Category Archives: Action/Thriller

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Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Drama, Indie Films, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Love It

Cop Car (2015) Movie Review

September 2, 2015 Alex Brannan

Director Jon Watt’s Cop Car opens on two boys (Hays Wellford and James Freedson-Jackson) walking through a field carrying walking sticks as big as their bodies. They alternate reciting swear words; one gleefully energetic and the other dourly reluctant. Both are confident in their juvenile assumptions.

The pair come across a police squad car parked in the woods with no one attending to it. They cautiously approach it as if it is some wild beast, throwing rocks at it and fearfully running up to touch it. Then, they realize that Continue reading Cop Car (2015) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Horror, Indie Films, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Cheap Thrills (2014) Movie Review

August 26, 2015 Alex Brannan

Craig Daniels (Pat Healy) is a mechanic and a family man. At least, he was a mechanic. Then he got fired. On the same day that he received an eviction notice. As he scrubs his grimy hands at the end of his short last day, a closeup reveals the wedding ring on his finger. A finger that is tensely tapping against the sink with the knowledge that its owner has fallen into dire straits.

Enter Vince (Ethan Embry), the sleazy but well meaning high school friend of Craig. Vince is a debt collector. The off-the-books type of debt collector. Then enter Colin (David Koechner), a seemingly well-off stranger who just wants some drinking company on his wife Violet’s (Sara Paxton) birthday. As per the genre’s usual tropes, something seems off about Colin and Violet. Colin is uncharacteristically charismatic and friendly. Violet is uninterested in almost everything.

As the night moves on and the drinks start flowing, Colin starts engaging Craig and Vince in a series of bets. They are innocent bets, but they come with tempting Continue reading Cheap Thrills (2014) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Fantastic Four (2015) Movie Review

August 9, 2015 Alex Brannan

Reed Richards (Miles Teller) is a child with a dream: to create a teleportation device and change the world for the better. After his prototype device is disqualified from his high school science fair, scientist Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey) hires him to work on a government funded device of the same ilk for the sake of accessing a nondescript alternate dimension dubbed “Zero.”

From there, Fantastic Four is a haphazard jumble of plot points inserted abruptly with no sense of pacing or flow. The opening sequence with Continue reading Fantastic Four (2015) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Drama, Horror, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Love It

The Gift (2015) Movie Review

August 8, 2015 Alex Brannan

In The Gift, married couple Simon (Jason Bateman) and Robyn (Rebecca Hall) move back into Simon’s California hometown after the unexpected loss of their unborn child. The first snaking shots of their new house are an immediate sign of their status. Simon is successful at a well-paying job and is on the verge of a promotion. Robyn is happy doing freelance work from home. Seemingly, life in the pair’s little world is picturesque.

Then there’s Gordo (Joel Edgerton). At first, we only see him from a distance, curiously looking in on the couple as they are shopping, just behind Simon’s shoulder. Eventually he approaches Simon, saying that Continue reading The Gift (2015) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Love It

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015) Movie Review

August 2, 2015 Alex Brannan

In the opening scene of Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Tom Cruise’s franchise spy Ethan Hunt is seen hanging from the side of a plane as it takes off of from a private runway in Minsk. On board is a massive amount of nerve gas able to take out a large city worth of people. Hunt grapples against the hull of the plane as tech expert Benji (Simon Pegg) struggles to open the door for him remotely from a nearby grass plain.

Finally, the door releases and Hunt is pitched into the cargo hold of the plane. Holding tightly to the pallet of nerve gas, he gives a guard a Continue reading Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Pixels (2015) Movie Review

July 25, 2015 Alex Brannan

In 1982, savant children battle for the fame of becoming an arcade game champion, an event being filmed for the sake of a time capsule that will be shot into space. Brenner (Adam Sandler), the savant-iest of savant gamers, gets a tie score with hot shot Eddie (Peter Dinklage) and must face off against him in a round of Donkey Kong. Brenner loses by a nose, which seemingly demoralizes him into leading a washed up life of attending Mississippi Institute of Technology and becoming an electronics installer.

Meanwhile, Brenner’s dopey friend “Chewy” Cooper (Kevin James) is President of the United States. That’s right, Continue reading Pixels (2015) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Drama, Indie Films, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Faults (2014) Movie Review

July 23, 2015 Alex Brannan

Faults begins with a cold open in a diner, where Ansel Roth (Leland Orser), a washed up expert on de-programming former cult members, is furiously eating a meal that he is unable to pay for. After a sparsely attended seminar in a hotel, a couple approaches Ansel about their daughter Claire’s (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) involvement in a cult called Faults. Ansel, struggling with financial problems, agrees to kidnap Claire in order to counteract the brainwashing Faults has placed on her.

Claire responds to her kidnapping in a partly normal, partly eccentric way. She doesn’t sleep, opting instead to stare at a television set of static through the first night of her capture. She holds back threats of Continue reading Faults (2014) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Ant-Man (2015) Movie Review

July 21, 2015 Alex Brannan

What do you get when you put a comedy A-lister in the middle of swarms of CG ants and a goatee-toting Michael Douglas? Marvel Studios’ most recent addition to their already overblown universe.

Ant-Man was at one time a project that appeared like it would never get off the ground. The film was originally headed by the talented Edgar Wright. He left the project after Continue reading Ant-Man (2015) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Animation, Comedy, Drama, Horror, Lists, Romance

The Best of 2015 in Movies (So Far)

July 11, 2015 Alex Brannan

We’re about half-way through 2015 and, as such, have been presented with plenty of films. Early-year diamonds in the rough and breakout summer blockbusters have surfaced. Here are my favorite movies of 2015 as of June 21 (in order of their respective release dates).

Continue reading The Best of 2015 in Movies (So Far) →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Horror, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

As Above, So Below (2014) Movie Review

July 5, 2015 Alex Brannan

And now, a dramatic interpretation of a how a hypothetical pitch meeting for the As Above, So Below script might have started:

“It’s The Descent meets [REC] meets Grave Encounters meets Buried meets National Treasure.”

“Love it. I bet we can get that guy from Cloverfield for the male lead.”

“But we can still terrorize the sole black character by putting him in the most danger early on, right?”

“Of course! What else are horror movies for!?”

“Huzzah! Let’s make movies!”

All right, so I have no idea how pitch meetings actually work. Nonetheless, that’s a fairly accurate description of As Above, So Below. The movie wraps a plot largely reminiscent of Continue reading As Above, So Below (2014) Movie Review →

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