 Rating: 2 out of 5 starsGenre: Comedy, Science Fiction
Run Time: 1 hours 33 minutes, Rated R Starring: Adam Scott, Clark Duke, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, Chevy Chase, Collette Wolfe Directed by Steve Pink (About Last Night, Hot Tub Time Machine, Accepted) Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (opening today), sadly, is the movie that I thought I was going to see when I first went into the theater to see the first Hot Tub Time Machine. Let's face it: A movie with that title isn't asking you to enter with high expectations. Yet, the first film was a surprise hit at the box office and was delightfully obnoxious, raunchy and juvenile. It was in fact, a very funny movie. Like most sequels, Hot Tub Time Machine 2 is totally unnecessary, and it feels like we've been there and done that...which we have. But as a rule, comedies should ultimately be judged by one overriding principle: was it funny? The answer: Not nearly as funny as the first film, and barely passable.
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 Rating: 4 out of 5 starsGenre: Drama, Foreign
Run Time: 2 hours 20 minutes, Rated R Starring: Aleksey Serebryakov, Vladimir Vdovichenkov, Elena Lyadova, Roman Madyanov Co-Written & Directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev (Elena, The Banishment, The Return) Leviathan (opening today) is a powerful, well-written drama that was just recently nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. It comes to us from Russia, and it's no surprise that the film was included as one of the best international entries this year.  Rating: 4 out of 5 starsGenre: Documentary
Run Time: 1 hours 16 minutes, Rated PG Starring: Vyacheslav Fetisov, Scotty Bowman, Alexei Kasatonov, Ken Kurtis Written and Directed by Gabe Polsky (The Motel Life) Red Army (opening today) was not nominated for an Oscar, nor did it even make the short list of 15 documentaries that the Academy creates to pick their nominations from. At 76 minutes, it might have been considered a bit slight, and not as socially immediate as other "important" docs such as Virunga or CitizenFour, the latter of which actually took home the Oscar. But Red Army is a must-see sports documentary, not only for fans of hockey, but even more specifically, for the "HockeyTown" fan base of my hometown, Detroit, MI, as it is basically gives a biographical history of Slava Fetisov, one of the beloved members of the Stanley Cup winning Detroit Red Wings.  Rating: 3 out of 5 starsGenre: Drama, Romance
Run Time: 2 hours 5 minutes, Rated R Starring: Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Jennifer Ehle, Eloise Mumford, Luke Grimes, Victor Rasuk, Marcia Gay Harden, Rita Ora Based on the novel by E.L. James Written by Kelly Marcel (Saving Mr. Banks) Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson (Nowhere Boy) So where to begin? If you haven't yet heard anything about E.L. James's erotic mega-successful best-seller, "Fifty Shades of Grey," well then, you probably live under a rock, or perhaps spend too much of your time handcuffed to a bedpost in someone's "playroom." It is a raunchy, explicitly-written book that has been criticized for amateurish prose, despite capturing the minds (and hearts?) of millions of women around the globe. When it was announced that every woman's guilty pleasure was going to be made into a movie, each and every detail of its production and casting became headline news, with legions of fans scrutinizing and over-analyzing each tidbit. Finally, this Valentine's Day weekend (opening today, in fact), the big-screen adaptation has arrived. So...curious, inquiring minds want to know: Was it good?  Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox, 2015. Used with permission. Rating: 5 out of 5 starsRating: 5 out of 5 stars
Twice in Kingsman: The Secret Service (opening today) we hear characters say, "Sorry. It's not that kind of movie." And they're right. Whatever film you think you're watching, you can think again. That sort of self-referential vibe serves Kingsman brilliantly, making it one of the funniest, bloodiest and surprisingly great films of this young year thus far. Remember when going to the movies used to be fun?  Rating: 1 out of 5 starsGenre: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Adventure
Run Time: 2 hours 7 minutes, Rated PG-13 Starring: Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum, Eddie Redmayne, Sean Bean, Douglas Booth, Tuppence Middleton Written and Directed by Andy & Lana Wachowski (Cloud Atlas, Speed Racer, The Matrix Trilogy) Harsh criticism is nothing the Wachowski Siblings haven't dealt with before...they are used to being bashed. Their last film, Cloud Atlas, was a box office flop and was universally hammered by critics (for the most part anyways...I on the other hand, stand by naming it not only a good film, but the best film of 2012). And if I found Cloud Atlas to be akin to a mesmerizing albeit ambitious acrobat act, where spinning plates are skillfully and beautifully placed on each appendage one by one in perfect symmetry and union, never once allowing any of them fall, then the Wachowski's latest effort, Jupiter Ascending (opening today), can be likened to a bull rushing full-speed into a china shop.  Rating: 3 out of 5 starsGenre: Drama
Run Time: 1 hour 41 minutes, Rated PG-13 Starring: Julianne Moore, Kristen Stewart, Kate Bosworth, Alec Baldwin, Hunter Parrish Based on the novel by Lisa Genova Directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland (The Last of Robin Hood, The Fluffer) It's funny how things work out. A few years back, I was flabbergasted that Julianne Moore's performance in The Kids Are All Right was overlooked by the Academy and the majority of year-end award institutions. In that film, most of the attention went to Moore's co-star, Annette Bening, who ended up landing an Oscar nomination for her incredibly over-the-top, showy role, as opposed to Moore's quiet, under-stated yet powerful performance. To me, it was an absolute travesty that Julianne Moore didn't earn at least a nomination back then. Flash forward to today, and Moore is now finally primed and ready to win an Oscar....the rub? She is about to win it for her incredibly over-the-top, showy role in Still Alice (opening today). |
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tom santilli movie reviews
Tom Santilli is a professional film critic, TV personality, host and
the Executive Producer of Movie Show Plus.
He also is the featured film critic appearing on WXYZ Channel 7 Action News in Detroit,
and appeared weekly on FOX-2 in Detroit from 2016-2020.
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