61238203
Water for Elephants
The year’s prettiest piece of crap, “Water for Elephants” is sucked dry of whatever drama and romance graced the pages of Sara Gruen’s swoony source material, leaving the dusty-shiny lensing and art direction the only elements to admire. As a pair of big-top canoodlers, Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon have oil-and-water chemistry, while Christoph Waltz, who’s typecast as Witherspoon’s villainous ringmaster hubby, is rendered toothless by the film’s insistence on rapidly tidying up conflicts and using his animal cruelty as nothing but a sentimental ploy.
Hall Pass
Disheartening evidence of the Peter-Pan inertia so prevalent in American comedy, “Hall Pass” is another crude attempt to validate the first-world problems of middle-class manboys nearing middle age. Though married to beautiful women played by great, wasted comediennes Jenna Fischer and Christina Applegate, two pals (Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis) are so bored with domesticity they need a week away from it (only to realize, in a stew of transparent pap, that they really love their wives). The whiff of male entitlement reeks to high heaven, as the Farrelly Brothers get swept up in the storm of witless gag-fests they helped to create.
Vanishing on 7th Street
Eco-allegory meets religious hogwash in “Vanishing on 7th Street,” a supernatural thriller that attempts to indict mankind’s wrongdoings but instead becomes one of them. Barely phased by his character’s apocalyptic circumstances but for when it’s time to crank up the histrionics, Hayden Christensen gives a performance as half-baked as the “Ghost”-inspired shadow demons that devour anyone who hasn’t charged their flashlight batteries.
Killer Elite
If you simply must see Jason Statham and Clive Owen numbingly square off as two growly secret agents, then be forewarned that the loud, yet lifeless “Killer Elite” also contains one of the year’s most uninvolving and incomprehensible plots, an aim for global relevance that’s entirely for naught, and yet another bottom-of-the-barrel role for Robert De Niro. Too bad the title “Just Shoot Me!” was taken.
I Don’t Know How She Does It
Sarah Jessica Parker’s insistence on making even her fans hate her comes into full, unwatchable bloom in “I Don’t Know How She Does It,” an archaic embarrassment of a feminist comedy that, in addition to employing every possible audience hand-holding trick, sets women back about five decades. The worst choice for the role, Parker narrates the film with that ultra-familiar Carrie Bradshaw contemplation, making the new character impossibly unconvincing and, not to mention, coldly disregarding the “Sex and the City” devotees who’ll loathe this movie.
The Mighty Macs
A Philadelphia production that the city would do well to wipe off its résumé, the wildly amateurish “The Mighty Macs” makes needlessly cryptic its tale of 1970s Immaculata women’s basketball coach Cathy Rush (Carla Gugino), while also delivering more sugary, on-the-nose mush than anyone should have to suffer in 97 minutes. The film does a spectacular disservice to all involved with its real-life subject matter, trading the articulation of stakes and details for nun-friendly zingers like, “Was that ‘Amen’ or ‘I’m in?’”
Answers to Nothing
Grossly unaware that multi-character, hyperlink narratives are about as in vogue as Myspace, Matthew Leutwyler’s L.A.-set “Crash” wannabe lets its out-of-touch tastelessness spread through every contrived nook and cranny, from vulgar, out-of-left-field dialogue to cringe-inducing character quirks. All of it reflects the filmmaker’s own poor judgment and alarming lack of empathy, a major problem for a film that’s supposed to be all about complex feelings.
Season of the Witch
Clearly reaching for some kind of despicable record, Nicolas Cage gives the year’s worst male performance in “Season of the Witch,” an unspeakably terrible medieval horror film that sees the screamy actor deliver his most absurdly serious, awkwardly hilarious work since “The Wicker Man.” What’s this hideously photographed debacle all about? Holy warrior Cage has to cart a presumed spell-caster to a far-off church, carting her through countless implausibilities and pages of ear-poisoning dialogue before throwing down with Satan in the worst computer graphics sequence this side of the Syfy channel.
X-Men: First Class
Unintentionally funny and unwittingly offensive to a fault, “X-Men: First Class” makes an epic joke of the entire X-Universe, defecating on the comic book brand’s beloved mythology, and reducing its resonant themes to baldfaced hokum. As it winds back the clock to the swinging 1960s, when archenemies Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and Professor X (James McAvoy) were still nickname-free pals, manages to stick it to blacks, gays, Jews and fanboys alike, while serving up one lame setpiece after another. That it’s worse than both “X-Men: The Last Stand” and “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” speaks devastating volumes.
Cowboys & Aliens
Has anyone ever flubbed high-concept camp more thoroughly than Jon Favreau does with “Cowboys & Aliens”? What could have been a fine slice of genre-mashing fun is the year’s most boring and stupefying blockbuster, packed full of sluggish pacing, depressingly derivative plot turns, queasy melodrama, and preposterous excess, like a mysterious babe (Olivia Wilde) who’s in fact a space alien capable of resurrection. The pairing of humorless curmudgeons Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig dashes all hopes that Indiana Jones and James Bond might make a dynamic duo, and by the time the movie finally decides to offer any kind of knowing amusement, the desperate yearning for it to end has long since taken top priority. Lots of bad films hit screens in 2011, but none so unbearable as this sci-fi/western washout. SPR
Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.
61238198
61238208
