Isaac's Film Reviews

I'm still betting on you. Full review by Isaac Handelman Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy appeals to an extraordinarily wide audience, across all ages and both genders. As an indirect result, the film adaptations of The Hunger Games trilogy need worry about only appealing to a very slim audience; those who read the book. The Hunger Games films are not successful for their appeal outside of the literary fanbase. The films are successful because the literary fanbase of The Hunger Games is flat out enormous. The majority of those who pay to watch The Hunger Games: Catching Fire have either read, or are in the company of a person who has read, its source novel. As such, the filmmakers behind Catching Fire hold in their hands both a virtue, and a vice. Their virtue is that they only must worry about appealing to those who are familiar with their source material. Their vice is that the sort of rabid fanbase possessed by The Hunger Games trilogy demands a faithful recreation o...

Back in action Full review by Isaac Handelman If Iron Man 3 can be described as an anomaly on an otherwise strong track record, then Thor: The Dark World is the majestic recovery. Helmed by rookie director Alan Taylor and faced with the task of being the first solo sequel in the Marvel Cinematic Universe sans the Iron Man series, The Dark World has plenty of obstacles to overcome. And it manages to conquer expectations, not by some drastic formula alteration, but by evolving from its predecessor(s) in a natural way; it’s bigger, it’s bolder, and it’s better than ever before. As The Dark World opens (spoilers for the first two minutes of the film follow), viewers are introduced to the Dark Elves, an ancient race that ruled the universe before the creation of the Nine Realms of Marvel fiction. Led by the devious Malekith (Christopher Eccleston, a capable actor who is unfortunately confined largely to delivering scary-sounding lines in a fantasy language), the Dark Elves tried ...

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...