(Long Island, N.Y.) The Raid 2 is a great movie, to be sure. However, I found the first one (The Raid: Redemption) to be a slightly more exhilarating experience, personally; when I reviewed the 2011 original, an Indonesian martial arts action film written and directed by Welsh newcomer Gareth Evans, I called it “the best action movie I had seen in the last decade.” I still feel that way.

The original was the very definition of simple: a SWAT team takes on a building controlled by a local crime lord, fighting their way from the bottom all the way to the top, videogame-style. There was little in the way of plot or dialogue; however, where The Raid delivered was in the departments of personality and bone-crushing, mind-searing action. Featuring the grittiest, most hard-hitting and complexly choreographed fight scenes – starting first with gun-play and eventually giving away to brutal hand-to-hand combat centered on the Indonesian martial art of Pencak Silat – The Raid practically left me breathless throughout its entire running time, coming as a relief after being force-fed the limp offerings that Hollywood has been passing off as “action” for years now.

To me, the sequel really didn’t get quite to that level of pure intensity until the last 30-45 minutes or so of the movie; once the Rama/Hammer Girl/Baseball Bat Man fight starts, the flick really goes into overdrive and gets pretty crazy.

The Raid 2 picks up right where the first movie left off; Rama (Iko Uwais), one of the surviving SWAT team members from the building assault (mostly due to his superhuman martial arts skills), is recruited to go undercover into the criminal underworld to flush out corruption in the police department. He soon finds himself in deep…REALLY deep, and unable to pull out for fear of putting the lives of his family at risk. As they say, the only way out is through…and in this case, “through” means “spilling every drop of blood that can possibly be spilled.” Needless to say, lots of people are maimed and/or killed throughout the course of the movie.

When The Raid 2 was first announced, Gareth Evans spoke extensively of expanding the bare-bones story and adding more drama and actors to the mix, which had me concerned; unfortunately, some of my fears held true when watching the final result. Adding additional story and tons of characters to The Raid 2 really only served to take away some of what made the original so damn effective as a pure, unbridled action movie; breakneck intensity and non-stop action, with a bare-bones story that served to move things along while at the same time not bogging things down. While I don’t mind the idea of a more in-depth story line, the one presented in The Raid 2 was perhaps one of the least original ever- the ol’ “guy goes undercover into the mob by going to jail and befriending the mob boss’ son after demonstrating his fighting abilities to him in a prison brawl and saving his life” kinda deal.

Still, not the end of the world – there are tons of action movies with derivative scripts – and for the most part, it’s conveyed pretty decently here, although the glut of new characters tends to make the proceedings a tad convoluted until the end, where things are tied up rather well. But overall, the story is told in an in-depth way that doesn’t really do it any favors because, at its core, it’s not very interesting; for the most part, you’re just waiting for the talking to end so you can watch the next fight.

Another issue I had with The Raid 2 were the majority of the early action scenes, which almost all for the most part involved variations of one man fighting entire gangs of people in wide-open spaces. While these fights were good, a major action movie flaw reared its ugly head in the form of gang members who politely take turns attacking the hero, one-by-one, instead of rushing him en masse. Awfully nice of them to wait until he had dispatched the guy he was fighting before having a go at him, I must say, but it really killed the realism of it. There were similar fights in the first movie, but since that flick took place in enclosed hallways for the most part, having the hero fight mostly one guy at a time worked better simply because of the lack of space. However, I do recall Rama fighting multiple guys at once – the machete fight comes to mind (he fought 4-5 guys at once with some very complex choreography), and the two-on-one final fight scene with diminutive villain Mad Dog as well, and there’s precious little of that in R2; there’s just fight after fight where one person fights gangs of killers, one at a time.

Don’t get me wrong, however; there’s A LOT to like (hell, love) about The Raid 2. There are TONS of fight scenes in the movie, and they’re all really good. The plot is paced well enough that it doesn’t make you wait too long between fight scenes, and taking the action out of the high-rise building and onto the streets (including a fairly innovative car chase scene) really keeps things fresh. The cinematography is pure art throughout, and the acting is pretty good…at least, as far as I can tell, since everyone is speaking Indonesian and Japanese; but while I’m reading the subtitles, the actors seem to be emoting in a fairly respectable way, so I’ll just assume they’re carrying their weight. Most of the new characters introduced in this installment are cool as well, and the blood/violence level is actually kicked UP a few dozen notches from the first movie, if that was possible. Brutal ain’t the word, kids.

And like I said, things get better as the film goes along, and the last third or so just goes totally berserk starting with Rama vs. Hammer Girl and Baseball Bat Man (WOW, that was good), and then goes on to an absolutely EPIC fight in a kitchen featuring some dude with knives. If the whole movie was like the last third, it would have been the greatest action film ever made, easily. These scenes got my heart pumping like most of the original Raid did for nearly its entire length.

Speaking of Hammer Girl, she’s an excellent new character played by Indonesian actress Julie Estelle…it’s just too bad she’s barely in the movie (the promotion material would lead you to believe she’s one of the stars). The awesome Yayan Ruhian, who played the very memorable character of Mad Dog in the original movie, is back, playing a different character named Prakoso; but while he’s still amazing and tough as nails, he’s not in the movie much either, sadly. Another stand-out among the massive cast was Arifin Putra, who stars as Uco, the upstart son of a wise old gangster desperate to get out from his father’s shadow.

Series lead Iko Uwais still brings the goods, displaying some fantastic martial arts skills, although his character really seems played for a chump by the detective he reports to while undercover. By the end of the movie you really wonder why he’s even bothering continuing with the assignment. The man kicks much tushy, however, so we can forgive him for being gullible. Besides, the guy’s just trying to protect his wife and kid, after all.

The Raid 2 would have been better if The Raid 1 didn’t exist, and if the media hype train wasn’t running full-speed for the sequel, building expectations for it to unobtainable levels. No, it’s not the greatest action movie ever made, but it is a DAMN good one; however, I still contend that the first Raid is the best action movie I’ve seen in the past ten years. Sometimes less IS more.

(Long Island, N. Y.) I like sci-fi, especially when it’s thought-provoking. I never read the original Orson Scott Card novel that Ender’s Game is based on, but that didn’t stop the twist ending from being spoiled for me by some inconsiderate denizen of the internet…a mere three word denouncement ruined everything for me. Lesson learned…if I want to go into a movie-watching experience blind, avoid the internet. Easier said than done, but people are jerks, man.

Anyway, Ender’s Game (both the book and the film adaptation) have been the target of gay rights groups due to homophobic remarks made by author Card in the media over the years, but from what I could tell, his ignorant sentiments don’t seem to appear in any form in the film, so that’s a moot point, I guess. The tale of an unusually gifted child who is sent to an advanced military academy in outer space to prepare for a future alien invasion from an alien race called the “Formics.”

Ender’s Game stars Asa Butterfield as Andrew “Ender” Wiggin, the aforementioned child who is put through the paces at the academy, enduring all manner of tests, simulations, and lessons to prepare him to the ultimate combatant in the upcoming war with an unspeakable alien threat. However, life at the academy is filled with all manner of trials, deceptions, and backstabbing, laced with mind games and conflicts with his fellow students; soon Ender questions what he’s actually being trained for to begin with- is he being bred to be humanity’s savior, or just a cold-blooded killer and pawn of the military?

Ender’s Game, whose ensemble cast also includes Harrison Ford, Hailee Steinfeld, Viola Davis, Abigail Breslin, and Ben Kingsley, is a solid but overall unremarkable sci-fi film that’s probably getting more attention over the boneheaded remarks made by its source material’s author than its inherent quality. True, it’s got a hell of a cast, but honestly, when was the last time Harrison Ford wasn’t phoning in a performance for a quick paycheck? 16 year-old Asa Butterfield as the eponymous Ender acquits himself well, but overall, the film just feels flat, the characters bland and uninteresting, and – from what I’ve been told by those who have read the original book – the originally thought-provoking narrative is rather dumbed-down for the masses in favor of shiny CG explosions and action scenes.

However, things get more interesting as the film reaches its conclusion, but at that point I was so burnt out from the sensation that I was watching nothing but a glorified Nintendo game for the previous hour that I really had trouble caring one way or another. They say a good ending can salvage an otherwise bad or bland film, but when that ending has been spoiled by some dope on the Internet, even that can’t save the day. Of course, a twist is only good once; the film in question has to hold up to repeated viewings without its benefit. Ender’s Game really doesn’t.

So, overall, Ender’s Game is a solid but forgettable sci-fi romp (did I really just call it a “romp”? Oh man, what is wrong with me?), but unless you’re starving for entertainment, I’d advise you to save your hard-earned dollars and wait for Thor: The Dark Word, which opens this week. I’m sure it’ll be worth it.

(Long Island, N. Y.) I’ll admit it…I’m a Jackass fan. From the 2000-2002 MTV television show and the three films that followed, I’ve always gotten a hugely perverse kick out of Johnny Knoxville and his band of mentally unbalanced misfits as they engaged in all manner of skits, pranks, and stunts, most of which involved pain, injury, nudity and/or some form of bodily excrement.

2010’s Jackass 3D, while inspired at times, for the most part just felt like the well had finally run dry. The whole gimmick was just starting to feel forced, and perhaps it was just time for these guys to retire and get normal 9-to-5 jobs. I mean, they’re almost all in their 40’s now…time to grow up, right?

However, to my surprise, there is now a fourth Jackass movie, and it actually succeeds where the previous one faltered. How, you may ask? By upping the ante? Nope…by stripping the Jackass concept down to its core and, believe it or not, taking just one skit and stretching out for the entire duration of a feature-length film. Sounds crazy? Yeah, but that’s Johnny Knoxville for ya.

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa is centered around Knoxville’s Irving Zisman character; hidden under layers of latex and make-up, he plays a cantankerous 86 year old man whose outrageous behavior is tempered by the begrudging slack the victim of his pranks typically gives to the elderly. After all, those old folks can’t help getting their genitals stuck in vending machines, can they?

Much like Sasha Baron Cohen’s Borat character, Bad Grandpa’s gimmick is all about the fact that people generally don’t take the elderly (or, in Borat’s case, foreigners) all that seriously, so when Knoxville rolls into an all-black strip club on ladies’ night in full Zisman mode and offers patrons a “serving of Irving,” the women laugh it off.

Until he drops his drawers and lets it…um, all hang out, so to speak. Then all hell breaks loose, and the harmless old guy is no longer quite so harmless? But hey…it’s all in good fun.

Much like Baron Cohen’s 2006 Borat movie, Bad Grandpa is a series of hidden-camera skits that prey upon the unsuspecting public, loosely stitched together by a storyline involving Zisman taking a road trip with his grandson Billy (Jackson Nicoll). It seems that Billy’s mom is off to jail and the newly-widowed Zisman has his dreams of womanizing dashed when he is reluctantly charged with the task of delivering Billy to live with his deadbeat dad.

What follows is a cross-country journey involving strip clubs, flatulence, bingo halls, shoplifting, corpse humor, property destruction, heavy-handed (and unsuccessful) pick-up techniques, malfunctioning kiddie rides, twisted child beauty pageants, binge drinking…basically all manner of tomfoolery, but, shockingly enough, all tied together with a slight emotional edge and some genuine heart that a film like this desperately needs in order to avoid being just another gross-out comedy. It’s not as gut-bustingly hilarious as perhaps it aspires to be, but it’s still consistently funny and enjoyable.

Knoxville, while displaying his usually comic timing and improvisational abilities, also surprisingly manages to inject Irving Zisman with a bit of a soul as well. Little Jackson Nicoll matches Knoxville’s performance as an adorable, baby-faced boy with the heart of a devil (he reminds me a lot of the Man Show Boy, if anyone remembers that kid). It’s no spoiler to say that, over the course of their road trip, Zisman and Billy form a bond, and that slow-building affection is genuinely touching…when grandpa isn’t blasting diner walls with his excrement, that is.

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa isn’t for everyone; but if the idea of a man and his grandson engaging in a heart-warming afternoon of fishing on the very same bridge that they just tossed grandma’s dead body off of, then Bad Grandpa is for you.

(Long Island, N. Y.) I’m about to make a slight departure from the norm here this week – instead of reviewing a film currently in theaters, I’ll be writing about one that’s being released Direct-To-Video – but not to worry, I’ll be back to my usual format next week. In the meantime, read on…you might actually learn something cool.

While I’m a big horror fan, a notable sub-genre of it – the so-called “found footage” film – has often had very mixed results. Movies like The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity, and any other instance where the story is told through the lens of a lead character’s camcorder, webcam, cell phone, or whatever video recording device you can think of, have become popular. And while, if done right, the found footage genre can produce some immerse storytelling, at times their lack of logic – that someone is constantly feeling the need to film what’s going on despite being menaced by monsters or other dangers – just seems forced and really doesn’t make any sense.

VHS was a direct-to-video title released to video in 2012, but don’t let that fool you…it was actually a pretty solid little film that combined the found footage concept with one of my favorite gimmicks- the “anthology.” As in films like Creepshow, VHS is a series of horror shorts, each directed by a different person, all tied together by a “wraparound” story that plays out over the course of the movie. The overall result was decent enough, but there was plenty of room for improvement.

Enter VHS 2. Released just in time for the Halloween season this month through On-Demand services, Netflix, and DVD/Blu-Ray, this sequel pretty much improves over its predecessor in every way…well, almost. The wraparound story that links the individual segments this time around is actually pretty weak, but the shorts for the most part are great, sans one; let’s briefly take a look at each and see how they measure up.

Tape 49 (Directed by Simon Barrett) This is the wraparound story I mentioned…it involves two sleazy private investigators, Larry and Ayesha, who are looking for some kid that’s disappeared. They track him to a house, where all they find is a laptop, a bunch of TVs, and a mysterious stack of VHS tapes. The laptop contains a webcam recording of the missing kid talking about the tapes, and while Larry investigates the house, Ayesha starts popping tapes into the VCR and watches them….eventually, with disastrous results.

Overall, this segment is pretty stupid. It contains all of the bad clichés of horror-people wandering off alone, doing incredibly stupid things, and generally acting like dullards. Example- Larry finds a dead body, but instead of running for help, hey, let’s pop another tape into the VCR and see what’s on it! Geez. By the way, VHS tapes were an interesting but ultimately odd choice…if Larry and Ayesha were teens instead of grown-ups, they might not even have known what the hell they were.

Phase I Clinical Trials (Directed by Adam Wingard) This segment involves a guy who, after losing his eye in a car accident, is fitted with an experimental cybernetic eye implant for free; the catch that a tiny chip in the device will be recording everything he sees so that the company that created the implant can gauge its effectiveness. Thus, the entire segment is seen from the perspective of the cybernetic eye, which is actually a clever way of getting around the “guy who films everything” nonsense normally associated with the found footage genre.

Unfortunately for the unnamed patient, the visual range of his new eye is a tad TOO sensitive, and he starts picking up on things that no man was meant to see…

Good segment. It builds up quickly, has a solid concept, some very good scares, and some creepy visuals and atmosphere. It’s memorable but rushed; in the end, it’s more of your typical jump-scare laden modern horror, despite the effective twist to the proceedings.

A Ride in the Park (Directed by Eduardo Sánchez and Gregg Hale) This segment was fun…if a film about zombies in the woods eating people could be considered as such. A cyclist (it’s occurring to me as I write this that very few of the characters in this movie have names…nor do they need them, actually) with a “helmet cam” decides to film his “extreme” exploits along the bike path in his local woods; after being attacked and killed by a zombie, he comes back as one of the undead himself and joins in on the carnage.

Again, the “helmet cam” is a nice concept to introduce the found footage concept in an organic and natural way, unlike many movies in this genre (one great example: Cloverfield). This short takes a twisted yet (sort of) lighthearted approach to its storytelling, chronicling the cyclist throughout his death, transformation into a zombie, and his eventual misgivings over his new situation. It’s also gory as hell, for those of you who enjoy such tomfoolery. Another segment that beats out anything in the first VHS film.

Safe Haven (Directed by Timo Tjahjanto and Gareth Huw Evans) THIS is the money shot of VHS 2. Directed by Gareth Evans, the man that gave us the best action movie in the last decade (2011’s The Raid), comes what might be the best horror in the last decade as well. There is no longer any question- the man is legit.

Set in Indonesia, Save Haven depicts a news crew that is allowed to enter into a compound housing a mysterious cult in order to film their rituals. What is initially presented to the news crew is simply an odd bunch of eccentrics led by a strange man they refer to as the “Father.” However what they eventually get is a one-way ticket to hell instead; to say anything more would be a disservice to the viewer, but suffice it to say that this segment is NUTS. It takes a little while to get moving, but the slow build only serves to flesh out the suspense and drive home the point that something is clearly wrong with this cult…but it’s not what you expect.

Filled with violence, gore, and disturbing imagery that will stay with you long after the movie is over, Save Haven makes VHS 2 essential viewing for any serious horror fan; it’s only drawback is that it’s stuck in the middle of another movie and not a standalone effort.

Slumber Party Alien Abduction (Directed by Jason Eisener) The weak link in the chain, aside from the wraparound tale. This segment, involving a group of kids on the giving and receiving end of a prank war with one kid’s sister and her boyfriend that is soon interrupted by a bunch of alien invaders is ultimately pretty lame and, unfortunately, not scary at all. The camera gimmick in this one involves the device being strapped onto a dog, but the concept really doesn’t work; aside from the invaders, who are genuinely creepy to behold, Slumber Party Alien Abduction just comes across as sloppy and amateurish, which grates harshly against the quality and cleverness exhibited in the previous segments of VHS 2.

But overall, VHS 2 is mandatory for your Halloween “to-do” list just for the Safe Haven segment alone; luckily, there are other quality, scary shorts to wade through as well, and even at its worst, VHS 2 is still better than a lot of the horror being churned out these days. Check it out, and…boo!

(Long Island, N. Y.) I didn’t like Machete, director Robert Rodriguez‘s 2007 attempt to expand a fake trailer he made for the violent exploitation spoof “Grindhouse” into a full-length feature film. Now I like its new sequel, Machete Kills, even less.

In theory, Machete should have been awesome. In reality, you can make anything look awesome for 2 minutes, but when you need to pad it out to 90, then the seams start to show, so to speak. Danny Trejo, a re-occurring actor in Rodriguez’s flicks for ages, stars in his first lead as the eponymous Machete, reprising his role from the Grindhouse trailer. He’s plays an ex-Federale who is the most dangerous Mexican on the planet.

Or rather, he would be, if Trejo wasn’t a few months shy of hitting 70 years of age; I thought the guy could barely hobble across the screen in the first movie, but he’s really coming across as broken-down…not the best guy to craft an action movie around, if you ask me. If Rodriguez had made Machete maybe 15 or 20 years ago, Trejo would have been awesome in it, but now it’s just sad. If the proposed third film ever gets made (which probably won’t happen after this past weekend’s lackluster take at the box office), the poor guy’ll need a walker.

The plot of Machete Kills, in theory, should be hilarious fun; Machete is recruited by U.S. President Rathcock (Carlos Estévez, AKA Charlie Sheen acting under his real birth name) to stop a madman from launching a deadly missile aimed at Washington, D.C. in a move that mirrors the James Bond flick Moonraker. The story opens up from there to involve a worldwide criminal organization (again, similar to SPECTRE from the Bond movies) headed up by the evil Luther Voz (Mel Gibson, clearly spoofing his own recent image as a nutty bully).

There’s also an eclectic backing cast comprised from a “who’s who” of celebrities, including Michelle Rodriguez, Sofía Vergara, Amber Heard, Lady Gaga, Antonio Banderas, Cuba Gooding Jr., Jessica Alba…the list goes on and on and on. I guess, on paper, Machete Kills should be good for a laugh, right? Or at least a bout of morbid curiosity?

Nope. Much like the original, Robert Rodriguez found a way to stretch out a gag far beyond its breaking point, taking crazy B-movie action and somehow making it BORING. It doesn’t help that the effects are sub-SyFy movie-level quality, which is strange because Rodriguez is the one man in Hollywood that can make a great-looking film for something like $20, but here the CG blood and explosions look like something out of a Playstation One game. Was this done on purpose to add to the spoof? I don’t know, but I just remember the good old days when every Robert Rodriguez movie WASN’T a spoof; I mean, the man has made some impressive films in the past, but now all he’s interested in doing is winking at the camera.

Now I’m going to cut and paste a small paragraph from my review of the original Machete, because I said this stuff well enough the first time around:

“Too many corny, talky scenes, too much bad digital gore (especially where physical gore effects would have worked better- that’s just lazy), and barely any good laughs brought this movie down several notches for me. Plus, most of the action scenes seemed poorly staged and filmed, which is an oddity in a Robert Rodriguez movie.”

Ah, thank you, Chris. But there are some good gags and some decent action/gore scenes to be had in Machete Kills, and in some ways Rodriguez hits the mark slightly more often than he did in the lackluster first entry in the series; but it’s just not enough, and the overall experience of this movie is one of pain and boredom sprinkled with a laugh here and there.

Machete Kills is bad, and you probably should skip it; but hey, maybe you might find a few fun nuggets to enjoy if you look hard enough. Probably not, however.

(Long Island, N. Y.) Wow. This movie came out of NOWHERE. Well, at least for me. In this day and age of the Internet where films are spoiled left and right months and sometimes even years before they’re released, I can’t believe I didn’t hear anything leading up to the initial trailer of Gravity, directed, co-written, co-produced, and co-edited and directed by Alfonso Cuarón, perhaps best known for directing some of the better-received Harry Potter films.

I saw that first cryptic trailer, and was blown away

by how tense and intense it was, while really showing almost nothing about the film it was advertising. Sandra Bullock and George Clooney were in space, wearing astronaut suits, obviously lone survivors of some sort of unfathomable accident. They were surrounded by floating debris, Bullock spinning out of control into the nether while creaming and pleading for help; the horror of her situation made all the more gripping by the fact that there were no sound effects (it IS space, after all);

just her frantic voice punctuated by her frantic hyperventilating and Clooney’s voice urging for her to hold on as she spun out into the void.

It was a trailer that told everything and yet nothing about the film at the same time, and it really ran in contrast to most modern trailers that spoil all the best bits about a movie before you even have seen the thing. And after seeing it, I knew I had to experience Gravity for myself.

I honestly don’t want to tell you anything more about Gravity, as going in knowing as little as possible will only enhance your viewing pleasure; however, I’ll give you a little more. Just a little.

Dr. Ryan Stone (Bullock), a bio-medical engineer, is on her first space shuttle mission; astronaut Matt Kowalski (Clooney), who is commanding the shuttle Explorer, is a veteran who is on his last. Stone, while spacewalking over to the Hubble Space Telescope, has her tether severed by debris from a Russian anti-satellite test accident and finds herself tumbling out of control into open space. Kowalski rescues her with the aid of a thruster pack on his spacesuit, but upon returning to their point of origin, they discover that the Explorer is effectively destroyed and their crew-mates dead.

Their only hope is to navigate to the International

Space Station, which is 100 kilometers away; however, that pesky Russian space debris is in orbit and the duo only has 90 minutes before it hits them again; this time, they might not make it out alive.

It sounds simple, but there’s so much more to Gravity than that brief plot description; it’s a character study of sorts, set in the vastness of space, and the supreme acting abilities Clooney and Bullock put on display here are a huge part of what makes it so gripping. These two are fantastic together, and they’d better be; for most of the film, they’re the only two actors who appear (others are

heard via radio communications, but not seen). They take a concept that might fall apart in the hands of lesser actors and…well, again, they’re fantastic, and in turn, they make the film fantastic as well.

It also helps that director Alfonso Cuarón is a massively talented individual who knows how to craft an intense, harrowing scene of horror while getting you into the head and emotions of the film’s protagonists; the fact that he can interject such compelling humanity into scenes like this really drives home what a master of his craft he is.

Also of note are the effects and cinematography- this is probably the best representation of film space that I’ve ever seen; it’s totally, 100 percent convincing and

completely crazy and disorienting, as being in actual space would most likely be when there truly is no “up” and “down.” This aspect of Gravity is just masterfully, masterfully done, and heightens the tension to a monolithic degree.

Also, be sure to see Gravity in a theater with a solid sound system, as the sound work is half the and really sells the feeling of isolation endured by the leads, and if you have the ability, I urge you to see Gravity in IMAX for maximum immersion and disorientation. I often consider IMAX a gimmick and not much else, but with the right film, it can be mind-blowing; it is so with Gravity, as several people actually seemed to have trouble walking out of the showing I attended.

Any film that can do that gets a thumbs-up from me. Get out there and see this. Now.

(Long Island, N. Y.) Don Jon represents actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt‘s writing and directing debut, and after watching the film, I can only say that he has tons of potential; however, it’s only glimpsed here and there amid long stretches of tedium and aimlessness.

The film is about a young Jersey Shore-wannabe named Jon Martello (Gordon-Levitt), nicknamed “Don Jon” by his friends for his legendary abilities when it comes to meeting and bedding the ladies at the nightclub they frequent. Little do his friends know, however, that while Jon always manages to seal the deal, so to speak, he’d rather be watching internet porn on his laptop; in fact, he often slips out of bed after his latest sexual conquest has drifted off to sleep to satisfy himself watching videos on Pornhub.com.

And that’s the problem…years of watching porn has apparently warped Jon’s attitudes he’s by himself with a solid internet connection. But can someone actually be addicted to porn?

Despite not really seeing a problem, Jon nonetheless attempts to try something different by getting into a relationship with a floozy he meets at his club- Barbara Sugarman (Scarlett Johansson), an attractive but vain and shallow woman who has a set agenda when it comes to a man, and sets out to mold Jon into that image. Despite that, Jon (thinks that he) falls in love for the first time in his life, but when the two finally have sex, it’s just as unfulfilling as before.

Not helping matters are his mother Angela (Glenne Headly), who is desperate for grandchildren, and his father Jon Sr. (Tony Danza), who…well, is just plain nuts. But a chance encounter with a strange older woman named Esther (Julianne Moore) at a night school class just might set Jon on the path to kicking the porn habit for good and finally connecting with a person for real.

Does Don Jon sound sappy and clichéd? It is and it isn’t. Underneath, it’s your typical romantic comedy about a guy who deviates from society’s narrow definition of “normal” and is forced to conform because being “normal” is equated to being “happy.” However, this is coated with a rough and unique veneer of internet porn addiction, something that is probably going to become a big problem in coming years due to the fact that it’s free and it’s pretty much damn near everywhere. So, Don Jon has a typical theme made more interesting by an interesting plot device.

However, for a comedy, Don Jon isn’t very funny. It made me smile several times, but the big laughs come not from Gordon-Levitt, Johansson, or Moore, but from the great Tony Danza, who plays Jon’s ultra-Italian father as a foul-mouthed, wifebeater-wearing nutcase; it’s a shame he wasn’t in the film more, as he steals every scene he’s in. Gordon-Levitt and Johansson do stand out in their performances, however, especially when it comes to their ultra-Jersey accents and attitudes, which come across as 100 percent authentic; it’s easy to buy into their characters, which helps you get into the story that much more.

But ultimately, Don Jon just kind of plods along without any real focus or humor. It’s entertaining in parts, and very well-made and directed, but it’s still a bland affair. Perhaps some clever editing could have tightened things up, but when the core of the movie isn’t very compelling, chopping out a scene or two here or there can only do just so much.

So, Don Jon is an interesting entry into feature-filmmaking by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and it’s a solid one for an amateur, but it’s just that- amateur.

He’s got the visuals and the acting covered…now he just needs to concentrate on improving his writing and I think he stands to be something to watch in years to come.

(Long Island, N. Y.) You know, I’ve been all but begging Frenchman Luc Besson to get back to directing films after spending years simply writing and producing them. But now that he’s behind the camera again, I’m almost begging him to go back to being a producer again.

In his prime, Besson created some of my very

favorite films…The Professional (AKA Leon), The Fifth Element, The Messenger…all great films that conveyed an awesome sense of action, energy, ultra-quirky characterization, and humor. For a while, he took

a break from helming films to concentrate on his budding production company and breeding a new

generation of protégées such as Oliver Megaton and Pierre Morel. Okay, Megaton is as forgettable as they come, but Morel is a great talent; nonetheless I really started to miss the insane brilliance of Besson’s vision. His style has warts, yes, but it’s also brutally refreshing and unique.

Or at least it was…I know he’s put out a film or two recently that really only screened in Europe, but The Family, an action/comedy flick starring Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Tommy Lee Jones, is his first foray into mass-market movie-making in quite some time, and unfortunately, it’s quite formulaic and, frankly, just not up to par with much of his earlier work.

The setup for The Family is as generic as they come- it’s your typical “fish out of water” film where you know everyone will acclimate and get along in the end. Robert De Niro is Fred Blake, AKA Giovanni Manzoni, a mob snitch who has gone into witness protection with his family after a failed attempt on his life. After screwing up several of their last placements, Manzoni, along with his family – his wife Maggie (Michelle Pfeiffer), son Warren (John D’Leo), and daughter Belle (Dianna Agron) – are shipped off to a small town near Normandy, France, by the FBI agent handling their case, Robert Stansfield (Tommy Lee Jones, and hey! The name ‘Stansfield’ is an obvious reference to Gary Oldman’s character in Besson’s The Professional).

Once there, the family runs into conflict with the town’s inhabitants (the wife runs into snooty grocery store clerks and blows up the shop in retaliation while the son starts a mini-mafia at his school, for example) and are eventually discovered once again by hit-men

hired to kill them, and…well, that’s really all there is to it. It’s a fairly threadbare plot and while the action scenes are pretty much up to par with some of Besson’s better work, the humor and characters tend to fall flat more often than not.

The problem is that most of the characters are actually fairly unlikable at best and actually fairly loathsome at worst. It’s not really the fault of the actors; it’s just that they’re written that way, unfortunately. It isn’t helped that situations are introduced that radically shift the tone of the film, making it hard to laugh at some of the very black humor that pops up here and again throughout The Family. Don’t get me wrong- I LOVE black humor, but it’s a tough plot element to get right; it needs to be wielded like a surgeon’s scalpel, and instead Besson swings it like a hammer. In other words, it just doesn’t always work, but oddly, I’ve seen blacker humor succeed in other movies…maybe Besson is just rusty.

So, overall, The Family is disappointing but it does grant me my wish of the return of Luc Besson; now if I could only get the Luc Besson of 20 years ago; THEN I’d be happy. Perhaps I should have worded my wish more carefully.

(Long Island, N. Y.) 2011’s Insidious, directed by Saw creator James Wan, was a great little horror movie made on the cheap that relied on a thick atmosphere of dread, solid acting, and good, old-fashioned scares that were refreshing in this day and age of lame horror flicks and pointless remakes. It was one of the few modern movies that I’ve seen that really managed to get an audience involved (another that comes to mind is the first Paranormal Activity); people at screenings I attended were yelling, screaming, and talking to the screen, which is ever the hallmark of a great movie.

Of course, Insidious did major bank at the box office, but how could it not? It was a good movie that got widespread word-of-mouth, and it only cost something like a million bucks to make. Personally, with the success of such movies and several high-profile, big-budget flops this summer, I think Hollywood will eventually sit up and take notice. I’m hoping that this means we’ll be getting more cheap movies that take chances because studios aren’t sweating making back the $200+ million that they sank into the budget. And, maybe we’ll start seeing a whole lot less remakes and sequels and more original concepts and off-the-wall ideas? Hey, it’s a thought.

In the meantime, we’re getting a sequel to Insidious, entitled Insidious: Chapter 2, and we already know it’ll be another money-maker for Wan and the studio that backed it, because while the budget was blown up for this new installment, it still only cost $5 million to make; based on the good will (or, since it’s a horror movie, would that be ill will?) its predecessor generated, Chapter 2 should make back its investment on opening night alone…from there, it’s all gravy.

I won’t get too into the plot details other than to recap the basics, since the original ended on somewhat of a cliffhanger: Insidious was the tale of Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson) and his wife Renai (Rose Byrne), whose son possessed an ability to project his “astral form” into a place called The Further, which is kind of like a waiting room for dead spirits to hang out in until they figure out that they’re actually dead. Anyway, their son’s spirit gets lost in The Further, and the Lamberts enlist Elise Ranier (Lin Shaye), a woman with psychic abilities, to help guide Josh into The Further to find his lost son before lost ghosts hijack the kid’s empty body. This leads to a confrontation with a demon who looks like a cross between Darth Maul and a ballerina…wait, what?

In fact, that’s the one point in an otherwise chilling and scary movie where Insidious went off the rails- building up the big, scary boogeyman the entire time, but when the curtain is finally drawn aside…he’s actually almost laughable. No, not almost, he WAS laughable. Seriously, if they couldn’t come up with a scary-looking dude, they should have just continued to keep him hidden. But they didn’t, and Darth Maul remained the one wart on an otherwise great film.

Insidious: Chapter 2 picks up right where the end of the first film left off, with Josh seemingly possessed by this creepy old lady spirit who has been haunting him since he himself was a kid. It seems that she jumped into his body while he was guiding his son home out of The Further (he thought it would be a good idea to stop and taunt her, the dummy), and Chapter 2 deals with the repercussions of Josh’s possession (no one knows at first, despite Josh killing Elise by strangling her), and the origins of the “old woman” that is currently inhabiting his body (hint: she’s…um, not quite what you think) and the quest to retrieve the real Josh, whose soul is trapped in The Further. What follows is…well, a lot like the stuff that happened in the first movie, actually.

And that’s the weak point of Insidious: Chapter 2. It feels less like its own movie and more like a Greatest Hits version of the original. The sequel hits a lot of the same beats as the first one and many of the scary events feel almost recycled. That’s not to say that there are no original bits of spookiness in Chapter 2, but after the fresh-feeling experience of the first movie (despite it being somewhat derivative of films like Poltergeist), it is a bit of a disappointment not to have that same type of experience this time around.

But Chapter 2 is still a very good horror movie with some excellent jumps, and I’m astounded that James Wan is capable of churning out so many quality films so quickly. I mean, didn’t The Conjuring just come out, what, a month or two ago? And he’s currently filming the next entry on the Fast and Furious series (replacing director Justin Lin)? The man is a machine, I’m telling you. And it helps that his cast is uniformly superb, with Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne really standing out and getting you to feel their respective plights. It’s something that most horror films can’t be bothered with…normally, they’re just interested in getting to the next kill or sex scene.

So, while not quite as good as the original, Insidious: Chapter 2 is still a worthy entry in a noteworthy and effective horror series. Plus, you know it’ll make tons of dough, and the ending leaves everything wide open for a sequel, so I think it’s safe to say that Wan and company will be making yet another trip into The Further again soon. I’m looking forward to it.

(Long Island, N. Y.) I liked 2000’s Pitch Black, the first of the Vin Diesel-starring sci-fi film series about convicted killer and all-around nasty dude Richard B. Riddick. It was a tense action/horror movie pitting a group of people marooned on an alien planet in the middle of an eclipse and stuck between vicious predator life forms that only come out in the dark and Riddick, a bad guy who can see in the dark and who may or may not be their ally. It was gritty and action-packed, and, more importantly, it was Diesel’s breakout role.

Its sequel, 2004’s The Chronicles of Riddick…not so much. Eschewing the grit and horror elements in favor of cheesy and over-the-top fantasy elements seemingly ripped off from the David Lynch film adaptation of Dune, I can honestly say I’ve never seen it in its entirety; I’ve just caught snippets on cable throughout the years, and I’ve never liked what I’ve seen. The series seemed, much like The Matrix movies, to be an example of a director doing well within financial constraints but blowing it big time when given the chance to do a big-budget follow-up.

Thankfully, writer/director David Twohy and producer/star Diesel, have taken the series back to its roots, either through good sense or just because of the fact that no one was willing to drop another 100 large on a Riddick movie after the last one barely broke even. Regardless, Riddick, despite having a silly title (like when Sly Stallone called Rambo 5 “Rambo”), still manages to bring the goods, redeeming the series and functioning as a great standalone entry at the same time.

Short plot recap- Riddick, who heads up the so-called Necromonger empire after driving a knife up to the hilt into the brain of the previous leader in the last movie, is getting kinda antsy being the big cheese and starts longing to discover his long-lost home world. Making a deal to appoint a new leader in exchange for a ship to search out his planet, Riddick is instead betrayed and barely survives an assassination attempt. Left stranded and wounded on a hostile alien world, it’s just Riddick and his deadly guile, strength, and skill against two crack teams of bounty hunters who are on the hunt for his head…

I’m a fan of Vin Diesel. I feel his dramatic talents as an actor are under-utilized and often under-appreciated and he’s got the physical credentials to make for a great action star; I honestly thought he had a great shot at inheriting the crown from the likes of Arnold himself. Some bad film choices over the years have unfortunately caused him to fall short of that goal, but he’s finally found lasting success with his entertaining Fast and Furious series, and, to a lesser degree, Riddick. Anyway, Diesel is in prime form here…Riddick is typically a calm, cool killing machine with a dry wit, which doesn’t really require a great deal of range when it comes to delivery, Diesel still manages to infuse the role with intensity and drive; it’s like he’s missed playing the role, and he knew this movie was a make-or-break opportunity for the franchise. As a result, he really seems to give Riddick his all, and he delivers, bringing back all the fun traits about the character that made Pitch Black so enjoyable 13 years ago. It helps that he’s also in tip-top shape in this installment.

His backing cast is, for the most part, also good. Karl Urban, Judge Dredd himself, reprises his role from The Chronicles of Riddick, and he’s joined by other underrated yet suburb actors such as Bokeem Woodbine, Jordi Molla, Matt Nable, Katee Sackhoff, and even former WWE wrestler Dave Bautista, who seems to be making quite a film career for himself as a cinematic badass. He’s surprisingly not bad it, actually…especially since he’s already a big, scary-looking dude to begin with.

Visually, Riddick is impressive in that it does a lot with a relatively small budget. Yeah, I just called $38 million “relatively small,” but in an era where blockbusters are hitting $200 large and higher, $38 million is considered “small.” But what the filmmakers manage to do with this “paltry” sum more illustrates how $100+ million budgets are apparently squandered than anything else; for a sci-fi movie set on an alien planet and featuring fearsome and large CG monsters, Riddick in no way looks or feels cheap at $38 million, even if it does take place on a smaller scale than its 2004 predecessor.

Featuring a slow burn of a pace that lends it a more thoughtful air as it ramps up its pace as it goes along, great action scenes, and a solid story and effects work, Riddick is a great return to form for both Vin Diesel and the franchise. The ending leaves it open for another installment, and given the relatively cheap production cost, it seems likely that we will be getting another journey into the wacky world of Richard B. Riddick again in the future. Hey, I’m all for it.