Isaac's Film Reviews

Think of The Adventures of Tintin as a sort of consolation prize for those who were disappointed with the fourth Indiana Jones movie. It seems a tad arbitrary for the legendary Steven Spielberg to tackle the big-screen adaptation of a Belgian comic series, and the film has lost many of its cultural flourishes because of this. However, this new version of the classic tales is a solid piece of material in its own right, liberally offering up visceral action and a well-scripted mystery. Tintin centers on Tintin, a young reporter with a knack for getting himself into danger. We’re given a glimpse of the character’s past through some old newspaper clippings pasted to his walls, chronicling past adventures with his trusty canine sidekick, Snowy. Rather suddenly, Tintin stumbles upon his next big story when he purchases a model sailing ship, the Unicorn at a market. The ship holds deeper implications, Tintin discovers, as he uncovers historical ties to the Unicorn ’s downfall, during

Aside from a few exceptions, such as 2003’s Elf , the prestige of being deemed a Christmas classic has been mostly reserved for Rankin/Bass’s 1960s stop-motion efforts as well as a select few 20th century feature films, like A Christmas Story and It’s a Wonderful Life . Aardman Animation, the folks behind Chicken Run and the Wallace & Gromit cartoons aim to change that with their latest release, Arthur Christmas , a holiday film so gleefully original that it leaves a silly smile pasted onto the viewer’s face all the way through. Like any regular family, it turns out the Clauses are rather dysfunctional. The current Santa has allowed his son Steve to modernize Christmas, antiquating the sleigh and reindeer used by Santa’s father Grand Santa, who preceded the current big man. When one child’s gift fails to get delivered, Arthur, the odd brother of the family, sets out with Grand Santa and his old sleigh and reindeer to see to it that the girl’s gift is delivered.  The film’

Some criticized Guy Ritchie’s 2009 Sherlock Holmes for turning the legendary detective into an action hero. I was firmly on the opposite side of this spectrum. I embraced the modern interpretation of Holmes as a self-contained re-imagining of the character. It seems enough of the audience agreed with me, and here we are with A Game of Shadows. The action has been turned up to eleven here, culminating in a rigorously intense and stylishly edited chase through a forest. Unfortunately, lost in translation is an end of the deal that made 2009’s Holmes such a grand ride: the unpredictable, dark, imaginative mystery. After perfecting his vision of the detective himself, the natural next step for Ritchie was to tackle Holmes’ arch-nemesis, Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris). This time around, Watson’s plans to settle down and marry are interrupted when Sherlock’s shenanigans land the duo in the midst of Moriarty’s scheme to begin a world war. Assisting is gypsy Simza (Noomi Rapace)

So, what do you get when you take the aging Mission: Impossible brand, fluff it up with some returning characters and a few new ones, and hand it over to The Incredibles director Brad Bird for his live-action directory debut? The answer is Ghost Protocol , the fourth entry in a series many presumed dead due to its five-year absence from multiplexes.  The filmmakers throw out a key ingredient that made the third film as solid as it was for Ghost Protocol : the intense, tangible and emotionally distressing threat, in favor of the more overarching threat of large portions of humanity ceasing to exist. After a routine mission gone wrong, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) finds himself and his team pegged as terrorists, blamed for the destruction of the Kremlin and as instigators of the seemingly inevitable nuclear war between Russia and the US. While some will criticize the formulaic nuclear threat, it never feels stale thanks to the clever backdrop involving the initiation of "ghost p