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REVIEW: 一代宗師 [The Grandmaster] [2013]

2014/02/262014/04/10 Jared Mobarak

“Keep the light burning” I think 一代宗師 [The Grandmaster] loses something in its translation for an American who couldn’t spot the differences between Kung Fu and Karate if his life depended on it (besides the former being Chinese and latter Japanese, of course). There’s the significance of the dark rain beating down on multiple fight scenes I’ve read provides the “white noise” for one’s “sense of touch”; the honor in accepting one’s actions to seek vengeance by taking vows to forever be alone as compensation; and the history of a…

REVIEW: Non-Stop [2014]

2014/02/252014/02/28 Jared Mobarak

“Status?” This film could have just as easily been called Deflection as Non-Stop because screenwriters John W. Richardson, Christopher Roach, and Ryan Engle (none of whom instill a stellar track record for Hollywood blockbuster success) have a lot of fun making sure to inject as many red herrings into the mix as possible. Even at start we wonder if our prospective hero Bill Marks (Liam Neeson) could be the perpetrator despite trailers leading us towards a frame job. His U.S. Marshal is an alcoholic, hot-tempered, and forlorn. A semi-threat to…

REVIEW: The Croods [2013]

2014/02/242014/02/25 Jared Mobarak

“Never not be afraid” One credit has fascinated me since The Croods opened in theaters: story by John Cleese. That John Cleese? Surprisingly, yes. It’s a somewhat convoluted journey from his failed adaptation of Roald Dahl‘s The Twits with Kirk DeMicco catching the eye of Dreamworks and earning them the pick of the litter as far as in production pitches at the studio. They chose one about a stereotypical caveman and his “modern” counterpart running from the volcanic apocalypse plate tectonics wrought. It was set up at Aardman, left for…

REVIEW: RoboCop [1987]

2014/02/162014/04/17 Jared Mobarak

“The future has a silver lining” It started with a passing thought by screenwriter Edward Neumeier as he walked by a poster for Blade Runner—a movie his friend explained was about a “cop hunting robots”. What if he combined those two nouns to make a robot cop? A machine with the computational power to judge right from wrong tinted gray due to a latent morality combined with the extra strength and invincibility being constructed out of metal could provide? Yes, please. Partnered with Michael Miner, however, their dystopian script was…

REVIEW: The Monuments Men [2014]

2014/02/142014/04/10 Jared Mobarak

“Present company expected” There was real potential for George Clooney‘s The Monuments Men to turn into a broad comedy about a hapless band of seven working their way through Europe in search of the stolen masterpieces Adolf Hitler hid away for his own personal collection of greed. It had the hokey score sounding like a vintage WWII newsreel, threatening to show each actor mugging for the camera while looking just beyond the lens with a huge, infectious smile; over-the-top performances straight out of the 50s complete with dated cadence; jokey…

REVIEW: Vampire Academy [2014]

2014/02/08 Jared Mobarak

“The clarity of the darkness beckons” The target demographic for Vampire Academy? Teenage girls. The only demographic that could truly, completely enjoy it? Teenage girls. With that said, however, it knows this and isn’t afraid to embrace it. Honestly, for better or worse, that’s exactly what it should strive towards because it’s why Hollywood green-lit the big-screen treatment in the first place. The fans of Richelle Mead‘s series of books upon which it’s based want the sassy divas, mystical princesses, and darkly brooding man meat to pine over. That’s why…

REVIEW: The LEGO Movie [2014]

2014/02/012014/06/11 Jared Mobarak

“All this is true because it rhymes” I am a child of the 80s. Ask me about Lego Star Wars or Lego Harry Potter and my response will be a quizzical look devoid of comprehension. I was a builder with a giant card table set up in my basement full of city locales and blank street platforms to create a world not unlike the one Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have in The LEGO Movie—albeit at one one-thousandth the scale. Space world? Western world? They weren’t in my vocabulary. If…

REVIEW: Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit [2014]

2014/01/25 Jared Mobarak

“No. This is geopolitics, not couples therapy.” Even though The Sum of All Fears made a boatload of cash with Ben Affleck at its center, you can’t help but know his Gigli demise played a big role in the Jack Ryan saga not continuing. Why let Tom Clancy‘s cinematic legacy go down with the ship? So a few years passed, Chris Pine started rising through the ranks as an A-list action star, and Adam Cozad‘s script Moscow seemed ripe for a makeover to reboot Ryan and see where his ex-Marine,…

REVIEW: Ride Along [2014]

2014/01/142014/01/17 Jared Mobarak

“Congratulations. They know we have a dirty household.” Are you a fan of Kevin Hart? Saying yes means you’ll probably be satisfied with Ride Along if only to enjoy the antics he’s saturated Hollywood with these past couple years. It’s a run-of-the-mill buddy cop comedy that hits every note in the formula book thanks to two sets of rewrites over a four-year gestation, but none of it truly matters when Hart is there to amp up the funny each time he opens his mouth and ceases to shut it. The…

REVIEW: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty [2013]

2014/01/102014/01/11 Jared Mobarak

“I always save your knick-knacks” What began as a 1939 short story by James Thurber debuting in The New Yorker, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty found its way to the big screen in 1947 led by Danny Kaye. The tale of a daydreamer losing himself in excitingly heroic fantasies while sleepwalking through a daytrip of chores in the city with his wife expanded into a magazine editor finding more interest in the pulp stories he reads than the drab life he leads. It’s a conceit mirrored today with Mitty…

REVIEW: The Adventurer: The Curse of the Midas Box [2014]

2014/01/012014/01/08 Jared Mobarak

“Faithfulness will be your shield” There will never be a lack of literary fantasy adventures for ages 12 and up to transfer from page to screen. The question becomes whether the property is given access to a wealthy studio’s clout or one more reliant on word-of-mouth and existing fanbase to ease the transition. For Entertainment Motion Pictures, their grab at franchise caliber fiction comes courtesy of a trilogy written by British author G.P. Taylor that unfortunately secures little of those things. It appears the author’s first novel Shadowmancer is the…