MOVIE REVIEW: BORDERLANDS

 

Returning to her home planet Pandora, an infamous bounty hunter forms an unexpected alliance with a ragtag team of misfits. Together, they battle alien monsters and dangerous bandits to uncover one of Pandora's most explosive secrets.

Director: Eli Roth

Cast: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Édgar Ramírez, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, Gina Gershon, Jamie Lee Curtis

Release Date: August 9, 2024

Genre: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, language and some suggestive material.

Runtime: 1h 42m

Review:

Borderlands isn't the worst film I've seen this year, but it is the most generic and tiring thing splashed onscreen thus far.  Everything about Eli Roth's film feels like a rehash of other far better films.  Its continuously loud and over the top to the point of exhaustion with the uneven special effects killing any campy fun that might be had.  The story is straightforward and simplistic, which should be more than enough for the top notch cast to deliver some semblance of fun onscreen.  Sadly, there are only a few fleeting moments of life and fun scattered throughout the film's brisk runtime.  Cate Blanchett swaggers onscreen with a self assured confidence that makes her the most interesting person onscreen at any given time due to the sheer fact that an actress of her caliber is trying to carry this shlocky, soulless film decked out in full anime cosplay.  She seems to have a good time as she recites clunky lines of dialogue with a devil may care detachment which shows she's more than game to go full camp throughout.  Unfortunately, everybody else onscreen is annoying or obnoxious, specifically Ariana Greenblatt and Jack Black being particularly grating.   Only Kevin Hart appears to be comfortable in this sphere, but his character is written as the straight man for some confounding reason.  Édgar Ramírez and Jamie Lee Curtis are both over the top but their characters, much like everyone else onscreen are so underwritten that they barely register.  Borderlands is the type of film that will end up in heavy rotation on TNT/TBS weekend loops serving as little more than background noise.   

D

MOVIE REVIEW: THANKSGIVING

 

An axe-wielding maniac terrorizes residents of Plymouth, Mass., after a Black Friday riot ends in tragedy. Picking off victims one by one, the seemingly random revenge killings soon become part of a larger, sinister plan.

Director: Eli Roth

Cast: Patrick Dempsey, Addison Rae, Milo Manheim, Jalen Thomas Brooks, Nell Verlaque, Rick Hoffman, Gina Gershon

Release Date: November 17, 2023

Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller

Rated R for strong bloody horror violence and gore, pervasive language and some sexual material.

Runtime: 1h 46m

Eli Roth's Thanksgiving is a gleeful, holiday themed slasher that's unabashedly campy as it delivers creative blood and gore but little else.  Roth uses the framework of most Scream movies to set up a murder mystery to propel the plot forward.  He's obviously not terribly concerned with the story or characters as much as he is with getting to his blood splattered set pieces.  Those set pieces are perfectly exemplified by the Black Friday riot which opens the film and should give the audience a clear warning about what's coming down the road.  Its manically frenetic and silly especially as the blood starts to spurt in increasingly outlandish and silly manners.  Roth, for his part, lays all his cards out on the table from the start but the film struggles to maintain that manic energy it starts with as we are introduced to a fairly bland crop of fresh faced fodder for the axe.  The central group collection of characters barely registers as one dimensional which makes it a bit hard to get invested in any of them as they spew out rather banal dialogue which is happy to use buzz words as flair.  There’s no big expectation of character development in slashers but this group feels particularly interchangeable and disposable.  Patrick Dempsey, Gina Gershon and Rick Hoffman add some credibility to the production with Dempsey getting the most screen time.  Dempsey understands the assignment and is clearly having a great time throughout playing the local sheriff with a wink and a nod.  On the other hand, it’s a bit confusing that Gershon and Hoffman were cast and then given practically nothing meaningful to do which is a missed opportunity.  As is, Thanksgiving is a fun but mostly disposable slasher film which will probably end up a cult classic simply because of the seasonal theme more so than overall quality.

C+

Cindy Prascik's Review of The House With a Clock in Its Walls

Dearest Blog: Though the weekend cinema offered little of any promise, Friday I headed up to Marquee Cinemas for The House With a Clock in Its Walls.

 

Spoiler level here will be mild, nothing you wouldn't know from the trailers.

 

A boy comes to live with his uncle in a creepy old house that holds a dangerous secret.

 

Mama always said, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." While that might not be *entirely* possible, we'll start with the positives here. The House With a Clock in Its Walls looks gorgeous. The score and cinematography set an eerie, magical tone that briefly gave me hope the film might be better than I anticipated. Cate Blanchett is mesmerizing, even punching well below her weight class, and, though the execution fails, the story itself is reasonably solid. The negatives, starting with the obvious: Kid actors are a crapshoot. Very few are good; more often you just hope they aren't bad enough or featured enough to be distracting. Owen Vaccaro is both bad enough and featured enough to be distracting, and Jack Black is more annoying than quirky or amusing as his oddball uncle. The last quarter of the movie features some inexplicably hokey effects, and, while the humor is rarely crass, a handful of bodily-function jokes aren't funny and certainly don't elevate the whole. The picture hadn’t reached its halfway point before the only clock I cared about was the one that would tell me it was over.

 

The House With a Clock in Its Walls runs 104 minutes and is rated PG for "thematic elements, including sorcery, some action, scary images, rude humor, and language."

 

The House With a Clock in Its Walls represents a sad misfire on what should have become a Halloween-season classic. 

 

Of a possible nine Weasleys, The House With a Clock in Its Walls gets four.

 

Until next time...

Movie Reviews: INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

Saturday, August 22, 2009
Movie Reviews: INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
IN THEATERS

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

“Inglourious Basterds” begins in German-occupied France where Shosanna Dreyfus(Mélanie Laurent) witnesses the execution of her family at the hand of Nazi Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). Shosanna narrowly escapes and flees to Paris, where she forges a new identity as the owner and operator of a cinema. Elsewhere in Europe, Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) organizes a group of Jewish soldiers to engage in targeted acts of retribution. Known to their enemy as “The Basterds,” Raine’s squad joins German actress and undercover agent Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) on a mission to take down the leaders of The Third Reich.

Cast: Brad Pitt, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, B.J. Novak, Melanie Laurent, Samm Levine

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Opened August 21, 2009

Rated R for strong graphic violence, brief sexuality and language

Genres: War Adventure, War



Review:




If you go into Quentin Tarantino’s last film expecting a serious WW2 film filled with historical accuracy then you are guaranteed to walk out disappointed. “Once upon a time in Nazi Occupied France” begins Tarantino’s latest revenge fantasy borrowing from Sergio Leone in his opening and other war films throughout, only loosely on the 70’s film of the same name, he once again shows his talent of borrowing elements from cinema history and blending them into something incredibly fascinating and utterly watchable. Paced like a slow moving train going up hill, those expecting a spatterfest in the vein of Kill Bill Vol. 1 with a WW2 will be let down by the lack of action. That’s not to say there isn’t bloody and gore, there is but not in the mass quantities of the aforementioned films. Instead Tarantino relies more on this dialogue and strong episodic pacing to create some wonderfully tension filled sequences. The opening episode and a scene in a bar, with a climax that makes the Reservoir Dogs finale look like a Disney film, are the strongest of the lot. While Tarantino’s talent as a writer is on full display and so is his knack for casting his large ensemble pieces with pitch perfect precision. Sold as a Brad Pitt film by the advertising, he’s hardly the central character. Pitt does seem to be having a ball with Aldo’s Popeye brow and chin and his southern drawl, he’s great fun throughout. Mélanie Laurent gives a well rounded performance as Shosanna as she displays a natural ability to display both toughness and vulnerability in her character. Diane Kruger also delivers a noteworthy performance in limited screen time as Bridget Von Hammersmark. The real standout here though is Christoph Waltz who sizzles with an inquisitively villainous intensity that permeates the screen from the moment he hits the screen. He crafts the performance so well that by the middle of the film any and every mundane movement comes off as sinister. The rest of the ensemble all do well in their roles and fill the caricatures adequately even if they lack any semblance of depth. Some may see this as a major drawback but considering this film is more a tall tale than anything else, it’s easily forgivable. There are a few more glaring issues which depending on which side of the Tarantino divide you’re on maybe nothing or something. His inability to quell his overindulgences do prop up from time to time with some scenes going on for a seemingly endless amount of time. The pacing isn’t going to be for everyone just like his decision to use multiple languages throughout, something I consider a stroke of genius, and relying on subtitles for extended amounts of time. Personally I’ve always enjoyed his excesses and appreciated them that doesn’t change with Inglourious Basterds.



A-