The Master Review
The Master short-changes none of us on lasting images and unforgettable moments, but the fearless director’s long-awaited return to film after six years is less visceral; it rattles, but from the neck up.
The Master short-changes none of us on lasting images and unforgettable moments, but the fearless director’s long-awaited return to film after six years is less visceral; it rattles, but from the neck up.
Despite sporting an unwieldy title (an unnecessary and clumsy modification of the seminal Frank Miller comic book), the end result stands far from what its moniker would suggest, providing a traditional but loyal adaptation that should easily satisfy fans while offering up something for the less initiated.
House at the End of the Street has hit theaters well after star Jennifer Lawrence has rocketed into the A-list category thanks in large part to The Hunger Games. And it’s a good thing too, as House remains a dud pretty much from start to finish, with little tension, character or originality.
From conflicts of duty and heart like Brooklyn’s Finest to police morality tales such as the now-infamous Training Day over to classics like Serpico, no film to chronicle the day-to-day lives and misadventures of our men and women in blue has come off quite as authentic as End of Watch.
Trouble with the Curve is a no-frills tale about father-daughter bonding, and while it’ll warm your heart, it’s damn near impossible in hindsight to single out an aspect of the film that’s better than merely adequate.
Although a little heavy-handed at times, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is one of the year’s most earnest and endearing motion pictures with just the right amount of nostalgia and a star-making, Oscar-worthy performance from leading man Logan Lerman.
The new cinematic version of the famous comic book anti-hero Judge Dredd will guarantee the eradication of the memory of the ill-fated Sylvester Stallone version. Director Pete Travis and writer Alex Garland have brought a grim, gritty and violent version of the comic to the screen that will please fans of the 2000 AD creation.
Given how much of a mess Resident Evil: Afterlife was, Paul W.S. Anderson would be hard-pressed to do worse, and mercifully, Retribution is an improvement. Not a massive step forward, but much more watchable than it’s predecessor, and arguably the best of the bunch since the original.
Director Craig Zobel asks his audience to take a leap into a very weird world where orders trump common sense and morals, but the film’s weirdest note is in its first frame, which tells us Compliance is based on a true story.
Oozing blandness and spattered with unintentional hilarity, The Possession is an amorphous blob of been-there-done-that genre tropes, even with its limp attempt at uniqueness by putting a Jewish spin on the exorcism thriller.
