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REVIEW: Resident Evil: Retribution [2012]

2012/10/112014/04/10 Jared Mobarak

“Congratulations, you’re officially a bad ass” You would think that by installment five the studio and/or writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson would realize the fans of the Resident Evil franchise are the only ones still buying tickets. The fact Resident Evil: Retribution only made a little over forty million of its sixty-five million dollar budget back should get this fact across. The T-virus zombies aren’t big box office bank anymore—it’s simply been too long since the games or movies were truly relevant. So, why are they still giving us a five-minute…

REVIEW: 도둑들 [The Thieves] [2012]

2012/10/082014/04/10 Jared Mobarak

“Of course. We specialize in miracles.” Saying Dodookdeul [The Thieves] is the Korean Ocean’s 11—like I had been after reading the synopsis—ended up not being as hyperbolic as I originally thought. Coming from one of the country’s most successful writer/directors and starring a bunch of familiar faces in Asian cinema, it’s an easy comparison to make with or without the main heist involving a casino (it does). What Dong-Hoon Choi and co-writer Lee Gi-Cheol have done above that premise, however, is add in some stunning wire-work action sequences, more twists…

REVIEW: Looper [2012]

2012/09/272014/04/10 Jared Mobarak

“I gave you something that was yours” Like he did film noir (Brick) and the grift (The Brothers Bloom), writer/director Rian Johnson has infused his uniquely personal touch into the science fiction genre with Looper. Time travel as a concept isn’t new, but how it’s handled will provide varying degrees of success. Generally utilized by the rich or hubristic scientists stumbling upon it, the technology has become a fantasy tool for adventure, discovery, and the righting of personal wrongs. It’s this third form that Johnson tinkers with inside a 2042…

REVIEW: Dredd [2012]

2012/09/262014/04/10 Jared Mobarak

“All we do is turn the handle” Whether Gareth Evans admitted Dredd 3D went into production while he was still filming The Raid or not, the similarities can’t be dismissed. I’m not saying this to imply theft—just that comparison is unavoidable. Liking one will probably mean the other disappoints, but the one you see first won’t necessarily be your favorite. No, I stand by the fact that this futuristic, crime-riddled world is objectively less effective than its Indonesian rival. It drags in multiple places, finds unintentional laughs through coldly stern…

REVIEW: The Expendables 2 [2012]

2012/08/232014/04/11 Jared Mobarak

“Can’t beat a classic” And here I thought the buzz was about how much The Expendables 2 made good on the promise set forth and not quite attained by The Expendables. It was going to be chock-full of humorous banter, over-the-top antics, bloody pulpy carnage, and as much fun as one berserker action flick can contain. There would be story, a worthy villain, and a reason for guys like Chuck Norris, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Jean-Claude Van Damme to come back from the shadows of obscurity. It wasn’t like these guys…

REVIEW: ParaNorman [2012]

2012/08/102014/04/11 Jared Mobarak

“He’s probably up there fiddling with his Wee-Jah or his orbs …” LAIKA, Inc., the little studio with big dreams in Oregon is officially more than a flash in the pan success story that brought to life a critically acclaimed feature film before scaling back to commercials and music videos. Using a beacon in the stop-motion animation world like Henry Selick to adapt and direct Coraline showed the vision to take chances on darker material than most may want to expose their children to and they were rewarded for the…

REVIEW: The Bourne Legacy [2012]

2012/08/072014/04/11 Jared Mobarak

“We are morally indefensible and absolutely necessary” There was bound to be fallout after Jason Bourne ran amok avenging his girlfriend’s death and shutting down the government agencies that turned him into a cold-blooded killer. With his amnesia-induced morality’s push towards righteousness and its ability to turn executives like Pam Landy (Joan Allen) sympathetic to his plight, fixers behind the scenes of this CIA blunder realized public knowledge of Operations Treadstone and Blackbriar could risk exposing the myriad other similar programs being performed by high-level security officials doing their best…

REVIEW: Total Recall [1990]

2012/07/272015/05/29 Jared Mobarak

“A man is defined by his actions, not his memory” By the time Total Recall began filming—about a decade after its Hollywood genesis—quite the team of science fiction luminaries had been assembled. With inspiration from Blade Runner‘s Philip K. Dick; a script by the creators of Alien, Ronald Shusett and Dan O’Bannon; the directorial expertise of RoboCop‘s Paul Verhoeven; and The Terminator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger, out front, this colossal undertaking was put atop the shoulders of dreamers. Spring-boarding off the question of whether reality can be proven alongside an authentically…

REVIEW: The Dark Knight Rises [2012]

2012/07/182014/05/03 Jared Mobarak

“Sometimes the pit sends something back” **Potential thematic spoilers** The trailer for the aptly coined ‘epic’ conclusion to director Christopher Nolan‘s caped crusader trilogy—The Dark Knight Rises—says it all through an emotional exchange between Batman (Christian Bale) and Catwoman (Anne Hathaway). Lamenting in her trademarked selfishness that he doesn’t “owe these people any more” and he’s “given them everything,” she begs to run away from the anarchy ravaging their once great city of Gotham. He did his best, admirably failing. Having none of it, though, the billionaire playboy who molded…

REVIEW: The Amazing Spider-Man [2012]

2012/07/042014/04/23 Jared Mobarak

“Up your what, Dad?” Ten years after Sam Raimi‘s Spider-Man joined Bryan Singer‘s X-Men in proving the superhero genre could be taken seriously in the annals of cinematic history, the reset button has been pressed for a fresh new look. Between Marvel taking the initiative to pool their collective, solely-owned properties into one giant universe of quasi sequels with 2008’s Iron Man and DC Comics lucking into Christopher Nolan‘s vision of Batman as more than a surreally cartoonish romp in the darkness, what was one of the most legitimate comic…

REVIEW: Independence Day [1996]

2012/07/032014/05/19 Jared Mobarak

“We will not go quietly into the night” The man who proved we could only take so many disaster films and yet still made more, Roland Emmerich shouldn’t be denied the astronomical success of the one that jump-started the genre’s big budget revival in the first place. After giving us the rather smart science fiction actioner Stargate, he and writing/producing partner Dean Devlin came up with the treatment for Independence Day as a response to the constant questions about their opinions on alien life. Wanting to take a step back…