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I was expecting eye candy going into this film and that’s what I was served, but by the time the final course was uncovered I had gobbled up Andy and Larry Wachowski’s neon-glowing confection. No one who has ever seen the original series would confuse it with good animation. Nonetheless it had a charm that was undeniable. The Wachowskis capture that charm, frosting their entire production with it. They are not interested in “improving” the original material with an overdose of extra hip wink winks — the same ingredient that has destroyed so many other animation-to-live-action adaptations. They’re interested in bringing the good flavors to the forefront and minimizing the cheesy aftertaste.

Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch, INTO THE WILD) is from a family of racers, who thinks about nothing but racing. He looks up to his older brother Rex (Scott Porter, TV’s FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS), a champion driver. But something happens to pull apart Rex and his dad Pops (John Goodman, BARTON FINK), spurring Rex to leave home and later parish in a racing accident. When Speed grows up, he is courted by all the major sponsors, especially Royalton (Roger Allam, V FOR VENDETTA), a shady corporate tycoon. Soon enough, Speed learns painful lessons about the way the racing world is really run and is approached by the mysterious Racer X (Matthew Fox, TV’s LOST) to join him and blow the lid off the evil corporate conspiracy to fix races.

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While Marvel Comics considers Iron Man one of their premiere characters, no one would put him in the same league with Spider-Man, or DC Comics icons Batman or Superman. Well, that might change. Though the character is 45 years old, today seems a perfect moment to reintroduce him to a new generation. Director Jon Favreau has done for Iron Man what Sam Raimi did for Spider-Man and Christopher Nolan did for Batman. Given great actors and a well-written script, IRON MAN is a big piece of popcorn entertainment with a real movie underneath.

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr., CHAPLIN) is the head of Stark Industries, the world’s largest and most profitable weapons manufacturer. He’s a playboy drunk, who happens to be an engineering genius. If it were not for his dedicated assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow, SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE), his life would be in shambles. His best friend Colonel Jim Rhodes (Terrence Howard, HUSTLE & FLOW) tries to look out for Tony, but Tony has a way of messing things up. Then, while on a weapons demonstration in Afghanistan, Tony is taken prisoner by the terrorist Raza (Faran Tahir, CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR), who demands that Stark build him a version of his latest missile. Aided by the doctor Yinsen (Shaun Toub, CRASH), Stark builds a powerful robotic suit, a walking fortress that allows them to escape. Upon his return to the States, Stark rethinks his purpose in life, rededicating his life to protecting the innocent from the weapons that he has been building. This new founded humanitarian motivation worries his longtime partner Obadiah Stone (Jeff Bridges, THE BIG LEBOWSKI), who fears that peace is less profitable than war.

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Buy It Now!

Read my review of the theatrical release for more details.

After audiences at test screenings disliked the originally planned ending, the studio and filmmakers decided to release the film with a much different conclusion. Both versions were filmed and the visual effects teams didn’t start working on the ending that ending up in theaters until very late in the game. Ironically, the version that made it to theaters is actually sadder than the alternative version, which is closer to the source material and more open ended. Anyone who doesn’t want to know any part of either ending should not read any further.

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Terry Gilliam’s apocalyptic time-travel picture, 12 MONKEYS, is less overtly fantastic than many of his other films, but his oft-kilter underground future and his hyper-decaying present are strange in equal measure. Based on Chris Marker’s famed short film LA JETEE, the film takes the premise of the original, along with its irony and uncertainty, to create a paranoid tale that upon first viewing keeps the audience wondering is James Cole really from the future or just crazy.

It seems at first that Cole (Bruce Willis, DIE HARD) is a prisoner in a future where a deadly virus has forced humans to live, like worms, underground. The rulers choose “volunteers” from the prison population to collect specimens on the surface, which has now been reclaimed by the animals. Cole does such a good job at this that the leaders, who dress like twisted doctors, send Cole onto a special mission into the past where he is to collect information about the Army of the 12 Monkeys, the culprits behind the obliteration of the human species. However, Cole is sent too far into the past, where he is arrested and institutionalized. The kind doctor Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe, BAD GIRLS) takes Cole under her wing, because she has an interest in apocalyptic delusions, but isn’t convinced by his doomsday tales. In the asylum, Cole meets crazed patient Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt, BABEL), who spouts off conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory. As Cole gets closer to the 12 Monkeys, the more he begins to doubt his own sanity.

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As legend has it, James Cameron sold the script for THE TERMINATOR to producer Gale Anne Hurd for $1 with the promise the fledgling filmmaker would be able to direct the film. With a modest budget, funder Orion left the production virtually alone outside of making two requests — add a robot dog and improve the relationship between the main characters. Cameron took one of the two suggestions. When it was all done, Cameron established himself as a top-tier director and body-builder-turned-actor Arnold Schwarzenegger was launched into superstardom.

Traveling back to 1984 from a future ruled by savage machines, human rebel Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn, THE ABYSS) is assigned the task of protecting waitress Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton, TV’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST) from a nearly-unstoppable killing machine called the T-101 (Schwarzenegger). Sarah is first brought aware of the danger she is in when two Sarah Connors are reported murdered in one night. The Terminator is killing them in the order of the phonebook listing. Lt. Ed Traxler (Paul Winfield, THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW) and Det. Hal Vukovich (Lance Henriksen, ALIENS) think they have a new twisted spree killer on the loose, but they have a hard time believing that a robot has come from the future to murder the mother of the unborn leader of the human resistance against the ruling computers.

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Sometimes I’ll watch a film because it represents a trend. The success of the SCARY MOVIE franchise has given us a litany of spoof flicks. The movies spoof such recent films that their shelf life is very limited. This piece of garbage had expired before it was even finished. The screenplay and the excrement that was produced from it will stink up the library of 20th Century Fox for a great deal longer than the poor audience’s memory of it.

Edward (Kal Penn), Peter (Adam Campbell), Lucy (Jayma Mays) and Susan (Faune Chambers, WHITE CHICKS) are orphans brought together for nefarious reasons by candy company owner Willy (Crispin Glover). The foursome escapes from Willy through a wardrobe, arriving in a Narnia-like world where they must defeat the White Bitch (Jennifer Coolidge). Over the course of EPIC MOVIE no big film released in the past 12 months is left untouched, such as SUPERMAN RETURNS, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, HARRY POTTER, X-MEN, etc.

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Seven years after launching his feature-directing career with THE TERMINATOR, James Cameron revisited the franchise he created, building on the visual effects landmark that he set in his proceeding film THE ABYSS. With Arnold Schwarzenegger recast as the protector and not the killer of the future’s last hope, John Connor, the film contains a heart and message that the first film lacked. Few sequels are an improvement on the original; here is one of those rare cases.

John (Edward Furlong, PECKER) is now a tween living in foster care. His street smarts come from his mother — Sarah (Linda Hamilton, MR. DESTINY) — who after the events of the first film tries to convince the world of its impending destruction and is institutionalized for her efforts. The future robotic rulers send an upgraded assassin, the T-1000 (Robert Patrick, WALK THE LINE) to kill John. Making this new Terminator all the more scary is that it’s made of liquid metal that reforms around wounds. The future John reprograms the original Terminator (Schwarzenegger) to come back and protect his younger self. Along the way, John and the Terminator free Sarah, who sets out to end the mechanized threat by murdering Miles Dyson (Joe Morton, THE BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET), the creator of SkyNet, the computer system that eventually destroys mankind.

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I have not read the Richard Matheson novel or seen the previous film versions (THE LAST MAN ON EARTH or OMEGA MAN) of this story, therefore I cannot compare Francis Lawrence’s new version with any of the other forms. Adapted by Mark Protosevich and Akiva Goldsman, this Will Smith vehicle is a refreshing genre film in a year of disappointing blockbusters. Filmed with patience and attention to character, this sci-fi horror tale has emotional resonance, as well as thrills.

Robert Neville (Will Smith, I, ROBOT) is a military scientist who seems to be the last man in New York City, or possibly Earth, after a genetically altered virus turns humans into vampire-like night dwellers. He hunts rogue wildlife around the empty streets of NYC by day and barricades himself in his house once the sun sets. His only friend is his dog Sam, who was given to him by his young daughter on the day the city was quarantined. He continues his research to develop a cure, while he sets up mannequins at the video store so he can try to hold onto a bit of the world he once knew. However, the isolation has begun to make him crack, and his paranoia will affect his actions along the way.

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This brilliant spoof of alien abduction stories is the first film from famed soundman Gary Rydstrom. Of course, the sound is perfect, but Rydstrom translates his sound skills to make a hilarious short with perfect timing.

In the story, teen alien Stu must look over a huge board of switches to lift a deeply slumbering farmer from his bed. For each mistake, the looming glutinous supervisor, Mr. B, scribbles down notes on a clip board. Will Stu succeed or will be lose his cool?

Rydstrom’s timing and pacing is impeccable. For all intents and purposes, the film is a single joke, however it’s still funny upon repeated viewings. The slapstick is perfectly combined with character. Stu’s reactions are wonderfully exaggerated. There is a classic squash and stretch cartoon vibe to this short, which is a landmark for CG animation. The character design is also superb. The gelatin-like bodies of the aliens are unique. Stu with his oversized helmet adds to the character’s emotions and personalities. You get a quick sense that he is young and inexperienced just by his look, while you sense the opposite from the stoic Mr. B.

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Short, LIFTED is one of Pixar’s best shorts, ranking right up with LUXO JR. and GERI’S GAME.

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TRANSFORMERS starts off as a fun summer cruise, but then crashes head on into the medium strip at 100 mph and subsequently kicks it into autopilot. The first third is an entertaining global alien invasion flick in the mold of INDEPENDENCE DAY, but sadly once the Autobots show up the script flips into a juvenile, sitcom-like version of IRON GIANT. Finally in the end, we are given a conclusion with so many plot holes you could drive Optimus Prime right through them.

In Qatar, a U.S. military base is attacked by a transforming helicopter, leaving soldiers Sgt. Lennox (Josh Duhamel, TV’s LAS VEGAS), USAF Tech Sgt. Epps (Tyrese Gibson, BABY BOY) and their teammates stranded in the desert. Then we move to the American suburbs, Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf, HOLES) is trying to save up for his first car, going to the point where he’s willing to sell his grandfather’s glasses on eBay. He pines over the pretty, popular girl Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox, TV’s HOPE & FAITH), who turns out to be a grease monkey. Defense Secretary John Keller (Jon Voight, DELIVERENCE) tries to make heads or tails of the robot attack, which includes a hack into the government’s computer systems. To do so he calls in tech experts from all walks of life. Young, pretty, Aussie techie Maggie Madsen (Rachael Taylor, SEE NO EVIL) discovers the alien robots hacking into Air Force One computers and when she gets resistance to her idea about the hacks coming from DNA based machines, she goes to her hacker friend Glen Whitmann (Anthony Anderson, HUSTLE & FLOW) for help. Later Sam discovers that his beat-up Camero is really an alien robot named Bumblebee (Mark Ryan, THE PRESTIGE) and that his grandfather’s glasses are key to saving Earth from the evil alien robot Decepticons.

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