Non Stop

                                                         
                                                           

                 As someone who writes about movies I got quite excited about seeing a film titled “Non-Stop”. There are so many options to describing the movie in clever and/or obvious ways, like ‘Non-Stop’ action, or ‘Non-Stop’ suspense, it just screams to be used. With such lofty expectations based on the title, and because it stars one of the coolest actors on the planet in Liam Neeson, how could “Non-Stop” go wrong?

             The story is simple enough; Bill Marks (Liam Neeson) is a man going through some tough times. We know this because the movie opens with him sitting in his car drinking whiskey from a coffee cup. If Marks was just a normal guy traveling somewhere it might not be a big deal, but Marks is an Air Marshall. He boards a plane to London, where we get the “I don’t like flying” bit, even though Marks flies all the time. Lucky for him a lady named Jen Summers (Julianne Moore) befriends him and comforts him though his trying time during takeoff. The flight takes a real turn for the worse when Marks receives a text message informing him that someone is going to kill a passenger ever 20 minutes, until he receives $150,000,000. Being an ex-cop, Marks tries to start piecing together the puzzle. Marks become a bull in a china shop, or a plane in this case, when he uses brute force in order to figure out who is behind the threat. Will he be able to figure it out before it becomes too late? Of course! He is Liam Neeson after all.

             I am not really giving anything away when I say he figures it out, how else could there be a “Non-Stop 2: All Flights Canceled”? The fun in a film like this lies in you trying to figure out who it is before Neeson does. While the story by John W, Richardson and Christopher Roach is good enough, where the film falters is the execution of that story. It is one of those things that works well in concept, but with an over-abundance of plot holes, the finished product fails to deliver the promise of a good movie. Neeson has become the go to guy when you want to make a movie about a older man saving the day, after the success of the “Taken” franchise. While the screenplay stumbles, director Jaume Collet-Serra actually does a decent job, at least until the climatic ending, where some of the camera choices were not so fun. I wanted to enjoy Non-Stop, I like ‘Taken” Neeson and ‘The Grey’ Neeson. Instead I am left with a ‘Non-Stop’ let down.  Hey, got to use one after all.

Brian Taylor

What's on Redbox--Mud

The coming-of-age drama is a staple in the book of cinema.  From classics like “Rebel without a Cause” and “The Graduate” to the John Hughes movies of the 80’s and films like “Stand By Me” all the way to the more recent “Almost Famous”, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”, and “The Spectacular Now”.  They have their own tropes and points of familiarity, but they should all have heart and tell a truthful story.  Not truth in the way of facts, but truth by way of emotional and relatable situations and moments in life that clearly take you from childhood to adulthood whether you want to go there or not.  “Mud” is a coming-of-age of which I have not seen the like it quite some time.

Directed by Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter) and starring Matthew McConaughey as Mud and newcomer Tye Sheridan as Ellis a 14 year-old boy who lives on the riverbank in Arkansas with the estranged parents of the afore mentioned coming-of-age staple.  Ellis and his friend Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) stubble across the man who calls himself Mud on a small island not too far from their home.  He tells them why he’s isolated himself away from civilization and this prompts the boys help Mud acquire a boat and reunite him and his true love Juniper (Reese Witherspoon) before the some bad men try to kill him.

 Director Nichols pulls off a virtual magic act here.  He seamlessly blends a modern Huck Finn tale with the multiple levels of relationships between men and women.  We see the first love of Ellis, the doomed love of Mud and Juniper, the strained marriage of Ellis’s parents, and the lost love of Tom (Sam Shepard) Mud’s surrogate father.  All get enough time throughout the film as mostly seen through the eyes of young Ellis.  Tye Sheridan’s performance is as honest and sincere that even with a slightly off-kilter final act, the film as a whole is very satisfying and a real pleasure to watch.  I usually don’t care much for films with Reese Witherspoon, but she does a great job here with minimal dialogue as does most of the cast.  It’s a quiet film with spiritual speeches by Mud and the great long shots of the South give it an almost timeless feel, you can’t help but get immersed in this sure to be classic of the genre.

--Robert L. Castillo

Pompeii

                                                               

               I have always had a thing about disaster films. I could give you a line about how I enjoy watching mankind overcome diversity and cataclysmic events. But that would be a lie, truth is I like to watch things get destroyed. There is something about watching those iconic places blown up, or flooded, or even frozen. Maybe it all started with the iconic ending of the original “Planet of The Apes” and that Statue of Liberty shot, or maybe the White House being blown up in “Independence Day”. Whatever started it I don’t know, but we as moviegoers like watching them.

          We’ve had our fill lately of disaster films showing us fictional versions of the end of the world, but why not show something that actually happened? We have all heard the story of Pompeii, the Roman city that was built at the base of a volcano. As you know from history, things did not work out too well for the city as the volcano erupted and obliterated Pompeii. Since we can only take so many fireballs destroying buildings, or earthquakes opening up beneath us, we are given good old human drama. No, not the drama of all the people who perished at the hands of the volcano, just the drama of a few. Milo (Kit Harington) is a slave, but more importantly a gladiator, whose talents have taken him to Pompeii. On the way he uses his skills with a horse to impress Cassia (Emily Browning), who just happens to be important. Milo is set to fight Pompeii’s champion Atticus (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), but during another engagement runs into Corvus (Kiefer Sutherland) the man who killed his father, who is in town to make Cassia his wife.  Can you smell the conflict? The volcano, however has other plans, and has no time for weddings or gladiator matches and soon erases Pompeii from existence.

          Ever since “Titanic” writers have taken the worst disasters and added a love story amidst the chaos. Now while it may work in some cases, others, like “Pompeii” doesn't find that balance. I have always heard that if you do not have anything nice to say you shouldn't say anything at all, well then this would just be a blank page, and we can’t have that. Written by four different writers, two of whom brought us the classic “Batman Forever” and directed by Paul W.S Anderson (The Three Musketeers), you kind of know what you are getting. If the writing and the direction wasn't bad enough, we get Jack Bauer with a sword instead of a gun and not very “special” special effects. With flying boulders that have perfect aim, and water that stops is the strangest place, the people of this movie are the luckiest and unluckiest victims of a disaster movie. Everything about the movie was bad.  Even in my distant and fading memories of “Dante’s Peak” and “Volcano” I never found myself actually rooting for the lava like I did here. Just when you think they could not do anything worse, they save the best for last and give you an ending so cheesy, only this movie could have done it. My advice, go see “The Lego Movie” again, and leave the disaster films to the 70’s where they belong.

Brian Taylor 

B.O.T.T.--The Guardians of the Galaxy

Here is the first trailer for Marvel’s latest and hopefully next big franchise, “The Guardians of the Galaxy”.

 

This trailer looks to be just something to introduce the characters and give us an idea of the tone, which is obviously humor with guns-a-blazin’ action. Opening with the homage to “Raiders” and adding the humor is pretty bold, but that along with the music choice, it appears to be right up the alley of its co-writer and director James Gunn.  Whose writing credits include a Troma film, the Scooby Doo movies, and the “Dawn of the Dead” remake.  While his only two directing credits are for two much underrated films, 2006’s “Slither” and 2010’s “Super”.  With “Slither” he was able to balance gross-out horror with humor with an always fun Nathan Fillion performance.  And “Super” was the slightly more grounded version of “Kick-Ass” that never was.  Both films show that he’s primed for a big-budget comic-book property.

I think he’s perfect for a film like “Guardians” mainly because like him they are under the radar, and not as popular as The Avengers and that gives Gunn the chance to surprise both comic fans as well as the masses.  And I also believe he’s been chomping at the bit to take on something like this.  Plus think about it, the last time Disney/Marvel gave a cult geek their big hero movie it was Joss Whedon, and that turned out okay for everyone.  Right?

--Robert L. Castillo

About Last Night

                                                   

        When it comes to trends in music and fashion, things always seem to come back around. That shirt you wore ten years ago or that music you use to listen to in High School becomes vogue again, and at the same time reminds you how old you are. Well movies always come back around in the form of remakes or reboots. Well, many people love a good portion of the films of the 1980’s, and studios know this, so they have started to mine the 80’s properties and attempted to put a new spin on them. Just in the last two years we’ve had a remake of “Red Dawn”, “Footloose”, “Total Recall”, and “Robocop”. The thinking is, put a hot young star in it and you get audiences young and old in the seats, unfortunately for us most of them never go over that well. So how do you take something old and make it new and fresh again? Well let the makers of “About Last Night” show you.

   Based on a 1986 film starring Rob Lowe and Demi Moore about dating and relationships and the fun they can bring. Danny (Michael Ealy) and Bernie (Kevin Hart) are just two of your average single guys in Los Angeles. They both work as kitchen supply salesman and hit the town together, where Bernie is on the prowl every night. Bernie meets Joan (Regina Hall) and their passion instantly ignites, where no position or place is too daring. Joan brings along her roommate Debbie (Joy Bryant) with the hope that her and Danny would hit it off. The plan works too well when Joan and Danny not only hit it off, but begin a relationship that eventually leads to living together and even a dog. While Danny and Debbie’s relationship soars, Joan and Bernie’s cool down, but the good thing is like this film, both relationships go out of style, but come back again.

       Love and relationships is a tricky thing, just ask any single person, but so is remaking a movie. “About Last Night” got it right though. While in the original Lowe and Moore were by all means the reason for the movie, the new one reverses it. The characters Bernie and Joan, played originally by James Belushi and Elizabeth Perkins, have been put in the forefront. What you get from Ealy and Bryant is okay, but Hart and Hall are much better and even funnier. Some thanks of course goes to Director Steve Pink (Hot Tub Time Machine) with an updated script by Leslye Headland.  There are enough relevant laughs to keep the story moving along its hour and forty running time.

While I enjoyed the trailer, my only fear was that it would end up like Kevin Hart’s recent disaster on wheels “Ride Along”. Most of the funny parts of that one you would have already seen in the preview, here you get plenty more than what was shown on the TV spots. The movie is originally based off a David Mamet play called “Sexual Perversity in Chicago” so based on that alone you knew there had to be some good in there. That and the fact that it’s about relationships on film, which is almost always timeless.  So if you’re looking for the perfect Valentine’s Day movie to take your loved one to? Well “About Last Night” is one you will both enjoy, and who knows it might bring back memories about those nights of being single.

  Brian Taylor 

          

Singles Awareness Day -- A Message from Kevin Hart & Regina Hall

Robocop

                                                                   

         How do you make a good action movie? Well for the last thirty years you call guys like Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Willis, or any of the other guys who currently star in every Expendables movie. Nowadays it’s a little tricky, because without that star, or even someone you can root for, action movies have to rely solely on well, the action. Those movies do have a few things working for them though, but the biggest tool by far is CGI, all you have to do is dream it up and its skies the limit. However, big explosions, gun fights, and go old hand-to-hand fighting is great and all, but without character and story it’s all for nothing. Enter our current movie to try and give us our action fix, a film about a man in a suit of armor, and his name is not Iron Man.

Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman), is a detective in the Detroit Police Department.  Murphy was a little too good at his job, together with his partner Jack (Michael K. Williams) they almost bring down a crime lord. Alex gets targeted and just about dies when his car blows up with him right by it. Lucky for him, Alex becomes the prototype for a future kind of cop, all machine, but with the emotions and judgment of a man. A Robocop. Dr. Norton (Gary Oldman) is the man who put Humpty Dumpty back together, and Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton) is the man paying for it all. Everything is going as planned until Murphy starts to solve his own murder, and that is when the house that built Robocop starts to fall.

     When a movie like this comes out it is hard to judge it on its own merits, when you have something so original to compare it to. Director Jose Padilha had an uphill battle the whole time; he had to remake a film many people loved. Padilha can’t give you the same film, because “Robocop” of 1987 was such a product if it’s time. “Robocop” of 2014 is rooted in technology that is out there already, and in a world with lot bleaker outlook. When the trailer first came out I wanted to scream “What have you done to Robocop?” I was prepared to turn my nose up to this film, but I did my best not to do that; instead I enjoyed parts of it and saw what Padilha was trying to do. He didn't remake Robocop, MGM and Columbia were going to do it no matter what, he made “his” Robocop, and for that alone I can appreciate what he was attempting. Once I got past the appreciation of that, I was still left with a movie that I was pretty indifferent about. On one hand I loved seeing Michael Keaton being Michael Keaton, even an evil one, but then I didn’t enjoy that it took almost an hour to get to the title character. And the action was good, what little of it there was, and that made it hard to stand out. “Robocop” is just an average movie with an iconic name, and when it comes to good action movies, I wouldn’t buy this one for a dollar.

Brian Taylor 

The Monuments Men

                                                   

             Someone once said “Those who don’t learn from the past are condemned to repeat it”, so what would happen if someone tried to erase the past?  That is what Hitler tried to do when his defeat was imminent, he ordered his army to destroy all the art he had stolen during his rule of Europe. Lucky for us there were those who recognized the importance of saving these historic pieces of artwork, and put their lives on the line to do so. These were the kinds of soldiers that you don’t read about in any history book.

        They went by the name “The Monuments Men”, but what they really were was a group of men who knew what it meant to the world to try and keep these important works from being incinerated. They were led by Frank Stokes (George Clooney), who put the team together based on their particular fields of experience. On this team was James Granger (Matt Damon), Richard Campbell (Bill Murray), Walter Garfield (John Goodman), Preston Savitz (Bob Balaban), and Jean Claude Clarmont (Jean Dujardin). After a little basic training, they are off to find out where the Nazis hid all of the stolen art. As they follow the clues like they were part of the Scooby Gang, they start to find some of the lost pieces. In the midst of the search, they find the order from Hitler, stating that if he were to die, his army is to destroy everything. Now the Monuments Men must race against time to save all they can before all is lost.

     A story this noble and great deserves to be told. What these men did has allowed people like us to enjoy art that could have been lost forever. Based on a book by Robert M. Edsel who with Bret Witter brought light to what these men did, and although it really is an intriguing story, the same can’t be said for the film. The trailer makes you believe this is “Ocean’s 1944” but the simple truth is that it is not. While the all-star cast is there, gone is the coolness and freshness that made “Ocean’s Eleven” what it was. Clooney and his crew once made stealing a bunch of money from a casino an art form, saving a bunch of actual art, not so much. Sure there is humor here, but it’s more likely to produce a chuckle then a laugh.  There is no balance between the humor, the drama, and the historical significance.

I always have a fear when a movie I want to see gets pushed back from its original release date; because that always signals that something is wrong. This film reaffirmed that belief, because this movie would have gotten lost last November. I wanted to enjoy this movie, but found myself looking often at my watch, wondering when it would end. While I didn't actively dislike it, I certainly didn't enjoy it, it just falls in the ‘take it or leave it’ zone. My suggestion is to read the book, because even with all the star power, these Monument Men can’t save this movie from itself.

Brian Taylor 

Justice League: War

“Who the hell is Bruce Wayne?”

     So like the comic book universe DC has decided to re-vamp their direct-to-video animation division as well.  Why they would do that, I have no idea, as far as superhero animated films go, their catalog is far superior to Marvel. From “Justice League: New Frontier” to “All Star Superman” to the epically awesome “The Dark Knight Returns” DC has proven that their kung-fu is the best.  The first of this new “shared” universe of films “Justice League: War” is much like its comic counterpart where the heroes don’t know each other but are forced to work together to save the world.  It looks okay, has some interesting moments, but a weak storyline and even lesser attention paid to the iconic characters, this film stumbles a bit out of the gate.

 It begins with a mysterious group of aliens that are taking random citizens from Metropolis, and Gotham and Batman (Jason O’Mara) is on the trail.  Followed closely behind is Green Lantern (Justin Kirk) who upon their first meeting don’t really get along.  Such is the same as when they encounter Superman (Alan Tudyk) who is about as much a jerk to Lantern and Batman as they are to him.  When they discover that the aliens have “take-over” on their mind in order to pave the way for their ruler, the evil Darkseid.  It doesn’t take long for the rest of the heroes to get in on the alien smashing act, Wonder Woman (Michelle Monaghan) who is working closely with the government, The Flash (Christopher Gorham) a cop, Shazam (Sean Astin) the boy turned super-god, and Cyborg (Shemar Moore) a star athlete in the wrong lab at the wrong time.

The animation is okay, the voice-work is hit and miss, but as I said the plot is not one of the better ones, even when it was on the page it didn’t work too well.  The biggest change from the original storyline by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee was dropping the red-headed stepchild of the Justice League: Aquaman, and replacing him with Shazam.  Which would have been alright if they had decided to go with his origin instead of Cyborg, personally I would have rather seen what happens when a boy is given the power of Superman and has to deal with if he really wants to be a hero or not than the footballer with daddy issues.

Plus I know they usually go the PG-13 route mainly because of the violence, but does every character have to say something like “Damn”, “What the hell?”, “Pissed-off”, and the schoolyard sin “Shit”?  They don’t need to go full-on adult to entertain, I would most likely let my kids continue to watch the classic Saturday morning “Super Friends” than this version of the JLA, but worst of all what made me a little sad to see was that a good portion of the action beats near the end mimicked the ending of the film version of “The Avengers”.

The action is fun to watch, Superman and Batman are entertaining, but it does feel disjointed with Green Lantern doing his best Ryan Reynolds impression, and the Flash’s humor taking a backseat to Lantern’s.  There is good in the “Justice League: War” some of the dialogue is decent but then they were taken directly from the comic book.  But in the end it mostly comes across as a pale version of what is possible from this superhero team and more importantly from these proven filmmakers.

--Robert L. Castillo