OK, there is really no way to fully discuss J. J. Abrams’ Star Trek Into Darkness without getting into spoilers, big spoilers, specifically in relation to one character and a plot point that sets off the film’s final third. Granted some of these spoilers are out there, but some are not. My one sentence, non-spoiler review would be that the film is entertaining enough if viewed in a bubble, but in context with the entirety of the Star Trek franchise it is a disappointment.

For a fuller critique read on, but be warned that there are spoilers from here on out.

When Abrams successfully rebooted the Star Trek franchise in 2009, he managed to do what was thought to be a near-impossible task – he not only refreshed the stale theatrical arm of the long-running science-fiction franchise but he did it in a way that allowed him to bring in a new cast to play beloved characters and in a way that not only didn’t invalidate what had come before but also freed him off the past’s shackles. And at the end of the film, Abrams and audiences were left with a new Star Trek universe into which the crew of the Enterprise could boldly go to seek out strange new worlds, etcetera, etcetera.

So when news reports about the sequel began to circulate stating the film’s villain would be Khan Noonian Singh, memorably played by Ricardo Montalban in the original Star Trek TV series episode “Space Seed” and then again in Star Trek: The Wrath Of Khan, I thought that was a bad idea. With a whole new galaxy to explore, why try to go and revive one of the series’ best loved villains? It seemed like a fool’s errand. The dynamic interplay between William Shatner’s Captain Kirk and Montalban’s Khan was in no need of updating, so why try? It was a story told well the first time, so why not take advantage of the blank canvas you have and do something new?

And so when Benedict Cumberbatch’s terrorist bombing character reveals to Kirk (Chris Pine) after leading the starship captain on a chase deep into enemy Klingon space that his name is Khan, I let out an audible groan. But then something happened. Abrams and screenwriters Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof zigged where you would have expected them to zag and set up a situation where Kirk and Khan had to form an uneasy alliance in order for both of them to survive. And it worked. I found myself actively warming to the idea.

However, just as the film manages to do what I thought was impossible in establishing its own unique working dynamic for the Khan character it had to go and recreate one of the entire Star Trek franchise’s most iconic moments – the death of Spock in the Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan. Now I am sure that Abrams and screenwriters Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof all congratulated themselves on being so clever as to reverse Kirk and Spock in this situation, placing Kirk in the deadly radiation-filled chamber and Spock on the outside unable to reach his friend. But this isn’t clever, it’s a terrible cheat. Abrams and company aren’t just taking elements of what has gone before and reworking them, they are relying on a specific moment from a previous film to evoke an emotional reaction from the audience rather than doing the heavy-lifting themselves and trying to create their own scene to do get that reaction. However, it falls short of achieving what they seemed to hope for and felt rather forced in the film. It not only pulled me out of the movie but made me lose any good will I had built up from their previous handling of Khan. It is just lazy and cynical screenwriting and the film’s third act suffers greatly for it.

(I should note screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (Lost In Space, I, Robot, I Am Legend) has a cameo as a Starfleet admiral in one scene. Since I have found a number of his films also suffer from third act difficulties, I half want to believe that it is his own bad mojo responsible for the problems here.)

The rest of the film is fairly top notch. The relationship we glimpsed in the 2009 Star Trek between Spock (Zachery Quinto) and Uhura (Zoe Saldana) gets explored a bit more prominently this time, allowing for a comedic moment between the two with Kirk stuck in the middle and lets Saldana have more screen time and things to do than Nichelle Nichols got to do in any of the original cast films. Although not specifically stated in the film, there are a few moments for Spock’s character where we see how the destruction of his homeworld in the last film has colored his actions. The rest of the main cast all acquit themselves nicely with what they are given, though John Cho’s Sulu seems to get the short stick again.

As I stated before, Star Trek Into Darkness is an entertaining enough film if you experience it in a vacuum, without the baggage that fans of the series will undoubtedly bring with them to the theater. However, the filmmakers seem to be distinctly counting on that baggage to sell a major moment in the film’s finale but instead they only manage to remind us how much better the original was.

Iron Man 3 is definitely a Shane Black movie. But it’s really not much of an Iron Man movie.

The story begins with a broken Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr), who is still reeling from the events of The Avengers. He hasn’t been getting much sleep and when he is awake, he suffers from the occasional panic attack whenever New York is mentioned. The last thing Tony needs is any more stress. However, The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) doesn’t really care about Tony Stark’s stress levels. The international terrorist has been attacking American interests across the world with bombs that are highly destructive yet leave no evidence behind.

When Tony’s bodyguard Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) is caught in one of the Mandarin’s blasts, Tony decides to make it personal. But the Mandarin doesn’t take threats lightly. It soon becomes a race against time as Tony must find the Mandarin before the terrorist’s genetically enhanced army take away everything Tony holds dear.

That synopsis barely scratches the surface of the convoluted plot , which spans 13 years, involves old flames, secret formula’s that give you superpowers, dramatic transformations and a number of people who turn out to not be what we thought they were. Unfortunately, one of those people is Tony Stark. He bares a superficial resemblance to his appearances the other films of the franchise. He actually bares a closer resemblance to Nancy Drew.

This might be a spoiler that the studio doesn’t want you to know: Tony Stark spends a lot of time out of the Iron Man armor, more than in any other installment. Well, I didn’t have a stopwatch, so I can’t verify that statement, but it seems like it.  There is a valid reason for it–the Mark 42 armor is a bit glitchy and doesn’t bounce back quite as quickly as other Marks. But still…

While he is out of the armor, he turns into “Tony Stark, Billionaire Amateur Playboy Detective of the Appalachians.” Even though he has not shown any aptitude for it in any other movies, Tony is able to develop leads, follow them to Tennessee and then Miami, breaking in to TV trucks and palatial estates as needed to get what he needs. And even though he is established as a rather big celebrity, he does all of this investigating without ever once being recognized. It’s like magic.

I just didn’t buy it. I mean, Tony Stark shares a lot of qualities with Bruce Wayne, but being a master detective is not one of them. The whole thing does not flow naturally from what Tony’s characterization in the franchise up to this point. It appears manufactured to either act as a cheap way to advance the plot or to allow Shane Black room to work in the crime genre he is more comfortable with.

The side effect of all this, for me at least, was that it took me out of the film and all of the film’s plot holes, and there are a lot of them, became all the more noticeable. The villain’s motivation seems to change from scene to scene. Is he after revenge? World domination? Money? A mix of the three? All of the above? One from column A, one from column C?

That’s just one example. There are a lot more I could list, but that would fall into heavy spoiler category. But the main crux of a lot of these other plot holes is the way Black and co-screenwriter Drew Pierce present us with complex solutions to the characters’ problems when it is obvious there was an easier way to get the same results. Instead of going directly from A to Z, they meander all over the alphabet, throw in a couple of numbers, and eventually get to Z 15 to 20 minutes later than they should.

This is a shame because there are a lot of good moments, no, wait, strike that, a lot of GREAT moments in the film. The way the Mandarin is presented might infuriate the die-hard fans, but I thought it was a unique take on the character. And by this point we all know that Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) ends up in a suit of armor, but the way she does is a nice touch. Pepper Potts has a chance to play not only the damsel in distress but also the hero in the film, which is a refreshing change.

And the cast is superb. In addition to the actors I already mentioned, there are especially strong performances from Don Cheadle, Guy Pierce and Rebecca Hall. Too bad they weren’t in a tighter script that fit in better with the franchise as a whole.

Jackie Chan’s latest film, Chinese Zodiac (aka CZ12) opened late last year in Hong Kong and other Asian territories and is continuing to roll out around the world. As of now, though, the film does not have any distribution deals set for the United States, Canada or Great Britain.

Last year, there was a brief stir that Jackie Chan’s then-upcoming film Chinese Zodiac would not only be a return to his Asian Hawk adventurer character from Armor Of God (1986) and Operation Condor (1991), but also would be his last film featuring him performing his trademark stunt and action sequences. The story was almost immediately walked back, leaving fans to wonder if this would indeed be the final time they get to see Chan in action or not. But if this movie does serve as a capstone to Chan’s action career, it is a fitting one. He has made some exciting action films and he’s mad some cringe-worthy clunkers. Chinese Zodiac is a bit of both.

Professional treasure seeker Asian Hawk (Chan, though called JC by some characters) is recruited by billionaire Lawrence Morgan (Oliver Platt, in a performance as honest as he would give for a serious indie drama) to track down a number of bronze heads that were said to adorn the 12 zodiac animals statues at the Old Summer Palace but which were stolen by foreigners in the 1800s. Along with his assistants, Hawk/JC manages to track the heads down to a collector in Paris, which leads to clues as to the location of further heads on a tropical island that happens to be overrun with pirates. Hawk/JC and company finally head back to Morgan where they discover a secret about him that leads to a final showdown.

The film opens with a rather fun and inventive sequence in which we join Hawk/JC in the midst of performing some sort of heist on a nationality-unidentified military base, making his getaway with the assistance of a suit covered with wheels, in effect turning him into a giant skateboard. Trust me when I say that although it is a bit goofy, it is not as goofy as that description makes it sound. Chan likes to give audiences things they’ve never seen before and this definitely qualifies. A few moments of the stunt work are obviously CG, but as Chan is now 60, I don’t think that there is anyone who can really fault him for that.

However, Chan’s name appears 15 times in the credits, a new world’s record according to the Guinness people, and as such, deserves both the praise and the criticisms for the film’s successes and flaws.

As one of four credited writers on the screenplay, Chan gives his character a trio of young assistants who seem to be there more to share the load when it comes to action sequences (see the Parisian houseboat sequence) than they do in contributing in any real way to the narrative. Two of them are given a subplot centered on their crumbling romantic relationship, but it is so under-cooked it fails to generate any interest.

The pirate entire island sequence feels like Chan’s tribute/homage/thinly veiled rip-off (take your pick) of the Pirates Of The Caribbean movies, right down to one pirate looking suspiciously like a certain Mr. Depp and a music cue that feels about as distant from Klaus Badelt’s score for Disney’s theme park attraction-turned-blockbuster movie franchise as Vanilla Ice’s “Ice, Ice Baby” does from Queen’s “Under Pressure.”

Chinese Zodiac does pick up in its second half as Jackie and company arrive at the villain’s facility where high quality antique forgeries are mass manufactured. A fight with rival treasure hunter Vulture (Alaa Safi), in which both participants must remaining touching at least a portion of a rainbow-colored couch, showcases not only Chan’s ability to imaginatively choreograph a fight within certain restrictions but also his own dexterity by actually pulling it off. A climactic fight in mid-air between Chan and a number of skydivers is also fairly thrilling while the sequence’s end, with him rolling down the side of a volcano, feels like a call back to a similar stunt in Armor Of God.

But for all the clunky stuff that clogs up the first half of the movie, you never get the feeling that Chan is phoning it in or not trying hard to please his audience. But I can see where this can take a lot of energy and how after doing this or the better part of three decades he might want to call it a day. It’s unfortunate though, that it couldn’t be on more of a high note.

The problem with prequels is that they are locked into their endings. Directors may have lots of fun playing with the various toys in the toybox, but they have to make sure that they are all packed away in their proper place and with nothing broken when done. The best that they can do is make sure the journey the film’s characters take is at least exciting and distracting enough so we don’t notice that everything is lacking in overall suspense as to how it will all end.

And such is the problem director Sam Raimi finds himself with with the film Oz, The Great And Powerful. As a prequel to L. Frank Baum’s classic children’s book The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz, and to a lesser and non-legal extenant MGM’s 1939 musical adaptation of the same, we know that by the end Kansas circus magician Oscar Diggs (James Franco) will be ensconced in the Emerald City as the ruler of the Land of Oz after having incurred the wrath of an evil witch or two. And while Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire’s screenplay does managed to supply some nice character moments and some fun set pieces, it never really brings one to the edge of one’s seat.

Oscar Diggs, Oz to his friends, aspires to greatness but has doubts that he could ever achieve it. But when his twister-tossed hot air balloon sends him to the land OZ where he is greeted by the witches Theodora (Mila Kunis) and Evanora (Rachel Weisz) as the foretold future king of the realm, he sees his prospects changing. All he has to do, he is told by Theodora and Evanora, is kill the evil witch who poisoned the previous ruler of the land – Glinda (Michelle Williams).

If you’re familiar at all with the original Wizard Of Oz story than you know that someone is lying about Glinda being a killer and to its credit that movie doesn’t draw out for too long the not-so-mysterious mystery as to whom the real culprit is. What’s more interesting about the film’s screenplay is the repercussions of Oz’s flirtatious nature with one of the sisters and how the other uses it to her advantage. It is an almost Shakespearean turn of events, only undercut by the fact that the actress doesn’t really play it all that well. (I’m not saying whom it is in order to preserve the mystery as to which sister it is.)

If you’re familiar with Raimi’s work in the Evil Dead horror films or even the Spider-Man trilogy and are wondering about how he came to direct a family film for Disney, don’t fret. He still manages to work in a number of his trademarks including some dutch camera angles and frenetic action sequences. Of course, his best friend, cult actor Bruce Campbell, gets a cameo late in the film that is well worth the wait. And if you look a little harder at the story, you’ll realize that in broad strokes it bears a striking similarity to his own film Army Of Darkness. The third installment of the Evil Dead franchise finds its hero thrown back in time where he is greeted as a prophesied savior who will defeat an evil magic and manages to do so with knowledge of technology that the native population does not have. (OK, these are both variations of Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court, but the comparison still stands.)

Since this is a Disney production, legalities insist that Raimi and company don’t copy things that are intrinsically unique to the classic 1939 MGM The Wizard Of oz. But boy do they dance right on the line of what they can and can not get away with doing. Many of the character and set designs look similar to their 1939 counterparts, though I suppose an argument could be made that they are both based on the initial descriptions provided by Baum in the books. The film even manages a meta-textual joke about their limitations in duplicating elements from the MGM film in the scene where Oz first meets the munchinkins.

Even right at the start of things, the film apes the 1939 film’s black and white to color transition that marked Dorothy’s leaving of the mundane world of Kansas and arriving somewhere over the rainbow. But Raimi does things one better by shooting his Kansas sequence in Academy ratio that opens up to wide screen as the color seeps in upon Oz’s arrival in the magical land that bears his name. (Surprisingly, though, this would have been a great moment for the film to transition from 2D to 3D, but the opportunity is allowed to slide past.)

And speaking of the 3D, Raimi manages to take the process and make it feel not so much as something he was forced to use in order to jack up the prices at the ticket booth but make it fun at times. And given that we know that all four main characters will have to survive in order to meet their respective fates in The Wizard Of Oz (bucket of water, farmhouse to the top of the head, etc.), that’s about all we can ask for.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is the closest thing we have to a classic 80′s action star in films today. He has the physique of an in-his-prime Schwarzenegger,  the natural charisma of a Stallone, and the acting ability of a Willis. Too bad he finds it difficult to land a good enough movie to let all those skills shine.

If you’ve seen the ads for Snitch, then you’d think that the film was an action movie. Except for maybe five minutes in the middle of the film and the last 10-15 minutes, it’s not. The rest of the time, it’s an issue-probing drama. And trying to make the two types films mesh is Stitch’s downfall.

Supposedly inspired by true events (but I think little more than a Frontline documentary on the mandatory minimum sentencing for drug offenders served as inspiration),  Johnson plays John Matthews, the successful owner of a construction company. One day, he gets a call from his estranged ex-wife. Jason, his son with her, begrudgingly agreed to accept a package of drugs from a faraway friend. But the friend in reality set  Jason up for a fall and he finds himself staring at a mandatory minimum 10 year sentence for the trumped up charge of intent to distribute.

The Feds really aren’t interested in Jason, they want to get more drugs off the street. If he could sell out other dealers, his sentence could be reduced. Problem is, he really is a good kid and knows no other drug dealers. The only way he could give the Feds what they want would be to frame his other friends the way his friend framed him.

This is where daddy comes in. He makes a deal US Attorney Janet Keegan (Susan Sarandon)–he’ll use his construction company to haul drugs for the local drug dealers, all the while working with the Feds to bring the dealers down and reduce his son’s sentence. But things soon get too big for John to handle when cartel member “El Topo” (Benjamin Bratt) takes an interest in him.

Johnson does a great job acting here, more than holding his own in a cast filled of Emmy, Tony and Golden Globe nominees (and in several scenes with the sole Oscar winner of the cast too). He plays the part with a earnestness that sells the character. He makes us believe that his character truly believes that the cockamamie scheme presented to him will work even though the script does nothing to convince us of the same.

Another failing of the script is the characters. Well, wait, “characters” might be too strong a description for what appears in this movie. They are the stock repertory of almost every drug drama ever made, with stellar actors to spin a teeny bit of gold from the straw they were given. Sarandon is the US Attorney with political aspirations looking for a conviction at any cost. Barry Pepper is the jaded narco cop with intriguing facial hair and a heart of gold. Jon Bernathal is the ex-con desperately trying to go straight but pull back into his old life against his will. And Bratt plays a 8th or 9th generation of Tony Montana. They all play stereotypes, but all of the actors bring enough to the roles to at least make it interesting versions of these stereotypes.

Where the script fail the film and its message condemning the mandatory minimum sentencing policy for drug offenders is in its final act, which is a full-on pair of interwoven action scenes–one a car/semi chase on a highway, one a shootout at a crackhouse. This ending appears to be the textbook definition of “tacked on,” like someone discovered that a film starring the Rock was in danger of ending without a car exploding and, well, we just can’t have that.

What’s worse is that ending just doesn’t work. Not to spoil it for anyone, but the actions of both protagonists in finale fly completely in the face of their characterizations up to that point of the film. In other words, the characters do things that they haven’t done in the film up to that point, and really wouldn’t do at all based on what we’ve learned over the course of the film. Add this to the fact that the plan concocted in the final act doesn’t really make sense anyway you look at it and essentially makes an earlier plot twist seem especially stupid. It’s like the film had a psychotic break at the end of act two.

If the ending kept more in line with the rest of the movie–if it became a natural progression of more dramatic story line and didn’t delve into action movie hell,  it might have been a better movie. As it stands, it’s a handful of good to great performances wasted on a substandard script.

There are things you need to have to get a great action film, and there are things you need to get to get a great Die Hard film. The lists are not mutually exclusive. A Good Day to Die Hard has a lot of elements necessary to make a great action film, but comes up a bit lacking when it comes to being a great Die Hard film.

John McClane (Bruce Willis), perhaps inspired by fixing his relationship daughter in Live Free or Die Hard (said daughter is once again played in a cameo in this film by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, providing a small bit of continuity with the last film), decides to mend bridges with his son Jack (Jai Courtney). Unfortunately, Jack has been arrested in Russia for murder. Papa McClane hops on the next flight to the country to see how he can help.

The elder McClane arrives in Russia just in time to see the courthouse his son is being arraigned at come under attack. He notices his son leaving the courthouse with another prisoner named Yuri Komarov (Sebastian Koch). John’s intervening in his son’s escape causes the son, secretly a CIA agent, miss his chance to get the Komarov, a political dissident with a file on a powerful member of the Russian cabinet,  out of the country. Feeling responsible, John and Jack join together to complete the son’s mission. Of course, nothing is ever easy for John McClane, and the mission takes a whole bunch of deadly twists and turns. Deadly as in weapons grade uranium.

On one hand, the film works well as an absurdly dumb action flick. The stunts are inventive and imaginative–a car chase in this film involves one car driving OVER other cars–and the villains are suitably dastardly. But don’t think too much about how if Jack’s extraction plan can be derailed by a 40 second talk with his father, then it wasn’t much of a plan to begin with. Or about how our two heroes can walk into Chernobyl (yes, THAT Chernobyl), a place where it is established by the hazmat suit-wearing bad guy’s hi-tech geiger counters that it is still teeming with dangerous radiation, wearing only a leather jacket and a combat vest. But if you buy into the premise, you’ll buy the bit. If you buy the fact that a SUV can run an armored personnel carrier off the road, you can buy the heroes laughing off getting every form of cancer in alphabetical order with a quip here and there.

But it’s not so hard to overlook where it fails as a Die Hard movie. It has been well established that McClane has a crappy relationship with his family. But this film is simply playing off that without showing us why this particular relationship with his son is so bad. Jack has a vicious animosity towards his dad, but we never really know why other than the fact that John was never around. Since we don’t know what built up the hurdle between the two in the first place, their inevitable reconnection as bullets fly seems hollow.

As is expected with the franchise, we do get a swerve when it comes to the villain. But since the villain is so poorly drawn before we see his change of colors, that revelation doesn’t have the kick that it should.

And here’s a note to screenwriter Skip Woods, director John Moore, or Bruce Willis–whoever came up with the idea to have McClane say some variation of “I’m on vacation” every 20 minutes. We understand you are trying to tap into the “Come out to the coast, we’ll have a few laughs” vibe of the original, but what you really call to mind is Dante’s “I’m not even supposed to be here today” lament from Clerks.

If you are able to turn off your mind and forget this is a Die Hard film, you might be in for some cheesy fun. If you are not, well, expect disappointment.

Identity Thief is your prototypical buddy road comedy. It follows in the same formula as Midnight Run, Due Date, and even Planes, Trains and Automobiles. If you saw any of those films, you’ll feel an overwhelming sense of nostalgia when watching this one.

Colorado businessman Sandy Bigelow Patterson (Jason Bateman) discovers that his identity has been stolen at the worst possible time–he is the father of two kids with another on the way and is just about to start a new job. What’s worse, this identity theft also comes with cops, arrest warrants and loads of public humiliation. He needs to clear things up fast. Luckily, he knows exactly where the thief will be at a certain time–at a beauty salon in Florida. If he brings her back to Colorado and has her admit she stole his identity, he will be able to save his job and get the police off his back.

Off to Florida he goes and there he finds Diana (Melissa McCarthy) the woman that stole his identity. After a brief struggle, he convinces her to come back to Colorado with him–by car (The TSA wouldn’t take kindly with two people with the same SSN and birthday trying to board the same flight). On the road trip, the two move from a mutual hatred to a begrudging respect for each other, as they must deal with destroyed automobiles, a skip tracer (Robert Patrick) with a vicious violent streak who wants Diana to answer for her crimes, and a pair of assassins (rapper T.I. and Genesis Rodriguez) who want to make sure Diana never gets to implicate their boss (Jonathan Banks).

Even though it works in the frame work of other more successful films, there are a whole lot of problems with Identity Thief, starting with the premise. I have not had my identity completely stolen, but I had unauthorized purchases appear on my bank statement. The bank put a hold on my account at the first sign of suspicious activity, called me, and, when it found out it wasn’t me buying 400 memberships to an online gaming program, they reversed the charges and gave me a new card. And I didn’t have half the evidence Sandy has in this film. And, really, a cop wouldn’t look at an available mugshot when trying to go out and arrest the person in the mugshot?

Another problem lies with Melissa McCarthy. Typically, when you single out an actor, it’s because they did a bad job acting. Weird as it sounds, my problem with McCarthy is that she did too good of a job. If I can come up with a cockamamie analogy, it’s like she was someone who brought filet mignon to a Super Bowl party. It is too much effort for the situation, and it makes all the people who brought the perfectly appropriate nachos and queso dip or buffalo wings look bad.

Granted, she has to make a thief with a penchant for punching men in the throat appealing to audiences. And she does. She builds a character who’s motivations are believable and who’s conflicts appear genuine. But the film tries to present itself as a farce, and what a farce needs is caricatures, not characters. McCarthy’s realistic portrayal of Diana not only points out when the illusion of realism in the character is broken, but also makes all the illogical plot points stand out even more. Bateman plays a variation on the cranky, yet kind, character he’s known for, which works, but when paired in scenes with McCarthy, seems lost at sea.

I also have an issue with the film’s approach to violence, most of which is aimed at McCarthy’s character. It never quite becomes slapstick–it is far too dark and realistic. Let’s do a quick rundown. Diana is hit in the back with a waffle iron, has a guitar broken over her face, is in a car that does cartwheels after being run off the road, and is hit by a speeding car. All done for laughs and she bounces back up afterwards, but it still is jarring to see it as realistically as it is portrayed on the screen, with blood and heads bouncing off of windshields and the like.

I could go on. There are some laughs, but not enough to overcome the film’s numerous flaws. I can’t really recommend this one.

Growing up in the 1980s, you couldn’t help but have an appreciation for the type of action film from that decade, especially the buddy action film. They would never be high art, but there was an art to making them. It would kind of like building a Lego house built from time tested tropes. There would be about twenty to thirty reoccurring themes and trademarks that you’d find in these kinds of films. Not every film would have all of these tropes at the same time–the screaming police captain might be in the same film as the cop that doesn’t play by the rules, but not always. He might be in the film with the cop who goes too far in search of revenge.

Bullet to the Head is a call back to that era of action film, and has a lot of the same trademarks. It has a villainous plot that doesn’t seem really call for all that killing but has it anyway. It has charismatic villains with no sense of loyalty to each other. It has a woman with a emotional connection to the lead who eventually becomes a hostage. And it has a mismatched pair of heroes who can’t stand each other yet eventually gain a respect for each other as the bullets and snarky put-downs fly. It’s that last one where Bullet to the Head falters.

Sylvester Stallone portrays James Bonomo, a New Orleans contract killer with his own set rules that form a twisted morality (He only kills men that deserve it, Action movie trope #567). His latest hit goes off without a hitch. Well, that is until he and his partner try to get paid for it. That ends up with his partner getting killed and Bonomo angrily seeking revenge.

Enter Washington, DC police detective Taylor Kwan (Sung Kang). The man Bonomo killed was his ex-partner, a dirty cop who brought a file down to The Big Easy in order to blackmail certain individuals in town. Kwan’s quest to track down his wayward partner becomes instead an investigation to solve his death, none to the liking of the local police force.

Kwan’s investigation leads him to Bonomo and the pair team up to get to the bottom of the mystery (If you’re asking what was the sense in them teaming up, then action movies aren’t for you. These kinds of action films work best if you don’t ask these kinds questions). What they find is a conspiracy that rises up to the most powerful people in New Orleans. As they delve deeper and deeper into the deception, the question is who will win out: the by-the-book cop and his sense of justice, or the cold-blooded killer and his quest for revenge?

The film is true to its cheesy action film roots, with tweaks here and there to make it fresh. For instance, when Bonomo takes Kwan to a sultry tattoo artist named Lisa (Sarah Shahi), the woman isn’t Bonomo’s too-young-for-him girlfriend, but rather, his daughter.   And the narrative is updated for the multimedia world of today, as whenever a character’s filed is pulled, the computer files flash up on the screen at us. This provided a special kind of entertainment for me, because the photos in these files were more often than not actual publicity photos of the actors playing the characters. Well, except for Stallone’s, because his mug shot from First Blood also sneaks into this film’s character’s criminal record.

And any action film is either enhanced or hindered by its bad guys. The three here are basically stereotypes of villains from every other action films, but brought to life by some pretty good acting. The main villain is Morel, a rich business man who will go to any lengths to get richer. Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje plays his matter of fact evil with gusto. Ordering people killed is just part of his business, and he loves doing business. The man carrying out this business is Keegan, the ruthless mercenary with his own even more twisted sense of sense of honor (he believes negotiation is weak, killing is strong). Played by the charismatic Jason Momoa, Keegan is a classic henchman, a menacing badass who you want to see get his but hope it doesn’t come for a long time. And there is the sycophantic toady Marcus played by Christian Slater, channelling his Jack Nicholson impersonation to show what might have happened if J.D.Dean actually grew up. It was good to see Slater on the big screen again, and he is great in his limited role. Too bad it wasn’t in a better movie.

Because the film has one major flaw, and it’s a fatal one–Sung Kang. Kang’s role was originally Thomas Jane’s, but Jane was replaced when Walter Hill and Joel Silver came on board (Hill replaced the original director, Wayne Kramer) and wanted an actor with more of an international appeal. This was a mistake. It’s not that Kang is a bad actor. It’s that he’s awful for this role. There is absolutely no chemistry between Stallone and Kang (or Kang and Shahi for that matter. When Lisa flirts with Taylor, you get the idea she’d have better luck flirting with a turnip). And if you are going to have a “buddy” element in the film, you need to see it on screen. There’s none here. When the insults and the putdowns between Kang and Stallone start coming, they have little effect because there is little connection visible between the characters. Oh, they express their dislike for each other, but Kang never shows it.

And this derails the film. With these kinds of films, you have to forgive a lot to experience ninety minutes of popcorn fun. But having the buddy part of a buddy action film not work is deadly. You really can’t ignore that. Which is a shame because the film had so much potential. I mean, the climactic battle between Stallone and Momoa is an ax fight in an abandoned warehouse! It takes a lot to have that in an action film and for you to still come out bored. Thomas Jane might not have been much better, but he wouldn’t have been any worse.

Not since the premier of the first Star Wars prequel The Phantom Menace has there been anticipated film like The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Like Phantom Menace did for George Lucas, An Unexpected Journey marks the return of director Peter Jackson to his career defining film trilogy, in this case his adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings, for a new set of films. Thankfully, Jackson manages to be much more adept at revisiting his past glories than Lucas was, though this trip is not without a few problems.

An Unexpected Journey takes us back some six decades before the Middle Earth-shaking events of The Lord Of The Rings, to show us the accidental discovery of the powerful One Ring, even though that is just a side event of a whole other adventure. Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) is a rather respectable hobbit, which means despite some familial influence on his mother’s side, he lives a quiet, adventure-free life. That life is upended, however, with the arrival of the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and a company of 13 dwarfs who are setting out on a quest to liberate their former kingdom under the far away Lonely Mountain from the clutches of an evil dragon known as Smaug. Bilbo finds himself swept up on their mission and is soon on the run from orcs and lost in the caverns under the Misty Mountains where he encounters one rather curious individual known as Gollum.

Those only familiar with Tolkien’s book may be wondering how he is padding out a slim volume into a new three film cycle. He, along with co-writers Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Guillermo Del Toro, have plunged into the appendices of The Lord Of The Rings, wherein Tolkien spelled out much more history and background that informs much of the background and motivation of certain characters. Unfortunately, this makes for a slightly clunky opening to the film as we get a large info dump on the history of the dwarfs and how their kingdom of Erebor under the Lonely Mountain was overrun by the dragon Smaug. Elijah Wood’s cameo reprisal of Bilbo’s nephew Frodo also feels like a forced link to the Lord Of The Rings films that might not be needed. And even once the preliminaries are out of the way and Bilbo is chasing after the dwarfs as they set out on their quest the film still feels like it needs some time to build up a head of steam which finally gets things moving at around the midpoint of the nearly three hour run time.

In terms of just the film story all the changes and tweaks seem to hold together on their own, though some Tolkien scholars may have some questions and objections to some of them. However as this film is very definitely just the first part of a three-part story, it is hard to work up too much critical animosity over certain issues that may be addressed in the remaining two films. We’ll probably get back those in the summer of 2014 after the final installment has been released.

Although derived from a children’s book, the film skews a bit more towards the darker tone of the Lord Of The Rings films. Jackson does manage to keep much of the whimsy from the book, including some of the songs sung by characters that make up part of the narrative. It is a tricky balance but Jackson manages to mostly pull it off, though the treatment of the wizard Radagast as not much more than comic relief, despite his elevated story importance, doesn’t do anyone any favors.

There is a big cast for Jackson to juggle here, starting with the film’s titular hero, Bilbo Baggins. Martin Freeman does an incredible job embodying both the homebody and the yearning-for-adventure sides of Bilbo and his ability to play the story’s comic beats so well is the point on which the film’s overall mix of lighter and dark tones is finely balanced. Of the thirteen dwarfs in Thorin’s party, outside of Thorin himself, Balin, Bombur and Bofir seem to get the most on-screen development while the rest only get a broadstroke or two to delineate their characters. This might stem from the fact that about half their number enter the film in one fell swoop as opposed to their gradual introductions in Tolkien’s book, the compression being somewhat necessary cinematically. Again, hopefully the others will get a moment or two to shine on their in the upcoming two installments.

Jackson also takes the opportunity to add a bit more characterization to several characters returning from The Lord Of The Rings. Hugo Weaving’s elf prince Elrond is not as stuffy and po-faced as he was in The Lord Of The Rings and even manages to crack a joke. Andy Serkis manages to bring new shadings to Gollum, expanding on his previous work in The Lord Of the Rings, that leave us thinking about his character in both films in terms of an addict in both the throws of that addiction and in the grip with the pain of withdrawal.

With An Unexpected Journey marking the first feature length film to feature the new 48 frames-per-second method of shooting and projection, we do need to take a moment to consider the results. However, I found the results here to be somewhat scattershot. The purpose of this new method is to supply a crisper picture and I suppose that it delivers on that level. While the result in the outdoor scenes shot in physical locations is breathtaking, much of the set-bound sequences suffer, looking a bit more like something out of a brightly-lit, lavishly-budgeted BBC production. Furthermore, the visual effects work is also hit or miss. Some of it is seamlessly integrated with the live action footage while others don’t rise above the level of video game cut scene quality. A few particularly grievous examples of where things fall short occur with the composite-shot close-ups of Radagast while he is speeding along on his sled and a few long shots of him on his sled evading a pack of wolf-riding orcs.

But on another more aesthetic, non-technical level, the sharper images also seemed to be robbed over a certain visual texture that we have come to expect from film. The immediacy of the process has replaced the subtle, dream-like quality of film and in the long run I think that is going to affect how we respond to the stories being told.

We should remember, though, that we are just at the start of the use of this format and such things are to be expected much in the way that the early days of shooting films with sound, color and wide screen were not without flaw and there was experimentation and adjustment to each new technological advance. Moving forward, I am sure that we will see directors and their crews and casts rethinking their approaches to their jobs. The methods of lighting are going to change. The methods of shooting and editing are going to change and I dare say that the methods of acting are going to change as well. This is just the beginning of the learning curve and it should be interested to watch how the process will be embraced and impact moviemaking in the future.

Although we here in the US have a few more weeks to wait, the latest James Bond adventure Skyfall opens in the UK this Friday. The film’s Royal Premier was held last night in London and our go-to guy on all things James Bond, Tom S., was there and filed this report. Now he doesn’t go into spoiler territory at all, this is just some quick impressions on the film.

After a four year gap, Bond is back, well almost. Despite being Craig’s third outing as 007 in the rebooted franchise, the filmmakers have only finally gotten to the point where we can say, our classic James Bond is back, but we will have to wait till Bond 24 to find out for sure.

Attending the Royal premiere is always a magical experience and last night was no exception. The film was very well received and definitely introduced new elements into Craig’s world of Bond which were a hit, such as a very rousing round of applause when a certain car was revealed, not to mention an incredibly clever past reference, which although cute, led to much continuity debate amongst us Bond geeks into the wee hours.

Overall impressions…great installment into the new world of James Bond. Purists may still take issue, but the film offers enough edge of your seat excitement for even the casual filmgoer.

Well, it sounds like the four year wait through MGM’s financail difficulties was worth it. Now it is just two more weeks until the film’s November 9th release stateside.