All articles by Tim Grierson, Senior US critic – Page 76
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Reviews
The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor
Dir: Rob Cohen . US. 2008. 107 mins.Nine years have passed since The Mummy, a moderately-charming period action-adventure yarn starring Brendan Fraser, but it seems even longer after viewing Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor, a dispiritingly witless sequel with very little personality but a lot of frenetic comic banter and ...
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Reviews
Step Brothers
Dir: Adam McKay . US. 2008. 95 mins.Playing like an overlong DVD version of one of his earlier, funnier, PG-13 films, the R-rated Step Brothers finds Will Ferrell diving into raunchier, coarser terrain, resulting in a movie that feels helplessly in thrall to its own foul language and sex jokes. ...
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Reviews
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
Dir: Patricia Rozema . US. 2008. 100 mins.Emotionally affecting but dramatically wobbly, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl was made with young girls in mind, but would have been far more effective had it shown enough courage not to play down to its audience. With that said, this adaptation of the ...
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Reviews
Get Smart
Dir: Peter Segal . US. 2008. 110 mins. Offering a little bit of everything but not quite enough of any one thing, Get Smart is a likable jumble of genres that could have greatly benefited from being less ambitious. Despite a strong central performance from Steve Carell, this adaptation of ...
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Reviews
You Don't Mess With The Zohan
Dir: Dennis Dugan. US. 2008. 113 mins.A comedy built around the belief that people speaking in foreign accents is endlessly funny, You Don't Mess With The Zohan is - how you say' - not good. Aiming for an irreverent politically-incorrect tone with its story of an Israeli commando who leaves ...
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Reviews
Made Of Honour
Dir: Paul Weiland . US. 2008. 101 mins.Just as its charming main character's plan to ruin his female best friend's wedding only succeeds in bringing himself down as well,sodoes Made Of Honor start off with a breezy likeability before sabotaging itself with generic, unsatisfying plotting. Despite appealing performances from Patrick ...
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Reviews
Redbelt
Dir: David Mamet . US. 2008. 99mins.Clearly a David Mamet film from its first line of dialogue, Redbelt exhibits many of the tenets of the playwright-film-maker's earlier efforts, although they find a novel new setting in the world of mixed martial arts. Some of Mamet's techniques have certainly lost their ...
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Reviews
Baby Mama
Dir: Michael McCullers . US. 2008. 98 mins.A smart comedy for adults, Baby Mama is a consistently funny pleasure, filled with charismatic performances and a nicely understated emotional element. Though superficially an Odd Couple-style look at two mismatched women - one hired to carry the other's child to term - ...
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Reviews
Prom Night
Dir: Nelson McCormick. US. 2008. 88mins.One of the most memorable nights in a teenager's young life is grist for a pretty unmemorable movie in Prom Night, a tame horror entry that follows conventions to the letter. Though besting opening-weekend expectations, the film fails to offer many thrills as its attractive ...
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Reviews
Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay
Dirs: Jon Hurwitz & Hayden Schlossberg . US. 2008. 101 mins.2004's Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle was such a pleasant surprise - a witty stoner comedy with some depth and genuine laughs - that it was perhaps too much to hope that the sequel could retain the original's ...
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Reviews
Never Back Down
Dir: Jeff Wadlow. US. 2008. 113 mins.Fight Club meets The Karate Kid in Never Back Down, a generic, violent underdog story that pays a lot of lip service to non-violence when its characters aren't busy kicking and punching the tar out of each other. Though the film tries to capitalise ...
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Reviews
Vantage Point
Dir: Pete Travis. US. 2008. 90 mins.Although it's a thriller based around a familiar, Rashomon-style concept, Vantage Point ratchets up its intensity so effectively that the film's lack of originality hardly matters. The assassination of the US president is told through the perspective of different eyewitnesses, with each variation offering ...
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Reviews
The Hottie And The Nottie
Dir: Tom Putnam. US. 2008. 98 mins.A crude twist on the old maxim about inner beauty trumping outward appearance, The Hottie And The Nottie sluggishly tries to copy the Farrelly brothers' winning mixture of sweetness and occasionally revolting humour, but the results couldn't be more unsightly. Socialite and tabloid ...
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Reviews
One Missed Call
Dir: Eric Valette. US. 2008. 87mins.Generic and thematically uninspired, One Missed Call, the US remake of Takashi Miike's 2003 J-horror tale, flounders withitsliteral and ill-advised approach to its supernatural material. This Warner Bros. January castoff will lure fright fans uninterested in the season's award contenders and holiday leftovers, but even ...
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Reviews
National Treasure: Book Of Secrets
Dir: Jon Turteltaub. US. 2007. 124mins.The first National Treasure reaped sizable international box-office fortunes with a loopy gee-whiz amalgam of Indiana Jones derring-do and Mission: Impossible-style set pieces. Three years later, the inevitable sequel, dubbed Book Of Secrets, is as derivative of its sources as it is of the first ...
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Reviews
Hitman
Dir: Xavier Gens. US. 2007. 100mins.In the annals of renowned cinematic assassins, Jason Bourne needn't fear any challenge to his legacy from Agent 47, the bald-headed killing machine of Hitman. Though stylish shot and occasionally exciting in its frenetically-edited action sequences, this adaptation of the popular video game can only ...
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Reviews
Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium
Dir: Zach Helm. US. 2007. 94mins.Shunning the wised-up attitude and frenetic humour of so many other kids movies, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium may occasionally strain too hard for magical whimsy, but there's no disputing the film's sweetness or poignancy. Anchored by a deft performance from Natalie Portman as a young ...
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Reviews
Saw IV
Dir: Darren Lynn Bousman. US. 2007. 93mins.Cinematic trends come and go, but the resilience of the Saw franchise continues unabated. Grimly efficient in a manner consistent with previous installments, Saw IV demonstrates that this well-oiled horror machine is showing noticeable wear and tear, but nevertheless enough of the moving parts ...
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Reviews
The Kite Runner
Dir: Marc Forster. US. 2007. 122mins.Better at exploring the bonds of family and friendship than at articulating the societal traumas that have haunted Afghanistan over the last three decades, The Kite Runner leaps from the page to the screen full of emotion and sensitive characterization. The source material's inherently melodramatic ...