Isaac's Film Reviews

Unchained indeed Full, spoiler-free review by Isaac Handelman Whereas some directors’ films can be identified due to their thematic similarities, the same cannot be said for the films of Quentin Tarantino. Instead, the iconic director who was brought to fame by his 1995 masterpiece Pulp Fiction , leaves his mark on films not through similarities in subject matter or narrative, but in the absurd amount of graphic violence contained within each of his features. With Django Unchained , Tarantino brings his gleefully twisted style to new heights in what may be his boldest picture since Pulp Fiction . Through the buckets of blood, does Django retain the strange cinematic magic that Tarantino imbues each of his films with? Let’s find out. Unchained takes place in the American south a few years before the start of the Civil War and centers on Django (Jamie Foxx), a slave who's freed by Dr. Schultz (Christoph Waltz) and contracted to partake in various bounty hunts with his rescuer b

Almost there and not back again Full spoiler-free review by Isaac Handelman The Hobbit rivals and trumps its predecessor Lord of the Rings trilogy in many ways. Its orchestral score is epic, its visuals are sleek and often stunning, its scope is sweeping, its performances are top-notch and it pays plenty of homage to J.R.R. Tolkien’s original work. Yet, through all of this, something seems to be missing. It’s not an integral piece of the puzzle -- nothing that stops The Hobbit from being a riotously entertaining romp through Middle-earth -- but it does lack a certain spark that made Peter Jackson’s original Lord of the Rings trilogy so successful and beloved. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few months or have no preconceptions as to what The Hobbit is, you should know that Peter Jackson (or perhaps his studio heads) have split Tolkien’s original, somewhat short novel into three-separate films, the second and third of which are currently bound to December 2013 and

Ang Lee's latest rounds up. Full, spoiler-free review by Isaac Handelman  How do you make a movie about a teenage Indian boy stranded in a life raft on the Pacific Ocean with nothing but a Bengal tiger for company? Only one option presents itself: you make Life of Pi . This is, more so than any film released in recent memory, a one-of-a-kind experience. You’re unlikely to see anything that even vaguely resembles Pi for quite a while (maybe excluding the now-obligatory low budget cash-in ripoffs you can get at Redbox). It’s a movie about living and dying. It’s a movie about independence and growing up. It’s a movie about the validity of religion and choosing your faith. It’s also a movie about a teenaged Indian boy stranded on a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger for company.  Amongst all these themes and underlying messages, it’d be easy for Pi to get bogged down in its own morals. It doesn’t. The story is told from the perspective of a grownup Pi as he r

A bold new Bond Full spoiler-free review by Isaac Handelman No Bond film has dared to go where Skyfall does. Throughout all twenty-two films in the long-enduring franchise, never once has Bond’s past been explored to any measurable extent. Never once has the relationship between Bond and M been explored to great lengths. Never once has James Bond been pushed this far -- not physically, but psychologically. This is the film that Quantum of Solace should have been. This is the worthy followup to the masterful Casino Royale that we’ve all been waiting for. This is a definitive 21st Century Bond outing. If you thought Casino Royale ’s opening chase sequence had reached the epitome of intensity, prepare to be shown otherwise. The bombastic, breathless start to Skyfall practically dwarfs what was found in Daniel Craig’s first Bond outing. After a riveting chase aboard a train, Bond is accidentally shot during the mission and presumed dead by M and the rest of MI6. Soon, however, a

Fixing something for a change Full spoiler-free review by Isaac Handelman It’s probably best to get this out of the way up front; Wreck-it Ralph is, almost undoubtably, the best video-game movie ever. Of course, that’s really not saying too much. I mean, what’s it up against? Angelina Jolie’s Lara Croft: Tomb Raider . Mark Wahlberg as Max Payne . Jake Gyllenhaal’s bizzarely-caucasian Prince of Persia . Oh, and 1995’s Mortal Kombat . So, have video game movies finally crossed into the realm of greatness? Not exactly. But I’m happy to report that they have finally crossed into the realm of good -ness. Baby steps, right? Ralph ’s biggest strength lies in the fact that it’s not trying to emulate any specific video game or franchise. Instead, the film centers on, you guessed it, Wreck-it Ralph, the good-natured bad guy in Fix it Felix Jr., a riff on classic 1980s-era arcade games. The thing is, Ralph’s tired of playing the bad guy for all those years, so he sets out on a journey

Does it   soar or crash and burn? Full review by Isaac Handelman Being Robert Zemeckis’ long awaited return to the director’s chair in a live-action film after a thirteen year hiatus, Flight has some lofty expectations to stand up to. It’s a grand, ambitious effort that sets its sights high -- and its airplane even higher. Zemeckis quite obviously wants quite badly for this to be his next Forrest Gump or Cast Away. Is it? Well, that depends on how much you liked Forrest Gump and Cast Away . What I can tell you is that Flight manages to hit most of the right notes but not without singeing its wings in a few prominent places. Flight tells the story of Captain William Whitaker (Denzel Washington), an airline pilot who’s battling alcoholism and drug addiction. During a routine flight, Whitaker suddenly finds his plane in a nosedive and is forced to take evasive action. That evasive action just so happens to include flying the plane upside down for a short stint, but hey, who ev

History lessons can be fun. Full spoiler-free review by Isaac Handelman Argo is somewhat of an anomaly. It’s startlingly intense, but never explodes into action. It recounts a historical event, but it feels fresh and exciting. It’s occasionally amusing, but never quite funny. It managed to land Alan Arkin, John Goodman and Bryan Cranston, but instead opts to center largely on a group of relatively unknown faces. Some of its quirky facets work better than others, but all in all, Argo can be counted as yet another Ben Affleck-directed winner. The film takes place in 1979 and 1980, in the midst of the Iran Hostage Crisis. Argo wastes no time getting to the point; six American diplomats escaped the US embassy in Iran before it was overrun by Iranian extremists, who took most of the diplomats hostage. The six escapees have found refuge in the home of the Canadian ambassador, and now it’s up to CIA operative Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) and his associate Jack O’Donnell (Bryan Cranst

Time is of the essence in Rian Johnson's futuristic thriller. Full spoiler-free review by Isaac Handelman Let’s make this clear up front -- Looper is not a movie about time travel; it’s a time travel movie. It embraces time travel, it lives and breathes time travel. It almost manages to carve “time-travel” out as a viable genre all its own. Like any prototype, the film has its issues, but they’re entirely forgivable -- Looper is not to be missed. In the world of Looper, which takes place in 2044, time-travel will be invented in thirty years, but will be used only by criminal organizations. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who’s finally getting the starring roles he deserves) stars as Joe, who is (surprise!) a Looper. Loopers are specialized hit-men who, in a nutshell, work for the aforementioned criminal syndicates, eliminating targets sent back to the present (2044) so that the future mob’s hands are kept clean. If your head’s spinning, don’t worry -- with a few exceptions, Loop

A heartfelt fantastical family dramedy, and one of 2012's biggest surprises thus far Full spoiler-free review by Isaac Handelman Going in to The Odd Life of Timothy Green , I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Family dramedies, especially from Disney, have a tendency to be oftentimes unbearably corny and derived from a cookie-cutter formula. That’s why it comes as a minor shock to me to report that Timothy Green is absolutely worth your time and money. It’s packed with ingenuity, strong performances, laughs and genuine emotion, and it’s a better film than many of 2012’s tentpole blockbusters.  Centering on small-town couple Cindy (Jennifer Garner) and Jim Green (Joel Edgerton), the film tells a modern fairytale of sorts. I’ll shy away from specifics as to avoid spoilers, so I’ll just say that the couple happens upon a mysterious boy named Timothy (CJ Adams) -- or rather he happens upon them. They lovingly take him in as the child they’ve always wanted but could n

The legacy lives...for the most part. Full spoiler-free review by Isaac Handelman The Bourne Ultimatum put a definite bookend on one of the greatest espionage trilogies to grace recent cinema. But of course, those films pulled in too much money at the box office to end the franchise there, so here we are almost exactly five years later with The Bourne Legacy. It’s not a prequel or a sequel or a “spiritual successor”; Legacy tells a story that’s mostly distinct from the events of the original three Bourne films, and its relative success is thanks mostly to this smart decision on the screenwriters’ part. Much of Legacy ’s narrative runs parallel with the events of Ultimatum , but there’s not much connecting the two films as far as their base narratives go. There’s more than one mention of Jason Bourne, to be certain, but this, as aforementioned, is mostly a stand-alone experience. The film follows Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), a participant in the fledgling genetic alt