Akiva Goldsman | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: The Dark Tower [2017]

2017/08/032017/08/04 Jared Mobarak

“Turn and face me” It’s been twenty years since Wizard and Glass, the fourth published installment of Stephen King‘s The Dark Tower series—an epic fantasy backbone on which his entire bibliography rests. I finally made my way through it a couple years later, along with The Gunslinger, The Drawing of Three, and The Waste Lands until I found myself caught up and waiting for more. It took six years between books three and four, so another six wasn’t a surprising duration to wait for Wolves of Calla. But then Song…

REVIEW: Transformers: The Last Knight [2017]

2017/06/222017/06/23 Jared Mobarak

“You’re running out of tomorrows” Fact: Transformers: The Last Knight is its franchise’s most entertaining entry. While I definitely felt ready to nod off during my original trilogy refresher course this week—and actually shut my eyes a couple times during Age of Extinction—this latest installment had me wide-eyed and interested throughout its 149-minutes (the series’ shortest runtime since its 144-minute original). Sometimes that interest was in the insane retrofitted King Arthur plotline padded by manageable excess, but mostly it was attuned to an unhinged and manic Anthony Hopkins having a…

REVIEW: Insurgent [2015]

2015/03/202015/03/21 Jared Mobarak

“You have to forgive yourself” I don’t know which of the three writers credited (Brian Duffield, Akiva Goldsman, and Mark Bomback) on Insurgent is responsible for the complete overhaul of Veronica Roth‘s source novel, but I applaud him. If not for the retention of its characters’ arcs, one could argue the majority of this cinematic version is a wholly original work. Ultimately, however, Tris (Shailene Woodley) and Four’s (Theo James) progression within the confines of a scorched Chicago is what gives Insurgent its identity. We as an audience and fans…

REVIEW: Winter’s Tale [2014]

2014/02/102014/02/13 Jared Mobarak

“For even time and distance are not what they appear to be” Can you buy a world where angels and demons walk alongside humans, gently coaxing us onto a path of righteousness or evil in order to tip the scales of eternity their way throughout time infinite? What about the idea that we each have a miracle to give to the one person we are meant to love unequivocally if only we’re destined to meet him/her? How about two Russian immigrants being deported back home who’d lower a model ship…

REVIEW: Hancock [2008]

2008/06/262011/08/24 Jared Mobarak

“Tonight, He Comes” Hancock has the kind of premise that you wonder why it took so long for someone to put it on the big screen. With the plethora of comic book movies coming to cinemas this decade, it was only a matter of time before we were given a tale of a washed up superhero, drunk and lonely, being berated for his destruction rather than praised for his bravery. Alan Moore delved into this realm with his graphic novel Watchmen, (for which it seems Zack Snyder has not massacred…