Isaac's Film Reviews

Greater than the sum of its great parts Full review by Isaac Handelman The title Captain Phillips is deceiving, as Captain Phillips isn’t really about Captain Phillips at all. He’s the driving force of the narrative, and he’s a dependable presence to root for, but his character is not what makes Captain Phillips a phenomenal film -- which it is, without a shadow of a doubt. Sure, Tom Hanks delivers one of the finest performances of his career. Sure, the film is chock full of nail-biting intensity. But, at its core, Captain Phillips is about Somalian pirate Muse (Barkhad Abdi). The film takes a while to get going; it spends a significant amount of time showing its two main players, Captain Phillips and Muse, preparing for their respective voyages. Phillips can best be described as a slow boil; the opening section of the film can be grating and somewhat uninteresting, but by the film’s close, the slow opening is justified by some truly magnificent payoff. Once Captain Phillips...

Let go; be swept away. Full, spoiler-free review by Isaac Handelman The question that overwhelmed me while watching Alfonso Cuaron’s eerie space drama Gravity was simply, “Why has no one thought to make this movie before?” The premise is simple: two astronauts fall victim to a freak accident during a by-the-numbers research mission, and find themselves drifting through space in a desperate search for a way back to Earth. Racking my mind for a similar film, no examples come to mind. That’s surprising, but fortunate, as Gravity breaks into unexplored territory with confidence and sheeny spectacle. Sandra Bullock and George Clooney headline Gravity as astronauts Stone and Kowalski, respectively, but let’s not kid ourselves; the real star of the show is the visuals. Bullock plays her party in a predictably solid manner, and Clooney’s presence is a comfort. Yet, the two aren’t given much in the way of substance. In fact, Gravity ’s weakest points come when it tries to flesh out i...

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...