What was the thinking behind all this?. . . At times, Ritchie and company try so hard to make sure this isn't your father's Sherlock Holmes that it comes across as, well, cartoonish.. This is a swashbuckling, pratfalling romp designed to make cerebral Holmes purists drop their monocles into their teacups.. Though purists may balk at Arthur Conan Doyle's literary world being manhandled into a blockbuster by never-subtle director Guy Ritchie, Downey has a winning take on Holmes: He's always on.. G...
Harry Potter og dødsregalierne - del 2 (2011) Spille Film
This is the way The Harry Potter saga was meant to end.. Fresh and fearsome fun.. A convoluted, airless procedural that generates practically no suspense and little that's thematically resonant about lost souls and poisoned memories.. Dingy and dumb. Instead of a quickened pulse, it results in multiple yawns and a "So, that's it? Meh.". "Dark Places" isn't a disaster of a film. Instead, it's the definition of average, and we wish it could have taken us to some more interesting places.. My, how t...
Saw VI (2009) Download Film
The Losers at least has speed on its side -- not to mention a bad case of ADD and camera jitters -- but all compliments end there.. Compensates for the mindlessness of its story by filling it with all kinds of clever, playful, stylish flourishes.. This script, by Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, has a more lyrical bent, and a more satiric bite, than any of the other Saw sequels.. As an action fix to hold you before the summer explosions start, you could do worse than The Losers. It's no more t...
Darbareye Elly (2009) Spille Film
Despite the impressively committed performances by the two leads and the screenplay's touches of sly humor, the proceedings are mostly all too redolent of the endless found-footage horror films that have followed in the wake of The Blair Witch Project. Bobcat Goldthwait's effective yet wholly unnecessary contribution to the genre of horror movies allegedly recovered from the hard drives of dead cameramen.. It has taken six years for this terrific film to work its way back to us, and if possible ...
The Mortal Instruments: Dæmonernes By (2013) Se Streaming
An almost random collection of sexy-supernatural teen signifiers aimed at squeezing the penultimate dollars out of a declining trend.. While it strays from Dick's narrative, it nails the basic premise and some quintessential Dickian motifs.. The most intelligently fun movie Spielberg has ever made.. Allen's sketch of the campus owes nothing to observations of real students or teachers; the setting and the setup are living abstractions that the trio of lead actors invest with their own vital whim...
The Boy Next Door (2015) Fuld Film Streaming
Predictable and foolishly unsuspecting characters react in ways that make you want to shake them. But there's an undeniable sense of silly fun in this erotic thriller.. Dazzling visuals and hipster dialogue, but a story that stays true to the original source material.. The very idea of handing him over to professional lad Guy Ritchie, to be played as a punch-throwing quipster by Robert Downey Jr., is so profoundly stupid one can only step back in dismay.. This is a swashbuckling, pratfalling rom...
Sorority Row (2009) Se Fuld Film
Slightly more digestible than its predecessor.. . In The Black Dahlia, narrative strands tangle and wither, and minor characters clutter the plot.. What it accomplishes with its stunning cinematography and set design is undercut by a lack of coherence.. . Sorority Row is an interminable mess of a film that juggles more characters and undeveloped subplots than it can handle and even manages to bungle the setup.. Josh Friedman's screenplay doesn't so much distill the flavor of James Ellroy's hard-...
Chloe (2009) Se Streaming
Chloe is an astute character study in the form of an erotic suspense story.. The best of Egoyan's films (The Sweet Hereafter, Exotica) deserve serious attention. Not this time.. A remake that's an improvement over the original, and an English-speaking women's film that, for once, beats the French at the genre they do best.. Egoyan keeps you wondering where fantasy starts and ends -- or if there's a fantasy at all.. Chloe descends into a preposterous third act that, by any measure, qualifies as a...
The Strangers (2008) Online Streaming
Fans of the 'pitiless/merciless killers' school of horror should get a jolt out of The Strangers, a harrowing real-time tale of an assault on a remote country home.. The fun is fun while it lasts, it just doesn't last long enough.. While it may not be a fully realized take on Dick's forward-thinking work, it's still a far better film than the Verhoeven version.. Where Paul Verhoeven's original was testosterone-stupid and, therefore, fun, Wiseman's film is just boring-stupid.. At least it's short...
Zodiac (2007) Fuld Film Streaming
This movie, like the first, is more of a translation than an adaptation. It's the visual equivalent of an audio book, slightly abridged.. For a director whose earlier films include the influential Seven and cult-fave Fight Club, the results are merely good -- not great.. David Fincher's grim but mesmerizing Zodiac offers the puzzle-solving addictiveness of a detective story, the shivers of a thriller and the allure of a character study, all presented with a dash of newspaper drama.. Like many ch...
9 (2009) Se Fuld Film
The expanded cast of creatures looks great, dressed and animated in the homespun style Acker calls ''stitchpunk.''. It's too bad the thin story didn't match the stylishly haunting visuals.. It might have been an opportunity for the sort of challenging speculation sci-fi is best at, however, and the best reason to see it is simply because of the creativity of its visuals.. It signals the arrival of Shane Acker as an audacious new talent to watch.. The post-apocalyptic adventure 9 adds up to every...
Knowing (2009) Fuld Film Streaming
Its breathlessness and permanent state of confusion make you long for the assured touch of M. Night Shyamalan.. The draggy, lurching two hours of Knowing will make you long for the end of the world, even as you worry that there will not be time for all your questions to be answered.. Was there a prediction of this laughably bad movie in The Mothman Prophecies?. If you want to know how inept the movie is...well, it's so inept that you may wish you were watching an M. Night Shyamalan version of th...
The Secret in their Eyes (2009) Download Fuld
The Illusionist is a rich and elegant film, full of sly, devious characters with complicated motives.. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows doesn't rip enough yarn.. An attractive, messy drama riddled with violence and edged with comedy that comes with a hint of Grand Guignol, a suggestion of politics and three resonant, deeply appealing performances.. The wonder is that the film balances its many genres, from the thorns of murder to the bloom of romance to the thickets of politics, with such easy...
Brick (2005) Fuld Film Streaming
Johnson isn't the first director to subvert suburbia, but he's probably the first to have done such a fine job of it on his first outing.. The self-consciously mannered rat-a-tat-tat dialogue also mines a neat overlap between teen slang and noir patois, both of which can be indecipherable to non-initiates.. . You know a series is in trouble when it begins mocking its own premise. Frank's obsessive rules about who, what and how he transports stuff are ruthlessly violated.. I had less problems wit...
Harry Potter og hemmelighedernes kammer (2002) Spille Streaming
The franchise is safe! Columbus' second alchemical movie ups the thrill quotient to satisfy the faithful. There's more action, and it's scarier.. No sequelitis here, kids (and grown-ups) -- this franchise is alive and well.. This new Harry Potter has its flaws, but it's better, as well as darker, than the first.. This movie, like the first, is more of a translation than an adaptation. It's the visual equivalent of an audio book, slightly abridged.. While it still falls short of becoming the clas...
Enigma (2001) Spille Streaming
. For most of it's 117 minutes, Enigma delivers a powerful story from World War II that's based on real events.. Ultimately, clarity matters, both in breaking codes and making movies. Enigma lacks it.. Ben Affleck is a handsome fellow. No argument there. What he isn't is a particularly compelling leading man.. Affleck gives a sleek, economical performance as Jennings.. If the movie's plot is a rare combination of impenetrable and inconsequential, it has been laid out compellingly by director Mic...
Inception (2010) Se Fuld Film
The ambition on display is so huge, and the filmmaking so intelligent, you'll emerge feeling as if you've just watched an entire season of the greatest sci-fi series never made.. This is a popular entertainment with a knockout punch so intense and unnerving it'll have you worrying if it's safe to close your eyes at night.. Even as you tick off the film's overload of references, though -- a Matrix here, a James Bond there -- the amazing effects and Cobb's quest carry you along.. An astonishment, ...
Mr. Brooks (2007) Spille Film
Nearly every scare in The Crazies is telegraphed, whether by suddenly too-tight photography or shrieky crescendos of sound.. Twohy correctly banks on the fact that his audience will be too busy sifting through those aforementioned "red snappers" to care about the details.. David Twohy's taut, palm-sweating thriller has two things going for it: it keeps you guessing and it doesn't insult your intelligence.. Mr. Brooks spins a web that will wrap you up in nightmares.. You know you're in real troub...
Sherlock Holmes 2: Skyggespillet (2011) Fuld Streaming
As Johnny Depp has done so brilliantly with his devilish Jack Sparrow, Downey has made this sly sardonic Sherlock stylistically all his own. Case closed.. It's complete trash and makes a mockery of Holmes's vaunted deductive reasoning.. In an act of criminal negligence, Ritchie has wasted Robert Downey Jr. in a sequel that eliminates smarts in favor of relentless headbanging.. Ritchie's franchise - 7% classic formula, 93% adrenaline - is smart in a showoffy way that flatters its star as well as ...
Oblivion (2013) Se Streaming
A movie that combines a lot of different films, yet somehow remains less than the sum of its parts .... Absolutely one of the greatest, most cringe-worthy movies I've ever seen.. Oblivion is an okay blockbuster, a multimillion-dollar exercise in competence.. Kosinski offers plenty of action here, and he lets the plot reveals bleed out slowly (explanations keep coming right to the end). Yes, a great deal is derivative, but it's fast-moving derivative.. The film conceals as much as it reveals, and...