FilmJabber.com Movie Reviews

Safe House Movie Review

2012-02-15 12:00:00

Denzel Washington has trained hard to become an unstoppable force. His not-so-secret secret: team with a younger white dude. Training Day, costarring a perennially pale Ethan Hawke, won him an Oscar, and Unstoppable , which also starred Chris Pine, showed he can be more than just a mid-ranged box office force. Denzel's latest venture Safe House also stars Ryan Reynolds, and the results are explosive in more ways than one: it's an instant hit - one of Denzel's biggest debuts of his career - and an entertaining, fast-paced action movie.

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Pina Movie Review

2012-02-10 12:00:00

First impressions can be deceiving. The very thought of watching a documentary about a dancer, or dancing, regardless of Oscar nominations or credentials, was agonizing. Forty minutes before the screening was to start - mind you, as a critic (who gave me the license to call myself a critic? Oh yeah, you. The reader) I get in for free - I was still debating whether to drive the ten minutes to the theater and sacrifice my evening to watch what was surely going to be a drab documentary about something I care nothing about. Shame on me.

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The Woman in Black Movie Review

2012-02-03 13:00:00

Harry Potter returns to the land of the Muggles and finds that things are a lot scarier than He-Who-Should-Not-Be-Named in The Woman in Black, Daniel Radcliffe's first movie since the franchise that made him a household name came to a close. The Woman in Black is creepy from start to finish and should satisfy most horror fans, but it fails to capitalize on its eerie atmosphere with a few too many cliché scares and a terribly disappointing ending.

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Chronicle Movie Review

2012-02-03 12:00:00

Three Seattle teenagers develop super powers and do wonderful things with them, like scaring little girls and playing practical jokes on unsuspecting strangers, in the entertaining but far from great sci-fi action film Chronicle. Oh, and one gets corrupted by his newfound powers and takes it out on the Emerald City and all those who stand in his way.

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Miss Bala Movie Review

2012-01-30 13:00:00

Review by Nathan Samdahl (B)

Miss Bala, the official Mexican entry to the Oscars for 2011, is a dark and terrifying look into the world of Mexico's gang wars. The story follows Laura, a young woman who is striving for a place in the Miss Baja California beauty pageant. After an evening at a shady night club turns deadly when a heavily armed gang attacks, Laura unwillingly becomes a pawn for the criminal group in order to try to locate her best friend, who was separated in the mayhem. No matter where she turns, including to the police, she discovers everyone is in the back pocket of the drug gang and there is no easy escape from her dilemma. A downward spiral of violence ensues all while the gang exerts its influence to get her back in the beauty pageant she wanted to win so badly.

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Man on a Ledge Movie Review

2012-01-27 13:00:00

I am 29 years old. I am single. It's Thursday night as I write this, and I should be out at the bars hitting on beautiful women, or at least lusting after them from afar. Instead, I'm sitting at home writing a stupid review about a stupid movie, thinking about what could have been had I not chosen to go watch Man on the Ledge, a mildly entertaining but laughably dumb crime thriller starring Sam Worthington.

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The Grey Movie Review

2012-01-27 12:00:00

I hate wolves. I'm going to make a movie about hating wolves. But I need a plot, so I'll make Liam Neeson crash in Alaska and have to kill wolves to survive. Yeah. So appears to be the thought process that led to the new action-thriller The Grey, a "monster movie" thinly veiled as a dramatic and deep survival tale.

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Contraband Movie Review

2012-01-23 12:00:00

If there's one thing Marky Mark is good at these days, it's being a badass. Whether playing an up-and-coming boxer or a military sniper, the former rapper knows how to throw a punch and look all-menacingly like. Even when his movies aren't very good, you know you're going to get an energetic, badass performance from the guy*. Takes Contraband, his latest movie. It's routine and unremarkable, but Mark Wahlberg does what he does best: play a badass, and that's enough.

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Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close Movie Review

2012-01-20 12:00:00

Seemingly and somewhat surprisingly one of the most divisive movies of the year, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the new tearjerker from the director of The Hours, Billy Elliot and The Reader, is an alluring, captivating movie that hits all the right notes. Sometimes a little too perfectly.

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Rampart Movie Review

2012-01-16 12:00:00

Corrupt cops should know better than to beat a suspect to a pulp in the YouTube age. From the director of the excellent drama The Messenger, Woody Harrelson stars as an LA police officer who gets caught red handed - you guessed it - beating a suspect to a pulp in Rampart, a movie with a lot going for it. Not so much to show for it.

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Like Crazy Movie Review

2012-01-12 12:00:00

Love. It can be wonderful, it can be maddening. Especially if your girlfriend lives in England and is barred from entering the United States due to a visa violation. Damn illegal British immigrants. Trying to take our jobs, use our resources. And they talk funny. Despite that, Like Crazy is one of the most romantic movies to come along in a long time.

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Pariah Movie Review

2012-01-06 12:00:00

Gay people are gay. No matter how you dress them, no matter who they spend their time with, no matter how you want them to behave, gay people are just going to be gay. They're stubborn like that. In the drama Pariah, writer/director Dee Rees taps into the mind of a teenage lesbian struggling with her sexual identity.

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The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn Movie Review

2012-01-05 12:00:00

Leave it to Steven Spielberg to make the massively disappointing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull only to follow it some years later with a motion-capture adaptation of a beloved European comic book that is more Indiana Jones-esque than anything we've seen in two decades. The Adventures of Tintin is an entertaining, fun and superbly detailed action-adventure film that people of all ages will enjoy.

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Into the Abyss Movie Review

2012-01-01 12:00:00

Not to be confused with a James Cameron action-thriller, Into the Abyss is Werner Herzog's latest documentary, a plain-spoken examination of the death penalty and its morality. Does anyone, no matter their crimes, deserve to put to death? Does the threat of the death penalty deter criminals? As a so-called civilized culture, is it beneath us to execute people? Into the Abyss is a touching, emotional journey that, despite the filmmaker's clearly stated opinion, doesn't take sides.

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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Movie Review

2011-12-30 12:00:00

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, not to be confused with the 2009 movie The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, based on the same book only in a different language, is now in theaters, and while at first glance the necessity of an English-language remake appears questionable, director David Fincher establishes early on why audiences should care: his version is simply better.

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We Bought a Zoo Movie Review

2011-12-26 20:12:21

In We Bought a Zoo, a man grieving the loss of his wife and his children's mother decides to move out of the city and buy a zoo, because studies show that the best way to get over the death of a loved one is to buy a multi-acre property full of expensive and dangerous exotic animals. Cameron Crowe's first theatrical movie in six years and his best since Almost Famous, We Bought a Zoo is an uplifting, moving and entertaining drama that hits all the right emotional chords.

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War Horse Movie Review

2011-12-25 12:00:00

It's December, it's Steven Spielberg, it's Oscar time. The second of two Spielberg-directed movies to hit theaters since Wednesday, War Horse promises everything that Oscar voters love: war, family bonds and horses. Ooh, horsies! The great news is that War Horse is an excellent war movie about a horse. The bad news is that War Horse is a war movie about a horse.

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The Artist Movie Review

2011-12-23 12:00:00

Silent films are a thing of the past no more. In the silent romantic drama The Artist, a major silent film actor discovers he's not so popular once talkies come along in the late 1920's, his era swept away by technical innovation and changing consumer tastes. Despite no dialogue, The Artist is one of the most unique, entertaining and moving films of the decade.

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Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Movie Review

2011-12-22 12:00:00

Take James Bond, The Bourne Identity, Mission: Impossible and True Lies and combine them altogether, you'll get a movie that's about as far away from what Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, a methodically methodical thriller that harkens back to spy films of old, does it well, and then does it too well. The result: an even-tempered, extremely well-made picture that requires more patience from its audience than it has any right to and lacks a gratifying pay-off for doing so.

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Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Movie Review

2011-12-19 23:33:30

The world's greatest detective battles the world's most devious villain in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, a flashy, fast-paced action-comedy that never reaches its potential but delivers plenty of entertainment nonetheless.

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