Isaac's Film Reviews

It's here. Does Christopher Nolan's landmark grand finale deliver on the promise of its predecessors? Full review by Isaac Handelman No movie is perfect. The mark of a great film is not a lack of flaws -- rather, its ability to overcome its flaws, and not let its missteps drag it down. It would be easy to criticize  The Dark Knight Rises  for being many things -- slow to start, a tad incoherent at certain points and slightly derivative at others, too loud, or lacking in closure. And you wouldn’t necessarily be wrong in these accusations. But I pity the person who dwells on these petty annoyances. They’d be missing out;  Rises  is a dark, grand, enormously ambitious finale to a saga that’s sure to be hailed as one of modern cinema’s greatest. Rises  picks up eight years after the events of  The Dark Knight . Batman’s taken the blame for the murders Harvey Dent committed, and Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has become a social recluse, spe...

Same powers, new responsibilities Full review by Isaac Handelman What’s perhaps most remarkable about  The Amazing Spider-Man  is the fact that it works at all. 2002’s film adaptation of the web-slinging hero was such a wild success, both critically and commercially, that Sony's decision to reboot the franchise a mere decade later was a questionable one at best. So, naturally, the real question for many is simply, “Is  The Amazing Spider-Man  as good as  Spider-Man ?” I’d have to respond with another question: does it really matter? This version of the web-head’s tale finds Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) more deeply embedded in day-to-day high school life, and still haunted by the sudden mysterious departure of his parents when he was young. He feels compelled to delve into his father’s studies at Oscorp with Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans), more specifically the area of cross-species genetics. Hence Peter eventually receiving spider-like superpowers, as...