MOVIE REVIEW: OCULUS

Two siblings haunted by a childhood tragedy learn that the source of their horror is a mysterious mirror with a dark history. Tim (Brenton Thwaites) and Kaylie (Karen Gillan) were merely teenagers when both of their parents were brutally butchered. Convicted of the killings and sentenced to protective custody, Tim serves his time while Kaylie drifts into a deep despair. Years later, a newly free Tim does his best to lay the past to rest. Meanwhile, Kaylie is certain that her brother was innocent all along, and that the antique mirror their parents used to own holds the answer to her darkest questions. Upon locating the long-lost looking glass, Kaylie's deepest fears are confirmed -- a menacing force inhabits that mirror, and it has plagued every owner who has come into possession of it. Now, as curious Kaylie reacquires the mirror, the nightmarish cycle of horror returns with a vengeance. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Release Date: Apr 11, 2014

Rated: R for some Disturbing Images, Brief Language, Terror and Violence

Runtime: 1 hr. 45 min. 

Genres: Horror 

Director: Mike Flanagan 

Cast: Karen Gillan, Brenton Thwaites, Rory Cochrane, Katee Sackhoff, Garrett Ryan

Review:

Oculus is one of those pleasant surprises that randomly pop up from time to time in the horror genre which is overrun with more crap than an old portopotty.  Oculus is a mind bender, even if it can turn rather silly at certain points, which play with time and perception.   All the while maintaining a strong tension throughout while it keeps us guessing whether things are really happening or not.  It borrows heavily from Japanese horror but make for a rather enjoyable yarn.  The cast is lead by the lovely Karen Gillan, and her bangs, who oversells her part a tad too much in the beginning but settles into her role as the film moves on.  Brenton Thwaites is a solid counter weight to Gillan’s obsessive character.  Katee Sackhoff is always excellent playing nutty and she does a good job here even though I was disappointed by where the story takes her character in the third act.  The last act is a fun trip through the fun house of terrors which messes with your perception enough to keep you on your toes even if it ends up in a predictable place.

B-

Cindy Prascik's Review of Riddick

Dearest blog, today it was off to the cinemas for one of my least-anticipated films of the year, Riddick.

Spoiler level here will be mild, nothing the trailers didn't reveal.

Riddick again finds himself stranded on a dangerous planet, pursued by threats both native and not.

Listen, dear Blog, I didn't find the previous two films in this series very interesting, and I didn't expect better from this. My only motivation for seeing it was that I absolutely love Vin Diesel and Karl Urban, and, that being said, I suppose I deserve what I got.

Diesel is, of course, acceptable in the lead. That's not saying much, as a robot or anyone who has brought down the house at a third-grade Christmas pageant also probably would have been acceptable. Urban doesn't have even a full minute's screen time; if you were thinking of suffering through this to see him, don't bother. The rest of the cast is most notable for a guy I would have bet a paycheck was Dave Chappelle who is not Dave Chappelle. There are actually two people in this world who have Dave Chappelle's crazy teeth. Who knew, right?

Riddick is two hours of gross outs, puerile humor, shots of dry rocks and scrub, then wet rocks and scrub, and a pointless parade of badly-done CGI creatures. The story is dull as dishwater, and if you find a twist the biggest idiot won't see coming...well, I'd give you a paycheck if I hadn't already lost it on Not Dave Chappelle. I'd complain that it's too long, too, but that hardly seems fair since five minutes would have been too long. If I had to say something good about this movie, I'd say at least I was able to see it with one of my favorite people, whom I don't see nearly enough.

Riddick clocks in at an interminable 119 minutes and is rated R for "strong violence, language, and some sexual content/nudity."

Of a possible nine Weasleys, Riddick gets none, as in ZERO, as in this movie is the equivalent of Voldemort taking Hogwarts and KILLING THEM ALL. The bad news is, this film is god-awful. The good news is, it's nice to be right sometimes, I guess?

Until next time...



Yinz are lucky I love ya, yeah?

MOVIE REVIEW: RIDDICK

Vin Diesel's Riddick character gets a new lease on life in this third film from writer/director David N. Twohy. Katee Sackhoff and Bokeem Woodbine head up a group of assassins out to kill Riddick, who lures them to a desolate planet when confronted with a hostile alien species. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi

Director: David Twohy

Cast: Vin Diesel, Karl Urban, Jordi Mollà, Katee Sackhoff, Bokeem Woodbine.

Release Date: Sep 06, 2013

Rated R for some Sexual Content/Nudity, Language and Strong Violence

Runtime: 1 hr. 58 min.

Genres: Action/Adventure, Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Review:

After The Chronicles of Riddick I was fine if we never saw Riddick again, that’s how bad that sprawling mess of a movie was. Sometimes certain characters deserve to be left alone in their singular film, Pitch Black, so they aren’t degraded by lesser sequels. Riddick is closer akin to Pitch Black in scope and setting but it’s lacking any of that film’s strengths. Instead we have a laborious slog of a movie that never goes anyway and definitely doesn’t bring anything new to the story. Riddick “borrows” the main plot from Pitch Black and throws in a bit of Aliens for good measure. This sound’s like it should make for a fun film but it doesn’t. It’s doesn’t, in fact the 3 acts can be described like so; Act 1: Riddick gets a dog, Act 2: The Mercenaries, Act 3: It rains. Sadly, I think I’ve ruined the movie because outside of those basic descriptions not much else happens. There’s lots of monotone “cool” dialogue from Diesel and stilted dialogue from characters that wouldn’t even qualify as one dimensional. This all might be forgivable if the film was quick and delivered a solid punch during the action sequences. It doesn’t instead were subjected to more bad dialogue that sounds like it was written by 13 year olds. The film clocks in at nearly 2 hours for some reason and feels more like 4 hours. The tone is so incredibly serious you get the feeling that Twohy and Diesel thought they’d just created the next sci-fi masterpiece. Thankfully I think they came to their senses because they end the film so abruptly. Perhaps they took pity on the audience and decided to put us out of our misery, hopefully they do the same with the Riddick character.

D-