By: Addison Wylie Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.’s universe they’ve created for their comic book Kick-Ass is severely twisted. Filmmaker Matthew Vaughn took that warped sense of humour and gritty violence to the big screen in 2010 where it was received with mixed reactions, but has earned cult status. Three years later, another filmmaker has decided to capture Millar and Romita Jr.’s insanity for a balls-to-the-wall sequel. For writer/director Jeff Wadlow, the hardest part…
By: Addison Wylie This year’s first “save the President” action yarn, Olympus Has Fallen, is a D movie trying to fill B movie shoes. It’s a movie that should buckle audiences in for ecstatic escapist entertainment. Unfortunately, it’s trying too hard to have its cake and eat it too by becoming too emotionally involved. We’ve all seen mindless action flicks that centre around a terrorist attack. We may have also seen one of these action films…
By: Addison Wylie It’s generally known that a sweet-and-salty combo more than likely delivers successful results. While Superman’s latest origin story Man of Steel has problems, the sweet-and-salty pairing of director Zack Snyder and producer Christopher Nolan (with Nolan’s Batman screenwriter David S. Goyer penning this script as well) entices movie goers and the results pull mesmerized, giddy audiences to the edge of our seats. Snyder is no stranger to graphic novels and superheroes. Unfortunately,…
By: Addison Wylie Riding high off his commercial and Academy Award nominated hit Bridesmaids, Paul Feig is back with The Heat, a female driven crass cop comedy with a perfect pairing of Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy and a surprising number of laughs. Feig’s comedy starts off on a funny but familiar step. We’re introduced to Bullock’s character, Ashburn, as well as introduced to her cockiness and her arrogance that makes her the least liked…
By: Addison Wylie About 75% of The Lone Ranger is immensely enjoyable and everything you’d want in a Summer blockbuster. It’s just unfortunate that 25% of it doesn’t reach the heights that director Gore Verbinski hits preceding and after the saggy middle portion of his film. Let’s get the cons out of the way, because I’d much rather remember The Lone Ranger for its amiable feats. After some hard-hitting fights and likeable introductions to a…
By: Addison Wylie The MPAA has given the latest instalment of the Fast & Furious franchise a PG-13 for “intense sequences of violence and action and mayhem throughout, some sexuality, and language”. From the sounds of that, Fast & Furious 6 should be a wild time at the movies. So, why was I so bored? Whether you walked away from Fast Five liking it or not, you at least could’ve left the theatre with some…
By: Addison Wylie I hate Birdemic: Shock and Terror. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. Where most midnight movie lovers embraced its incompetent “so bad, it’s good” charm, I found it to be furiously annoying and “so bad, it’s bad”. How anyone thought that Birdemic: Shock and Terror was releasable is beyond me. You would think director/screenwriter James Nguyen must’ve had that thought cross his mind between takes of his actors swinging…
By: Addison Wylie There’s something ingenious about the idea of Michael Bay helming a project about celebrating a shallow American dream. Who better to direct a story about a team of musclebound knucklehead criminals chasing the implausible than a guy who almost always has explosions take the lead role and lets T&A share the second billing. The film’s Miami setting takes on a “look good, feel better” attitude as all the characters are in some…
By: Addison Wylie The bass was booming with each explosion, the walls shook with every bullet fired, yet my ears weren’t ringing during my screening of G.I. Joe: Retaliation. On the other hand, my head was throbbing from trying to keep up with the sequel’s needlessly convoluted screenplay. Rhett Reece and Paul Wernick have joined forces to make a simple enough concept as untraceable as Roadblock’s small troupe of Joe’s. Dwayne Johnson plays Roadblock while…
By: Addison Wylie Throughout Jack the Giant Slayer, our title character played by Nicholas Hoult has a look on his face that seems like it should be accompanied with the phrase, “are you #*@#ing kidding me?”. Surely, this is supposed to be aimed towards a giant beanstalk leading towards an army of grotesque giants that live in the sky, but it’s a more appropriate telling of what I was asking myself while watching Bryan Singer’s…