Not as flag-wavingly cheesy as it might have been - but that doesn't make it a good film.. Those first two movies look like Seven Samurai next to The Expendables 3, a sad, bad, parade of uninspired cameos and listless violence.. It's the Walmart of feel-good family films: accessible, cheaply made, useful in a pinch and full of American flags.. Dullness, as well as hoary preachiness, neuters the family-and-their-war-dog drama "Max.". Yakin doesn't condescend to his audience, and infuses his plot ...
Pompeii (2014) Full Movie Streaming
[The film] runs a reasonable-sounding 92 minutes. Yet those 92 feel like more than enough.. No matter how much lava is afoot, there's always time to impale one more person with a sword.. You wonder if Paul W.S. Anderson is a director who might feel disrespected.. Harington transformed his body for the role, but here's the real disaster: His startlingly defined six-pack abs are the most memorable part of his character.. The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water mostly nails what has always made th...
Into the Blue (2005) Online Streaming
Any potential guilty pleasure is washed away in a sea of icky sermonizing.. Not a thriller so much as an extremely violent swimsuit calendar.. Manages to create a winning Caribbean vibe that stretches into a fun popcorn flick.. I don't think there's anything wrong with an escapist adventure, but if you're rolling your eyes in disbelief at the plot and the dialogue, it makes it hard to enjoy the scenery.. Though marketed as brain-dead youth fodder, it's even worse than it looks.. Too long at 110 ...
Fool's Gold (2008) Watch Streaming
As a spectacle, The Polar Express looks remarkable. As a film, however, it's the equivalent of an elaborately wrapped Christmas present containing a nice new pair of socks.. Without a trace of real live people, you get special effects that are not special, visual talking points without personality, virtual reality that is anything but real.. It is such a prefabricated, false-feeling, scattered and awkward stab at a romantic comedy you feel embarrassed for everyone involved and sorry for anyone w...
G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013) Watch Streaming
The movie promises to rock you, and much of the time it does.. Ever played a video game with a friend and had to sit there while he hogged it, leaving you to do nothing but watch for what seemed like hours?. Did you think a second G.I. Joe movie was a good idea?. The filmmakers appear to have handed a dozen or so G.I. Joe dolls to a 9-year-old, watched him play for 110 minutes, and then shot a scene-for-scene remake.. Strip away its 14th Century trappings and A Knight's Tale is just a Middle Age...
On the Road (2012) Full Streaming
Although Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" has been praised as a milestone in American literature, this film version brings into question how much of a story it really offers.. The Adventures of Tintin can be a delight to look at, even if motion capture isn't your particular cup of animation tea.. One gets the sense that directors Anthony Stacchi and Graham Annable have their hearts in the action sequences and not in the characters, and that's a problem.. If I wanted to spend two hours watching a plu...
Into the Wild (2007) Watch Streaming
This is one of those movies I can imagine deciding is a masterpiece in a month's time. And by any measure, "Into the Wild" is a big leap forward for Penn as a director and deserves to be one of the most talked about films of the season.. Sequences are gorgeously filmed by cinematographer Eric Gautier, and they're heady with the joy of discovery -- they make you want to hit the road into the magnificent landscape we forget is out there.. It's a beautiful, big, sorrowful film that manages to celeb...