Adventure Films
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The Man From U.N.C.L.E., or, “The Anti-Kingsman” (PG-13)
In his essay, “Kingsman and the Maybe Genius of Non-Winking Satire,” Hulk Film Crit makes the rather bold assertion that Matthew Vaughn is a kind of blockbuster Martin Scorsese. As different as their methods may be, Hulk argues that their intentions are deeply similar: both approach ugly subjects with a brutal honesty that acknowledges the allure […]
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Ant-Man: A Humble Beginning (PG-13)
When a new planet swims into the ken of the Marvel cinematic universe, the gravity must be intense. Like stout Cortez staring at the Pacific for the first time, the wonder of new discovery quickly gives way to acquisition and assimilation. After several rounds of feature-length introductions to The Avengers, Ant-Man is an unexpected departure […]
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Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (PG-13)
When the theatre lights go down, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation starts to play the breathless beginning of Lilo Schifrin’s famous theme before the Paramount Studios mountain has even left the screen. With the Mission Impossible franchise now securely established, this is not a film that intends to waste time winning over its audiences. No, […]
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Paper Towns: The Teen Whisperer Mumbles (PG-13)
I know only of John Green what Hollywood has told me, which means Paper Towns is but my second venture into the mind of “the Teen Whisperer,” as Margot Talbot once referred to him in The New Yorker. As with The Fault in Our Stars, the characters in Paper Towns are self-reflective and hungry, but […]
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Inside Out: The Problem of Sadness (PG)
In his iconic work, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis said, “Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.” […]
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Jurassic World: It’s No Wonderful Life (PG-13)
“Oh, my God! We finally, really did it! You maniacs….Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!” The righteous invective Charlton Heston bellows in the final moments of The Planet of the Apes seems similarly suited to the resurrection and public opening of Jurassic Park. Bewilderingly, though, Jurassic World (both the film and the […]
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Tomorrowland (PG)
In the opening minutes of Tomorrowland, a young boy shows us his homemade jetpack. It is meant to be fun and inspiring, but has one problem: it doesn’t work. It’s always nice when a movie hands you a metaphor for itself. It’s not nice when that movie breaks your heart in the process. There may […]
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It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad Mad Max (R)
It’s hard to appreciate paganism properly. I can’t think of many convincingly pagan characters from motion pictures, because most cinematic pagans are nothing more than Republicans or athletes in togas. They talk like us, think like us, dress like us dressing like pagans, opine like us. Our ancient Greeks are suffragettes and our ancient Egyptians […]
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Avengers: Age of Ultron (PG-13)
Halfway through Avengers: Age of Ultron, the eponymous robot waxes poetical and says to a few of his cronies, “Everyone creates the thing they fear.” It’s possible that this line was added by the writer and director, Joss Whedon, as an indication of how he felt about this movie. In many ways, Ultron is not […]
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Kingsman: The Secret Service (R)
With a film as superficially slick and fun as Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman: The Secret Service, it’s mightily tempting to view the film on an accordingly superficial level, judging it based on its shallow pleasures and surface flash – and certainly, there are manifold pleasures to be enumerated here. One could list off the film’s many […]
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Defect & Exile: The Hunt For Red October (PG)
I revisited The Hunt For Red October recently and found it a far different film than I remembered. I saw this one in the theater when I was nine and revisited it more than a dozen times in my teens, though I had not seen it in a decade when I started it a few nights ago. […]
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Big Hero 6 (PG)
A group of misfits band together to stop an evil, mysterious villain and become an unlikely team of superheroes. No, that wasn’t a one-sentence description for this summer’s Guardians of the Galaxy; it’s a one-sentence description for this fall’s Big Hero 6. Big Hero 6 focuses on child prodigy Hiro (Ryan Potter), who is encouraged […]
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Fury (R)
The most memorable character in Fury is Don Collier, or “Wardaddy,” the weathered commander of a tank – the eponymous Fury – in the final days of World War II. Wardaddy (Brad Pitt, exceptional in a role that nevertheless falls short of his best work) is a man of contradictions: he emanates grim, detached pragmatism […]
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Guardians Of The Galaxy (PG-13)
Sometimes you go to the movies with the need to hear a solemn complaint voiced. You need to hear the dignity of creation reaffirmed. You go to hear Jessica Chastain say to God, “Where were you?” as she laments the untimely loss of a son. You go to the movies in the Fall, when the […]
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North by Northwest (Not Rated)
North by Northwest is the first of its kind. Released in 1959, it is the story of advertising executive Robert Thornhill (Grant) being mistaken for one George Kaplin by a powerful crime lord. Within the first 15 minutes Thornhill is kidnapped, questioned, blackmailed, forced to drink an entire bottle of bourbon, and placed drunk in […]
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Snowpiercer (R)
Joon-Ho Bong’s Snowpiercer starts with an intriguing premise: the world has frozen solid after a global warming experiment gone wrong, and all of humanity now inhabits a high-tech train that perpetually circles the earth. (Train wreck jokes would, perhaps, be too obvious.) Snowpiercer squanders this premise on a hackneyed tale of the struggle between the […]
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Transformers: Age Of Extinction (PG-13)
You can learn a lot about Michael Bay by the numbers. In the last twenty years, he has directed eleven films, and all but two were released in June or July. All his films but the first, Bad Boys, top the two hour mark, and more than half exceed two and a half hours. The […]
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The Constant Gardener (R)
The name Teresa, or Therese, is common in the recent history of the church. It’s most recognizable bearer is perhaps Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who founded the Missionaries of Charity. This Catholic Congregation, like its founder, is dedicated to the free care of HIV/AIDS suffers, tuberculosis patients, the mentally ill, abandoned children, lepers, refugees, etc. […]
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Catching Fire (PG-13)
On the one hand you have Athanasius contra mundum, and on the other hand, Fifty million Elvis fans can’t be wrong. I’ll confess equal sympathies for both dictums. The Truth is a Man, a single Man, and He does not depend on massive crowds to give Him cultural validity. His cult is the genesis of […]
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300: Rise Of An Empire (R)
Some days call for dumb movies. Every now and then, on a late night or a quiet Saturday afternoon, there’s reason enough to watch something that will advance your psyche in no way. I admit it. I’d even go so far as to allow Zack Snyder’s 300 (the 2006 one) to be such. Maybe. It […]