Still playing catch up since getting home Sunday.
JURASSIC WORLD
5.5/10
See review in this week's column --
http://andyfilm.com/2015/06/17/6-23-15- ... l-edition/
KINGSMAN
6.5/10
Matthew Vaughn’s latest is a wild and woolly, hyper-James Bond affair based on a comic book about a clandestine British espionage unit, spearheaded by veteran spy Colin Firth. He adds a young kid from the wrong side of the tracks (Taron Egerton) as a recruit just as an American billionaire (Samuel L. Jackson) threatens the world in Vaughn and Jane Goldman’s colorful, fast moving romp, which has as much energy as their “Kick-Ass” and visual inspiration to match. Regrettably, it also carries a bit of its excessiveness along with it, resulting in some jarringly violent moments that didn’t need to be as extreme as they are – particularly given the material. For the most part, the picture is still entertaining with pitch-perfect performances from Firth and Jackson (and boasts a number of funny scenes), but this time, Vaughn’s juvenile tendencies get the best of him, capped by an inexplicably gratuitous church massacre that’s especially miscalculated.
THE DUFF
7.5/10
Mae Whitman’s winning performance sells this agreeable, if unsurprising, trip back to John Hughes land. Josh Cagan’s adaptation of Jody Keplinger’s book follows Whitman as Bianca, a smart high school senior who finds out she’s really a “Duff” – a front for her friends to use as a means of landing a good looking guy. Ari Samuel’s film is high on energy and good humor, though the picture ultimately isn’t anything you haven’t seen before – just carried along by Whitman’s superb central role.
CHAPPIE
4/10
It’s always tough when a talented filmmaker – especially in this day and age – strikes out with original material, but alas, it’s two strikes running now for Neill Blomkamp. The South African director who made a name for himself thanks to the terrific “District 9″ followed that genre triumph with the meandering “Elysium” and now the severely misguided “Chappie” – a film that recycles elements from “Short Circuit” and “Robocop,” as South African police droids patrol the decrepit streets of Johannesburg. A pair of gangsters decide to kidnap the AI’s designer (Dev Patel) and demand that he reprogram one of the automatons, resulting in a child-like robot with a conscience whom the duo force to help pay out a debt to a local thug.
Veering uneasily from a reworking of Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 sci-fi favorite to would-be heart-tugging scenes involving “Chappie” (the robot’s nickname) learning about the world around him, Blomkamp’s film never settles on a consistent tone. It also offers Blomkamp lecturing from the pulpit again, this time about mankind’s relationship with A.I., its dangers and consequences – but the film is ultimately so silly and unbelievable – not to mention critically overlong – that it’s hard to take any of it seriously.
“Chappie” co-stars a mullet-wearing Hugh Jackman and Sigourney Weaver, who apparently struck up enough of a relationship with Blomkamp that the director successfully lobbied to make his own “Alien” film, presumably with the actress (we’re still awaiting official details) returning to her iconic role. That kind of familiar genre material might be the best recipe to get Blomkamp back on track after this commercial misstep, which was quickly jettisoned from theaters last winter.