Bridesmaids

The movie stars Kristen Wiig of SATURDAY NIGHT LIFE as Annie, a single gal past 30 who goes crazy when her best friend, Lillian, finally decides to tie the knot. The movie opens with Annie having a lengthy one-stand stand with a very handsome but totally callous man. Lillian chastises Annie for stooping to that level, but Annie brushes her off.

As Lillian plans the wedding, Annie tries to set up the pre-wedding events as Lillian’s maid of honor. Annie clashes, however, with another bridesmaid named Helen, a snobbish rich girl who tries to upstage Annie at every turn. Things go from bad to worse for Annie, who can’t seem to do anything right and just recently lost her boyfriend and her bakery business.

As Annie comes more and more unglued, she accidentally meets a kind, generous policeman with an appealing Irish accent named Rhodes. In his own charming, witty way, Rhodes tries to woo Annie, but Annie’s fear of commitment and her poor self-image keep getting in the way. Meanwhile, her attempt to be the perfect maid of honor goes from one disaster to another. Making matters worse is the fact that Annie is jealous and resentful of the rich bridesmaid’s superficial charm and overcompensating super-confidence.

The characters in BRIDESMAIDS are very well developed, but there’s a tremendous amount of crude and lewd situations and language. The movie also goes on too long. Though Kristen Wieg is hilarious when she comes unglued, the best scenes are when she’s with the policeman, who’s extremely appealing and a really nice guy. Regrettably, Annie and the policeman do go to bed together at one point, but it’s implied rather than depicted.

Ultimately, the crude parts in BRIDESMAIDS turn out to be the movie’s undoing. Also, BRIDESMAIDS only has the slightest sense concerning the biblical, godly foundations of marriage and family.

The Help

"You is Kind.
You is Smart.
You is Important."


Anyone who have seen this movie is familiar with those three lines, which is popularly said by Aibileen in the movie called "The Help". The said movie is based on a film with the same title. The movie evolves on the life of black or as they prefer to call the colored maids during the civil rights, early 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi.

The story takes off when Skeeter played by Emma Stone graduates from Ole Miss and returns home and takes a job at the local newspaper. Possessing observation skills and humanity that her lifelong friends can’t comprehend, Skeeter desperately wants to tell a story from the perspective of the maids. As expected, the maids are hesitant, but Aibileen played by Viola Davis does relent. The stories begin to flow and soon the robust Minny played by Octavia Spencer joins in.

When Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard), the cold ice-queen bee of her social set, proudly announces that her idea to mandate separate bathrooms for the help because “they carry different diseases” has caught the attention of the lieutenant governor, the shot of her self-satisfied smugness cuts to the face of her maid, Aibileen (Viola Davis). Aibileen, inured to the status quo, barely registers the insult as she stands next to Hilly, but it’s in that barely preceptible shadow of hurt and anger that the story of a time and place is told with stunning, infuriating clarity. Skeeter’s reaction is more pronounced, but even her shock is muted, and that she changes the subject rather than challenging Hilly speaks volumes. When she takes the unprecedented step of then privately apologizing to Aibileen, Taylor lets the expressions on each woman’s face in the pregnant silence that follows tell its own paradigm-changing story.

It’s a moment that also gives Skeeter the idea to write a book about life from the point of the view of the help, one that she must finish quickly before, as her New York editor puts it, this whole civil rights thing blows over. It’s an idea that is fraught with the danger of more than just getting fired if Aibileen tells the truth, a fact brought home by the story of Medgar Evans dominating the headlines and television reports that are in the background of the film. Aibileen eventually agrees, despite the implacable resistance of her best friend and mutual support, Minny (Octavia Spencer), Hilly‘s new maid. Minny has no love for her employer, but she adores Hilly’s only occasionally lucid mother (Sissy Spacek). When her patient if grudging toleration of Hilly’s viciousness reaches its limits, it inspires a revenge has a profane poetry of monumental proportions that will inform the rest of the story. 

Spencer all but steals the film from a formidable cast that is the quintessence of ensemble acting. Hers is a face of uncommon beauty powered by a solid performance of such vibrancy that it leaps off the screen even in its many quiet moments of introspection. Imbued with her whole lively heart, it is by turns funny, tragic, compassionate, proud and fearful, and always there is a keen sense of herself as a woman of quality in a world that refuses to recognize it. Davis has the quiet dignity of a broken heart and no options, but it’s Spencer’s Minny who signals the way the times are changing when she, too finally agrees to talk to Skeeter. Stone is the perfect counterpoint. Bright, bubbling, and fierce without being caustic, exploring the new freedoms she is creating for herself and others with a sense of delight and determination. It’s a performance that is as subtle as Skeeter isn’t and all the better for it.

The snobbishness of Jackson’s elite, the hypocrisy it breeds seeing color and class rather than people, and the sublimated unhappiness it causes everyone is a nice metaphor for the proposition that if some are not free, no one can be free, with the inclusion of the “white-trash” element who married up. The loud but sweet Celia (Jessica Chastain) welcomes Minny into her house with open arms, ragged desperation, and a first-class generosity of spirit. Yet her respect for the first maid she’s ever had creates its own uncomfortable, yet revolutionary atmosphere for Minny.

THE HELP has its own revolutionary atmosphere, refusing to divide the world into, pardon the expression, black and white. Without intricacies of the relationships, without the emotional stakes that those intricacies represent, the film would fail monumentally, becoming just another screed about the injustice of the times. Instead, it is a celebration of the heart with an indictment of racism, ageism, sexism, and all the others that is irrefutable.

Crazy, Stupid, Love

At forty something Cal Weaver (Steve Carell) is living the dream-good job nice house, great kids and a marriage from the girl he met since highschool, Emily (Julianne Moore). But then he learns that his wife cheats on him and wanted a divorce and his "perfect" life unravels.

Night by night, he spends his free time sulking alone on a bar to release his sadness, and in this club is where he meets his wing-man, 30 year old player, Jacob Palmer (Ryan Gosling).

In an effort to help Cal get over his wife and start living his life, Jacob opens his eyes to the options he have before him: flirty women, manly drinks and a sense of style that can't be found at Supercats or The Gap.

As the story goes on, it wasn't only Emily and Cal who were looking for love. Robbie (Jonah Bobo), their 13 year old son is crazy about his 17 year old baby sitter Jessica (Analeigh Tipton) who then happens to have a crush with Cal. And Cal's oldest daughter, Hannah (Emma Stone) also stuggles with her love life with her lawyer boyfriend Richard (Josh Groban) who then she thoughts would be proposing to her once she pass the board exam, but later on she finds out that what Richard would offer her was a job on his own law firm.

After breaking up with Richard, she immediately went to the bar where she met Jacob and then Jacob takes home Hannah but instead of having sexual intercourse the two then have meaningful conversations that made Jacob change for the better and made him fall in love with Hannah.

On the latter part, when Cal tried to surprised his wife and Hannah tried to introduce Jacob to her parents, a "disaster" happened. Cal was surprised to find out that her daughter's boyfriend is his player wing man Jacob. Knowing what kind of person he is, Cal got mad and never gave him the approval for their relationship but then after seeing how happy Hannah is with Jacob he then approves their relationship.

“Crazy, Stupid, Love” might not be for everyone. I mean, I’m pretty sure no matter who you are you’ll find something funny and enjoyable about this film. But not everyone will fully appreciate it. This story is about love. It’s not just another romantic comedy, but instead it seems to really have a deeper understanding of love. In one case how it can change someone overnight, in another how it can never really leave and in yet another case, how it knows no age or restrictions. In any case, it’s about how love can be messy, and it can cause you to do crazy and stupid things. But it really exists in people, and it’s something that can be put through awful circumstances and still be there on the other end. So some people, who may have known true love in their life, can understand why very little about this film is cliche. It’s a laughable, painful and uncomfortable mess. And in the end, everything is far from perfect, but it’s hopeful. And that’s the truth.

THE CAST:

• Steve Carell as Cal Weaver
• Ryan Gosling as Jacob Palmer
• Julianne Moore as Emily Weaver
• Emma Stone as Hannah Weaver
• Analeigh Tipton as Jessica Riley
• Jonah Bobo as Robbie Weaver

Colombiana

Zoe Saldana stars this action filled movie entitled Colombiana as Cataleya Restrepo whose parents were killed by Don Luis a drug lord.

At her young age, Cataleya witnessed how her parents got killed by Don Luis' team and left as the only survivor. In the midst of the chaos, as the young  Cataleya , she manages to survive and flees to Chicago to meet up with her uncle.

Little detail is given about what information her father gave to his boss, and what exactly is Don Louis’ profession except for a few soft mentions of the exchange of drugs is all that is revealed. The purpose is that her parents are dead and now she wants to become an assassin. Essentially, we jump from young  Cataleya  to wanting to become a killer, since she wanted to take revenge on the death of her parents. 

Cataleya grew up being an assassin, killing everyone who is connected to the person who killed her parents, and she also then works for her uncle  Emilio, she remains focused on her ultimate goal: to hunt down and get revenge on the mobster responsible for her parents’ deaths.

The movie was pretty awesome and I admire how Zoe Saldana portrayed her character since I'm always fascinated by actresses who portrays a badass character, the only thing I didnt like on this movie was its ending. My reaction was "Really? That's how the story ends?" It was like a blink of an eye then the movie ends.

Casts:

Zoe Saldana ... Cataleya Restrepo

  Jordi Mollà ... Marco

  Lennie James ... Ross

  Amandla Stenberg ...Young Cataleya

  Michael Vartan ... Danny Delanay

  Cliff Curtis ... Emilio Restrepo

  Beto Benites ... Don Luis

Trailer:

What's Your Number?

Is a film that revolves on the story of Ally Darling (Anna Faris) a young woman on her early thirties who is in search of looking for her right guy after she's been through alot of heart breaks.

One day, she then reads an article from a magazine with a title "What's your Number?". The article explains that a woman who have more than 20 sexual partner ends up growing up old. Threatened that this might happen to her, Ally started to make a list and track down the number of guys she made sex with.

As she checks on this list, it says that she already made 19 sex with different guys which means she only got one more sex then she'll hit the end of the thread.

Unfortunately, while she was on her sister's bachelorette party, she sleeps with her ex-boss and it gives her a 20 sexual partners.

Determined to resolved this problems, Ally decided to revisit her past lovers and hopes that one of them is already living a good and successful life.  And to carry out her task she enlists her womanizing next door neighbor (Chris Evans) to help her track these men down and, blah, blah, blah… you should be able to figure out where things go from here.

Yes, What's Your Number? is highly predictable and the ending inevitable. And once again inevitability proves to be its downfall, just as is the case with so many films before it. Filmmakers need to learn that once your audience is 100% sure what's going to happen in the end you need to get to that end unless you have something of the utmost importance to tell us. Chris Evans does his thing, as the male whore across the hall, but he's always been charismatic so that's no surprise.

Cats and Dogs: The Revenge Of Kitty Galore

CATS & DOGS: THE REVENGE OF KITTY GALORE is a clever, fun family adventure about a police dog named Diggs who’s recruited by DOG Headquarters to help catch the most wanted feline of all, the outlandishly diabolical Kitty Galore. The movie contains strong moral themes promoting humility, service, working together, and putting aside past animosities.

CATS & DOGS: THE REVENGE OF KITTY GALORE is a fantastically entertaining family movie that tells the exciting tale of cats and dogs working together as a team to protect humans from a maniacal feline foe. 

A sequel to the 2001 movie, this follow-up opens with a German Sheppard police dog named Diggs bounding bravely to the scene of a crime alongside his partner/owner, Shane, played by Chris O’Donnell. When Diggs disobeys orders and lunges at the criminal, biting him in the backside, his budding career in law enforcement comes to an end, and the poor pup is put in doggie jail at the police station. 

When all hope seems gone, a top agent from DOG Headquarters, Butch, emerges out of the floor and presents Diggs with an irresistible proposition – catch the crazed Kitty Galore before she destroys the bond between humans and dogs forever and seizes world domination. 

Diggs is quickly ushered into a world he never knew existed, a subterranean nexus of international canine operations reminiscent of the impressive headquarters of the MEN IN BLACK movies in which strange creatures travel, train, construct, and communicate in their own high-tech, top secret world. It’s here that Diggs is introduced to the rest of the pack, of which he must learn to be a part. The leader is Lou, an all-business, spectacled beagle that barks the orders. Peek, a Chinese Crested, is the agency’s geeky go-to guy for cutting-edge technology, including the Catimatron that helps dogs think like a cat. 

Back on the streets, Diggs and his gruff mentor, Butch, voiced by Nick Nolte, meet Seamus, a pigeon with a small grape/big raisin-sized brain and a price on his beak. Kitty Galore has sent assassins after the friendly fowl because he’s had a bird’s-eye view of some of her hush-hush gadgetry. 

The fourth member of the crime-fighting menagerie is one Diggs isn’t quite ready to accept: a fearless cat named Catherine who works for MEOWS. Kitty Galore’s vengeful scheme to rule the world, humans and dogs alike, has forced cats and canines to maintain their hatred and be defeated, or join forces and take Kitty down. 

Kitty, a former MEOWS agent, has gone rogue. Ostracized by her family when they couldn’t recognizer her after her lush white fur was wiped out in a depilatory vat, the tempestuous cat has become one insane sour puss. While suffering the bizarre costumes and pathetic magic tricks of incompetent carnival magician Chuck the Magnificent, Kitty masterminds her nefarious plot to take over the globe. 

The CATS & DOGS sequel is clever, creative, quirky, and highly entertaining, especially in 3D. There is some minor scatological and slapstick humor as well as some violence, but no serious injuries occur. The violence is substantially less than in the first movie, however, and no human or animal character is seriously harmed. One scene in particular may require caution for young children when a group of delirious cats are essentially high on too much catnip.

CATS & DOGS: THE REVENGE OF KITTY GALORE is a fun, witty, exciting family adventure. Diggs, a police dog who’s been caged for disobeying orders, is recruited to embark on a mission to stop a fanatical feline named Kitty Galore. Diggs quickly realizes he’ll have to learn to forgo his own pride and stubbornness to cooperate with others. With the help of a comical ignoramus of a pigeon, the team includes a smart, sassy, fearless cat named Catherine, a gruff mentor named Butch, and tons of far-fetched gadgetry and gizmos. Diggs proves to the others and himself that success can be won when talents are joined with humility and a spirit of service. 

The CATS & DOGS sequel contains moral values regarding selflessness, humility and repentance. The cats and dogs must choose to either be friendly and work together, or maintain their animosity and fall apart separately. There is some minor scatological and slapstick humor as well as some violence, but no serious injuries occur. Respect for humans is maintained save for when an avalanche of kitty litter knocks down an elderly woman. One scene about catnip metaphorically implies drug use. 

Friends with Benefits

Movies "friends with benefits" seem to be popular at this time. This film is very similar to the last missing strings attached, love and other drugs, but may be the best of the three. There are plenty of laugh at crucial moments. I love Justin Timberlake in comedy. He is always so much fun and that does not disappoint in this film. The rapid-fire witty banter between Dylan and Jamie is very entertaining to watch. Since that kind of movie scenes in the bedroom can not be avoided, but still continues to talk. It is actually fun to watch. However, we can say that the overall story is going and there is not much surprise when Dylan acts as he does at the end. In general, a light and funny rom-com and for those interested.


Friends with benefits is a romantic comedy about two people learning the hard way to get always lead to physical complications. Dylan (Justin Timberlake) and Jamie (Mila Kunis) are performed with the romance and go as they both suffer catastrophic breakdowns. They meet each other when the head of Jamie convinces Dylan Hunter from Los Angeles to New York transplant to work for GQ magazine as art director. They quickly become close friends and decided it would be a good idea to add pure physical sex into the mix, as it will relieve their frustrations, without the problems that come with relationships. It works very well for the two at first, but things get complicated when Jamie decides to appointments and Dylan realizes he's fallen for her. 

Anyway, our boy and girl this time around are Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis who have an undeniable spunky/sexy chemistry.

Timberlake plays Dylan, a website editor from L.A. who is lured to New York by headhunter Jamie (as played by Kunis) to interview for a job to become editor of GQ magazine. Dylan lands the job, the two become friends and before you know it we are off to the races with the "casual sex" plotline and all the predictable twits and turns that follow.

Fortunately for us, though, not only are our leads extremely likeable, they deftly deliver the zippy dialogue scribed by Gluck and co-writers Keith Merryman and David A. Newman.

Also there to inject life into the script at every corner is an exceptional supporting cast of scene stealers. Patricia Clarkson plays a more emotionally damaged version of her maternally spacey role in "Easy A" as Jamie's hippy-drippy mother.

We have a Jenna Elfman sighting as Dylan's sweet and funny older sister who lives back in L.A. with their Alzheimer's riddled father played by the always-brilliant Richard Jenkins. It is a scientific fact that the mere appearance of Jenkins makes any movie 63 percent better.

Then there is Woody Harrelson who would have stolen the movie if he were only given more screen time, as Tommy the boisterous, homosexual, sports editor at GQ. Timberlake deserves a lot of credit for wisely stepping back and letting Harrelson upstage him in their scenes together.

In actuality, it's the restraint of the entire movie that winds up elevating it. While the subject matter is certainly adults-only, "Friends With Benefits" doesn't go for easy laughs with any big gross-out moments or outrageously uncomfortable situations.

Romantic comedies are perennially successful at the box office mainly because of the comfort of familiarity. People will never stop enjoying watching attractive people fall in love and because of that it is very easy for filmmakers to get away with being lazy and unoriginal.

There is nothing lazy at all about "Friends With Benefits" and while it's not exactly blazing any new ground it at least deserves some credit for nudging the genre even just a tiny bit outside of its comfort zone.

Love and Other Drugs

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Jamie, a charismatic person who uses his charms to sell pharmaceuticals for Pfizer. Part of this movie, then, is a dig at the lucrative pharmaceutical industry, and the nepotistic relationship between doctors and pharmaceutical sales representatives. But overlying what purports to be an exposé of the moral bankruptcy of the US "medical community" is a personal tale of Jamie's own initial amorality, his lust for wealth, sex, and personal gain, and how he actually matures as a person. In contrast, the industry he works in becomes ever more immature and self-centred, as epitomized (in the movie) by the run-away success of the Pfizer-developed drug, Viagra. Ultimately, sex itself is shown to be one of the drugs that one can be addicted to, often as an escape from one's pain, or a mask for one's own insecurities. And like any drug, it has a transient effect and is not ultimately satisfying.
Jamie then meets Maggie, played by Anne Hathaway, and they hit it off immediately because they both seem to want the same thing: casual sex. But Maggie has early-onset Parkinson's disease, and she uses casual liaisons to keep people away from seeing her vulnerability and fear, and also to feel wanted. Her deepest fear is that she will end up alone and abandoned because of the burden that her illness would put on those around her. So, she deeply longs to be loved, and uses sex as a poor substitute for it. But at the same time she is afraid to be loved because that means she would have to be less independent, and actually accept the help of another person, and eventually have to rely on him. This requires trust, of course, and that is possibly what we fear most about love. Fear of trusting another, and so, being vulnerable not only extends to our human relationships, but I think, it may also explain why so many of our contemporaries are afraid to have faith in God, and accept his love. We're so conditioned by society to be independent and self-reliant, or wounded by past experiences, that we might no longer know how to trust another, and be loved, even by God who is Love.

Jamie, on the other hand, does not know how to love. He only knows how to take pleasure, and aim for his own ambitious goals, and he will do anything to achieve his desires. And so, when he tells Maggies he loves her - the first time he'd ever done so in his life - the movie shows him frightened, trembling, and confused. But this realization is the first step towards his becoming human. For he finds himself, and indeed, we all do as persons, in loving others. And so, Jamie, drawn initially by the 'bait' of lust and sexual pleasure, learns to love truly. A turning point comes when Jamie encounters a man whose wife is in the advanced stages of Parkinson's. He recounts with emotion the ravages of the illness, and says that if he had known beforehand, he would not have married his wife. And one wonders if Jamie - who is desperate to find a cure for Maggie's illness for his own sake - would do the understandable thing, and run away from the relationship.

But in the end - after a few more twists to the tale - he doesn't, because he has learnt what it really means to love another, and he sacrifices a much-desired lucrative job promotion to stay with Maggie, and care for her. Hence, in both persons, we see a movement in their characters as they mature as individuals, relinquish fear and selfish pleasures, and learn to grow in the virtue of love itself. What makes this movie compelling, then, is this movement, and the movie allows us to glimpse a part of their pilgrimage of life. And I think, if we're honest, we'll see something of ourselves, and our own moral growth in them. So, seen in a positive light, this movie might well speak to our generation, which is caught up in the transient pleasures of sex and other drugs, and maybe give them pause to reflect on just how much more beautiful, enduring, and powerful love is.

Casts:

Jake Gyllenhaal as Jamie Randall

Anne Hathaway as Maggie Murdock

Josh Gad as Josh Randall

Judy Greer as Cindy

Gabriel Macht as Trey Hannigan

Oliver Platt as Bruce Jackson

Hank Azaria as Dr. Knight

Something Borrowed

Something Borrowed is classic romantic comedy formula. Young woman is getting married to a dashing young man. Trouble is the girls friend, you know the hopeless romantic friend is in love with the fiance' and has been for years. In fact, she introduced the two lovebirds to each other years ago in college. But as the wedding draws near, sparks are flying where they shouldn't. Will everything work out? That's Something Borrowed.

This stars Kate Hudson as Darcy, the completely self-absorbed fiance'. Darcy is so annoying, that you wonder how anyone can stomach her for an hour, let alone a lifetime. She is a rich, good time party girl that is best friends with Rachel, (Ginnifer Goodwin) since childhood. Trouble is Rachel is in love with Darcy's fiance', Dex (Colin Eggelston). Rachel is the 30 year old boring, lawyer who has none of the vivaciousness as Darcy. But Dex is falling for Rachel. Let's be honest. This has been done to death. 

Hudson, could not be worse. She's hard to watch here and grates on your nerves I think even more than the director would want. Overall, Hudson is just not funny anymore. She's limited, and I think has worn out her welcome in the romantic comedy arena. In her slight defense, the writing here is abysmal and not well thought out. They ask Darcy to be irritating and drunk most of the time, and that's limiting for any actor. There is an attempt at the end for Darcy to grow a heart, but it's too late.

Now the silver lining. Ginnifer Goodwin is a star in the making. She has been in a few flicks, including Walk The Line, and He's Just Not That Into You. One great, and one bad respectively. But she is wonderful. Here again, she is lovely, alluring and wonderfully awkward as the lovable loser, love starved young woman. She does this so well. She is so easy to watch on screen, just as she was in He's Just Not That Into You. She was the star there, and here. You can't help but love her here, even as you're trying to choke down this movie, as it goes down sideways.

This formula here is so old. They try to spruce it up. And all they do is make you hate these characters more than like them. As this story stumbles down the aisle, you find you are hoping they all drive off a cliff in some kind of terrible misfortune so we can go home. But that does not happen. But I will tell you this, you will more than likely hate the end of this movie. It tries hard to make you feel something for these backstabbing New Yorkers. And it attempts to be a coming of age flick, and a "things in life change flick." But it fails. Luckily, this movie will get lost in the Thor vacuum that you'll hear loudly this weekend.

Super 8

J.J. Abrams imitates to flatter with Super 8, an homage to the seminal science fiction films of Steven Spielberg that succumbs to empty nostalgic pandering. As with his Star Trek, Abrams's latest puts a modern spin on classical material, though here reinvention isn't the goal so much as slavish duplication embellished with muscular CG effects. 

It's akin to returning to a cinematic womb of Spielbergian father-son issues, suburban households under extraterrestrial strain, and teen romance, friendship, and maturation via out-of-this-world circumstances. The effect of such a modus operandi is initial coziness quickly giving way to disheartening familiarity, with Abrams's own preoccupations (if he had any to begin with) becoming subsumed beneath the root themes, dynamics, and imagery of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and, more fundamental still, E.T. Set in a small Ohio town in 1979, this is a trial-by-fire tale of middle school kids falling in love, strengthening relationships, and reconciling with distant parents that's so clearly modeled after the work of its spiritual godfather (and producer) that, though Abrams's comprehension of his chosen genre tropes is exhaustive and his technical skill is impressive enough to create stirring atmospheric déjà vu, there's little genuine heart to his drama. Instead, in a manner similar to Gus Van Sant's Psycho, it's merely a high-resolution photocopy devoid of its revered predecessors' soul.

After a four-months-prior funereal prologue, Abrams's story finds wannabe creature-feature makeup artist Joe (Joel Courtney) still reeling from the accidental death of his mom, which has left him in the custody of father Jack (Kyle Chandler), a police deputy who—as evidenced by his suggestion that Joe attend baseball camp—neither knows nor cares to understand his son. Joe embarks on summer vacation intent on making a zombie movie with portly friend and budding auteur Charles (Riley Griffiths), whose hectic, sibling-overloaded home blatantly strives to recall the residence of E.T.'s Elliott, whom bike-riding Joe also deliberately resembles. 

Filming at an abandoned train station late one night with new cast member and fetching Erika Eleniak look-alike Alice (Elle Fanning), the production crew winds up running for their lives once a speeding locomotive is deliberately derailed—leading to fierce computerized calamity—by the truck of their middle school biology teacher. Soon, the Air Force, led by Nelec (Noah Emmerich), is on the scene and canvassing the town, casting evil military-men shadows while searching for a monster that, as later events reveal, has scared away all local canines and is intent on collecting the area's every electronic and mechanical device, thus causing mysterious power outages.

Abrams keeps this beast off screen for as long as he possibly can, to the point that Super 8—reminiscent of Cloverfield (which he produced)—becomes something of a giant tease. The idea, naturally, is to generate tension from fear of the unknown, and the director does scrape up minor suspense from a few quiet-quieter-silent-LOUD scenes in which only a flurry of gargantuan limbs can be spied. Moreover, this strategy pays early dividends simply because it allows more time to be spent on Joe and his friends, whom Abrams delineates with quick, clear strokes, as well as Joe's growing bond with Alice, whose drunken father Louis (Ron Eldard) was unwittingly responsible for Joe's mom's death, and whom Fanning embodies with a mixture of intimidating radiance and deep humanism. A fantasy vision of female perfection, Fanning's Alice meshes nicely with Joe, a somewhat withdrawn kid nonetheless unashamed to show his dream girl his collection of hand-constructed models. And Super 8 works best when simply lingering in their presence, allowing them to produce a flicker of sincere yearning, fear, excitement and mournful sadness that Abrams's overt attempts at Spielbergian melodrama can't muster, as when the young couple watch a mawkish home movie of Joe and his mom.

Joe and Alice's chaste romance is a vehicle for healing and reconciliation between both kids and fathers, as well as single men alienated by grief and resentment. However, save for one tense exchange between Joe and his dad in which a comment about responsibility resounds with multiple implications, this thread is thinly sketched by the script, which is more interested in checking off items on a Spielberg to-do list than grappling with authentic sentiments. That's also true with regard to the guiding theme about moving forward by letting go of the past, an ironic notion for this backward-looking film, and one that—spoiler alert—extends to the many-limbed creature itself, another government-abused E.T. who's desperate to return home. Even the alien's motivation is told rather than dramatized, leaving the third act in a shambles, brimming with zooms into close-up and vistas of otherworldly chaos that can't compensate for the schematism of the finale's Alice-as-Faye-Wray plotting. All the while, Abrams's aesthetic mode—be it Michael Giacchino's John Williams-ish score or the director's trademark lens flares, which inconsistently heighten emotions (via streaks across eyes)—proves at once proficient and secondhand. Only George A. Romero disciple Charles seems alight with original life, cheerfully reflecting Abrams's (and the film's) youthful cinema love. Yet incapable of transcending its go-nowhere nostalgia, Super 8 ultimately feels stuck in a state of suspended supernatural-sci-fi adolescence.

127 Hours

127 Hours is the motivational film of the year that proves nature is unforgiving and shows the powerful strength in human determination. Even with the storyline being very basic, it is still captivating enough to not only keep your attention but also make it memorable. James Franco gives it his all with his performance, setting off well deserved Oscar buzz.Aron Ralston (James Franco) is an avid thrill seeker that decides to go hiking into the canyons of Utah. He briefly runs into a couple lost female hikers that are lost. He jokes with them and shows them some amazing swimming areas before departing with them. Little does he know, it is the last time he comes in contact with a person for the next 127 hours.As he is climbing around the canyons, a large rock falls down and pins his arm between canyon walls. He has a very limited amount of supplies for survival including; a water bottle, a little food, rope and a multi-tool. He even had a video camera he brought with, although He immediately begins to try chipping away at the rock to free his arm, but with no success. To make matters worse, he realizes that he told no one where is was going, thus nobody will be looking for him.

It is impossible not to feel empathetic for him. Since he is trapped, he is forced to think about his mistakes he has made in the past. How he is sorry that he did not return his mom’s phone calls and how he wishes he would have brought more liquids to drink. He even creates a faux talk show with himself with the video camera, which is both comical and depressing.

Everything around him is draining; his battery in his camera, the water supply and most importantly his hope of survival. Even the movie poster is shaped like an hour glass as if it were a countdown to his likely death. At one point, he states that his whole life he was drawing him closer and closer to the rock that would eventually trap him in. After 5 days he decides the only way out is for him to cut his own arm off to free him from the large rock.

Undoubtedly, part of what makes 127 Hours so interesting is that it is a true story and how accurate the film is to was actually happened. The real footage of Aron Ralston stuck in the canyon has been restricted to close friends and family members, however, before shooting began, James Franco and Danny Boyle were allowed to watch the footage in order to portray the events in the film accurately.

The most difficult scene to watch in the film was when Ralston has to amputate his own arm. To summon the courage to do that, even in his situation, given the amount of excruciating pain to do so, I feel most people would be unable to do it. The special effects are incredibly realistic and detailed, making it almost hard to watch. Interestingly enough, the scene was done in one take using multiple cameras because they only created one prosthetic arm.

James Franco is simply amazing, working in a very tight space for nearly the entire film by himself. Since there were virtually no supporting roles, he is given the difficult task of carrying on a film alone and does it masterfully. There has not been a role since Tom Hanks in Castaway that done it better. It is a performance that will put him as a serious contender for an Oscar and should win Best Male Lead at the Independent Spirit Awards this year.

Because the film completely straightforward, to keep the audience engaged throughout is a task not easily achieved. Not only was the acting brilliant being is such a confined space with no supporting actors but Danny Boyle gets creative with the camera and special effects to keep it entertaining. 127 Hours is a powerful survival story that ends up being an inspirational statement about choosing to live through willpower.

Grown Ups

After their revered high school basketball coach passes away, Adam Sandler and his four childhood buddies decide to recapture the carefree past by spending some quality time together in an old lakeside house, brimming over with happy memories.

They descend on the desolate countryside resort with their respective families -- hyper-active wives and a bunch of kids bred on playstations and social networks -- and hope to re-connect, like never before. But can the odd, dysfunctional bunch actually survive the weekend under one roof?

Movie Review: Fun while it lasts, Grown Ups is a harmless little picnic film that celebrates friendship, even as it has something important to say. Get back to the outdoors, kids! it exclaims, urging today's tweens and teens to look beyond their playstation screens and FB friends for some real, hard-balled frolic and fun. How about some rock climbing, tree swinging, stone-pelting, roller-coasting, somersaulting, huh?

At least that's what the grown up boys indulge in, with intense merriment and mirth. The re-union for the five friends is filled with moments of boyish fun, which even includes a basketball game, as in the days of yore. Of course, there's a lot of adult teasing and tearing each other apart too, with the wives trying their best to adjust to each other's peculiar habits. Quite a difficult task, specially when you have a high-society diva like Salma Hayek, all set to go to Milan for a fashion show, forced to exchange pleasantries with a homely haus frau, an unambitious mother-to-be and a mother who chooses to breast-feed her four-year-old in public view. The mercury rises further when Rob Schneider's oomphy daughters land up to re-bond with a dad who has a yen for older women, unlike the rest of his friends who like them young and hot.

Savour the Sandler brand of humour with Grown Ups, a film that once again celebrates the spirit of childhood, like most of his comedies.

Cruel Intentions 2

Teenagers belonging to a seemingly uptight educational institution who connive and conspire against each other to survive in an affluent, quasi-political high school dynamic. That sums up Cruel Intentions

 in a nutshell. If wisecracks and cruel pranks give you the jollies, this teenage flick promises to tickle your funny bone with a vengeance. In an entertainment industry cashing in on slapstick, American Pie inspired themes to lure a younger and admittedly less discerning audience, Cruel Intentions adds an interesting twist to the proverbial teenage angst.

Before I go any further, let me add that this review is on part 2 of Cruel Intentions. Since part 2 was not listed under a separate topic, I took the liberty of using the generic Cruel Intentions review title to post this review. My apologies if I was remiss in my judgement.

Cruel Intentions 2 which is a prequel to the first part has a cast of relatively unknown actors. However the actors handle their parts with aplomb and even though part 2 was not as well received as part 1, primarily due to the lack of high profile celebrity backing, I would definitely not dismiss it as a stereotype washout.

The venue is the Manchester Prep school in Manhattan. A prestigious school for the Upper East Side teenage elite. A backdrop for scandalous relationships, sex and betrayal. Sebastian Valmont is a teenage kid who moves in with his father - a promiscuous but rather daft sort who is married to a wealthy Manhattan socialite. They live in a fashionably large mansion - (a little too Victorian) complete with a butler, a cook, a chauffeur and other domestic help. Sebastian’s biggest stumbling block is his new step-sister Katherine, the most popular girl in Manchester High who stops at absolutely nothing to get her way (including seducing the school’s assistant headmaster and blackmailing him for favors.)

Unwilling to succumb to his step-sister’s powermonger attitude, Sebastian retaliates and a unique sibling rivalry develops between the two. Sebastian takes pleasure in shooting Katherine down every chance he gets. Katherine, in turn, is determined to make Sebastian yield to her dominance in the school. In the meanwhile, Sebastian meets Danielle, the headmaster’s daughter. Danielle is the proverbial goody-two-shoes with a reclusive, coy demeanor that is the complete antithesis of Manchester’s smutty, self-indulgent posse of students. She is also purportedly the school’s ONLY virgin. Sebastian develops an infatuation for her and pursues her relentlessly despite her attempts to evade his more than subtle advances.

Katherine, who is the official student representative at the school also runs secret meetings at an undisclosed location with a like-minded clique of students who determine the fate of anyone in the school. In one of their little meetings, Katherine finds out about Cheri - a very rich but completely naive girl and decides to take her under her wing to turn her into the school’s biggest slut. (Cruel intention there huh). She tries to hook Cheri up with a guy in a nightclub but Cheri gets disgusted when the guy tries to kiss her and throws up all over him. Finally when there is no hope in sight, a little horse-riding lesson does the trick. In the words of Cheri.. no wonder they say women are good with horses.

Built around each of these sub-plots is the movie’s main theme - Cruel Intentions. Sebastian Valmont is looking to survive in this politically driven school environment, but his step-sister seems to thwart his every attempt to belong. At the same time he tries to woo Danielle, who straitjackets his every advance. Finally when Sebastian seems to have gotten his act together and everything seems in place, the plot thickens when Sebastian’s step sister finds out that he forged his transfer documents and transcripts to get admitted into Manchester... and threatens to expose him unless he is willing to - in the words of Katherine - ’’keep it in the family’’ . Sebastian yields - well almost - until his conscience overtakes him and he pulls away and sprints over to Danielle’s determined to tell her the truth about himself. But when he finally meets her, in a rather cruel but delectable turn of events, Sebastian finds out the surprising truth about Danielle.. (which you can find out for yourself if you’re still interested in renting this movie and watching it).

Lights Out

When part 1 came out in 1999, everyone raved about Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillipe and Reese Witherspoon’s performances. But even though the story in part 2 is a bit cliched and maybe a little unimaginative (compared to the first part), you will still find yourself getting entertained by the repertoire of wisecracks and sex and drama that this flick has to offer. It might not meet the expectations of those of you who have seen part One..but will certainly entertain those of you who have not.

Cruel Intentions 1

Sebastian Valmont (Ryan Phillippe) and Kathryn Merteuil (Sarah Michelle Gellar) are two devious step-sibling Manhattan socialites on their summer break before their senior year in an exclusive private school, who amuse themselves by playfully flirting with each other and bragging about their various sexual conquests. They are quickly growing bored, however, by the growing air of predictability in the games they play with potential love interests whom they care nothing for. When Kathryn is dumped by one of her boyfriends for the clumsy, childish 15-year-old virgin Cecile Caldwell (Selma Blair, star of "Zoe, Duncan, Jack and Jane"), she is outraged, and asks Sebastian for a favor: seduce Cecile and then spread rumors about her promiscuity, even though she has her eyes set on her black music teacher, Ronald (Sean Patrick Thomas). The stakes grow even higher between Sebastian and Kathryn when she makes a wager with him concerning if he can seduce Annette Hargrove (Reese Witherspoon), a young woman whose father is going to be the new headmaster of their school, and whom has recently written an article in "Seventeen" magazine where she professes her plans to wait until marriage to lose her virginity, before school starts. If he loses, she gets his vintage Porsche. And if he wins, he can enjoy Kathryn in any way he wants. "I'm the one person you can't have," Kathryn tells Sebastian, "and it kills you." Sebastian accepts, but while spend time with Annette, the unthinkable happens: he actually begins to form real, human feelings for her, despite initially only using her.

"Cruel Intentions" is a sleek and stylish comedy-drama that makes no compromises with its title: the two main characters in the film, and even some of the supporting ones, are extremely cruel and emotionally sick people who get their kicks out of using people. Because of this, the film is also certainly not your normal so-called "teenager" movie, and I could easily imagine adults also getting involved in the characters' plight, just like many have with "Dangerous Liasons."

Even if the characters aren't all likable, they are written with a richness you don't often see, and the dialogue between Sebastian and Kathryn is truly fetching and enjoyable, as they don't always say what they mean, or slyly use double entendres to stand for what they are saying. And as played by Phillippe and especially Gellar, the two actor are certainly up to the challenge. Gellar finally has proven with this film that she can very well be a wildly versatile actress that can play sweet with one role and be deceptive and hateful with the next, as she does here. Even if Phillippe isn't always up to her level, he is still well-cast in the role and plays several scenes with a brutal honesty (even if, in the film, he is supposed to be deceiving someone).

As the innocent, beautiful Annette, Witherspoon turns in yet another fine performance to add to her impressive resume (which includes outstanding turns in such films as 1991's "The Man in the Moon," 1996's "Freeway," and 1996's "Fear"), and in one vital dramatic sequence, she is able to transform a potentially cliched scene into something that is thoroughly poignant. Witherspoon also works very well with Phillippe, even if there aren't quite enough scenes between them to believe that they have fallen in love, and they make a quite charismatic pair (perhaps because they are a couple in real life, just recently engaged).

In the fourth and final central role is Blair (in her first starring film), who is a standout as the juvenile Cecile. That Blair is 26-years-old (about two to five years older than the other cast members, even though she plays someone two or three years younger) and is able to believably play a high school freshman only goes to show that she is also very talented, as well as has a firm comic sensibility, since many of her scenes rely on humor. All other actors in the film have relatively small roles who are used as pawns in Sebastian and Kathryn's scheme, including Thomas, as the music teacher; Eric Mabius, as a teenage football player and closeted homosexual; Joshua Jackson, as Sebastian's gay friend; and Christine Baranski as Cecile's aristocratic mother.

Although the story at hand is ultimately a tragic one, and includes a masterfully-done conclusion involving Gellar that rivals the one in "Dangerous Liasons" with Glenn Close, "Cruel Intentions" is also an often very funny comedy, particularly when dealing with small blink-and-you'll-miss details involving the characters, the always-amusing dialogue, and the infantile antics of Cecile. People can criticize "Cruel Intentions" all they want, but when it comes down to it, it is so very similar to 1988's Oscar-nominated "Dangerous Liasons" that it really is hard to nit-pick. The only major difference I can actually detect between the two, except for the obvious (such as the present-day time period and teenage characters), is that the characters in "Cruel Intentions" seem to jump more vibrantly to life. In retrospect, while watching "Dangerous Liasons" not long ago for the first time, despite the brilliant performances by Close, John Malcovich, and Michelle Pfeiffer, all I could really think about was telling the characters, "lighten up already!"

Hachiko: A Dog's Tale

HACHIKO: A DOG'S STORY is based on a 1987 Japanese movie, which in turn is based on a true story that took place in Tokyo in the 1920s: a professor found and adopted a dog, which was so faithful it always sat at the local train station, waiting for its master to come home from work. The dog kept on waiting even after the death of the professor, and when Hachiko the dog passed away, a bronze statue of him was erected at that train station.

    In Hallström's movie, the dog's still Japanese; in the beginning of the film, he's sent from Japan to the States, but the tag with the address falls off and the little puppy is skipping around at an idyllic train station in an idyllic town. Music professor Richard Gere finds the dog and takes it home, ignoring his wife Joan Allen's protests. The dog is named Hachi and he's very clever and very faithful, and yes, everyday, he walks to the train station to await Richard Gere coming home.

At the station, Hachi befriends the people working there and nearby; the butcher, the nice hot dog vendor, the woman in the book shop and her cat, and the man who's selling tickets to the train. The latter is played by Jason Alexander (from THE BURNING) of all people. He doesn't have very much to do in this movie and I sat there waiting for him to introduce himself as Art Vanderlay and claiming he works with import and export.

    Richard Gere has a beautiful daughter who marries a nice young man and the daughter gets pregnant, and since we already know the story behind the movie, we known that Gere is about to die all of a sudden (Hachi is so clever he knows what day!), which he does, so that the dog can keep on walking to the train station and wait - for ten years.

    Some people will call this movie "heartwarming". And one of my colleagues, a woman in her 60s, and who was sitting behind me at the press screening, was sobbing every now and then. And I heard more people sobbing in the theatre. I may sound like a cold-hearted son of a bitch, but I found this movie rather ... silly. Because it's so calculating: a cute and clever dog with big eyes, Richard Gere (who's the co-producer), total idyll, friendship beyond death, and sugar coated piano music.

One weird thing about HACHIKO is that I've never heard of it before. Lasse Hallström's movies are usually announced several months in advance, like the upcoming DEAR JOHN. But in this case, things get stranger:

    HACHIKO is produced by Stage 6, a company I believe belongs to Sony. Stage 6 usually produces movies like PISTOL WHIPPED with Steven Seagal, THE SHEPHERD with Van Damme, and DVD sequels like BOOGEYMAN 3 and VACANCY 2. HACHIKO is shot in regular 16X9 ratio and the cinematography is rather restrained. It's a small movie which feels adapted for a small format. And as a matter of fact: much to Hallström's disappointment, and despite starring Richard Gere, HACHIKO will go straight to DVD in the U.S.A. in March 2010, retitled HACHI: A DOG'S TALE. I guess the only reason this movie opened theatrically in Sweden, is because of Hallström. It was, however, a theatrical success in Japan and a few other countries.

    Although a movie about a dog, this sure is no new MY LIFE AS A DOG. HACHIKO feels like an old, anonymous TV movie from the 1970s. I've no idea what audience will appreciate Hallström's run of the mill and banal, albeit sympathetic and well-acted movie. Besides older women. And maybe young girls who love animals.

Sucker Punch

Sucker Punch is an action-packed film opening this weekend that features plenty of girl power, including Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone and Vanessa Hudgens.
Directed by Zach Snyder (Watchmen, 300), Sucker Punch looks like a mix of Girl, Interrupted meets Lara Croft meets Charlie's Angels.

Sucker Punch stars Emily Browning (The Uninvited) who plays Baby Doll, a girl who is taken to the mental asylum by her mean stepfather. Faced with the knowledge that she will undergo a lobotomy in a week, she and four other inmates, played by Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens and Jamie Chung, retreat to a fantasy world in her imagination where they plan their escape.

There has not been a single movie released so far this year that looks as fantastic as this movie does and be utterly pointless and flawed in almost every aspect. I find it depressing that this is the same director that brought us the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake and the big screen adaptation of WATCHMEN. Honestly, SUCKER PUNCH is an orgy for the eyes but torture on all the other senses. I’m still trying to wrap my brain on how a movie featuring chicks with swords, ninja statues, Nazi zombies, dragons and robots could be so dreadful instead of five different levels of awesome.

Here’s the plot, at least as far as I can tell; a young girl, Baby Doll (Emily Browning), is forced into a mental institution after attacking her step father and accused of murdering her little sister. While in the institution she enters into a fantasy world that pins her and her fellow crazies as prostitutes/dancers in a brothel and concocts a plan to escape using her seductive dancing as a means to distract the guards. Once the dancing starts she envisions herself in a variety of fantasy worlds to obtain all the different objects she’ll need to escape the facility.

I honestly believe SUCKER PUNCH was just an excuse for Zack Snyder to spend a lot of time on a set with scantily clad and half naked girls. The very first action scene is shameless exploitation of how many different ways you can show Emily Browning spinning and spreading her legs open in slow motion. Snyder has made a name for himself with the liberal use of slow motion and it’s never been more evident here and this is the worst it’s ever been used. The entire opening sequence is nothing but a music video for the song “Sweet Dreams” as directed by Zack Snyder; there’s no dialogue, just set up for the relationship between Baby Doll and her step father and how she ended up in a mental institution. There are several scenes that feel like nothing but extended music videos and set ups for a really bad porno.

The fantasy world Baby Doll chooses to live her escape in is a brothel, where the girls dance in order to turn on some horny dudes then take them back into a room where they finish them off. I half expected each subsequent fantasy to go a step farther and the girls are asking their cable guy to take his pants off. The fantasy worlds for the most part look pretty awesome; they all have some shaky CGI going on, but the visuals all have a very cool aesthetic.

The soundtrack is actually pretty decent; too bad the script requires that bland and lifeless characters that inhabit SUCKER PUNCH to speak over the top of it. The dialogue throughout is pretty awful and laughably bad at times. Every single time the Wise Man, played by Scott Glen, opened his mouth and said the words “oh and one more thing” the sentence immediately after induced an uncontrollable facepalm. The script has some of the worst and cheesiest cliché lines in the history of the English language; it literally uses the line of “don’t write a check that your ass can’t cash,” it’s like Snyder used Google search to come up with every cliché in the script.

Zack Snyder has always garnered points for style with films like 300 and WATCHMEN, but I can’t possibly make that concession here. Despite how good the action and special effects look, the film is completely devoid of anything involving real emotion or profound characterization. The action scenes have no stakes because you know everything takes place in a fantasy world while she’s doing a stripper dance for her employers. You never even see this dancing that hypnotizes everyone; Baby Doll just moves back and forth a couple times, closes her eyes and we are back in fantasy land.

For all the implied sex, half naked girls and violence on display you’d think this was an explicit hard R raunch-fest. Sucker Punch is decidedly PG-13 for reasons I’ll never understand; it’s so disappointing to see Synder going from awesome zombie carnage in DAWN OF THE DEAD to girls slaying Nazi zombies. That last statement is disappointing for the fact that these zombies don’t spill blood and that’s because Snyder has scripted in that the Nazi’s developed a way for their dead to function as soldiers by powering them with nothing other than steam, so when these poor saps die they don’t squirt blood, they spill out pockets of hot air.

All the money on screen here appears to be entirely on the special effects. The cast looks and acts like Snyder was walking through the set of a porno and grabbed any girl that wasn’t busy and said “do you have a second,” filmed their scenes and tossed them away like a used condom. I might be giving anyone who had a hand in the script too much credit because I’ve seen porns that have way more passion on display than any second of footage in SUCKER PUNCH. The writers of this garbage must have already suffered severe carpal tunnel just thinking of all the girls in spandex and the rest of the chicken scratch had to be translated through beer goggles.

Zack Snyder’s WATCHMEN flirted with a three hour runtime and I was ready for more by the time it was over. SUCKER PUNCH rings in at two hours and if it was a second longer I might have caused serious physical harm to the nearest living soul left in the theater. If I found any enjoyment in the film at all it was the moment it was over and realized I would never have to watch it again. The film is sort of like one long lobotomy, in that, when it was over I had no memory of why I ever wanted to subject myself to it. SUCKER PUNCH is aptly titled as anyone buying a ticket has already succumbed to what the title suggests. We only have ourselves to blame as the title is also a warning because you can’t get passed the first syllable of the title without spelling SUCK.

Red Ridinghood

Updating a classic is difficult. Effectively bringing to life a seven-century-old fairy tale is almost impossible. There are some distinct changes from the original tale, as well as the iconic Grimm fairy tale version. For one, in Red Riding Hood, the wolf here is a werewolf and its human form is determined to be a resident of a small, isolated village in the mountains.

After a few grizzly deaths, an authoritative man of God arrives (Gary Oldman), espousing to know how to rid the village of this frightful creature. As inhabited by Oldman, he is every bit as morally vague as you can imagine. But unfortunately, the script or direction fails him. There are more questions than answers.

Yes, Amanda Seyfried scores as Valerie (Red Riding Hood) with her wide-eyed performance but neither of her love interests, Shiloh Fernandez or Max Irons, turns in a terribly good performance. Again, it is probably not completely their fault. Perhaps the words failed them or even more likely -- and it pains us to say this because we love her -- maybe it’s their director. Perhaps it’s just a simple swing and a miss.

Director Catherine Hardwicke has assembled a solid cast with Seyfried, Oldman, Twilight’s Billy Burke, Oscar nominee Virginia Madsen and Oscar winner Julie Christie. But, Red Riding Hood fails to ignite.

The romance of Red Riding Hood also simmers when it should boil. Irons, Fernandez and Seyfried are in a love triangle with a werewolf on the loose. Yet, there’s no drama. Seyfried’s Valerie is set to marry Henry in an arranged marriage while she is truly in love with Fernandez’s Peter. Henry is wealthy and Peter is poor, but that is no matter. Seyfried only has eyes for Peter. In between werewolf attacks, the three move about more going through the motions than solidifying a strong trio.

It is hard to say what it is about Red Riding Hood that is so wrong. It could be that the actual trip to grandmother’s house was a little more silly than scary. What can be said in a movie review when the actors show up to play but the story, script and pacing leave their performances feeling flat and the film feeling far less interesting than it could have been?