FILM REVIEW OF ''HORRIBLE BOSSES" (2011)

“Horrible Bosses” (*** OUT OF ****) is hilarious hokum from fade-in to fade-out.  Of course, this imaginative but complicated, R-rated comedy of errors about premeditated murder is not for everybody.  If you can tolerate neither profanity nor homicide, then this laugh-fest may not be appropriate fare.  Conversely, if you have or have had a boss who deserved a slow but tortuous death, “Horrible Bosses” could make your laugh rather than wallow in homicidal fantasies.  The biggest joke of “Horrible Bosses,” which lives up to its title, is that the heroes are hopelessly clueless.  Imagine a parody of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train,” except the wannabe killers lack the nerve to go for the jugular.  At the same time, most Hollywood thrillers feature one chief villain, but “Horrible Bosses” boasts three.  Two are male, but one is female, while our protagonists are all men.  Nick Hendricks (Jason Bateman of “Juno”), Dale Arbus (Charlie Day of “Pacific Rim”), and Kurt Buckman (Jason Sudeikis of “Hall Pass”) suffer the agonies of the damned as they tangle hopelessly with their respective bosses, Dave Harkin (Kevin Spacey of “Superman Returns”), Dr. Julia Harris, D.D.S. (Jennifer Aniston of “Rock Star”), and Bobby Pellitt (Colin Farrell of “Miami Vice”).  Clearly the worst of the three, Harkin qualifies as a venomous sadist with a streak of misanthropy.  He takes special pleasure in ridiculing everybody without mercy.  At one point, he tells Nick, “Life is a marathon, and you cannot win a marathon without putting a few band-aids on your nipples, right?” Nick confides in his friends that working for Harken is like working for the Antichrist.  When he isn’t terrorizing poor Nick, Harken believes that his wife Rhonda (Julie Bowen of “Amy's Orgasm”) is having sex with everybody but him.  Incidentally, Rhonda is probably cuckolding Harken because she has bathroom sex with Kurt during Harken’s surprise birthday party.   

While Harken represents one kind of ignoble boss, Julia Harris embodies another version.  Aniston plays a sexy but unscrupulous dentist who takes advantage of her male dental assistant, Dale, because he is a sex offender.  Talk about weird stuff.  Dale was arrested while he was urinating on a playground in the middle of the night so he has to register himself as a sex offender.  Finding a job proved difficult for him until he entered Julia’s naughty world where she could dominate him.  She takes advantage of him repeatedly.  Initially, when he was a patient, she took incriminating photos of him in sexual positions with her while he was still under the effects of medication.  She uses these photos to blackmail him into becoming her sexual slave and he has to put up with her unwanted advances.  Meanwhile, Sudeikis deals with a total swine of a boss who is a cokehead.  Colin Farrell stretches the most as an actor here because he looks nothing like evil Bobby Pellitt.  Bobby hasn’t liked Kurt from the start because Kurt and Bobby’s father, Jack (Donald Sutherland of “M.A.S.H.”), were such close friends.  Jack had planned to pass the family business onto Kurt, but Jack died unexpectedly from a heart attack so Bobby inherited the business and drives Kurt up the wall. Bobby is such a cheapskate that he kept his father desk plate but put his name over his father's name!

After our woebegone protagonists have put up with far too much abuse from their horrid superiors, they find an African-American, Dean 'MF' Jones (Jamie Fox of “Miami Vice”), who is on parole.  One of the running jokes is the use of Dean’s profane nickname that our heroes use without a qualm. .Anyway, ‘MF’ refuses to commit the killings for them, but he agrees to serve as their murder consultant for $5000.  At the time, our foolish protagonists believed that ‘MF’ spent 10 years in the big house for murder.  One of the surprises of “Horrible Bosses” is that Dean wasn’t a murderer.  He went to a jail because the authorities caught him in a movie theater with a video camera recording a film!  Nevertheless, ‘MR’ tells our hapless trio: “Most killers are first-timers.  You wanna pull off a brilliant murder; you gotta act like it’s an accident.  Failed brakes, gas leaks, suicide.  You do it right, you ain’t even gotta be there when it goes down.”  Sounds like ‘MR’ saw the Charles Bronson hitman movie “The Mechanic” because the Bronson character staged each hit as if it were an accident.  Hendricks remains skeptical about MR’s advice: “Sounds like Scooby-Doo.  How are we supposed to fake three accidents?”  Our heroes are naturally disappointed by ‘MF’s lack of participation.  According to ‘MF,’ they must “stalk their prey.”  Second, he continues: “Gotta be smart.  Find out where they live, find out their habits.  What’s their hobbies?”  Nevertheless, ‘MR’ warns them if they have motives that the ‘popo’ will find them.  Nick points out, “We all have clear motives for killing our bosses, . . .so this is not gonna work.  This is garbage.”  ‘MF’ suggests they “kill each other’s bosses.”  This is when Kurt alludes to Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train.”  Dale hasn’t seen “Strangers on a Train,” but he has seen the Danny DeVito movie “Throw Momma from a Train.”  “We kill each other’s bosses, there’s no link to us,”  Kurt observes.  During this part of the process, comedy galore ensues, particularly while Hendricks and Buckman are in Dave Harken’s house, and dimwitted Dale sits parked outside the house, acting at their look-out.  Harken surprises the unsuspecting Dale after the latter has littered on his street and reprimands him for littering until he catches a whiff of the peanuts.  Harken collapses like a sack of potatoes, unconscious on the pavement.  Dale saves Dave’s life without realizing who Dave is.  Dave’s wife Rhonda happens to come along and rejoices at Dale’s timely intervention.  Naturally, the suspicious Harken suspects that Dale and Rhonda had arranged to meet each other for an exchange of sexual favors.  One of the funniest surprises involves the connection between Harken and Pellitt.  While Nick is maintaining surveillance at Pellitt’s residence, Harken shows up and shoots Pellitt several times and leaves without spotting Nick.  

Altogether, “Horrible Bosses” never stops spouting jokes. Indeed, things are a little extreme, but that is to be expected for a comedy.  Jason Bateman gets to play another schmuck and he is a past master at playing schmuck.  He wears a straight face and never lets on that he is in on the joke.  Meantime, each of the villains receives their just comeuppance.  Director Seth Gordon and his scenarists do an exemplary job of foreshadowing what occurs later.  Donald Sutherland’s cameo as Kurt's boss is too brief but it fits in with the timeline.  One other character, who appears to be around simply as a sick one-note joke, Kenny Sommerfeld (P.J. Bryne of “29 Palms”), actually figures prominently in Julia’s comeuppance.  The ending with Nick—as president of the company--meeting his new boss, Mr. Sherman (Bob Newhart), in the parking lot, is hysterically funny. “Horrible Bosses” is a funny movie.

FILM REVIEW OF ''NIGHTCRAWLER" (2014)

“Bourne Legacy” screenwriter Dan Gilroy exposes the skullduggery behind tabloid TV journalism in “Nightcrawler” (*** OUT OF ****), a gritty, engrossing, but seldom surprising satire with savvy actor Jake Gyllenhaal cast as an unsavory stringer with a camcorder.  Hollywood has been producing exposés about the depths that shady journalists will plumb to land the big scoop.   Some of the best include “Five Star Final” (1931), the venerable “Citizen Kane” (1941), and “Ace in the Hole” (1951).   If you know anything about the history of yellow journalism, few things can top what one sleazy news reporter orchestrated during the execution of Ruth Snyder at Sing Sing Prison back in 1928.  Convicted of murdering her husband, Snyder was sentenced to die in the electric chair.   The New York Daily News hired amateur photographer Tom Howard to cover the execution, and Howard snapped a photo of Snyder quivering in the electric chair as 700 volts sizzled through her body.  Naturally, the infamous photo appeared a little fuzzy, but the Daily News ran the notorious picture on its front page.   Sales of the newspaper skyrocketed, and the Daily News ran the same electrifying photo again on its front page the following day.   Most of what occurs in “Nightcrawler” is tame compared with the stunt that the Daily News reporter pulled.   Indeed, little of it is as exciting as the real-life incidents that the movie’s technical advisors have encountered on a regular basis.   Nevertheless, this polished, fast-paced, pulp thriller about what an ambitious but unscrupulous journalist does to deliver the goods is often more amusing than audacious.   A gaunt-looking Gyllenhaal manages to be both charismatic and creepy as the anti-heroic protagonist, and he lets nothing interfere with his ignoble aspirations.  Rene Russo makes the most of her role as an over-the-hill Los Angeles television news director, while Bill Paxton scores in a peripheral role as a veteran nightcrawler who shows Gyllenhaal the ropes.  Although he doesn’t break new ground with “Nightcrawler,” Gilroy proves with his directorial debut that he can capably stage not only suspenseful shootouts and careening car chases, but also conjure up flawed but hypnotic characters in a morally skewered universe.

 

Initially, when we encounter Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal of “End of Watch”) for the first time, he is a petty thief who will pinch anything.   He steals copper, cyclone fencing, wristwatches, and even tournament racing bikes.  Eventually, he discovers that money can made as a freelance crime videographer lensing scenes of blood-splattered murder and mayhem.  Since he resides in Los Angeles, where people die violently every day, Bloom decides to hock a trophy bike for a camcorder and a scanner.   No sooner does he try his hand at his new profession than he rubs shoulders with a professional stringer.   Joe Loder (the incomparable Bill Paxton of “Aliens”) cruises around in a souped-up minivan equipped with high-tech cameras and a sidekick to shoot those big scenes.   Loder has a computer editing console on-board so he can upload video to the highest bidder at the various competing TV stations around Los Angeles.   Loder admires Bloom’s determination and drive.  Bloom scoots around in crappy 1985 Tercel and wields a low-tech camcorder.  He sneaks inside a house where a homicide has taken place and reorganizes the crime scene so it appears more photogenic and then sells it to a TV station.   Later, the enterprising Bloom hires a homeless man, Rick (Riz Ahmed of “Centurion”), to serve as his navigator.   Whenever Bloom races off to a potential crime scene, Rick struggles to route his impatient employer along the fastest streets to the crime scene.   Bloom pays him $30 a day, but Rick is still pretty clueless about being a stringer.  Meanwhile, the unscrupulous but captivating Bloom has taken a shine to a dame, Nina Romina (Rene Russo of “Lethal Weapon 3”), who works at the lowest rated Los Angeles TV station.  "I want something people can't turn away from," she tells Bloom.   “If it bleeds, it leads,” she explains.  She avoids his amorous advances, but she praises his video.   At one point, to acquire better video of a corpse after a car crash, Bloom drags the body into the light.   At the station, Nina observes that Bloom has blood on his hands.   Indeed, Gilroy uses Romina to make a sarcastic comment about Bloom’s cynical nature, but Bloom has no qualms.  Ultimately, Bloom and Rick get so good at their game they beat the LAPD to a crime scene, and Bloom prowls the premises where three corpses lay sprawled in puddles of blood and photographs them.  He even shoots footage of the perpetrators fleeing.   Bloom orchestrates events so he can make big bucks off the crime as well as the eventual capture of the killers.

 

If you have read the Internet interview with Austin Raishbrook who served as the technical advisor for “Nightcrawler,” you have to wonder why Gilroy didn’t replicate more of Raishbrook’s exploits.  Some of the sights Raishbrook and his two brothers have seen would make you cringe.  When the Raishbrook brothers rush out to shoot video, they suit up in bulletproof vests and prepare for the worst.   Not only have they have been shot at, but also thugs have smashed their equipment.  Some of the chaos they have seen sounds surreal compared to the formulaic genre shenanigans Gilroy puts his characters through in this vivid R-rated urban epic.   Despite its shortage of surprises, “Nightcrawler” features some incredibly amoral characters and top-notch performances.  Bloom doesn’t care what it takes to obtain footage, even if it means either sacrificing an employee or eliminating the competition.  In this respect, “Nightcrawler” differs from most movies where the villains get their just comeuppance.   Louis Bloom is most certainly not a hero.   He qualifies as a vile, low-life, bottom-feeder, but “Nightcrawler” doesn’t punish him for his wicked ways.   Instead, he comes up smelling like roses no matter what he does and that is the singular thing that distinguishes the above-average “Nightcrawler” from most mainstream, standard-issue, Hollywood film releases.

FILM REVIEW OF ''DUMB AND DUMBER TO" (2014)

Twenty years have elapsed since Bobby & Peter Farrelly made their cinematic debut as co-directors on “Dumb and Dumber” (1994) with Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels.  Although it wasn’t nearly as side-splitting as subsequent Farrelly fare, such as “Kingpin,” “There’s Something About Mary,” and “Me, Myself & Irene,” “Dumb and Dumber” acquainted audiences with the Farrellys’ politically-incorrect brand of lowest common denominator humor.  Not surprisingly, the “Dumb and Dumber” slapstick sequel “Dumb and Dumber To” (***1/2 OUT OF ****) constitutes nothing short of an assault on good taste.  The Farrellys conjured up a catalogue of rude, crude, and lewd jokes that made “Dumb and Dumber” a riotous outing as well as a smash box office hit, and the lunatic sequel serves up even more audacious antics.  If you abhor raunchy humor, you should avoid at all costs this anthology of gross-out gags, some so lowbrow that discretion discourages me from describing them in depth.  Reprising their roles as Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne, Carrey and Daniels wallow in a rib-tickling variety of pranks, concerning grotesque bodily functions, bared buttocks, and flatulence galore. Although the overall narrative concept isn’t as fresh as the original “Dumb and Dumber,” the farce is still clearly with Lloyd and Harry, and this impertinent comedy tops the original.  If you thought Lloyd and Harry were morons in “Dumb and Dumber,” they are twice as obtuse in this sequel. Not only does “Dumber and Dumber To” imitate its predecessor’s jokes and pratfalls, but it also delivers even more material to laugh and/or cringe at than the original.  One of my favorites is the peanut funnel gag.  In my day, somebody persuaded you to stick a funnel in your britches, place a quarter on your forehead, and then drop George Washington into the funnel three times to demonstrate your genius.  As you prepared for the third attempt, somebody would empty an icy Slush Puppy into the funnel and drench your drawers. 

 

Most sequels provide less-than-inspired links to their predecessors. Indeed, everybody knows Hollywood makes sequels primarily for the loot.  Reportedly, Jim Carrey found himself between places on the road when he caught the original “Dumb and Dumber” again on television.  So enamored was Carrey with the memory of the first film that he convinced Bobby and Peter Farrelly and Jeff Daniels to reunite for the belated sequel.  The link between the two movies is so absurd that you cannot help but burst your bladder laughing.  Essentially, “Dumb and Dumber To” adopts the same road trip narrative. This time around our harebrained heroes aren’t involved in a kidnapping. Instead, Harry has been taking care of poor Lloyd who has been a patient in the Baldy View Mental Hospital for the past twenty years.  Lloyd succumbed to depression because he couldn’t win over the girl of his dreams, Mary Swanson, in the original “Dumb and Dumber.” As it turns out, Lloyd faked his own depression, and Harry has been diligently changing Lloyd’s shorts and cleaning his buttocks for two decades.  Indeed, Lloyd has made Harry the butt of his own joke.  Lloyd stops faking his mental illness one day after Harry informs him that he must undergo a kidney transplant.  Incredibly, when Lloyd comes clean, Harry isn’t insulted by Lloyd’s deception.  Later, Harry learns that he may have been a father when he dated an old girlfriend, Fraida Felcher (a plump Kathleen Turner of “Serial Mom”), back in his high school days.  Fraida hands them a letter with her daughter’s address.  She put Penny (Rachel Melvin of “Zombeavers”), up for adoption years ago.  Fraida loans them a hearse to search for Penny, and these knuckleheads read the wrong address and wind up back where they started from at Frieda’s house. Eventually, they manage to find Penny, who has been raised by a brilliant scientist, Dr. Barnard Pinchelow (Stephen Tom of “Android Cop”), and his late wife. Dr. Pinchelow’s first wife has since died, and he has remarried.  Pinchelow’s second wife, Adele (Laurie Holden of “The Walking Dead”), plans to steal a package worth billions that he has entrusted to Penny to take to a science convention in El Paso, Texas, where she will deliver a speech about her father’s legacy.  Meanwhile, Adele is trying secretly to poison Pinchelow, with the help of Travis (Robert Riggle of “21 Jump Street”) their sinister grounds-keeper.  Penny, who is just as incompetent as our heroes, not only forgets her father’s package but also her cell phone.  Adele sends Lloyd and Harry after Penny to give her the mysterious package with Travis accompanying them.  As you can see, “Dumb and Dumber To” packs a lot of plot for a sophomoric comedy, and you have to connect quite a few dots in its complicated timeline. 

 

The crowning glory of “Dumb and Dumber To” is the pathetic idiocy of its protagonists.  The elastic-faced Carrey and the equally befuddled Daniels get away with a lot in this PG-13 epic.  Like the original “Dumb and Dumber,” Carrey and Daniels perform the same silly shenanigans without one upstaging the other.  Basically, they qualify as ‘The Two Stooges.’  Carrey still wears his coiffure clipped like Moe Howard of the original “Three Stooges,” as if a barber had put a bowl on his noggin and trimmed his locks around the edge.  Meanwhile, Daniels ruffles his hair and makes funny faces like Larry Fine, another “Three Stooges” alumnus. Not surprisingly, the Farrellys are lifelong “Three Stooges” fans, but their last film, a cinematic homage to “The Three Stooges,” didn’t live up to the insanity of the originals.  Nevertheless, “Dumb and Dumber To” ranks as their funniest farce since "The Heartbreak Kid” (2007) with Ben Stiller. Their hopeless buffoonery will prompt you want to take another look at the original. Don’t waste your time on the atrocious prequel “Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd.”  Despite its pervasive toilet humor, “Dumb and Dumber To” will make connoisseurs of crappy comedy flush with joy at its irreverent antics.

FILM REVIEW OF ''GONE GIRL" (2014)

Watching David Fincher’s deliriously tantalizing whodunit “Gone Girl,” (**** OUT OF ****) a melodrama about a troubled married couple wrestling with compatibility issues, reminded me of the film classic “The Postman Always Rings Twice” (1946) co-starring Lana Turner and John Garfield.  Turner and Garfield played illicit lovers who arranged the murder of Lana’s elderly husband so Garfield and she could indulge their lust.  Eventually, each had second thoughts, and murder reared its ugly head.   In “Gone Girl,” Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike experience somewhat similar woes.  They are cast as a husband and wife who have lost their jobs and find their marriage unraveling with ugly ramifications. They embark on a nerve-racking odyssey through Hell with more outlandish things happening to them than you can possibly imagine—unless you’ve read the novel.  “Gone Girl” constitutes another Hollywood adaptation of a runaway bestseller.  Happily, for a change, director David Fincher hired bestselling author Gilliam Flynn to adapt her own work.  Yes, I’ve perused Flynn’s masterpiece, and she has exercised good taste and judgment in modifying her compulsive page-turner for the screen.  Basically, this Twentieth Century Fox film release is about as faithful as any movie can be to its source material.  Minor changes occur, and some characters have been eliminated.   Nevertheless, nothing substantial has been altered.   In other words, if you loved the novel, you won’t hate what Fincher and Flynn have done with it.   As much as I enjoyed “Gone Girl,” I’ll concede the novel is slightly better than the film.   Principally, Flynn cannot translate to the screen the depths of Amy’s subversive thoughts.   Meantime, Fincher has done an admirable job of orchestrating the ‘he said; she said’ shenanigans of husband and wife.  Mind you, “Gone Girl” qualifies as more than just a spine-tingling exercise in suspense and tension where the authorities believe the husband is the prime suspect in his wife’s disappearance.   This movie succeeds on multiple levels as Fincher and Flynn skewer gender politics, scandal-mongering television news personalities, marriage dynamics, and essentially society in general.

 

Nick (Ben Affleck of “Argo”) and Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike of “Die Another Day”) are a sophisticated New York couple who lost their jobs as a result of the recession.  When his mother is diagnosed with cancer, Nick persuades Amy to forsake her elegant brownstone in New York City, and they relocate to his North Carthage, Missouri, hometown.  Amy buys Nick a tavern called ‘The Bar’ with her trust fund to keep him busy, and Nick’s twin sister Margo Dunne (Broadway actress Carrie Coon) helps manage it.  Meantime, Nick and Amy’s marriage steadily erodes as trust issues and power dynamics exert a toll on it.  A life-long city dweller, Amy feels miserably out of place in a small town in the middle of Heartland America with too little to occupy her imagination.  She doesn’t adapt as well to this dire change of scenery as her husband.   As the morning of their fifth anniversary dawns, Nick leaves Amy at home and cruises into town to check up on his sister at the bar.  No sooner has Nick gotten there and swapped shots with Margo than a neighbor calls Nick and informs him that his front door is standing mysteriously wide open.  Rushing home, Nick finds pieces of furniture either smashed or overturned in the living room.  Amy is nowhere in sight.  Nick alerts the authorities.  North Carthage Police Detective Rhonda Boney (Kim Dickins of TV’s “Lost”) and Officer Jim Gilpin (Patrick Fugit of “Almost Famous”) comb the premises and collect clues.  Later, the North Carthage crime scene crew uncovers evidence of a huge blood puddle in the kitchen that had been sloppily mopped up.  Repeatedly, Nick swears his innocence, but things spiral hopelessly out of control.  He learns from the police that Amy was pregnant.  Ultimately, in an act of sheer desperation, Nick hires celebrity lawyer, Tanner Bolt (Tyler Perry of “Alex Cross”), to defend him.  Worst, the jealous college girl with whom Nick was having an affair exposes their adultery on prime-time television.  Although the detectives have amassed an abundance of evidence implicating Nick, Boney and Gilpin have no luck finding Amy’s body.

You could watch “Gone Girl” a dozen times and come away with something memorable each time.   Fincher has fashioned a tense thriller just as immaculate and flawless as his best movies, including “Fight Club,” “The Game,” “The Social Network,” and “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”  Affleck is at the top of his game as the gullible husband with something to conceal, while Pike deserves an Oscar for the many faces that she forges as Nick’s long, lost Amy.  Neal Patrick Harris displays his chameleon ability to play a cross-section of characters.  He emerges as one of Amy’s warped lovers who once stalked her.  Clocking in at virtually two hours and half, “Gone Girl” defies expectations—unless you’re conversant with the novel.  Just when you think you’ve got everything figured out, Fincher and Flynn twist another loop into their Gordian knot of a narrative.   The effect is similar to being spun around about every half-hour and gaping at the experience.    Beware, “Gone Girl” boasts a blood-soaked murder scene that is rather graphic, but this thriller remains extremely literate.   Anybody who abhors HLN ‘victim’s rights’ advocate Nancy Grace is going to appreciate the pompous character of Ellen Abbott who goes after Nick’s scalp after Amy vanishes.   Tyler Perry plays it straight as Nick’s high-profile attorney Tanner Bolt who coaches him throughout the ordeal.   In one scene, Tanner prepares his client for an important television interview.   Each time Nick answers a question with either an inappropriate tone or expression, Tanner bombards him with jelly beans.   Anybody who has ever complained about Ben Affleck’s smug pretty boy persona will love this scene.   As much as I would love to divulge some of the juicier scenes in “Gone Girl,” I cannot without spoiling the outcome.   If you love husband and wife murder movies or murder melodramas altogether, “Gone Girl” shouldn’t disappoint you.

FILM REVIEW OF ''DRACULA UNTOLD" (2014)

“Dracula Untold” (** OUT OF ****) is a picturesque potboiler.  A tapestry of gorgeous computer generated imagery, this predictable prequel about Bram Stoker’s immortal bloodsucker before he forsook his sword for fangs springs few surprises. Essentially, it looks like Universal has revamped the franchise.  Luke Evans, who played in “Clash of the Titans,” “Immortals,” “The Three Musketeers,” and the last two “The Hobbit” movies, seems appropriately cast as the virile protagonist.  Sadly, he brings little charisma to the role.  When he wields a sword, rides a horse, and cavorts about in period apparel, Evans displays more than enough competence.  Indeed, he is the ‘before’ Dracula, better known as Vlad Tepes, who impaled his adversaries on stakes for the terrible psychological effect it wrought.  Unfortunately, Dominic Cooper struggles to be villainous.  Aside from his ominous eye-liner and elaborate armor, the plucky little Englishman from “Need for Speed” poses little threat.  The problem is that Cooper’s Turkish Sultan Mehmed II isn’t half as wicked as his sinister lieutenant, Dumitru (Diarmaid Murtagh of “The Monuments Men”), who instills greater fear.  Although Dracula and Mehmed clash swords in a dramatic but drawn-out fight scene near the end, with Dracula stumbling around on a treacherous floor of silver coins, the fight is virtually anti-climactic after our hero’s encounter with Dumitru.  Comparably, as supernatural horror movies go, “Dracula Untold” isn’t scary.  Some spooky scenes in a cave with Charles Dance hideously made-up as the Master Vampire generate anxiety, but this PG-13 rated release relies more on spectacle rather than shivers.  Imagine the brawny Gerald Butler action fantasy “300” crisscrossed with Peter Jackson’s J.R.R. Tolkien trilogies, and you’ll have a clue about what to expect from this nimble, but immaculate 92 minute melodrama.

“Dracula Untold” unfolds with a prologue about Vlad’s sadistic wartime past as narrated by his son Ingeras.  Suspense takes flight from the outset since we know nothing catastrophic can occur to Ingeras if he can provide fodder about his father’s infamous feats. The imperial Ottoman Turks enthrone Dracula as the Prince of Transylvania after his splendid sadistic exploits in battle.  Our hero marries a sweet, lovely, but naïve bride, Mirena (Sarah Gadon of “Charlie Bartlett”), promises her peace, and they have a son, Ingeras (Art Parkinson of “Freakdog”), who has not a care in the world. Dracula continues to appease the Sultan of Turkey with tributes that consist of treasure chests piled with silver coins.  One day, while Dracula and two soldiers are out scouting the countryside, they find a dented Turkish helmet in a stream and search for the army that the Sultan has sent to their homeland.  Dracula and company trace the helmet back to a cave in Broken Tooth Mountain where they encounter the Master Vampire (Charles Dance of “Last Action Hero”) who makes mincemeat out of Dracula’s lieutenants.  No sooner has Dracula survived this predicament than he arrives home to be greeted by a Turkish envoy who wants more than his customary monetary tribute.  Not only does the envoy demand thousands of boys as conscripts for the Sultan’s army, but also he specifically wants Dracula’s son Ingeras.  Naturally, Dracula refuses to hand over Ingeras.  Later, after a disastrous diplomatic episode ends with bloodshed, Dracula returns to the mountain and negotiates a pact with the Master Vampire.  Since he lacks an army to pit against the Sultan, Dracula resorts to sorcery.  Of course, when he reveals he has sold his soul, Dracula finds himself persona non grata.  As the Sultan’s armies lay siege to Dracula’s Castle, all Hell breaks loose, and Dracula prepares to retaliate with his supernatural powers.

Moviegoers who relish buckets of blood as well as an abundance of severed body parts will be sorely disappointed with “Dracula Untold.”  Freshman film director Gary Shore, who has been directing television commercials, provides a high enough body count by anybody’s standards, but the MPAA’s chaste PG-13 rating has compelled him to scale back considerably on the bloodletting. Swords shriek as combatants unsheathe them and glint as the aforementioned slash with feverish abandon at their enemy.  Nevertheless, contact between blade and flesh has been minimized.  One of the more imaginative images of warfare used to mask the violence is the reflection of bloodshed on a sword.  Only time will tell if an unrated version will accompany the home video release.  Meantime, Shore keeps the action moving briskly enough, in part because rookie co-scripters Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless have penned such a formulaic, origins screenplay.  Memorable dialogue is certainly not one of their assets.  Meantime, after impaling thousands of combatants on pikes, Vlad must have lost his nerve because he behaves like a wimp when the Sultan shows up looking for juvenile recruits.  Indeed, Sazama and Sharpless paint Dracula into a corner, but it is still difficult to believe Dracula would have degenerated from a warlord into a whiner.  Since Shore had to diminish the violence, the only thing menacing about the Sultan’s army is its immense size.  Mind you, Dumitru’s coiffure qualifies as pretty disturbing.  Once Dracula acquires immortality courtesy of the Master Vampire, he is practically invincible.  Evans is shown poised atop a cliff, gesticulating passionately like a wizard, as he dispatches colonies of bats against the marauding Turks, emphasizing the true meaning of the word ‘combat.’  Nevertheless, the violence is depicted in such broad strokes that you cannot see how the bats are actually slaughtering their opponents.

Little in “Dracula Untold” constitutes a revelation.  Most of what happens is roughly based on sections of Stoker’s 1897 Gothic tale of terror.  Francis Ford Coppola’s above-average “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” covered his chapter of Dracula’s life with greater artistry and action. Additional movies such as “Vlad” (2003), “Dracula the Impaler” (2002), Vlad Tepes” (1979) as well as the made-for-television opus “Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula” (2000) has embellished Dracula’s origins. Universal has tacked on a provocative modern-day epilogue should audiences want a sequel. Although it possesses some potential, "Dracula Untold" amounts to a second-rate sword and sorcery saga.

FILM REVIEW OF "TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES" (2014)

Believe it or not, I saw the original “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” movie when it appeared in theaters back in 1990, and I enjoyed it for the harmless guilty pleasure that it provided.  The exploits of a quartet of anthropomorphic chelonian crime-fighters was as entertaining as its eponymous characters were bizarre.  Bandanna-clad vigilantes armed with an arsenal of feudal Japanese weaponry; these nimble turtles talked, walked, and displayed a predilection for pizza.  Creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird never imagined their mutated box turtles with the names of Renaissance painters would become a comic book sensation and would remain in print for 26 years from 1984 to 2010.  Eastman and Laird said they drew inspiration from the works of Frank Miller and Jack Kirby.  Specifically, Eastman and Laird sought to skewer not only “The New Mutants” and “Daredevil” at Marvel, but also the eccentric Canadian comic “Cerebus the Aardvark” as well as Frank Miller’s “Ronin” at DC Comics.  The Ninja Turtles have since metamorphosed into a social phenomenon, with three animated television series and a short-lived live-action series debuting a fifth turtle, a female called "Venus de Milo" skilled in the supernatural art of shinobi.  Four “TMNT” films followed from 1990 to 2007.  The first three movies were live-action while the fourth film “TMNT” (2007) was animated opus.  Almost 25 years after the original “Turtles” movie came out; Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon have rebooted “The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” with bombastic “Transformers” director Michael Bay as producer and “Wrath of the Titans” director Jonathan Liebesman calling the shots.  No matter what you’ve heard about this latest adaptation, the new “Ninja Turtles” movie sticks pretty much to the basics.  Casey Jones, the human vigilante with a hockey stick who served as a romantic interest for news reporter April O’Neil, has been jettisoned by “Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol” scenarists Josh Appelbaum & André Nemec and “Divergent” scripter Evan Daugherty.  Happily, while the characters have undergone some significant changes, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” (**** OUT OF ****) emerges as a derivative but exhilarating rollercoaster of a joyride that should satisfy most of the vintage fans.  

Unlike the 1990 version, this “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” reboot revises the characters.  Channel 6 news reporter April O’Neil (Megan Fox of “Jennifer’s Body”) is more than a television journalist covering a widespread crime wave engulfing New York City.  April is now the daughter of one of the scientists who toiled on Project Renaissance.  April’s father and his partner Eric Sacks (William Fichtner of “The Lone Ranger”) were conducting experiments on four turtles and a rodent to devise a new mutagen strain for its medicinal qualities.  Unfortunately, O’Neil’s father perished in a mysterious fire in their laboratory while Sacks managed to survive.  Neither April’s deceased father nor Eric Sacks knew about April’s role in rescuing the rodent Splinter and the turtles from the conflagration.  She turned them loose in the sewer.   Years later April finds herself struggling with a story about the Foot Clan, an underworld syndicate run by a notorious Asian criminal called Shredder.  Unlike the original “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” movie, Shredder doesn’t use runaway adolescents to execute his evil designs.  Instead, he commands an army of deadly adult ninjas packing automatic weapons with orders to kill.  After Shredder discovers that the Ninja Turtles survived the fire, he orders his second-in-command, Karai (Minae Noji of “The Last Run”), to take hostages.  Shredder hopes the vigilante turtles will try to rescue the hostages and fall into his trap.  Naturally, Raphael (Alan Ritchson), Michelangelo (Noel Fisher), Leonardo (Pete Ploszek) and Donatello (Jeremy Howard) show up to save the hostages held at gunpoint in a subway station.  Shredder explodes with rage when the Turtles not only thwart his plan but also leave his minions trussed up like turkeys for the police.  Meantime, April shadows the Turtles and tries to photograph them, but they frustrate her efforts and delete the pictures from her cell phone.  Eventually, the Turtles escort her to their lair where Master Splinter (Danny Woodburn) reveals that she alone rescued them from the fire.  When April takes her outlandish tale to her boss, Bernadette Thompson (Whoopi Goldberg of “Ghosts of Mississippi”), she loses her job.  Basically, April finds herself back at square one with nobody to help her than her father’s old partner affluent billionaire Eric Sacks.  

“Battle Los Angeles” director Jonathan Liebesman generates madcap momentum throughout the PG-rated film’s agile 101 minutes.  The new Ninja Turtles are even more differentiated than their predecessors.  Standing six feet tall, they resemble the Marvel Comics character the Hulk.  They still crave pizza, but their abilities have been ramped up far and away beyond what they could achieve before this outrageous reboot.  For example, Donatello has been transformed into a nerdy computer hacker.  Furthermore, the Turtles’ leader Splinter sports a longer tale which he deploys as if it were a bullwhip.  Shredder resembles a samurai version of Darth Vader from “Star Wars.”  He has special devices attached to his wrists that enable him to sling dozens of deadly knives. The knives behave like boomerangs so he can retrieve them if they miss their targets.  Truly, Shredder here emerges as a stronger, more contentious villain who puts the lives of our heroes in jeopardy until the last minute.  Interestingly enough, unlike most fantasy thrillers that create massive destruction but almost no collateral damage, innocent bystanders suffer from the falling debris in one scene.  Liebesman lenses the action so his cameras are constantly whirling around the various characters.  The most gripping scene occurs when our heroes are in an 18-wheeler that plunges down the snow-swept mountain.  This adrenaline-laced scene alone makes the classic chase in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” look like a spin on a tricycle!  People who suffer from motion sickness may find this scene a challenge to handle.  You don’t have to be a kid to appreciate this muscular, slam-bang, over-the-top actioneer with incomparable computer generated imagery and hilarious shenanigans to spare.

FILM REVIEW OF ''TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES" (1990)

Indeed, as incredibly outlandish as fantasy thrillers go, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" (*** OUT OF ****) amounts to a whole lot of far-fetched fun. The humanoid characters are pretty far out. A pet rat named Master Splinter who mimicked his Japanese master's moves and has taught himself how to be a ninja has moved to New York City where he discovers four baby turtles crawling around in a pool of radioactive slim in the sewer. Naturally, Splinter is shocked after he collects them in a coffee can, and they start talking the following day! Splinter teaches them the art of invisibility—the art of the ninja. The radioactive waste in the sewer exerts a strange, unreal effect on these turtles and they grow to ten times their size. Now, they look like over-grown midgets. Splinter names them Leonardo, Raphael, Michaelangelo, and Donatello. Of course, music video director Steve Barron and freshman film scribes Todd W. Langen and Bobby Herbeck have adapted Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird's characters and unleashed them in a crime thriller about a renegade Japanese ninja who has assembled a small army of children to steal the island of Manhattan blind. Sure, recruiting kids as criminals to steal is reminiscent of Charles Dickens' second novel "Oliver Twist."

Channel 3 television anchor lady, April O'Neil (Judith Hoag of "Armageddon"), is determined to get to the bottom of the unsolved crime wave. As the film unfolds, these youthful thieves try to steal April's purse, but Raphael comes to her rescue. Raphael ties them up and leaves them for the police to haul off. Naturally, April cannot believe her eyes after she meets the Turtles and Splinter. Now, more than ever, she wants to expose the Foot Clan, but she gets no help from frustrated N.Y.P.D Chief Stearns (Raymond Serra of "Prizzi's Honor") who brings pressure down on April's boss, Charles Pennington (Jay Patterson of "Street Smart"), to take April off the story. Stearns has arrested Pennington's larcenous son Danny (Michael Turney of "Cost of Living") who has been nabbed for stealing. Indeed, Danny is a member of this secret underworld organization. Meanwhile, April is working with them to bring the heat down on Chief Stearns. Stearns compels Charles to fire April. Splinter's arch enemy, the Shredder--the Asian equivalent in looks and voice to "Star Wars" villain Darth Vader--dispatches his American ninjas to take care of the Turtles. Shredder's abduct Splinter while April and the Turtle quartet leave the city to hide out on a remote farm out in the country. The Turtles are at a loss as to what they can do until Splinter contacts them through telepathy despite being held in chains like the Count of Monte Cristo in an abandoned factory. Leonardo congregates the other three around a campfire, and and they meditate at length. This group meditation effort enables them to conjure up Splinter's spirit, and Splinter communicates momentarily with them. Our quartet of half-shell heroes hates the fact that Splinter has been captured. Indeed, Michaelangelo grows so emotional that he cannot help but cry. A hockey stick wielding vigilante, Casey Jones (Elias Koteas of "Shutter Island"), who clashed with Raphael earlier, joins them as they battle Shredder and his ninjas. Clearly, Barron and his writers needed a real human to give April a romantic relationship. Incidentally, Casey Jones doesn't reappear in the 2014 reboot, and the origins of the Turtles is tweaked.

"Muppets" mastermind Jim Henson created Splinter and the Turtles look amusing. Splinter looks more realistic than the Turtles with their variously colored bandannas that they wear like masks. Michaelangelo has an orange bandannas, Raphael prefers the color red, Leonardo adopts blue as his color, and Donatello dresses in purple. "Entertainment Weekly" reviewer Owen Gleiberman complained in his review of the original film that the Turtles lacked personality. According to Gleiberman, only Raphael had a shred of personality. Essentially, Gleiberman is correct. Indeed, our heroes lack differentiation aside from the difference in their weapons. Raphael wields the sai, a three-pronged weapon which resembles a fork. Leonardo carries the katana, a traditional Japanese sword used in feudal Japan. Michaelangelo prefers the nunchuks, and Donatello dazzles his adversaries with a staff.

Barron doesn't malinger for a moment aside from some obvious expository bits of dialogue. The action is swift and cool. The Turtles uses some profanity, usually the word damn. The humor shines through, and the scene in April's apartment above an antiques shop when the Turtles conceal themselves from Danny and his father are amusing. Henson complained about the dark nature of the film. Juvenile delinquents smoke stogies and gamble. The Turtles like to use the D-word. The sewer sets look genuine, and Judith Hoag makes a plucky damsel-in-distress. Incidentally, aside from some Big Apple landmark shots, such as the Twin Towers in the first scene, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" was lensed largely in North Carolina by Raymond Chow's Golden Harvest studio.