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REVIEW: The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift [2006]

2015/03/082015/03/09 Jared Mobarak

“I thought you loved me?” The Justin Lin/Chris Morgan era begins with The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and it’s a welcome improvement. Not only does the visual style evolve to be less cartoonish in its power zooms, but the sense of humor finds a happy medium between The Fast and the Furious‘ severity and 2 Fast 2 Furious‘ all-out comedy. In fact, this installment of the franchise is brought to life with both feet (loosely) planted in reality, making me scratch my head as to how the director/writer…

REVIEW: Chappie [2015]

2015/03/062015/03/07 Jared Mobarak

“I want to go home” I understand the general public not wanting to go as far into sci-fi as Neill Blomkamp goes with Chappie—although they loved the similar lengths of District 9—but it’s hard to believe the critical sphere has taken such a hard stance against it. Actually, maybe it’s not too difficult to believe after they’ve railed against it for months, anticipating a bomb due to the writer/director’s admittedly failed sophomore effort Elysium. In direct contrast to their relish at taking it down, I found it to be very…

REVIEW: Run All Night [2015]

2015/03/032015/03/12 Jared Mobarak

“Me and you” There’s something to be said about knowing exactly what you’re getting and Jaume Collet-Serra is proving consistent enough to deliver that promise through his films. Whereas Luc Besson spins a revolving door of directors to helm his actioners—mostly tongue-in-cheek, over-the-top fare (besides the original hit-maker Taken) he doesn’t deem worthy of his own eye behind the lens—Collet-Serra has carefully chosen a series of scripts from disparate scribes to supply him serious thrills with which to place his visual stamp. The common denominator between them being Liam Neeson…

REVIEW: 2 Fast 2 Furious [2003]

2015/02/252015/02/26 Jared Mobarak

“I’m not going back to Barstow” It would appear that we have Michael Brandt and Derek Haas to blame (thank?) for the sudden change from overwrought melodrama to self-aware comedy I would attribute to giving the Fast and the Furious franchise its longevity. Being that I had only ever seen the first, fifth, and sixth installments, I wasn’t quite sure what happened in between because, while I enjoyed the latter two, I simply couldn’t get into the original. Not only was it riffing on Point Break the wrong way by…

REVIEW: Power/Rangers [2015]

2015/02/242015/02/25 Jared Mobarak

“Bullshit is an ugly color on you” I watched “Voltron” growing up so I was never a huge proponent of “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers” when they arrived on the scene. There was always a sense of facsimile in my mind and the goofiness of the whole thing didn’t help recruit me into their legion of diehards. I couldn’t tell you any details of either show now so many years removed, but I will say Joseph Kahn giving the latter a contemporary facelift has me reminiscing about the good and bad…

REVIEW: Kingsman: The Secret Service [2015]

2015/02/202015/02/22 Jared Mobarak

“It’s a bulldog, innit?” I’m all for Matthew Vaughan continuing to jump from comic book property to comic book property. That’s not to say his debut Layer Cake was bad—on the contrary, I liked it a lot—he’s simply had a very successful run afterwards in the graphic novel realm spanning Stardust, Kick-Ass, and X-Men: First Class. Collaborating with Mark Millar hasn’t hurt either with his latest Kingsman: The Secret Service coming from the Kick-Ass creator’s pen. The pair plus screenwriter Jane Goldman have found a synchronicity for fun, entertaining action…

REVIEW: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice [2010]

2015/02/132016/01/26 Jared Mobarak

“Are you familiar with the grey wolf?” Considering the story goes that Nicolas Cage was the catalyst for getting The Sorcerer’s Apprentice off the ground—he really wanted to do a movie where he had magical powers—and how well-suited his over-the-top theatrics are to family film fare, it’s surprising he hasn’t made a point of doing more this past half decade. All those direct-to-DVD entries can’t be paying him that much money. He did make a run with the two National Treasure movies, coincidentally hatched by the same team of producer…

REVIEW: Plain Clothes [2015]

2015/02/13 Jared Mobarak

“And God left it to them to choose darkness or light” Actor Sam Jaeger played the most calm and collected character of the bunch on “Parenthood”. Introduced as a stay-at-home dad with a smile, he had a way of internalizing his feelings so every emotion coursing through him was seen behind actions trying hard not to reveal them. As the show progressed Jaeger’s Joel found himself thrust into situations where the psychological trauma of bottling everything risked becoming his undoing. He couldn’t cope with what was happening so he retreated…

REVIEW: Jupiter Ascending [2015]

2015/02/032021/12/06 Jared Mobarak

“The problem with astrology … total bullshit” Sometimes filmgoers simply want to be entertained and often don’t mind when the means of that fun skews towards the headier side of things—no matter how implausible, campy, or convenient that direction proves. Jupiter Ascending isn’t trying to sell itself as some grand magnum opus that cures cancer; it’s merely a new space opera from the blockbuster sci-fi duo Wachowski Starship (Lilly and Lana). They were commissioned by the studio to write exactly that in the hopes of franchise viability. Do I see…

REVIEW: Everly [2015]

2015/01/212015/01/22 Jared Mobarak

“That’s a lot of dead whores” The best part of Everly is the realization that smartasses the world over deeming it worthy of cult status will soon begin a trend of calling it a Christmas film. Social media couldn’t help itself last December with overused jokes about readying to watch Die Hard or Gremlins to ring in the yuletide cheer and come this winter those same people will have another ironic selection for the pile. All it took was screenwriter Yale Hannon and director Joe Lynch placing a couple lines…

REVIEW: The Librarian: The Curse of the Judas Chalice [2008]

2015/01/18 Jared Mobarak

“We do not profit from the artifacts!” It took two movies with potential for The Librarian franchise to finally deliver on the promise of its premise. Even though The Curse of the Judas Chalice is the most “TV-like” of the trilogy, it also possesses the best example of both its layer of educational value and that of its adventure comedy. Just because it introduces vampires as real world entities doesn’t necessarily prevent it from also giving an authentic history/mythology lesson about Vlad the Impaler and Judas Iscariot and how the…