I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film – live action or animated – quite like Happy Feet Two, and I don’t mean that in a good way. If the original Happy Feet were a whirlwind adventure, this manic sequel is a Category 5 hurricane, the intent being to sweep audiences off their feet, but the result being more  in line with taking a flying brick to the face. Director [...]

Directed by Canadian graphic novel artist Troy Nixey, and written and produced by acclaimed Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth), the new version of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is from its prologue to its conclusion a miscalculated exercise in generic genre film making. Based on a 1973 TV movie and minor cult classic of the same name, the film is a creaky, cobwebby haunted house affair about [...]

Paranormal Activity 3 is shocking alright, but that has less to do with what’s in the movie, and more to do with what’s been left out. See that publicity picture located above this review? Sadly, you won’t see that scene play out in the movie. Oh, and have you seen this trailer promoting the film? Well guess what, you won’t be seeing those scenes in Paranormal Activity 3 [...]

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 [...]