The Lucky One-Adaptations of Nicholas Sparks' novels have always been a grating endeavor. All that perfect golden lighting; all those doleful looks of romantic longing; all that disease. With the exception of the "The Notebook" (a glorious bit of cheese that's surpassed by huge lush emotions at every turn), none of his films have ever felt like more than a cheap excuse to stare at Hollywood's latest couple of it-kids with their perfect six pack and super shiny hair fall in love and then have it complicated by war, fate, or whatever the new hip malady-of-the-moment is."The Lucky One" starring Zach Efron might have hit an all-time low. Set in the bayous of Louisiana, the film chronicles Logan a Marine just home from a third tour of Iraq. He's trying to hunt down this mysterious woman he saw in a picture that he found while overseas that he calls his "guardian angel." Turns out this angel is Beth (Taylor Schilling) a dog trainer with her own slew of emotional and personal troubles including a geeky son and his easily-tempered sheriff father and a dead Marine brother. Throw in the wise elder (Blythe Danner) schilling her sage advice, the down home spirit of Sarah Palin's America, ooh and dogs, and you have a painful, molasses-covered hunk of every cliche possible stuffed into a bad fruitcake of a movie. Grade: D (Available now on DVD)
The Dictator- When this project was first announced, I had hoped (maybe naively) that Sacha Baron Cohen would be making his own send-up of Chaplin's classic "The Great Dictator." Unfortunately, what we got was another Cohen film filled with the same slightly racist, slightly sexist, slightly controversial comedy. Cohen and his team never seem to push any of the beats far enough for them to be truly daring or witty enough to make a flash of a crotch or an joke about Islamic misogyny anything more than what it is.
Cohen is fine as the out-of-touch northern African dictator. He certainly has comic chops, but this doesn't quite showcase how flavorful it can be. Anna Faris is wasted as his feminist, free-trade loving, politically correct "love interest?" and I kept thinking poor Ben Kingsley obviously must be going broke....because otherwise, why would he be in this. It's not until the final five minutes do we see Cohen's real intelligence, but at that point it's too late. Another missed opportunity. Grade: C- (Available now on DVD)
Battleship- This movie makes a "Transformers" movie look like "Citizen Kane." This clunky, asinine action flick has about as much to do with the board game that inspired it as a hand grenades have to do with tea parties. It certainly has its patriotic hat squarely on its head though. Between the supporting performance by the double amputee, the WWII veterans, and the multiple fly overs in Navy bombers, you'd think you were watching the pre-game festivities at the Super Bowl rather than shoot-em-up, maritime, alien flick. Taylor Kitsch (of "Friday Night Lights" fame) starts the film like a meth addict (all twitchy-eyed and jittery) then, suddenly half way through it feels like the personality vacuum came through and sucked his charisma dry. Poor Liam Neeson is- forgive me- left out to sea by a concept that is just too terrible for words. The only reason this isn't an F is because the plot points and the disgusting dialogue are too awesomely bad not to chuckle at....unintentionally of course. Miss. Grade: D- (Available now on DVD)
After the jump....Friends with Kids, Prometheus, and The Five-Year Engagement
