Film

An endlessly cute, incoherent and ridiculous espionage action-comedy, Knight and Day stars Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz as Roy Miller and June Havens, a pair of cartoony humans hopping from plane crash to car chase to helicopter to train to motorcycle chase to bull stampede. Cruise plays a secret agent with whom Diaz becomes entangled because, well… actually it doesn't really matter why anyone does anything in this film.
Cruise doesn't pack houses like he used to and Diaz won't get recognition until she wiggles her ass in the next Charlie's Angels movie. Both stars have become “themselves” so much so that they're all we see, not the characters they portray. The combo of beauty and pearly whites wears thin. Cruise has lost the talent of yesteryear when he worked alongside Newman, Hoffman and Nicholson. After producing gazillion-dollar action flicks, ranting Scientology and couch dancing on Oprah his credibility has taken a nosedive. Diaz had moments of real talent, but then fell into idiotic ditzy giggly roles. We get what's left of their shtick in this tedious piece of fluff that is neither amusing nor entertaining.

It all made sense during Jonah Hex's ending credits that this PG-13 tease had Neveldine & Taylor (responsible for Crank) written all over it. But then it made even more sense to find out they dropped out and whoever took over left the good ideas on the cutting room floor. Based on the DC comic of the same name, Jonah Hex is the newest comic-book-character-turned-anti-hero movie.
Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin) is an old west scar-faced drifter, bounty hunter and stoic gunslinger who can track down anyone…and anything. Jonah's violent history is steeped in perplexing myth and legend and has left him with one foot in the natural world and one on the “other” side. Hex is hired to stop terrorist Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich), the same man who murdered his wife and family, so of course revenge becomes the driving motive.

There's a palpable weariness in the movie theater as the latest addition to the Toy Story franchise draws to a close and it's not just because of the struggle with young children who got bored after the first sighting of the familiar gang. The film's conclusion suggests further stories and frankly, the whole if-toys-could-talk routine is getting a little old.
This time, Andy is all grown up and going to college. The toys get donated to a day care center by mistake and they must come up with an elaborate plan to get home. There is laughter and there are tears, but there are only so many times one can find Mr. Potato Head losing his limbs funny, or Woody contemplating the scrawled name on the sole of his cowboy boot sad.

The A-Team is a creepily bizarre weirdo of a movie that'll wreck your day. Eager to see it because you whiled away happy childhood hours watching Hannibal, B.A., Face and Murdock don disguises, build wacky tanks, flip cars and help with problems no one else could help with? Well, what you'll get movie-wise is a queasy gobbledygook of a party to which you're not invited.
Liam Neeson chews scenery as Hannibal Smith, leader of The A-Team. In the film's opening, he assembles his crack commando unit of egregious miscasting: sleepy ultimate fighter Quinton “Rampage” Jackson as temperamental ass-kicker B.A. Baracus, District 9's unfunny Sharlto Copley as hilariously crazy Murdock, and shrill, pornographic Bradley Cooper as a smooth-talking ladies man Face. This tribute-band version of The A-Team heads for a wacky trifle of a war zone called Iraq, where they're framed for stealing counterfeit moneymaking plates and must then bust out of jail to clear their name.

In remake world where all dreams come true and sentimentality reigns supreme, comes the 2010 version of The Karate Kid. I assume there was karate in the original (I never saw it or its sequels) but this one is devoid of any – or, as Jackie Chan says, “everything is kung fu.”
If 12 or under, you'll enjoy this Karate Kid. Otherwise, prepare yourself for disappointment. For no reason whatsoever, single mom (Taraji P. Henson) and her child Dre (Jaden Smith, son of Will) move to China. Jackie Chan plays their maintenance guy who gives kung fu lessons to Dre so he can gain inner peace and defend himself against bullies. Predictability is the name of the game here as we see bullies kicking ass, an evil kung fu academy and a ridiculously cornball kiss. Even the “Feeling Strong Now” montage was weak.

Being an English woman abroad, I feel more fondness for Russell Brand now when I see him pictured with Katy Perry in US Magazine than I did when he lived just down the road from me, drinking in the pub round the corner from my office. As I juggle the debauched stories from his autobiography, My Booky Wook, and the scandalous tabloid headlines with his current cleaned-up, red-carpet-friendly persona, some apprehension gets mixed in with that fondness. Brand's confessional, hyper-literate, surrealistic stand-up comedy is brilliant. When he made the move to Hollywood with Forgetting Sarah Marshall, the obvious fear was that he'd lose his edge and let his latent vegetarian-yoga-buddhist side take over his talent.
We English were pleased to hear of Brand bringing down the Jonas Brothers at the MTV Video Music Awards with a canny reference to French philosopher Foucault, but still it was assumed American celebrity would eventually ruin him. Although Forgetting Sarah Marshall was funny, it could have easily been a fluke. The idea of a spin-off from that film in which Brand's rock star character, Aldous Snow, is chaperoned by record company intern Aaron Green, played by Jonah Hill, from London to a come-back concert in Los Angeles sounded dubious. I was prepared for Get Him To The Greek to be disappointing, maybe even a disaster. Instead, red-carpet Russell Brand is a revelation in a movie that should make him much more than just Katy Perry's boyfriend this side of the Atlantic.

Don't expect horror from this dysfunctional freak show. Splice is not scary and only pretends to be a psychological thriller. It's a “what if” scenario focusing on scientists who play God, splice together some DNA stew and then decide to raise the prototype like a child. They watch it grow, try to teach it, but give up and… have sex with it. I'm not kidding. Even with its international credits, Splice still comes off like a bad American movie about really bad parenting.
Splice starts off promising. The credits are spelled in veins popping out of embryo-like skin and the actors peer in at you as if you were the experiment. Bio-technology at the N.E.R.D. laboratories has created a new species of lumpy penis-headed slugs named Fred and Ginger. Top-notch scientists and live-in lovers Clive and Elsa (Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley) are on the verge of the next breakthrough using human DNA, but are blocked by corporate big wigs, so they go rogue and proceed with the experiment in secrecy.

Sex and the City 2 is dull and this dullness has a lot to do with the amount of time Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte spend in the desert. Within the first quarter of the film, they are swept off to Abu Dhabi on a trip that is beyond luxurious. They have personal butlers, champagne and macaroons served under a silk canopy and a hotel suite with its own fully staffed kitchen, all the while they are situated in the middle of miles of sand dunes. Plausible!
Most of us who watched the show held little hope of having the apartments, wardrobes or endless brunches the characters enjoyed in New York – but the lifestyle was at least potentially obtainable – that is, with the help of a whole lot of maxed-out credit cards. Here we are in a big recession and, in my opinion, some of the blame should be shouldered by the Sex and the City franchise. SATC's answer? Step up the decadence, right into a realm enjoyed by a total of perhaps fifty people in the entire world. Absurdly funny as it is, this detracts from the characters' drama and makes it all the less relatable – not good when common ground is so crucial for Carrie to keep, well, carrying on.

Joining the ranks of flicks vying for worst movie of the year award is Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Persia is like a bad combo of Pirates of the Caribbean and The Mummy. Making Disney adventures out of a videogame is a testament to producer Bruckheimer's money-making schemes, but I can only assume that this is the most boring video game ever.
Beginning with a credo of destiny mumbo jumbo, this sword-and-sandal adventure takes place in the golden-hued sixth-century Persian Empire (now Iran) and focuses on the trials and tribulations of Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal), an orphan plucked from the streets by a king (Ronald Pickup). In an only thinly veiled metaphor, the Persians invade a holy city to seize weapons of less-than-mass destruction (fancy swords) on false pretenses and bad intelligence. Thrown into the mix are Dastan's two stepbrothers, Garsiv and Tus (Toby Kebbell/ Richard Coyle) and their evil uncle (Ben Kinglsey). The plot hinges on a time machine-like dagger; one press of a button on the handle sends the holder back in time… or time goes back… or time spins around in a smoldering golden whirlwind. Yes, it's that confusing. The dagger comes in to play when Princess “pouty lips” Tamina (Gemma Atherton) is captured then escapes. Treacherous deceit and dagger pursuit ensues.

I was introduced to Shrek in two ways. First was the commercial hype and McDonald's toys. The next time was when I was painting a kid's room. I heard a lot of muffled cartoony chatter coming from another room along with laughter from kids. I also heard some cool music from the likes of The Eels, Joan Jett and, shockingly, John Cale. I thought that someone must've had some alternative radio show going at the same time, but there it was: really cool music attached to the childlike phenomenon called Shrek. I checked out the first one, it was sharp and witty with enough humor for adults and fun for kids. I checked out Shrek 2 for about five minutes, lost interest and by-passed Shrek the Third entirely. This time I was curious as to what they've come up with for the grand finale.