Emily Blunt, Jason Segel, Chris Pratt and Alison Brie all star in The Five-Year Engagement. Courtesy of Universal Pictures
Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller are Hollywood’s leading dynamic comedy duo right now. After collaborating on hits like Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him to the Greek, and The Muppets, hopes are very high for their latest comedy.
The Five-Year Engagement tells the story of a young couple who persistently postpone their wedding in order to meet their career goals. There’s a lot more to this story, but let’s not spoil the movie for you.
Segel and Stoller seem to have struck gold again with their fourth effort. This movie takes a different look at relationships and the sacrifices that are made in order to make them work.
Emily Blunt is hilarious with Segel and the rest of the cast. Her comedic timing really showcases her range in this movie. Alongside Blunt and Segel, their co-stars, Chris Pratt and Alison Brie really deliver the humour the script intended.
What drives the movie is the solid script from Segel, who has proved himself a talented comedic writer. The mix of off-beat gags and down to earth humour really draws in the audience to it’s modern look at relationships.
Bottom Line: Whether you’re on a date or single and looking for a laugh, you’ll find what you need with The Five-Year Engagement.
Hugh Grant, Martin Freeman, Imelda Staunto star in The Pirates! A Band of Misfits. Courtesy of Sony Pictures
The most successful animated films have always found a way of entertaining both their younger target audience, as well as the taller folks accompanying them. This proved to be a challenge for the stop motion animation The Pirates! A Band of Misfits, which appeared to have little difficulty in entertaining the grown-ups, but fell short with keeping the children interested for the duration of the film.
The story centers on a blundering band of pirates, led by the inept The Pirate Captain (yes, that is actually his name), set out to snatch the highly coveted Pirate of the Year award from their rivals.
The cast is studded with recognisable voices, including Hugh Grant, Martin Freeman, Imelda Staunton, David Tennant, Jeremy Piven, Selma Hayek, Brian Blessed, Anton Yelchin, and Brendan Gleeson, to name a few. Not surprisingly, the actors handled the British humour with ease.
This welcome humour from across the ocean was provided by screenwriter and novelist, Gideon Defoe. His screenplay is littered with jokes for adults (not to be confused with adult jokes) that regrettably seemed to fly over the heads of the children in the audience.
Directors Peter Lord and Jeff Newitt, who have not directed anything in over a decade, succeeded, for the most part, in providing a lot of visual humour and entertainment for your toddlers. The audience never became restless watching the claylike characters’ wacky adventures.
As a comparison, The Pirates! A Band of Misfits falls somewhere between Chicken Run and Pirates of the Caribbean. If your children enjoyed either of those films, they’ll have a blast with this one.
Bottom Line: Parents, if you’re looking for a family friendly show that won’t put you to sleep, this movie willdo the trick.
Jason Stathan stars in Safe, Courtesy of Alliance Atlantis
When Jason Statham’s name is attached to any project these days high expectations do not ensue. Unfortunately, his handling of similar cars through busy streets, kicking the snot out some stunt guy, has become overly predictable. His latest movie, Safe, gives you much of the same from this former Olympic diver turned Hollywood action star.
In Safe, Luke Wright (Statham) finds himself caught between the Chinese mafia, the Russian mafia and a corrupt police force when he tries to protect a gifted Asian girl who holds valuable information.
Exploding with clichés and shoddy acting, this movie offers a lot of high energy action cloaked in a half decent story.
Statham’s performance is exactly the same as every other movie he’s been in. He has, perhaps, the least amount of range a successful actor can or should have, but all his roles require are his physical presence, so expectations should always be kept low.
There is some gut wrenchingly awful acting from the young Catherine Chan, along with most of her foreign castmates.
However, the well shot and choreographed action really delivered what most will be expecting from this movie. Director and writer Boaz Yakin (Remember the Titans) used welcomed variety of camera techniques, mixing steady camera and shaky camera to capture the combination of gun fights and hand to hand battles.
Bottom Line: If you’re a Statham fan, you’ll enjoy it. If you need an action fix, you’ll enjoy it too.
Tim Allen narrates DisneyNature's latest documentary, Chimpanzee. Courtesy of Disney Nature
Seeing animals in a zoo is nothing like watching them in their natural habitat. Chimpanzees, while playful, are also territorial beings much like we humans are. This similarity paired with countless others makes DisneyNature’s latest documentary, Chimpanzee, simply intriguing.
This documentary follows a group of chimps (with which we share the most DNA) living in the forests of Africa as they try to keep their home safe from an invading clan of rival chimpanzees. Possibly the most intriguing aspect of this film is the story of baby Oscar and the unlikely relationship he forms with the alpha male of his group, Freddy.
This beautifully shot documentary delivers a powerful story of both spirit and family. The cinematography is absolutely stunning, as is the in-depth camera work the crew managed to achieve in order to bring us intimately close to our distant genetic ancestors.
What really brings the entire production together is Tim Allen’s (Toy Story, <emThe Santa Clause) narration. The man who famously voiced Buzz Lightyear provides humour while simultaneously giving every moment the perfect emotional tone. He even throws in a hint of Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor for good measure.
Directors , Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield who also directed DisneyNature’s Earth together, manage to give us a great deal of insight into the chimpanzees world. They even managed to show the darker side of the animal’s lives, but successfully cut everything graphic and disturbing out for younger and sensitive viewers.
To top it off there is a bonus making-of montage, so make sure to stay put when the credits start to roll.
Bottom Line: This is one of the best documentaries Disney has released to date. Don’t miss it!
Guy Pearce and Maggie Grace star in the sci-fi action, LOCKOUT. Courtesy of Alliance Films
Science fiction films have brought eye opening ideas and experiences to movie goers for generations. Chances are these stories have probably made you ponder the possibility of a Utopian and/or apocalyptic future at some point or another. Along the darker lines, Lockout examines how we may handle our convicts in the not too distant future.
In the year 2079, convicted ex-government agent Snow (Guy Pearce) fights to clear his name and his freedom by venturing into space to rescue the U.S. President’s daughter who is being held hostage.
Guy Pearce (Prometheus, Memento) is too much fun in this role. His countless, hilarious one-liners add the perfect light-hearted touch to this adventure. Other notables include Maggie Grace (Taken), who shows a welcome maturity in her performance, and Joseph Gilgun (Harry Brown) as the psychotic, charismatic inmate.
The directing team of James Mather and Stephen St. Leger co-wrote the original screenplay with Luc Besson (Taken, The Fifth Element). Inexperience is present in their direction, but they got enough right to keep it enjoyable. It is because the movie doesn’t take itself too seriously that keeps the audience interested.
The special effects on the other hand…not so much. There’s a fair bit of CGI-heavy scenes throughout the movie, not all of which were necessary and some of which looked dreadful.
As a cinematic experience, this needs a lot of polishing, but there’s a solid amount of fun in there too.
Bottom Line: If you’re in the mood for an 80’s style action/sci fi, this movie will take you on the right ride.
Sofia Boutella and Falk Hentschel in Street Dance 2. Courtesy of eOne Films
Quick, name 5 great movies about dance that aren’t musicals… Can’t do it, can you? Off the top of my head, I can list Flashdance and Dirty Dancing. There are probably others, but the truth is most dance films remain below an average grade. Street Dance 2 does nothing to help with the trend.
In this sequel, a humiliated street dancer has to venture across Europe to put together the best crew in order to win the world dance battle and redeem himself.
The performances and script are just hard to sit through. There are some adequate moments, but they are few and far between. As an actor, the only person worth their paycheque is British comedy legend, Tom Conti (The Dark Knight Rises, Derailed). While his French accent left something to be desired, his performance gave realism to the otherwise predictable dialogue.
On a positive note, the dancing in this movie will make you want to get up and jam with the incredibly talented performers. What the dancers lack in acting ability, they make up for with their tremendous dance experience. The movie features break dancing, popping, locking, Latin dancing and, most intriguing, all of them mixed together for a Street-Latin fusion. The entire movie was shot in 3D, which keeps the dancing the focal point of every dance scene.
Bottom Line: Go for the dancing and popcorn and nothing more.
Kevin, Jim, Stifler, Oz, and Finch are back in American Reunion. Courtesy of Universal Pictures
It’s hard not to enjoy the American Pie trilogy. They’re crude, but have a juvenile innocence to them that allows audiences to enjoy their outlandish humor. The big question is, will the latest installment follow the same creed? Let’s find out.
American Reunion brings the entire gang (even Oz) back together for their 13 year high school reunion and none of them are living the lives they envisioned.
This film ruins the ride we’ve been taken on up to this point. The characters (Jim and Kevin) are stripped of their morality by writers John Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg. Long gone are the days when comedies didn’t have to dig into the bottom of the dung heap to find comical material. It’s a real shame that Adam Herz, who wrote the first three films, couldn’t or didn’t return to pen this one.
The actors have kept their performance standards at the same level and it was nice to see them all together again, even if they were given a less than up to par script to work with. This aside, there are some laughs to be had. Sean William Scott (Goon, Role Models) and Eugene Levy (Goon, Splash) will keep you laughing throughout the film.
In the end, it all boils down to the bad taste the film leaves in your mouth when you leave the theatre. Not because of the toilet humour, but because the characters have been tarnished and fail to redeem themselves.
Bottom Line: We can only hope it all ends here. I’ll stick to the original trilogy for my occasional American Pie fix.
Sarah Bolger stars in The Moth Diaries. Courtesy of Alliance Films
Are movies that premiere at a film festival automatically given a higher stature over films that do not? The answer is a resounding no, and The Moth Diaries, which premiered at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) last year, is a perfect example of this.
In this movie, a teenage boarding school student is losing her best friend to a new girl suspected of having supernatural abilities.
It’s hard to believe that filmmakers and studios automatically feel the need to lower the standards of their work depending on their target audience. Most every aspect of this movie is mediocre at best.
The cast of adult actors playing teenagers, including Sarah Bolger, Lily Cole, Sarah Gadon, Valerie Tian, and Melissa Farman either received poor direction or they simply can’t act. Either way, there is no connecting with the characters or their dilemmas.
Mary Harron (American Psycho), who wrote and directed the movie, could have done a much better job adapting Rachel Klein’s novel. More or less, the entire story is a “paint by numbers” portrait of teenage drama with a weak horror twist.
In the end, this film would find a better home in the made for television genre rather than a feature film.
Bottom Line: If you’re looking for a higher dose of entertainment from a superior film, check out The Craft (1996) and keep your distance from this movie.
