Screen Rant » 1 star movies

‘Green Lantern’ Review

Kofi Outlaw — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 21:52:20 +0000

Screen Rant’s Kofi Outlaw Reviews Green Lantern

Green Lantern is a failure of epic proportions.

I write this (painfully) as someone who actually knows this particular superhero and has been a big fan of the modern Green Lantern mythos established by DC Comics writer and chief creative officer Geoff Johns (who is an executive producer and consultant on this film). Despite having rich source material to draw from, there is just so much that director Martin Campbell and the script writers (Greg Berlanti, Michael Green, Marc Guggenheim and Michael Goldenberg) get wrong that it is a compliment to even call Green Lantern a movie, rather than a vapid black hole which sits in place of a movie about a green superhero.

The first ...

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‘Priest’ Review

Ben Kendrick — Fri, 13 May 2011 19:09:10 +0000

Screen Rant’s Ben Kendrick reviews Priest 3D

Priest, the 2011 film that reteams director Scott Stewart with Paul Bettany (the pair directed and starred in Legion, respectively), is an adaptation of the Korean comic series of the same name by Hyung Min-woo. However, the Priest of Korean print tells a very different story than that of its Hollywood movie counterpart. Instead of battling fallen angels, the American Priest fights beastly vampires – who sleep in coffins and keep humans as pets.

That said, plenty of comic book-turned-movie adaptations have benefited from creative liberties here and there. While Stewart’s Priest has certainly taken more liberties than most – it’s still possible that the final film is better for the alterations, right?

Unfortunately, Priest joins other lackluster films (such as My Soul to Take) that were ...

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‘Little Fockers’ Review

Mike Eisenberg — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 14:58:13 +0000

Screen Rant’s Mike Eisenberg Reviews Little Fockers

Little Fockers is one of the most disappointing and pitiful movies of 2010. The first film was a welcome addition to the plethora of awkward family dinner comedies, but Little Fockers is not only a cheap excuse for a threequel, but a cheap excuse for a film in general.

Director Paul Weitz steps into a franchise that has more than overstayed its welcome, regardless of its big box office numbers. The problem isn’t so much a relentless and misguided need to play off more “Focker” jokes – it isn’t the fact the movie barely even shows the titular children. The movie’s biggest flaw isn’t even the tiresome predictability of Gaylord Focker’s (Ben Stiller) awkward mishaps. This film ruins your evening with the bastardization of one of Robert De ...

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Dinner for Schmucks Review

Paul Young — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 18:07:48 +0000

Screen Rant’s Paul Young reviews Dinner for Schmucks

After watching Dinner for Schmucks I slowly trudged out of the theater feeling as if every last ounce of happy-go-lucky spirit had been drained from my body. Dinner for Schmucks is one of those films where the concept may have looked great on paper but ultimately the execution was lseverly lacking. While watching this, I realized that just about every side character in the film is funnier than Steve Carrell and Paul Rudd, who are both actors I normally enjoy watching.

The basic plot is about Tim (Paul Rudd) who tries to ingratiate himself with the uppity-ups at his company – but to really seal the deal and get the promotion he wants so badly, he must attend a dinner at his bosses house and ...

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Pandorum Review

Kofi Outlaw — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:45:35 +0000

Short Version: Pandorum is a mess of a movie that squanders a lot of potential.

Screen Rant Reviews Pandorum

Movies often fail for varying reasons; sometimes the fatal flaw is in the script, sometimes the performances of the actors and sometimes because of the filmmaker’s total ineptness. Pandorum suffers from the latter case: director Christian Alvart has stitched together a patchwork of scenes that never really cohere into an actual movie. It’s a real tragedy, considering the potential this film had.

Pandorum opens as Corporal Bower (Ben Foster) wakes from cryogenic sleep aboard the starship Elysium (clever pun), whose mission is to ferry the last remnants of humanity to a new home planet. Bower wakes with all of his technical memory intact – how to operate the ship’s equipment, his military protocol – ...

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Jennifer’s Body Review

Vic Holtreman — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 05:24:58 +0000

Short Version: Overall Jennifer’s Body is just a boring movie – punctuated by occasional humor and fewer scares.

Screen Rant reviews Jennifer’s Body

Let’s just get this right out of the way: Megan Fox does not appear naked in Jennifer’s Body.

So if that’s the main reason you want to go see this film, you’re out of luck. If the other reason you want to see the film is for the girl/girl makeout scene – there is a very brief scene of a kiss between Megan and Amanda Seyfried, and it’s shot in such an extreme close-up that for all I know they might have had “stunt doubles” do it.

Now that we have that out of the way, on to the review.

Megan Fox plays Jennifer, the ...

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The Final Destination Review

Paul Young — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 23:07:31 +0000

Short Version: The Final Destination is poorly written, poorly executed, and poorly acted -but still managed to “kill” at the box office on its opening weekend.

Screen Rant’s Paul Young reviews Final Destination

While Vic (Screen Rant head honcho) gets to review all the good movies like Inglourious Basterds, District 9 and even G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra, I’m stuck watching I volunteer to watch the movies no one else wants to see. So, when I walked into The Final Destination tonight firmly grasping the my flimsy short straw, I fully expected the worst, planned for no better than OK and hoped for the best.

Guess which one I got?

It’s mostly my fault I suppose. I had to choose wisely between either The Final Destination or Halloween 2, which is sort ...

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The Day The Earth Stood Still Review

Vic Holtreman — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 04:30:17 +0000

Short version: If all you ask from a movie is cool CGI effects, The Day the Earth Stood Still is for you. Look for any more than that and you’ll be sorely disappointed.

Screen Rant reviews The Day the Earth Stood Still

You know, I can understand the desire to remake The Day the Earth Stood Still… I really can. The original film had a great concept, it’s stood the test of time, and the temptation to revisit it with today’s visual effects must have been overwhelming.

But one of the first rules of remakes is: You don’t remake classic films.

You don’t remake Gone With the Wind, you don’t remake Casablanca and you don’t even TRY to remake Citizen Kane. It’s a losing proposition – remakes that work are few and far ...

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Review: The Happening

Vic Holtreman — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 04:30:58 +0000

Short version: If you’re in the mood for an absurd film that alternates between boring and comedy, this is the movie for you.

I thought The Sixth Sense was awesome. I loved Unbreakable. I thought Signs was OK, except for the premise of aliens allergic to water invading a planet 2/3 covered by it. I didn’t hate The Village, but I thought Lady in the Water was terrible.

Are you seeing a trend there? Well guess what, it hasn’t been broken.

I don’t know how reviews for M. Night Shyamalans’s The Happening are going to roll, but this one isn’t going to be pretty.

Going in, I was hopeful that this might actually turn out to be decent, despite what I had heard regarding the ultimate plot of the film. I even hoped that maybe that was a new twist ...

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Review: You Don’t Mess With The Zohan

Vic Holtreman — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 05:42:22 +0000

Short version: There are a few laugh out loud moments, but you have to sit through a whole lot of stupid stuff to get to those few gems.

I apologize for the unsavory image to the left, but there’s a reason for it. You see you’re looking at the star of You Don’t Mess with the Zohan. No, not Adam Sandler – the star of Zohan is Adam Sandler’s crotch.

I have an axiom that has, with few exception, stood the test of time for me: If a book or movie is terrible in the first 10 minutes of reading or viewing, it’s pretty certain that the entire thing will be awful. Once again it has served me well.

In this case however, it didn’t take 10 minutes or even 5… I knew ...

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Review: Downloading Nancy

Vic Holtreman — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 19:22:21 +0000

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: A bleak and starkly shot film that left me feeling like I needed a shower after watching it.

Downloading Nancy premiered here at Sundance 2008 and is the story of Nancy (played by Maria Bello), a severely emotionally damaged woman married to and emotionally cold man (Rufus Sewell as Albert) who turns to the internet for companionship.

The film opens with Nancy discussing her thoughts on what happens after you die with another woman. At this point it sounds like she is optimistic about the afterlife while her friend is very negative and keeps bringing up counterpoints to make it sound like she could be somehow trapped in some way after death. As it turns out, the friend turns out to be a therapist who is trying to convince Nancy that death is not an escape or freedom.

Her husband Albert is a ...

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Review: The Number 23

Brian Rentschler — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 00:13:53 +0000

By Brian Rentschler

Short version: This movie drives an already silly premise straight into the ground, primarily with a weak script and uneven direction.

I have been a big fan of Jim Carrey ever since the premiere of my all-time favorite TV show, In Living Color. I mean, what could be better than his Fire Marshal Bill skits? The original Ace Ventura and Dumb and Dumber are movies that I am proud to count among my all-time favorite comedies. Jim Carrey is one of the finest comedic actors I have seen on the big or small screen, but I really don’t know what on earth could have interested him in The Number 23. Maybe I don’t want to know… He’s not going for comedy in this movie; he’s going for a dramatic ...

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Review: Weapons

Vic Holtreman — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 12:35:52 +0000

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: An interesting idea poorly executed.

(Image from Cinempire.com)

In order to make it to the showing of Weapons at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival I had to leave the post-movie Q&A for Black Snake Moan early. The only reason I’m not totally annoyed with myself for doing that is that the short film preceding the main feature, A Nick in Time by Be’ Garrett was outstanding.

When I read the description for director/screenwriter Adam Bhala Lough’s Weapons, I had a feeling it might not be up my alley but I figured I’d give it a shot anyway. In the end I should have passed on it, and many people I spoke to after the showing had the same, if not stronger opinions to the negative as ...

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Review: Body Double

Brian Rentschler — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 05:24:00 +0000

By Brian Rentschler

Short version: Unlikable characters, pretentious writing and misguided direction make this movie a total mess from start to finish.

I have a confession to make. It’s not easy, but I need to get this off my chest. Okay, here goes: Sometimes I miss the mid-80′s. There, I’ve said it. Seriously, most (not all) of the music in the mid-80′s was at least decent, if not exceptional. Gangsta rap was at least a few years away, and country music was only played on the country stations. And the movies… some real classics came out in the mid-80′s. Splash, The Goonies, Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop, Back to the Future… the list goes on. So when I rented Body Double, I thought I was in for a good movie. After ...

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Review: The Cell

Brian Rentschler — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 16:45:00 +0000

By Brian Rentschler

Short version: This movie had some impressive imagery at times, but overall it was downright awful.

Eek! Please, mommy, make the bad movie stop!

Okay, now that my inner child has said what it wanted to say, let me start out by talking about the director of this cinematic train wreck, Tarsem Singh. According to IMDB, he hasn’t had much of a feature film career since directing The Cell, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has seen it. I’m sure Singh did a great job with the commercials and music videos that defined his early career, but as a feature film director, he created a real mess. I must admit, the imagery in The Cell is very impressive, but that’s only one of many components required for a ...

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Review: Clerks II

Vic Holtreman — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 05:26:33 +0000

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: Clerks II can only possibly be enjoyed by hardcore fans of the original. It was like digging through a huge pile of cow dung to get to a very small pearl at the bottom.

Since I don’t generally write objective reviews, here’s what you need to know before you read this:

1. When the original Clerks first came out, I kind of enjoyed it in a looking-at-bugs-in-a-jar kind of way.
2. I was raised in New Jersey.
3. I am more than 10 years older than the main characters in the movie.

Got all that? Good. For the most part, Clerks II was excruciatingly vile. I almost got up and walked out more than once, but made myself stay seated because first, I can’t write a review of a film I haven’t seen all the way through, and also due to morbid curiosity of where it would ...

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Review: Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle

Vic Holtreman — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 16:48:57 +0000

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: Oh my God, this movie actually made a profit?

Ok, so I’m late to the party reviewing Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. I certainly wasn’t going to pay good money to see it, and I didn’t even want it to soil my Netflix queue, but when I stumbled across it in upcoming movies on my satellite box, I figured I’d Tivo it for when I was particularly bored.

So where do I begin? Perhaps with a call to my lawyer so that I can sue for emotional damage incurred by having sat through the entire movie.

This wasn’t just bad, it was B-A-D. Actually it was bad enough to cross over into the hallowed ground of Mystery Science Theater 3000. If you want to see this movie, buy a case of beer, invite a bunch of buddies over, send ...

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Review: Ladder 49

Brian Rentschler — Wed, 04 May 2005 05:34:01 +0000

By Brian Rentschler

Short version: This movie took an intriguing idea and ran it straight into the ground with a weak script and lousy direction. The clichés are so pervasive that it’s sometimes hard to believe this movie was meant to be taken seriously. The heroic efforts of our firefighters deserve a much better showcase than this crapfest.

After seeing this movie, I decided to go back and look at the filmography of Joaquin Phoenix. I wanted to pinpoint the last time I thought he played a role effectively in a movie. As it turned out, the movie was To Die For, released in 1995. Granted, I haven’t seen every movie in which he has starred since 1995, but it seems to me that his best performances are smaller roles that have top-notch ...

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Review: The Punisher

Vic Holtreman — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 16:15:14 +0000

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: Except for bad acting, a bad soundtrack, and a bad script, it’s not that bad a movie.

The word on The Punisher was not good before the movie came out, and after it’s release it only got worse. Forewarned is forearmed, so I passed on seeing it on the big screen. However… being a fan of comic books and the movies they inspire, combined with the fact that I had read a number of “Hey, it wasn’t that bad.” posts on various message boards, I decided to add it to my Netflix queue and give it a look.

The folks on the message boards were right, sort of. Except for the bad acting, a bad soundtrack, and a bad script, it’s not that bad a movie.

The movie opens ...

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Review: Hide and Seek

Brian Rentschler — Mon, 31 Jan 2005 07:02:30 +0000

By Brian Rentschler

Short version: A disappointing mess. The script and direction are sub-par, and you could open a fish market with all the red herrings in the story.

I don’t think anyone can deny that Robert DeNiro is a very talented actor, but given the incredible missteps in his career over the past few years (Godsend, City by the Sea, The Score), it seems like his career is headed towards the same downward spiral as Harrison Ford’s career. (Random Hearts, anyone?) The latest example is Hide and Seek. Robert DeNiro and Dakota Fanning do admirable acting jobs with the material they are given, but even they can’t save the movie from a lousy script and terribly overblown direction. It is almost completely devoid of scares and suspense, unless you count the plethora of pedestrian “jump scares.”

The credentials of the people behind the scenes don’t exactly ...

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