last Exorcism – since the film also features unique locales, documentary-style filmmaking, body-contorting ...

Click to continue reading ‘The Devil Inside’ Review

‘We Bought a Zoo’ Review

Ben Kendrick — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 20:20:57 +0000

Screen Rant’s Ben Kendrick reviews We Bought a Zoo

Writer/director Cameron Crowe has helmed a number of iconic and critically acclaimed films – including Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous, and Vanilla Sky. However, the celebrated filmmaker hit a wall when his 2005 drama, Elizabethtown was poorly received and underperformed at the box office.

As a result, film fans have been eagerly anticipating Crowe‘s follow-up feature project, We Bought a Zoo – an adaptation of writer Benjamin Mee‘s memoir, We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo, and the 200 Wild Animals That Changed Their Lives Forever. The rich source material, coupled with Crowe‘s character-focused storytelling approach, were certainly indicators that We Bought a Zoo could offer another thoughtful and ...

Click to continue reading ‘We Bought a Zoo’ Review

‘War Horse’ Review

Ben Kendrick — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 00:15:31 +0000

Screen Rant’s Ben Kendrick reviews War Horse

Only days after releasing the kid-friendly film, The Adventures of TinTin, Steven Spielberg returns with a heavier (and very much NOT kid-friendly) dramatic offering, War Horse - a World War I drama based on a children’s book by Michael Morpurgo (which also inspired a stage play from Nick Stafford).

While many film fans tend to most fondly remember Spielberg’s lighthearted sci-fi and action-adventure titles (such as E.T. and the Indiana Jones series), many of the Oscar-winner’s most celebrated works have been hard-hitting period dramas. Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List were recognized by the Academy as well as other awards organizations and, despite violent historical narratives, also drew tremendous numbers at the box office. Has Spielberg managed to once again blend evocative and entertaining period drama in War Horse? Or is the ...

Click to continue reading ‘War Horse’ Review

‘The Adventures of Tintin’ Review

Kofi Outlaw — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:30:59 +0000

Screen Rant’s Kofi Outlaw reviews The Adventures of Tintin

Tintin is a beloved comic book character in Europe, but the titular reporter’s serialized adventures have never had the same impact here in the United States – even though the comics have been available for decades and a Tintin animated series ran on HBO for several seasons back in the early ’90s.

With The Adventures of Tintin, filmmaking titans Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson combine forces to bring Georges Prosper Remi’s (a.k.a. Hergé) iconic creation into the modern day mainstream as a blockbuster 3D adventure. The film was directed by Spielberg, with Jackson serving as producer and his WETA Workshop visual artists taking on the daunting task of transforming live-action actors into photo-realistic CGI ...

Click to continue reading ‘The Adventures of Tintin’ Review

‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ Review

Ben Kendrick — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 14:00:25 +0000

Screen Rant’s Ben Kendrick reviews The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The first installment in Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium Series,” The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo made its English debut in 2008 (the original Swedish novel was published in 2005). As the book was gaining momentum in America, production on a Swedish film adaptation from director Niels Arden Oplev and starring Noomi Rapace (Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows) as leading lady Lisbeth Salander, was nearing completion – and would open to critical acclaim from international and American critics alike.

As a result, it came as somewhat of a surprise that despite the success of the series, fan-favorite director, David Fincher (The Social Network) was ...

Click to continue reading ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ Review

‘Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol’ Review

Ben Kendrick — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:45:07 +0000

Screen Rant’s Ben Kendrick reviews Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

Nearly fifteen years after the original Mission: Impossible film debuted (and 45 years after the network TV show), audiences are once again presented with another franchise offering – this time in the form of the Brad Bird-directed installment, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.

With a long-standing pedigree of experienced live-action directors helming the Mission: Impossible series (Brian De Palma, John Woo, and J.J. Abrams), Bird might have initially seemed at a disadvantage, given a resume chock-full of animated films (The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and The Iron Giant). As a result, has the director succeeded in his “mission” to bring a fresh and stylish M:I installment to the big screen, more than six years after the lukewarm ...

Click to continue reading ‘Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol’ Review

‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows’ Review

Kofi Outlaw — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:50:22 +0000

Screen Rant’s Kofi Outlaw Reviews Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Guy Ritchie defied the odds with his 2009 reboot of Sherlock Holmes: Ritchie managed to take Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famed detective and turn him into a kick-ass, crime-solving action hero that modern audiences by and large loved – thanks in no small part to the roughish charms and quick wit of star Robert Downey Jr. With Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Ritchie attempts to expand the world his revamped detective inhabits, while also doing justice to the famous rivalry between Holmes and his longtime nemesis, diabolical genius Professor Moriarty.

So, is the sequel a bigger ...

Click to continue reading ‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows’ Review

‘Young Adult’ Review

Kofi Outlaw — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 19:30:51 +0000

Screen Rant’s Kofi Outlaw Reviews Young Adult

Comedies about twisted, amoral human beings are apparently still en vogue, as demonstrated by the releases of both Bad Teacher and Horrible Bosses earlier this year. The trend continues this holiday season with Young Adult, director Jason Reitman’s (Up In The Air) tale of a former high school “it girl” turned alcoholic writer, who returns to her small town in order to win back an old flame.

However, the key to this type of film is making the unlikable protagonist(s) just sympathetic enough for the audience to engage with, while their cruder personality quirks provide the shock-and-awe humor. So, do Reitman and his leading lady Charlize Theron manage to walk the fine line between outrageously funny ...

Click to continue reading ‘Young Adult’ Review

‘The Sitter’ Review

Ben Kendrick — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 15:23:29 +0000

Screen Rant’s Ben Kendrick reviews The Sitter

Despite a couple of memorable dramatic performances (see: Moneyball and Cyrus), Jonah Hill remains, largely (no pun), a go-to raunch-comedy player. Ever since his 2004 big screen introduction in David O. Russell’s I Heart Huckabees, Hill has built a high-profile career out of one awkward underdog character after another.

We’ve seen the actor portray an everyman in a variety of situations – high school student (Superbad), lazy slacker (Knocked Up), as well as record company intern (Get Him to the Greek). However, in The Sitter, Hill engages in one of his most over-the-top adventures yet – a night of babysitting that includes impressionable children, cherry bombs, cocaine dealers, gang-bangers, and an ill-fated “shart.” But do all of the irreverent hijinks add-up to a ...

Click to continue reading ‘The Sitter’ Review

‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ Review

Kofi Outlaw — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 14:47:24 +0000

Screen Rant’s Kofi Outlaw Reviews Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

When people hear the term ‘spy movie’ these days, chances are their minds turn toward the more action-oriented tropes of popular franchises like Mission: Impossible or the Bourne series. The spy movies of today are mostly fantasy – crafted more for entertainment purposes than insight – but the bygone Cold War era brought us more grounded and realistic spy stories, including the noteworthy works of John le Carré (real name David John Moore Cornwell), a former British spy turned spy novel author.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is the big-screen adaptation of Carré’s novel of the same name, and serves as the first chapter in the “Karla Trilogy” – the saga chronicling master ...

Click to continue reading ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ Review

‘My Week With Marilyn’ Review

Kofi Outlaw — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 20:00:03 +0000

Screen Rant’s Kofi Outlaw Reviews My Week With Marilyn

Marilyn Monroe is forever immortalized as a 20th century American sex symbol, but outside of the late actress/singer/model’s most devoted circle of worshipers, many people only know the image of Marilyn, rather than the complicated realities of the woman behind the persona.

My Week with Marilyn attempts to pull back the curtain and offer a more intimate look at the woman (rather than the icon) who was Marilyn Monroe – but is this exploration of a small moment in Monroe’s brief-but-epic lifetime enough to carry a movie? And is star Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine) able to convey both the public and private sides of Marilyn in a way that is captivating and interesting?

Click to continue reading ‘My Week With Marilyn’ Review

‘Shame’ Review

Ben Kendrick — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 15:30:36 +0000

Screen Rant’s Ben Kendrick reviews Shame

Michael Fassbender is quickly becoming one of the most sought-after actors in Hollywood – with lauded performances that include Lieutenant Archie Hicox in Inglourious Basterds, as well as a younger, more aggressive, Magneto in X-Men: First Class.

However, while killing Nazis and eradicating the human race might sound controversial in some circles – without question, Fassbender takes on his most challenging (as well as vulnerable) role in director Steve McQueen’s Shame. Is the character drama, about a sex-addicted New York business man, another high mark on the actor’s increasingly robust resume? Or does McQueen fail to support Fassbender’s ambitions with a thin cinematic offering?

Fortunately, not only does Shame feature a powerful and gut-wrenching performance from Fassbender, but nearly everyone else involved also steps ...

Click to continue reading ‘Shame’ Review