Below are the 2014 movies that I have seen so far (not including the ones previously reviewed in my earlier posts), reviewed in one paragraph or less. Movies are rated as Terrible, Mediocre, Average, Good or Great.
Cuban Fury
A pedestrian comedy about an overweight schlub (Nick Frost) who rediscovers his childhood love of salsa dancing in an effort to woo the new hottie at work (Rashida Jones). He is aided in his pursuit by his old dance instructor (Ian McShane), and is romantically rivaled by an office frenemy (Chris O'Dowd). All of these actors have fun with the material and the soundtrack is lively, but the story is formulaic, thin, and unworthy of the cast. It's not bad, but it's not worth making an effort to seek out.
Rating: Mediocre
Guardians of the Galaxy
A fun space romp that doesn't take itself as seriously as some of the other franchises in the Marvel Universe. Not the masterpiece that all the hype would imply, but certainly a fine piece of popcorn entertainment.
Rating: Good
Coherence
What seemingly starts as cliche indie drama quickly reveals itself to be a stealth science fiction story that utilizes ideas instead of special effects, a la Primer. While it has interesting ideas, a couple of fun twists, and a welcomely cynical ending, it also doesn't have a firm grasp on the way human beings act. The characters jump to conclusions so quickly it can give the audience whiplash, and the time it takes for one character to go from incredulous to violently paranoid feels like a reel went missing from the film. It's a puzzle movie that's intriguing enough to keep viewers watching until the end just to see where all the pieces fit, but probably not too concerned with the fate of any of the characters.
Rating: Average
Korengal
Less a sequel to 2010's Oscar-nominated war documentary Restrepo than a continuation (much of Korengal comes from the same massive amount of wartime footage from which Restrepo was culled), Korengal highlights stories not told in its cinematic forebearer, and features new interviews with many of the soldiers featured in the previous film. The interviews are what differentiates Korengal the most from Restrepo. The older film's interviews were taken shortly after the soldiers' experiences, when their emotions were still high and the trauma was fresh. Korengal finds the soldiers much more removed from the action, and with a sense of perspective that only time can bring. Their experiences are no less harrowing, but they are now much more aware of the dehumanizing effects that war had of them. The result is the equal of its predecessor, and one of the most affecting documentaries of the year.
Note: While Korengal ideally pares best with Restrepo, it is not essential to have seen the former. All of the crossover events and people who are featured in Restrepo are freshly reintroduced in Korengal.
Rating: Great
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Let's all agree right now: Bryan Singer is the only director who can pull off an X-Men movie properly. Brett Ratner (X-Men 3), Gavin Hood (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) and James Mangold (The Wolverine) did terrible jobs. Matthew Vaughn came really close to making a good one (X-Men: First Class), but landed on "good enough" instead. Singer's franchise record is flawless, however. Days of Future Past is the darkest entry in the franchise, and juggles multiple timelines and realities in a way that is easy for the audience to follow while also making us care about different versions of the same characters in ways that sometime intentionally conflict with each other. It is easily the second best X-Men movie (the almost perfect X-Men 2 is not just the top franchise entry, but one of the best superhero movies ever made).
Rating: Good
Godzilla
Much has been made about how little screentime Godzilla has in his own movie, but I actually liked that fact. Nothing against Godzilla, but I thought the way director Gareth Edwards constantly cut away from the monsters to see their battles being shown on small TV screens via the news was not just a great audience tease but also a way to show the ground-level experience of a giant monster attack. Most people would just be watching the action on a screen, up until their roof was suddenly torn off by the fight. Unfortunately Aaron Taylor-Johnson is the movie's main character, and he once again proves to be the most boring part of every film he's in. But other than him everyone else seems to be having fun earning their summer blockbuster paychecks. It's not great by a long shot, but it's certainly better than the last one.
Rating: Good
Rampage 2: Capital Punishment
That Uwe Boll is a terrible and shameless filmmaker in every way is an understanding that is so accepted by audiences and critics alike that it is nearly impossible to argue that he has, almost by accident, made a couple of good movies. 2009's Rampage was a strange anomaly in Boll's otherwise incompetent career. A naturally-paced violent drama about a man who puts on body armor, walks down the main street of his town, and shoots almost anything that moves. Sure, it's sadistic and dark. But it also found strange moments of profundity amid the chaos (there's an amazing scene in a bingo parlor that I consider to be essential viewing for any cinephile). Above all, it seemed nothing like an Uwe Boll film. If anything, the closest cinematic kinship it has is with Gus Van Sant's under-seen Elephant. Rampage 2 tightens the action somewhat (2/3 of the films takes place in the basement of a large corporate building), but still has the free-floating cinematography and almost improvisational looseness of the first film. It's equally sadistic, and is not an easy watch, but still just as fascinating. And while Boll the director doesn't misstep here either, the film's weakest element is Boll the actor. Boll cast himself as a television producer, and plays it as an over-the-top caricature of a Fox News executive in a movie otherwise filled with naturalistic performances. Fortunately he's a minor character, and doesn't get in the way very much.
Rating: Good
Noah
Well...this was not what I expected. It doesn't feel like a biblical epic, and it certainly doesn't feel like a Darren Aronofsky film. It just feels like a period action blockbuster the same as any other, but where the characters have names you hear a lot in church. Much like Ridley Scott's Robin Hood (which, like Noah, also starred Russell Crowe), the action onscreen shares so little with the well-known stories that serve as its inspiration that they could have just slapped another title on the film and saved themselves the inevitable backlash. Robin Hood wasn't a terrible film, it just wasn't a Robin Hood movie. Noah also isn't bad, it just plays less like a bible story than like something from J.R.R. Tolken's Middle-Earth. It's a generically competent blockbuster, and not one of the greatest stories ever told.
Rating: Average
Edge of Tomorrow
So, you were sick of sci-fi action blockbusters starring Tom Cruise? Well, you are why we can't have nice things. Edge of Tomorrow was the best blockbuster to come out this summer, and almost no one went to see it. It tanked at the box office despite glowing critical reviews, and has even been retitled as Live. Die. Repeat. for its home video and streaming release, presumably so audiences will think it's a different movie and actually give it a chance this time. It's exciting, funny, clever and pretty. Give it your money, already. Even if you can't stand Cruise (who is great in this, by the way), at least watch it for Emily Blunt (who I now nominate for the role of Lt. Ellen Ripley whenever Fox gets around to rebooting the Alien franchise).
Rating: Great
Kink
A James Franco-produced documentary about Kink.com, the web's foremost purveyor of BDSM porn, both hetero- and homosexual. The film is somewhat interesting in that it shows a taboo sector of a taboo industry as basically just another business. There are staff meetings, production issues, and a genuine work ethic the same as any other industry. What happens on camera may seem extreme to some people, but as is repeatedly stated by the interviewees in the film, no one is being forced to watch. I fault the film on two main points. It hits all its talking points early, then just repeats them over and over. It also completely ignores that Kink.com features a lot of transsexual porn, which would have been a great opportunity for the filmmakers to explore what it means to be a socially persecuted minority working in a stigmatized niche of a disreputable business. Instead, that niche is not even mentioned by the film, which feels especially shallow and disrespectful.
Rating: Average
The Rover
The Rover is is relentlessly bleak movie. Taking place somewhere in Australia ten years after an unspecified global disaster, what remains of human civilization is basically waiting around while the clock winds down. Eric (Guy Pearce) gets his car stolen while stopping for a drink, and spends the rest of the film tracking the thieves through a slow apocalypse. Aiding him is is Rey (Robert Pattinson), one of the thieves' dimwitted younger brother mistaken for dead and left behind. While Eric spends the first few minutes of the film seeming like a sympathetic protagonist, an unexpected action late in the first act reveals him to be nearly as cold as the world he inhabits. There are no good guys left in the world of The Rover, just those who stick to a personal code and those who don't. That the film still manages to find some touching moments amid the dreariness is almost a miracle. Pearce can play worn down and gritty in his sleep, and does a predictably admirable job here (he's given a heartbreaking monologue where he recounts his first murder, and the reason it affects him is not the reason you'd think). Pattinson is the scene-stealer though, giving Rey both a recklessness and naive innocence that make him the film's true heart. I liked The Rover a lot, but it's likely no one will feel happy when they're done watching it.
Rating: Good
7500
The director of The Grudge brings us 7500, which can alternately be called Ghosts on a Plane. It's terrible. Just really, really bad. None of the actors are trying, the scares are nonexistent, and the inevitable twist is predictable. There's a reason this film was sitting on the shelf since 2011 before finally being given a VOD release this year. The only credit I'll give the film is that it aims (unsuccessfully) for creepiness rather than resorting to cheap jump scares.
Rating: Terrible
How to Train Your Dragon 2
It's fine for a kid's movie, I guess. The first one had more heart and a better story. I missed twenty minutes in the middle of this movie when I left to go pick up a pizza. When I returned the movie was exactly were I had guessed it would probably be, and I had correctly intuited all of the plot developments that I had missed based on how formulaic the story was. It has its funny moments and a few pretty sequences, but is otherwise not essential viewing.
Rating: Average
Obvious Child
Jenny Slate should be a star, or at least be regarded as an equal to Kristen Wiig. She anchors a film that always feels like it could tip into cliche romantic comedy territory but stays grounded in genuine human behavior and emotions. Slate gets dumped by her boyfriend, has a drunken one night stand with nice guy Jake Lacy, gets pregnant as a result, decides to have an abortion, and struggles with how to break the news to her parents and to Lacy. There's no crazy slapstick or characters misconstruing events, just a naturally funny lady navigating through a personal crisis as best she can with the support of the people around her. Despite the heavy-sounding themes, the movie feels pretty light and charming. And Slate is amazing.
Rating: Good
Transformers: Age of Extinction
The fourth movie in this terrible franchise is the terrible-ist. The plot is bad, the acting is bad, and even the special effects are bad. How is it that a massive studio blockbuster franchise movie in 2014 has worse CGI than when the franchise started seven years ago? The only element in this film that isn't a complete waste is Stanley Tucci, who gives a gloriously hammy performance far more entertaining than the events happening around him. And I'm sorry, but the much-hyped dinobots were just plain bad.
Rating: Terrible
22 Jump Street
Almost as entertaining as 21 Jump Street, but not quite equal. It gets a lot of comedic mileage from outright mocking its own sequel redundancy and excess, but its plot feels like a complete afterthought to the hijinks. 21 Jump Street had hijinks, but also featured a solid throughline in its story. Still, it's more important for a comedy to be funny than compelling, and 22 Jump Street is definitely funny.
Rating: Good
Harmontown
Dan Harmon is the cult figure who created the much-loved but little-watched NBC sitcom Community. When he was infamously fired from his show, he decided to take his weekly podcast Harmontown on the road so he could salve his bruised ego by basking in the praise of his fans. Harmontown documents that tour, but is far from a hagiography. Sure, almost everyone interviewed claims Harmon is a genius storyteller. Because he is. He's also very controlling of his work, and resistant to outside input. He tends to alienate anyone who gets close to him or threatens to wrestle control away from him, including his longtime girlfriend Erin. The result is an intriguing portrait of a talented artist who is aware that he is his own worst enemy, but that seems powerless to stop himself.
Rating: Good
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