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Labels: Anne Heche, Dwayne Johnson, Eva Mendes, film, Mark Wahlberg, Michael Keaton, movie trailer, Paris Hilton, Ray Stevenson, Samuel L Jackson, Steve Coogan, Will Ferrell

And the award for "Most Ironic Title" goes to...

Remember back in the days when M. Night Shamalamadingdong was heralded as the second coming of Spielberg? The Sixth Sense had established him as the heir of Hollywood genius and we were all witnesses the opening act of a master artist?

Notice, no one is citing this guy as being brilliant anymore.

Actually, when I see his films I have great sympathy for ol' MNSlmdd. Imagine having all of that praise and expectation thrown on you in such a public way and then spending the remainder of your career not even making mediocre work? It would be like a young Michael Jordan having trouble navigating his way through a game of horse. Or perhaps like someone who was utterly unqualified to hold higher office who is showered with the hope of change and then...well, you get the point.

Shamalamadingdong is a victim of his own hype. But don't feel too sorry for him. We're all the victim of his writing skills.

This movie is as dull as it is senseless. People begin to die mysteriously. Shamalamadingdong drops some environmentalist nonsense on us and likens us to the plight of honey bees. More people begin to die and society begins to unravel. Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel prance around in rural areas while even more people die. Wahlberg eventually figures out what is killing everyone and then the whole world wants to kill Shamalamadingdong for wasting their time.

Here is a tip for Shammy, STOP WITH THE TWIST ENDING - YOU STINK AT TWIST ENDINGS. Yes, you had a moment of brilliance with The Sixth Sense. You made it work. Congratulations. Just because I luck out and sprint across a Los Angeles highway and make it to the other side doesn't mean I should keep doing it. I should reflect on surviving and then plan on STAYING AWAY FROM THE CARS THAT ARE GOING TO RUN ME OVER.

Just sayin'.



Related Reviews:
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The Lady in the Water (2006)


Other Critic’s Reviews:
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Click here to buy your copy of
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Labels: film, M Night Shyamalan, Mark Wahlberg, movie review, Zooey Deschanel

Peter Jackson personally bought the rights to the novel, so we can assume he made this as a labor of love. I'm mixed on what I'm seeing. While it is certainly pretty but the source work is dark and incredibly devoid of any theology. Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan), a teenage girl, is raped and murdered. Her body is dismembered and hidden by her killer. Susie's soul watches the events that follow her death from her "personal heaven". She narrates as her family suffers grief and the long search for her killer continues.

For a tale that centers on a character who is dead and watches from the afterlife THAT AVOIDS THE ISSUE OF GOD is a huge cop out. I understand this isn't a treatise on God but to not even broach the subject? Its like having a story take place in the White House and avoiding the subject of the Presidency.

I'm willing to give Jackson the benefit of the doubt. Although his casting of Mark Wahlberg is puzzling. Weren't there any actors available for the role?







Screenwriters: Fran Walsh (King Kong), Philippa Boyens (Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers) and Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring)
Director: Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King)
Actors: Saoirse Ronan (Atonement), Mark Wahlberg (The Happening), Rachel Weisz (The Mummy), Stanley Tucci (The Devil Wears Prada) and Susan Sarandon (Bull Durham)

Labels: adaptation, film, Mark Wahlberg, movie trailer, Peter Jackson, Rachel Weisz, Saoirse Ronan, Stanley Tucci, Susan Sarandon

Short Review: What’s better than corporate suck-up millionaires making movies about the evils of corporate suck-up billionaires.


This film, based on Stephen Hunter’s book Point of Impact, tells the tale of Bob Lee Swagger, a disillusioned Marine sniper who is framed for the attempted assassination of the President of the United States. Swagger uncovers what amounts to a secret government that is running things behind the scenes. The cranky sniper then, of course, goes Rambo on everyone at one thousand paces.

This film is both tedious and inflammatory. Sound impossible to be both at the same time? All you need to do is take a poorly written script and litter it with the most ignorant and hysterical anti-neoconservative rants possible. This film is infused with an obscene amount of thoughtless leftist trash talk. The 9/11 commission is referred to as lies, it is clearly stated that our government knew about 9/11 beforehand, and Abu-Ghraib is cited as a part of an overall government conspiracy. Abu Ghraib is spoken of in this film like it was the Holocaust. Soldiers, contractors, missionaries and journalists are getting their throats slit by Islamo-fascists and these dimwits consider Abu Ghraib to be the great evil of our time? 9/11 conspiracy garbage is dragged out and treated like it is serious.

Attention leftist idiots, 9/11 wasn’t a government conspiracy. It didn’t happen in a vacuum. We have twenty years of Islamic terrorist attacks that preceded the event. If Bush Co. was behind 9/11 then they would have to be behind the dozens of attacks worldwide going back to the 1970’s.

Morons.

The insult to injury with this leftist crud is that it isn’t even clever leftist crud (see The Motorcycle Diaries for example for well done leftist crud). Get this; a rookie FBI guy investigates the attempted assassination. He leaves the FBI because they’re too burdensome. He then immediately begins sporting a Che Guevera t-shirt of all things – you know, like most young FBI agents would do. This guy is a FBI agent, not some undergrad chimp trying to piss off his parents. Speaking of corrupt Latin thugs, Danny Glover took a break from spooning with Venezuela dictator Hugo Chavez to make this little ditty. It’s nice that ol’ Danny can put off his love-in with Hugo long enough to make this anti-American heap.

The insult on top of the insult that is on top of the injury is how the film ends – and I’m going to give away the ending here - condoning the assassination of our leaders. Quite literally the film come out on the side of killing the corrupt instead of working through the channels of justice. Apparently, these folks are so powerful they cannot be brought down by normal means. Ask Clinton about that. I’m sure that if a sullied blue dress can almost wipe out a Democratic President anyone can be brought down to size. Needless to say, the main villain is yet another Dick Cheney clone (also see The Day After Tomorrow, American Dreamz, etc.) By extension, this film promotes assassinating the Vice President.

Nice.

Oh, the film itself? Like I said, it’s tedious. The piece is paint-by-numbers. There are no real surprises and the dialog is stale. There are some interesting technical points about being a sniper but these points can be culled from the Hunter’s book which is far superior.

Obviously my cold, politically conservative heart doesn’t recommend this film. Looking past my political interests, this is still a stock piece not worth the effort of renting. Any portion of the film that is valuable is overshadowed by the agenda that hangs over this piece. It’s too bad, Mark Wahlberg is effective as Swagger. A reasonably good performance gone to waste.


Related Reviews:
Mark Wahlberg movies
Invincible (2006)
Four Brothers (2005)

Other Critic's Reviews:
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Labels: Danny Glover, film, Mark Wahlberg, Michael Pena, movie review

Even taking this for what it is, a dimwitted adaptation of a dimwitted video game, it still doesn't look like its going to make the grade. At the very minimum, video games turned movies should at least be visually arresting. This looks like outtakes from a dozen other thrillers. If this is something you're looking forward to, I advise you see it on opening weekend, I can't imagine this will make it more than a week or two out in the wild.


Screenwriter: Beau Thorne
Director: John Moore (Flight of the Phoenix)
Actors: Mark Wahlberg (Shooter), Mila Kunis (Forgetting Sarah Marshall), Beau Bridges (The Good German), Ludacris (Crash), Donal Logue (Ghost Rider), and Chris O'Donnell (Scent of a Woman)

Labels: Beau Bridges, film, Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis, movie trailer

Labels: cops, drugs, Eva Mendes, film, Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, mob, movie review, Robert Duvall