Movie Reviews

Should You See ‘The Raid 2’?

by Joel Dale | Apr 19, 2014 | 2 comments

The Raid 2 is the sequel of The Raid: Redemption. This is a confusing fact to some people, including professional movie website Yahoo Movies, which has the first movie listed on their box office chart for this week. Yahoo went so far as to link to clips and promotions from the first movie as well. They flat out don’t know what movie is in the theater right now.

Here’s some proof:

At least the first film is awesome too.

I’m pretty sure I’m about to ban Yahoo in my household.

So let me set the record straight.

The Raid: Redemption is an amazing blaze of martial arts craziness that had me all jacked up for the sequel.

raid2field

Long, intricately composed images, that only ever lead to death.

The Raid 2, my friends, is a whole other level of epic. Ditching the confines of the single building location of Redemption, where Indonesian police officer Rama uses his fists, feet, knives, and guns to survive a total criminal onslaught; director Gareth Evans tells a sprawling and complicated story of the barely peaceful coexistence of two gangs that run the city and how our hero, Rama must infiltrate them to root out the corrupt police he exposed in the first movie.

Should You See ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel?’

by Joel Dale | Mar 29, 2014 | 2 comments

Wes Anderson is one of my favorite directors. Rushmore struck me as mean spirited but fascinating the first time I saw it, and upon second viewing I connected with the story of boy who wants to be a man and a man who wants to be a boy again. It may be mean but there is a rich story about growing up in the craziness of life. When I saw The Royal Tenenbaums, I turned to my friend Corey and said “every time we ever plan to see a movie this year, let’s watch this again instead. Because nothing will be better.” The humor about family dynamics is infused with a true pain that cuts through with the awkwardness of what life throws at us. When Moonrise Kingdom was done, I considered Bruce Willis a genius actor and bought the movie for my mother who I knew would appreciate the depiction of love and the difficulty of parenting in that way only Wes Anderson can make seem like a pop-up story book. The artificial and the real meet head on in his films. The Darjeeling Limited is everything I want in a movie. That horrible mixture of anger and humor and love that feels so unnatural and yet believable while telling the story of three brothers learning to bond again. And even the more maligned and less meaningful The Life Acquatic with Steve Zissou worked well for me upon second viewing.

I am a fan.

Should You See ‘Mr. Peabody and Sherman?’

by Joel Dale | Mar 13, 2014 | 0 comments

It’s a wonder to me that the writers of Mr. Peabody and Sherman didn’t pull a muscle changing directions so often. The script jumps around so quickly and at such violent velocity that it would make for a great basketball player, if movie scripts could play basketball. Starting off with a high-paced caricature of the life and times of Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution (a hilarious moment from the past), the film jumps from too many puns about cake to a last moment escape from Peabody having his head chopped off. It all serves to punctuate how Mr. Peabody and Sherman plans to teach us history, one insensitive, watered down moment at a time. If anything, the 5 year olds will know that Marie Antoinette was a fat lady that liked cake. “What was that guillotine thing…. oh stop kids. Don’t ask such questions.”

I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. Movies like this make me wonder if I’m turning into my Dad, who only likes vanilla ice cream, unless he’s really stepping out and gets french vanilla.

Should You See ‘RoboCop’ (2014)?

by Joel Dale | Feb 15, 2014 | 3 comments

Imagine an iconic movie that does a bitingly satirical send up of American politics, corporate greed, and the way the media influences and/or reflects our lives. Imagine that movie is punctuated with violence so over the top as to get an X-rating the first time out. Imagine that movie with a laser vision scoped on it’s style, what it’s trying to say, and using two steps above reality humor to make its point. Imagine that movie taking the country by surprise and becoming a cultural phenomenon.

Now imagine that movie getting remade to garner a PG-13 rating.

The results are exactly what you might expect. Well made, good looking, emotionally empty and a great representative of everything the first Robocop was trying to skewer.

Sony 3rd Quarter Financial Results: PS4, Xperia Strong, TV Divest, PC Sold

by Jonathan Nolan | Feb 6, 2014 | 9 comments

The financial results for the past three months of Sony Corp. were released today, forecasting a net loss of 110bn yen ($1.1bn) for the financial year ending March. This a revision downward from a previous prospect of 30bn yen profit.

The company reported a significant boost to sales and operating income, lifting the stock price. PS4 and Xperia smartphone and tablet sales were strong, as expected. All segments reported increased year-on-year sales and operating revenue, except for devices.

Sony has bit the bullet and sold of it’s PC business and is pushing out the TV division to a wholly-owned subsidary. This leads to impairment charges and write-offs with 5,000 job cuts planned before the end of the 2014 financial year. The PC business is sold to Japan Industrial Partners Inc. to “enhance the autonomy of the business”.

Read on the for full story.

Should You See ‘Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit?’

by Joel Dale | Jan 28, 2014 | 3 comments

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is a movie about how Chris Pine gets into a military helicopter, takes off his seat belt, gets shot out of the sky by an Afghani missile, crash lands while bouncing all around the interior of the helicopter, breaks his back, saves two people, and comes out looking like Chris Pine.

It has the kind of geography where Chris Pine can travel from Russia to NYC, discover the identity of an as yet unknown villain on the way, then find him in the middle of NYC all in the same day.

It has the kind of logic where Chris Pine can get on a motorcycle traveling at blistering speeds through NYC, while chasing a villain, and make a phone call on his Windows Phone and actually hear the conversation.

At first I thought it strange he used a Windows phone but then I realized the CIA probably chose Windows because no one has hacked them: mainly because nobody writes software for them.

Should You See ‘Her?’

by Joel Dale | Jan 18, 2014 | 10 comments

Her is so complex in simple ways, it’s hard to keep my thoughts brief and confined to a normal sized review. But I’ll try. This gem of a film by the gem of a director Spike Jonze dishes up two hours of quirky, heart breaking, humorous goodness in ways that are both familiar and uncomfortable. Her tells the story of Theodore Twombly, a man who makes his living writing personal letters for people who are otherwise too busy or too out of touch to express their emotions themselves. His skill at tapping into the most touching thoughts of his clients, whom he gets to know over years of working with them, contrasts with his own inability to express himself. A quality which led to his divorce from the woman he obviously loves. Jonze fills the spaces in the back story by showing silent flashbacks, underscored by the dialogue of the current moment. In this way the present and the past collide in the same space.

Should You See ‘Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues?’

by Joel Dale | Jan 2, 2014 | 1 comment

I saw the first Anchorman after the hoopla had worn off. Everyone had talked about how awesome it was, but I’m not the biggest fan of Will Ferrell. I have nothing against him personally; I just don’t find his brand of comedy the most entertaining. However Anchorman was a pleasant surprise. A silly movie about dumb people in the news industry. It had no staying power, I remember almost none of it, but I know I laughed and it’s one of the Will Ferrell comedies I liked. So when the sequel was announced I was fairly hopeful. It looked over the top and fun.

Should You See ‘All Is Lost?’

by Joel Dale | Dec 15, 2013 | 2 comments

My friend GI Joe described All Is Lost this way: “it’s Gravity on a boat.” And to that extent he’s not wrong. Hollywood often copies itself. Two different volcano disaster movies came out at the same time. Two different meteor from space will crush the earth movies showed up simultaneously. And now, two different I’m alone In the middle of nowhere movies are out. But given how risky, groundbreaking, and otherworldly Gravity was, it’s hard to imagine Hollywood knew they needed to throw out another lone survivor movie to compete. So I like a different way to compare them. Which is to say both films have been brought to this world via bold and visionary directors with a singularly different way to tell stories.

Here's my safety suit. It doesn't float.

Here’s my safety suit. It doesn’t float.

For me, it’s getting to the point where we can take David O’Russel, Wes Anderson, P.T. Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, Alfonso Cuarón, throw in All Is Lost’s J.C. Chandor, and basically the rest of us can go home. Notice that every single one of these people write and direct their own films.

There’s not a lot to explain. Robert Redford plays a man, who’s name you never learn. It’s not important because he’s the only person in the entire film and says about one paragraph of words throughout, most of which come in the opening stanza: a letter he is writing explaining that he tried his hardest to survive but seems to have failed. At which point the movie jumps eight days into the past to show us what happened. I’m generally not a fan of flashbacks. They seem like a cheap trick to make us interested in a story as we try to piece together how it leads back to the beginning. It also generally implies that a story isn’t interesting enough to just start without that trick. And in this case I would have loved to know whether that was true or not. It certainly was okay for Gravity not to flashback, which is a faster paced and probably a better movie. However All Is Lost holds it’s own in comparison.

Should You See ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’?

by Joel Dale | Dec 2, 2013 | 0 comments

It’s important to review the big popular things, because that will get more eyes on me, more eyes on my employer of SonyRumors, and more feedback so I can get better at this trade. However, it’s a foregone conclusion that The Hunger Games: Catching Fire will be the biggest movie in the world for many days ahead. And my personal opinion of whether it deserves to be number one or if anyone should see it at all will have zero effect on that. I tore Thor apart and they still made more money in a day than I will probably in my lifetime. I might as well be trying to sell tofu at a butcher shop. But there are people who have not yet gone. People who have waited to avoid the huge crowds, or were busy on opening weekend. People who for one reason or another have yet to drop their hard earned dollars. These are the people who read that article about how the meat industry works and stare at the butcher shop door, wondering whether to support that. And there I stand, tofu in hand, smiling brightly in the way. Will I open the door for them or will I do my best to convince them of the dangers of bacon.

As far as The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is concerned… how do you like your pork?

If the sequel is a chop, then the first film was more of a BLT. I liked the art direction and the concept of the story, but I thought it was overwrought, pretty random, with animated effects that at times looked downright bad. It was okay. Not horrible. I was partially effected from having seen it opening day, at midnight, in a packed house, with anti-social teenagers sitting behind me. They threw candy and said vulgar things to prove to their friends how talented and funny they were. So maybe I was in a bad mood.

Deny thy father and refuse thy name.

Deny thy father and refuse thy name.

I can say, between films, a lot has improved. Adding Phillip Seymour Hoffman to any film makes it better almost instantly. But everyone is strong. While Donald Sutherland is great as President Snow – equal parts power loving, fear zealot and believer in the theory of their society created peace, the big surprise for me is Woody Harrelson. I don’t have a particular problem with him in general but I never feel compelled in any way by his performances. I have to say his take on Haymitch Abernathy, former games survivor, is the most I’ve ever seen him disappear into a role. He’s an alcoholic for no small reason and despite his hateful, despondent exterior, is quite the savvy thinking man with a real streak of compassion for humanity and a better world.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Should You See ‘Thor: The Dark World’?

by Joel Dale | Nov 22, 2013 | 0 comments

Somewhere I read that Thor: The Dark World cost 110 million dollars to make. It certainly doesn’t look like it.

I would like to take 109 million of those dollars to build a time machine, travel back to 1982, and give the remaining one million to new wave band A Flock of Seagulls and see what kind of music video they could have made for “I Ran (So Far Away)”.

Why, you ask?
Why not.

That certainly seems to be the answer to every question asked of the filmmakers when making the piece of overstuffed nonsense where discretion and restraint have zero meaning. This movie is what people are referring to when using the phrase “threw everything in, including the kitchen sink”.

Whew - this plot makes me tired.

Whew – this plot makes me tired.

I knew something was wrong in the first five minutes of full on narration that just bombarded me with a fairly ridiculous story about some dark beings who controlled some substance that has some name that can destroy the universe, somehow. And then the planet of Thor people managed to beat the non-Thor people and bury the substance so that no one could find it again.

Except now. In 2013. On Earth. In an abandoned warehouse.

“Why Earth?”
“The Convergence,” answers Thor with the authority of a fifth-grader figuring out the secret to an Encyclopedia Brown mystery.

Should You See ‘Man of Tai Chi’?

by Joel Dale | Nov 12, 2013 | 4 comments

One can be forgiven for thinking there’s a certain similarity between Neo, the hero from the Matrix and Donaka Mark, the villain in Man of Tai Chi. Both have a clipped off, deliberate style to speech. Both use fairly matter of fact sentence structure. Both dress in black all the time. And both are played by the very unmistakable Keanu Reeves. And while Man of Tai Chi was written by Michael G. Cooney, it marks the directorial debut of Mr. Reeves, who seems heavily influenced by his time making the Matrix movies. To call this film an homage to kung-fu movies is probably not accurate. It is a kung-fu movie. And a pretty good one at that.

Sony Financial Results Q2 FY13, US Market Distance

by Jonathan Nolan | Nov 1, 2013 | 0 comments

Many of us here at SonyRumors have been watching Sony’s mobile strategy carefully and wondering what their next plans are, particularly, regarding the US. With the stellar success of the Xperia Z – a phone which ranks in the top three smartphones in over 20 markets by revenue, followed by the mammoth Xperia Z1 it has been an antagonizing wait for US consumers to see when the next hot Sony smartphone will come to US shores, or worse – if at all.

The company has just released it’s second fiscal results which tells us a lot more about what’s going on at the company and we can’t forget CEO Kaz Hirai’s unpopular announcement that the US was not a priority market at the moment and hinting at a reduced presence in the market. With a combination of CEO comments and fresh fiscal results we can start to see exactly why Sony is bailing the US and perhaps estimate when they might return. After the jump, the Q2 FY13 Sony financial results.

Should You See ‘Captain Phillips’?

by Joel Dale | Oct 28, 2013 | 2 comments

There is a correlation between the trailers before the movie you are there to see and the movie itself. Horror films usually have other horror or suspense trailers preceding them. G-rated kids cartoons promote other kids movies, not RoboCop. So I wasn’t sure what to think at Captain Phillips when my friend Shay turned to me and said “this set of previews is disproportionately Nazi heavy.”

As far as I’m aware, Captain Phillips is playing well across audiences. But the crowd around us was geriatric. It’s probably true that it skews older. And younger kids probably don’t care as much about Tom Hanks as I might, who grew up watching his career. However, in case you’re reading this and you’re like “meh, Tom Hanks” … go see Captain Phillips. The final scene has Hanks delivering the best actings I’ve ever seen from him and one of the best pieces of acting I have ever seen period. It’s easy to give extra credit for sad stuff. The Oscars love to give awards to dramas and leave comedic acting by the wayside, but I can tell you that Tom Hanks won from me an all new level of respect in one 5-minute scene.

Should You See ‘The Family’?

by Joel Dale | Oct 8, 2013 | 0 comments

On my way to picking up G.I. Joe to go see a movie I narrowly escaped an accident. An unusual amount of traffic had come down my street and lined up more than two blocks deep at the stop sign. So, the view to my right was blocked. A woman in a Passat was driving up to what would have been directly in front of me but she stopped short. She saw I wanted to make a left turn and was giving me the space. I took a quick look to the right and couldn’t see any movement or lights or cars coming. I looked to the left, waved at the nice lady and started to make my turn. It was at this moment her eyes widened and she started to clutch her face in horror that I realized I was about to be in an accident. Looking in my rearview mirror I saw another driver had completely stopped and slightly turned off the road to avoid hitting me. That is about as close as one can get to being in an accident without crashing. I felt embarrassed. I was angry with myself for making such a mistake. I felt this pit open in my stomach about how close I came and knew right then, this was going to be the worst feeling I experienced all day.