Tag: Bradley Cooper

video review : 10 Cloverfield Lane

video review : 10 Cloverfield Lane

Don’t be confused by the title. This is Cloverfield 2. It just looks and sounds a lot different than its predecessor. Imagine Blair Witch 2 with a decent plot. Not to say this sci fi thriller, which traps a “girl” named Michelle in an underground bunker with a crazy survivalist named Howard, isn’t a step down for the franchise.

There are moments of tension involving Michelle’s attempts to escape her virtual prison, which Howard and fellow inmate Emmett insist is actually a refuge against an apocalyptic fallout happening outside, but the ending, in which the truth is finally revealed, is unrealistic, silly even, compared to everything that came before it.

my rating : 3 of 5

2016

video review : Case 39

video review : Case 39

From the looks of it, Lily is an adorable little girl. She’s perfectly cute in an odd-eyed space alien sort of way. It’s the high probability that she’s being neglected and possibly abused by her wacked-out parents that puts CPS worker Emily Jenkins into her life. But what starts as a psychological case study gets really eerie really quickly.

The way the movie switches to supernatural horror is actually quite jarring. And not in a good way. The tone is all over the place. So by the time demonic insects start flying out of a guy’s ears, you already know you’re watching something silly. But I like both Lily and Emily. It’s those two characters alone make the movie worth watching.

my rating : 3 of 5

2009

video review : The Hangover

video review : The Hangover

With all its outrageousness, The Hangover, about four guys on a bachelor party trip to Las Vegas, is short on laughs. I laughed once, when the fat jail-tour kid was about to take a photo of the fiancée’s brother, and smiled a few times. That’s it. The rest of the script is hack city, not amusing in the least, as hard as it tries to be, and the wandering plot isn’t interesting enough to make-up for that fact.

It’s all about what happens during the trip, much of which none of the guys can remember. They awake in their hotel room on their first morning in Vegas, the place is wrecked, there’s a tiger in the bathroom and one of the four guys, the bachelor, is missing. It’s a lazy plot device that allows for random wackiness that doesn’t have to be explained as the three try to piece together what happened the night before.

my rating : 1 of 5

2009