Headlined by Twilight third-wheeler Taylor Lautner, John Singleton’s Abduction is a laughably humourless adolescent espionage thriller whose sole reason for existing is to cash in on the current popularity of its musclebound teenaged star. Brimming with juvenile angst, the film is formula made for the undiscerning tween-aged masses; a formula that is so brazenly on display that adult viewers (having presumably wandered in [...]

What does one say about the Red Hot Chili Peppers? Are they still a force to be reckoned with? Have they verged into the realms of caricature yet? Is it a sign of the times that this once die-hard fan has little or nothing new to say about the band that inspired those excited squeals of youth? Gone are the days when Chili Peppers posters adorned the bedroom walls of [...]

South Korea’s A Barefoot Dream [Maen-bal-eui Ggoom] is so saccharine that it almost gave me a toothache. Based (one suspects loosely) on the real life story of a former Korean soccer player who coached the East Timorese children’s team to an unlikely international championship, everything in the film, from the over-the-top performances, cliché-riddled script, made-for-TV direction and syrupy musical accompaniment is so farcically sentimental that it makes you wonder whether [...]

Operating under the misguided belief that enough time has passed since Barry Sonnenfeld’s abysmal Wild Wild West in the late nineteen nineties, director John Favreau takes a break from the Iron Man franchise to deliver a genre hybrid that, unfortunately, is as uninspired and obvious as its silly title suggests. Combining the most generic elements of both the western and the sci-fi genres, Cowboys & [...]

I don’t read comics. I might have flicked through The Adventures of Tintin once, but that’s about the extent of it. My ignorance, however, has never been much of a problem when it comes to reviewing comic-adapted movies, if only because a majority of them feature superheroes iconic enough that I haven’t needed to read a single issue to know who’s who or what’s what.

Then comes along Green Lantern, a [...]

Big Mamma’s Boy is the story of an attractive young man desperately trying to divide his time fairly between two women, and failing miserably. Familiar turf for a romantic comedy. Except in this case, one of those women is a gorgeous, successful blonde exuding intelligence and charm, while the other, armed with a fierce array of kitchen utensils, is his mother.

Not to be confused with the American Mama’s Boy or [...]

Directed by the ever-so-masterful Stanley Kubrick in 1962, Lolita is a surprisingly lacklustre affair with a script that’s neither as daring nor erotic as it so desperately wants to be.

The film follows Humbert Humbert (James Mason), a middle-aged British college professor who movies to America in order to acquire a position as a French literature teacher. Upon crossing the pond, Humbert stumbles upon a small town where he rents a room from [...]

In Transformers: Dark of the Moon, the latest visual effects show-reel from action director Michael Bay, a race of evil alien robots threatens to annihilate all of humanity. Not a hard task when there isn’t a spec in sight to begin with.

The words “soulless, empty spectacle” doesn’t even begin to describe the third Transformers movie, but it’s a good place to start. Bots go “bam!”, buildings go “boom!” and boobs [...]