Cindy Prascik's Reviews of Gringo & The Hurricane Heist

Dearest Blog: Yesterday it was off to Marquee Cinemas for the rowdy double-bill of Gringo and The Hurricane Heist.

 

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

 

First on my agenda, Gringo.

 

Things go south for a pharmaceutical rep when he unwittingly runs afoul of a Mexican crime lord.

Gringo is a darkly funny outing that certainly won't be everyone's cup of tea. Filled with rough language, drug and sexual references, and up-close-and-personal violence, the story is a crazy one, though clever and sometimes more thoughtful than I expected. David Oyelowo (whose name I'll never learn to spell without looking) heads an excellent cast, striking a perfect tone for our confused and terrified titular gringo. The extraordinary Sharlto Copley shines in a small supporting role, but it's Charlize Theron who really steals the show with a sexy, foul-mouthed turn. Gringo is action packed, well crafted, and makes some surprise turns, building to a suitable and satisfying finale. It does suffer some sluggishness, but if sticking with it occasionally feels like work, the payout is worth it.

 

Gringo clocks in at an efficient 110 minutes and is rated R for "language throughout, violence, and sexual content."

 

Gringo can be a rough ride at times, but a great cast and solid story make it worth the effort. Of a possible nine Weasleys, Gringo gets seven.

 

Fangirl points: Alan Ruck! Yul Vazquez! Harry Treadway! A weird-but-awesome flamenco version of the Cure's Just Like Heaven over the end credits!

 

Next on the docket: The Hurricane Heist.

 

Thieves plan to use a Category 5 hurricane as cover for their attempt to steal $600 million from a US Treasury vault.

 

The Hurricane Heist is that rare picture that is 100% as advertised. It is, in truth, a very stupid movie; however, if you leave disappointed, it can only be due to unreasonable expectations. While it is neither as fun as Geostorm, nor as irrefutably awesome as Den of Thieves, the Hurricane Heist is just wacky enough to get away with its implausible premise and D-list cast. The obvious selling feature for this sort of film is its disaster effects, and here the quality ranges all the way from "pretty sweet" to "stuck in 1939 with The Wizard of Oz." Suffice to say the cast isn't exactly loaded with talent, and it doesn't need to be. True Blood got me used to Aussie Ryan Kwanten speaking with a southern drawl, but I was jarred incessantly by that sound coming out of Toby Kebbell's face. "Starring Maggie Grace" usually means a hard pass from me, so it's no surprise that it was difficult for me to get past her in the lead. The action is wild and the story is as goofy as you'd expect, but--while the movie definitely doesn't take itself too seriously--it's missing a certain element of fun that its wacky premise should have guaranteed.

 

The Hurricane Heist runs 102 minutes and is rated PG13 for "sequences of gun violence, action, destruction, language, and some suggestive material."

 

The Hurricane Heist is a passable couple hours of witless entertainment for those slow, waning weeks of winter. (Also I kept thinking of Justin Timberlake in The Social Network: “Drop the ‘the;’ just ‘Hurricane Heist.’ It’s cleaner.”) 

 

Of a possible nine Weasleys, the Hurricane Heist gets four.

 

Until next time...

MOVIE REVIEW: A MONSTER CALLS

A young boy (Lewis MacDougall) befriends a wise tree monster (voiced by Liam Neeson) while coping with bullying and the terminal illness of his mother (Felicity Jones). He moves in with his grandmother (Sigourney Weaver) as his mom's condition deteriorates, and uses his imagination and friendship with the monster to escape reality. J.A. Bayona (The Impossible) directed this fantasy drama. ~ Daniel Gelb, Rovi

Director: Juan Antonio Bayona

Cast: Felicity Jones, Sigourney Weaver, Liam Neeson, Toby Kebbell, Ben Moor, Lewis MacDougall

Release Date: Dec 23, 2016

Rated PG-13 for Thematic Content and Some Scary Images

Runtime: 1 hr. 48 min.

Genres: Drama, Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Review:

Juan Antonio Bayona’s A Monster Calls is an interesting fantasy parable with a very human message.  Bayona crafts together a beautifully gothic tale with some impressive visual flourishes peppered in throughout.  Its pace is decidedly measured and methodical throughout.  It might be a turnoff to some because it does move at snail’s pace during large portions of the film.   The monster and his tales are wonderfully animated through lush water colored animation which is as striking as it is effective. The cast lead by Lewis MacDougall is stellar through out and you’d think with the bigger names in the film, MacDougall might get lost in the shuffle but he never does. He turns in an impressive performance filled with melancholy and visible pain.  Its finale delivers a simple and 

straightforward lesson but do so with a strong emotional punch sure to leave many in tears.  

B+

Cindy Prascik's Reviews of Ricki & the Flash and Fantastic 4

Dearest Blog: This weekend, my local cinema happened to get all four new wide-releases, so I had the unusual luxury of choosing among all of them.

The presence of Sebastian Stan made Ricki & the Flash my must-see, and the schedule dictated Fantastic Four wrap up the double-bill.

Spoiler level here will be mild, limited to trailer reveals.

Following a couple weekends that gave me a couple of my favorite guys (Jake Gyllenhaal and Jeremy Renner) in a couple of pretty great movies (Southpaw and Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation), I suppose I was due for a letdown. Boy did I get it.

First on Saturday's agenda: Ricki & the Flash.

Having long ago left her family to follow dreams of rock stardom, a middle-aged woman returns home to comfort her newly-dumped daughter.

In the interest of full and fair disclosure, I'll admit I hate movies like Ricki & the Flash, and, were it not for Sebastian Stan's presence, I wouldn't have seen it for a million dollars. That being said, if it were a good movie, it would have won me over, and I'm sure my tone is already telling you, dear reader(s), it did not.

Ricki & the Flash is cliched and predictable. The characters are paper thin, not one has any depth or ever, once, does a single thing that isn't exactly what you'd have expected him/her to do. There are a few genuinely funny moments, but the "humor' is mostly awkward and occasionally vaguely racist in a way that's meant to flesh out a character but instead just left me mildly uncomfortable. Even the mostly-decent classic rock soundtrack is handicapped by ho-hum performances. Not being a "musical," per se, where the plot is actually advanced by the songs, the movie would have been better served by brief clips of the band onstage, rather than the excruciating full numbers to which we're repeatedly subjected.

Meryl Streep is a goddess, and if there's a movie fan out there who'll dispute that, well, it's not this one. She manages to bring *something* to Ricki, a character that's otherwise blandly unlikeable and uninteresting. She's especially effective portraying the depressing physical realities of middle age on a person who's mentally only ever going to be a teenager.

Once again, someone has grossly overestimated Streep's appeal as a singer, but her fantastic screen presence makes that easy enough to forgive. It's hard to watch Streep's real-life daughter Mamie Gummer wallow through the movie, and I couldn't honestly say whether the blame falls on actress or character, since Gummer is pretty hard to watch in everything.

The good news is the rest of the supporting cast is terrific, if underused. As Ricki's long-suffering guitarist and beau, Rick Springfield does well in the movie's most thankless role, though he strangely looks ready to burst into tears the entire time. Sebastian Stan is great in his two minutes of screen time, for the first time in his entire career, playing the NON-problematic son of a messed up family. Go Sebastian! Finally, Audra McDonald is as glorious as always as the woman who stepped in to clean up the mess Ricki left behind when she set off to become a rock star.

It has to be one of cinema's worst crimes against humanity to have McDonald, one of the world's greatest singers, appear in a movie about a singer, yet not sing a note. Even Stan and Gummer get to sing a few lines, for Pete's sake!!

Ricki & the Flash runs 101 minutes and is rated PG13 for "thematic material, brief drug content, sexuality, and language."

A shameful waste of a solid cast, of a possible nine Weasleys, Ricki & the Flash gets four.

Next on the docket, the most recent screen rendering of Fantastic 4.

In an experiment gone wrong, four young college students find themselves physically altered and must use their new powers to save the planet.

Sound familiar? I know, right?? If there's one thing I hope Hollywood has learned from Fantastic 4's dismal reception, it's that we, genre and general fans alike, are tired of origins stories. Everyone knows why Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker are so sad on Fathers' Day, JUST MOVE ON. While that's far from the only reason people aren't flocking to see this humdrum version of some fairly humdrum heroes, it's got to be one of them.

Dear reader(s), you may count me among those who didn't mind 2005's Fantastic 4, nor its 2007 sequel. They aren't special movies, but they're fun enough. The problem with the latest F4 is that it's no fun at all. It would be misleading to call the movie a slow starter, because that would imply that, at some point, it picks up. It is, in fact, a slow starter, a slow middler, and a slow finisher. The only way to mark the passage of time at all is to note the differences in Miles Teller's acne spots.

The movie is dark, not so much in tone as in appearance, and at times it's difficult to tell what's going on at all. Jamie Bell, a fine actor (for my money, the best of the principal cast) is completely wasted, and, of those who get decent screentime, only Michael B. Jordan manages to be even half-watchable. Teller and Kate Mara are phoning it in, clearly as bored with the proceedings as the few of us who have bothered seeing the movie this weekend. The CGI ranges from just okay to laughably bad, inexcusable for a would-be summer blockbuster. It's not hard to see why Hollywood left this one in the landfill of August releases.

Fantastic 4 clocks in at 100 minutes and is rated PG13 for "sci-fi action violence, and language."

Trust me when I tell you, "fantastic" is not the "F" word you'll be saying if you waste your hard-earned dollars on this.

Of a possible nine Weasleys, Fantastic 4 gets three.

Until next time..

 Rick Springfield: Four decades of being hot enough to make mediocre movies worth the price of admission!

MOVIE REVIEW: FANTASTIC FOUR

Brilliant scientist Reed Richards builds a device that allows users to teleport to an alternate dimension, but an experiment involving it goes wrong and leaves him and his three teammates with unusual superpowers. The quartet are then forced to work together to battle an enemy from their past. This reboot of the iconic Marvel superhero team stars Miles Teller as Richards (who becomes Mr. Fantastic, able to bend and stretch his body into impossible shapes), Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm (aka the Human Torch, whose body can erupt in flames), Kate Mara as Sue Storm (aka the Invisible Woman -- no explanation needed), and Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm (who is transformed into the rock monster known as The Thing). Directed by Josh Trank. ~ Jack Rodgers, Rovi

Director: Josh Trank

Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell, Toby Kebbell

Release Date: Aug 07, 2015

Rated PG-13 for Sci-Fi Action Violence and Language

Runtime: 1 hr. 40 min.

Genres: Action/Adventure, Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Review:

There were two famously troubled productions hitting the screen this summer.  Antman ended up surprising mostly everyone including myself but the reboot of Fantastic Four fails in every way that film succeeded.  A morose joyless experience from start to finish, Josh Trank’s film hits all the typical origin story beats but never brings anything new to the table.  It’s ultimately a plodding mess of a film that never coalesces into anything nearing fun or entertaining.  It’s a shame because there’s a capable cast of actors on hand.  Unfortunately, they don’t share a shred of chemistry together.  Each of them delivers their lines with a robotic sense of inevitably and disinterest.  Perhaps if the script wasn’t a hackneyed retread of things we’ve all seen before they’d be more interested in their performances.  At a little over an hour and half, the film drags on to it’s inevitable conclusion which doesn’t deliver much satisfaction either since the villain is about as silly looking as they come.  Your mind might start to wander, even making wonder if those original FF4 films were really that bad right before you remember that The Incredibles is still the best FF4 film around.

D

MOVIE REVIEW: WRATH OF THE TITANS

IN THEATERS

WRATH OF THE TITANS 3D



The epic battle between the Titans and the gods continues in this sequel set ten years after the events in Clash of the Titans, as Perseus (Sam Worthington) descends into the underworld on a mission to rescue Zeus from the clutches of Hades (Ralph Fiennes), Ares (Edgar Ramirez), and Kronos. In the wake of his decisive victory against the Kraken, Perseus has retreated to a remote fishing village to raise his young son, Helius. Meanwhile, humanity has lost faith in the gods. As a result, Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon find their power beginning to slip, a development that could spell disaster for all of humankind should their imprisoned father, Kronos, manage to break free from his underworld prison in Tartarus. When Perseus learns that Zeus' son Ares has teamed with Hades and Kronos to capture Zeus, steal his power, and create hell on earth, the time comes to take action. Now, with Andromeda (Rosamund Pike), Argenor (Toby Kebbell), and Hephaestus (Bill Nighy) by his side, brave Perseus will venture deep into the underworld on a mission to defeat the Titans, deliver Zeus from evil, and prevent the powers of darkness from consuming all of humanity. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Director: Jonathan Liebesman

Cast: Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Edgar Ramirez, Toby Kebbell

Release Date: Mar 30, 2012

Rated PG-13 for Intense Sequences of Fantasy Action and Intense Sequences Fantasy Violence

Runtime: 1 hr. 39 min.

Genres: Action/Adventure

Review:

The sequel that nobody really asked hits the screen like a film that’s content not being the porta potty stain that the Clash of the Titans was. As a result, we get a straight up film that’s easy to follow but terribly generic with a script that has some groan inducing moments like having the hero defend himself from a fire breathing creature with a wooden board leaving him unscathed. Line are uttered, comic relief spatter out as if this were a test film created by a studio executive to function as a “how to create a blockbuster”. Jonathan Liebesman deserves a little credit for delivering some watch set pieces that are sufficiently fun to watch. Spattered throughout the film’s runtime, these action sequences keep the film moving even though none of the characters are fleshed out beyond the most superficial of terms. Sam Worthington is listed as the lead and he does some yelling, grunting and whispering all while rocking a strong mullet. Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes return as well, seemingly battling in a “who can be more somber contest”. Rosamund Pike and Toby Kebbell are tasked with being Worthington’s side kick and love interest with Kebbell trying his hardest to bring some life to a terribly underwritten character. Bill Nighy shows up briefly trying just as hard to surpass the hackneyed script. The finale is fun eye candy even though it feels more like a superhero/video game than anything else. The first film put the bar so low that any outside of 2 hours of human waste would have been an improvement, Wrath is an improvement even if nobody really asked for it.

D+

[Trailer] Wrath of the Titans

Being overshadowed by the massive new of The Dark Knight Rises trailer’s release, the sequel to the redux of Clash of the Titans has released its first trailer.

Personally, Clash of the Titans was one of my least favorite remakes of recent memory. It just seemed to get everything wrong on so many levels.

This one looks a bit more promising, probably because of the higher amount of CGI and hair conditioner, and the trailer gives off a noticeable God of War video game feel.

They might deliver a more enjoyable experience, especially since they are removed from the first films requirement to adhere to part of the originals plot.

Then again it might just be more garbage….