Isaac's Film Reviews

Smart sci-fi or overly-ambitious misfire? Full, spoiler-free review by Isaac Handelman Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium can be forgiven for doing a lot of things wrong. The missteps are mostly little things, but they add up to something that’s noticeable and occasionally impedes upon the film’s considerable capacity for entertainment. Blomkamp had a lot to live up to in his sophomore outing, following on the heels of his Oscar-nominated directorial debut, so it’s not surprising that Elysium is a flawed product. Thankfully, it’s also quite engaging and serves as an impressive showcase for Blomkamp’s skills as a visual filmmaker. Elysium sets itself in a dystopian near-future, where the wealthy have vacated an impoverished Earth in favor of settling on a floating, man-made utopia called “Elysium”. The origins of the enormous space station aren’t fully explained, and that’s probably for the better, as the film could’ve quickly diverged into some utterly ridiculous territory had it tri...

A glass half full. Full, spoiler-free review by Isaac Handelman The World’s End is director Edgar Wright’s finale to the cult favorite Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy, which featured previous entries Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz . The three films have several things in common -- they share directors (Wright headed all three), stars (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost once again lead the charge), supernatural themes, raucous violence and, of course, cameos by various flavors of cornetto. The World’s End succeeds where its predecessors did and finds itself succumbing to many of the same pitfalls, resulting in a fitting if somewhat uneven conclusion to the trilogy. The film follows the pursuits of Gary King (Pegg) as he attempts to reunite his high-school friends and attempt the Golden Mile pub crawl, a legendary feat requiring that the participants down twelve pints of beer at twelve different pubs in the group’s hometown of Newton Haven, with the final stop being The World’s End. Ga...

Logan's Japan Adventure Full, spoiler-free review by Isaac Handelman In many ways, The Wolverine is the best Wolverine movie yet. Whereas the last entry featuring Hugh Jackman’s invincible clawed hero stumbled over its hackneyed attempts to tie into greater X-Men lore, The Wolverine is almost squarely focused on Logan himself, which turns out to be a darned good thing. Without any need to accommodate for an ensemble cast, Logan is finally able to take center-stage for the entire duration of the film; in doing so, the film begs the question as to why this is the first time 20th Century Fox has seen fit to let Wolverine go it alone. Picking up at an undisclosed time after the events of the (regrettable) X-Men: The Last Stand , The Wolverine finds it titular hero still mulling over the death of his love, Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), and wandering around remote Alaska picking fights with hillbilly hunters. Soon enough, Logan is approached by Yukio (Rila Fukushima), a messenger for...

Over-hyped or truly malevolent? Full review by Isaac Handelman Few horror films in recent memory have inspired the sort of hype and attention that The Conjuring has. And who could blame the public for this? The film’s R-rating has been publicly declared to be due to the fact that the film was “too scary” for a PG-13. Some theatres have gone so far as to display signs outside of Conjuring showings warning that some may find it “too scary”. Stories abound of viewers who had to vacate the theater shortly into the proceedings because they were “too scared”. In the end, perhaps the hype has led viewers to expect the film to be too scary for its own good. The Conjuring contains no shortage of slick scares, but it’s hardly the revolution in mainstream horror that some have made it out to be. Conjuring claims to be based on the case files of Ed and Lorraine Warren, a pair of paranormal investigators (or “demonologists”) who agree to assist the Parrens in cleansing their new house of...

Nobody asked for this...but that's okay. Full, spoiler-free review by Isaac Handelman Audiences would be forgiven for dismissing Red 2 as an utterly unnecessary sequel to a good-but-not-great 2011 action/comedy that hauled in a good-but-not-great gross. Summer sequels usually come in the form of superhero tentpole pics, and are judged harshly thanks to some truly fantastic follow-ups that have released in recent years. I walked in to Red 2 with trepidation, not expecting much beyond a mindless, forgettable action outing. I’m shocked to be saying it, but I could not have been more wrong in my pre-judgment of Red 2 ’s quality. It’s a thoroughly entertaining action romp that’s perfectly paced, well-acted, smartly constructed and of an immensely surprising quality. It’s marketed as a sequel, but all you really need to know about the first Red going into this follow-up is that Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is an ex-CIA agent marked as “Retired Extremely Dangerous” (from which th...