(Long Island, N.Y.) Is it a compliment to say that a movie isn’t nearly as horrible as I was expecting it to be? That it was actually, shockingly, okay? I…I guess it is. Such is Priest, a new sci-fi vampire flick starring Paul Bettany, who you probably know as the voice of Iron Man’s wise-ass computer, JARVIS. Based on the trailers, I was expecting the viewing of this film to cause me the utmost in physical and mental pain, but to my surprise, it actually ended up being solid. Not great, not bad, but solid.

Stick around folks…I’m going to be using a lot of middle-of the-road clichés to describe this one. First off, let’s get the bad stuff out of the way. The plot of Priest is laughably bad and, quite honestly, makes almost no sense. The movie starts with a cartoon animation recap of the ongoing war between humanity and vampires, showing how the humans have been getting their butts kicked for centuries until the Church unleashes their specially-trained vampire-killing warriors, called (what else?) “Priests.”

Now, this is stupid in the sense that it’s established that the vampires in Priest don’t really have the traditional undead resistance to injury and death; yeah, sunlight kills ’em good, but so does just about anything else. Guns, knives, anything. No one mentions wooden stakes, silver bullets, or targeting specific areas of their anatomy, and we constantly see Priests knocking off vamps with relative ease. So, given this fact, we’re expected to believe that a handful of kung-fu clergy can do what vast armies backed by tanks and rockets and flamethrowers can’t? Like I said, stupid.

Anyway, to keep the citizens safe, the Church constructs huge walled cities for them to live in, and the Priests (who have goofy crosses tattooed on their faces) easily whoop the vampire menace using only edged weapons and their fists. The straggler vamps are rounded up and forced into reservations like Native Americans, which begs the question: why? Why not just kill them off altogether if they pose such a threat? But of course, that would be smart.

No longer needed, the Priests are demoted to the scrubs of society, shunned and feared by the general populace and are only able to get the crappiest of crappy jobs. Anyone see the Vietnam Veteran reference here, besides everyone?

Well, guess what? The vamps are rising up once again and attack a small homestead out in the Wild West-style wastelands that surround the cities, kidnapping the niece of Paul Bettany’s Priest character, known only as “Priest.” Priest asks Monsignor Orelas, the Church’s leader, if he can go and look for her, but despite having saved humanity a million times over, he is treated like a total loser, and his request is denied for basically no good reason whatsoever. So, of course, Priest basically says “F You” by breaking his vows and goes anyway, drawing the ire of the Church who pulls four other retired Priests away from shoveling elephant poo (or whatever they do to pass the time these days) to hunt him down.

Really, the actions of Monsignor Orelas are just silly. Who cares if some nobody wants to split and look for family out in the middle of nowhere?

However, the kidnapping of Priest’s niece was no mere coincidence, but in fact a calculated move by the evil half-human/half-vampire Black Hat (Karl Urban, who always brings the goods to any role he plays). Why? And will the Church catch and punish Priest for breaking his vows? Will Priest stop the dastardly vampire plot to invade the city? I know, but I ain’t tellin’!

Yeah, so Priest is decent. Like I’ve been going

out of my way to point out throughout this review thus far, there’s a lot of stupid elements peppering the otherwise threadbare plot of this movie, but once you get past them, you’ll find Priest to be a well-paced action movie with some pretty good fight scenes and some adequate CG (told you I’d be using a lot of middle-of the-road clichés here). It helps massively if you go in with expectations of agony and despair, as you might even be shocked that, despite its flaws, Priest doesn’t really supply much in the way of either. I mean, it was entertaining. Stupid, but entertaining. The vampire design is pretty freaky, too.

Paul Bettany seems to do fine in physical roles, and is pretty convincing as a warrior in this movie. He doesn’t do much in the way of acting, but the role doesn’t really ask him to do anything other than growl out a line here or there, so I guess that’s unimportant. Karl Urban (watch for him in the upcoming new Judge Dredd movie!) plays a character that requires a bit more in terms of range, and he manages to effectively come off as creepy, smug, and all-around evil. It’s a pretty cool part he plays, and he pretty much is the only aspect of Priest that stands out in any real way. This is of little surprise if you

saw how wonderfully he played Leonard “Bones” McCoy in J.J. Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek reboot

(speaking of which, when is that ever getting a sequel? Is Abrams waiting for the new cast to get as old as the original cast? Sheesh).

One other issue I have with Priest is the film’s sense of style; the human city itself is very Blade Runner-ish, but once we leave its walls, everything gets this Wild West vibe which clashes badly with the movie’s otherwise futuristic sensibilities. Outland people in Priest live in wooden cabins, listen to records played on gramophones, and light up dark places with oil lanterns. It just seems like a contrived and goofy design choice when people are also zipping around on jet motorcycles that go over 300 miles per hour and wield Bibles that fire swarms of transforming super shurikens.

So, if you’ve already seen better movies like Thor and Fast Five and your action movie fix still needs…um, fixing, Priest just might be your answer. Just remember…”low expectations.”

(Long Island, N.Y.) “Thor? Well, it hurts.” Get it? GET IT? No? Well, it helps if you say it with a lisp…

Okay, bad jokes aside, let’s just jump into this week’s review: Thor, the latest Marvel Comics character to get the big-screen treatment. Now, if you’ve read this column before (and you do every week, don’t you?), you’ll know that I love superhero movies. As a

big-time comic book fan growing up, these characters represent a large part of my childhood, and getting to see them actually come alive on film is something of a nostalgic thrill for me. X-Men, Iron Man, Spider-Man…all good stuff. And the upcoming Captain America flick looks pretty amazing, too.

As for Thor, I was more of a casual fan. I’ve read a few issues of his comic, and I know the basics, but I’m not the type of crazed fan who could pick out every little change director Kenneth Branagh made when translating the adventures of the mystical hammer-wielding Asgardian God of Thunder to the screen. Still, given that the Thor comic is wrought with Shakespearian melodrama in-between hammer-clobberings and lightning strikes, a Bard-obsessed filmmaker like Branagh is a perfect fit. Add in a stellar cast such as Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, and Anthony Hopkins, and how could you go wrong? Well, in a few ways actually, but that doesn’t stop Thor from being a very good movie regardless of a few warts.

For newbies to the world of Norse mythology upon which the Thor comic is based, our film takes place in the realm of Asgard, home of the Gods. Odin (Anthony Hopkins), king of Asgard, banishes his mighty and noble yet butt-headed son Thor (Chris Hemsworth) to Earth, stripped of his godly powers, after breaking the peace between Asgard and Frost Giants of Jotunheim. Don’t get me wrong, Thor had the best of intentions, but still, he messed up, and Odin had to make an example of him, you know? Of course, this plays into the hands of Thor’s evil brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston), whose desire for power (don’t all evil guys have that?) will now run unchecked.

Thor finds himself stranded on Earth in mortal form, without his hammer Mjolnir, the source of his power. You see, Odin cast a spell on the hammer so only someone worthy can lift it – kind of a Sword in the Stone deal – and since I’m not in this movie to usurp Thor’s power, you know that it’s only a matter of time before Thor gains the humility and honor he needs to be deemed worthy once again of wielding Mjolnir.

Along the way, Thor gets into a romance with scientist Jane Foster (Oscar-winner Natalie Portman), adjusts to wacky mortal customs, gets into some fights, and eventually heads back to Asgard for his big showdown with Loki. Never guessed the movie would progress like that, huh?

Overall, Thor is a good movie, albeit one that takes few chances or makes any real attempt to deviate from (very) established cinematic clichés. The story, while well-told, is always what you expect. And when it’s not what you expect, it’s actually kind of stupid. For example, when Thor arrives on Earth, he’s suddenly very hungry and starts eating everything he can get his hands on. What, he didn’t eat in Asgard? But, despite just discovering food, two seconds later comes a scene where he’s suddenly cooking eggs for everyone. Oh, and then one second he’s beating the crap out of mortals, and then, for no reason whatsoever, he wants to start protecting them. Why? I don’t know! Oh, and let’s not forget the fact that Thor and Jane have about maybe 47 seconds of meaningful dialogue in this movie before falling hopelessly in love with one another. Of course, that happens in every movie, so we can hardly be surprised here, now can we?

Aside from quibbles like that, Thor does indeed bring a lot of positives as well. The realm of Asgard is beautifully realized using some pretty great CG, and the action scenes are all intense, hard-hitting, and visually impressive. But where Thor excels is the acting; the cast members are all well-chosen and really take a bite out of their roles. Hemsworth is charming and physically intimidating as Thor, Hiddleston subtly menacing as Loki, and Hopkins plays Odin with all the grandiose flair you’d expect of a production of King Lear. Portman is good, playing your typical Hollywood love interest/chick in distress, but alas, she doesn’t even approach the level of performance she turned in doing Black Swan, for which she won an Oscar. But hey, maybe she was tired.

Of course, Thor takes place in the new Marvel Cinematic Universe; Marvel Comics is now producing their own movies, which gives them the opportunity to finally

crossover their characters in the upcoming superhero team-up movie The Avengers, due out next year. Teaming up the God of Thunder with Iron Man, The Hulk, and Captain America, among others, Thor has several references to the Avengers film scattered about during its running time, especially if you wait until after the credits…

So, while not perfect, Thor is a very worthy addition to Marvel’s live-action line-up. You’re likely to enjoy it to some degree even if you’re not familiar with the comic, as the filmmakers took an approach that has made this film very accessible to the general public while littering it with enough comic references to

keep the rabid fan-boys happy. However, I’m already looking past Thor and forward to Captain America: The First Avenger, due out in theaters in just a few months. Now THAT film I have VERY high hopes for, based on the stellar trailers. Of course, it’s a trailer’s job to look good (how many bad movies have great trailers?), but let’s just hope for the best, okay?

(Long Island, N.Y.) I’m so happy I live in a world where a totally sick, depraved movie like Hobo With A Shotgun can be made. For those of you who don’t know, Hobo With A Shotgun started life as a fake trailer directed by Jason Eisener, made for a contest to promote 2007’s Grindhouse, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino‘s quaint double-feature tribute to over-the-top exploitation flicks. The Grindhouse feature itself was peppered with silly, bogus trailers for a laugh, and fans were invited to also submit their own home-made previews for non-existent movies, with eventual winner Hobo With A Shotgun actually being screened with Grindhouse in a few showings.

Reaction to Eisener’s trailer, which told the tale of a homeless bum who takes the law into his own grimy, disgusting hands with the aid of a pump-action Remington, was favorable enough that someone actually gave this psycho director money to make a full-length feature out of it, and as a result, the world is a brighter place to live in.

This makes Hobo With A Shotgun the second fake trailer from Grindhouse to get the full movie treatment, the first being Robert Rodriguez’s own Machete, but since we’re talking about movies today that don’t completely suck, let’s just stick with Hobo With A Shotgun, shall we?

In a major(ly awesome) surprise, Rutger Hauer was announced to be taking over the role of the eponymous Hobo in the film from David Brunt, who played him in the Grindhouse trailer (don’t worry, Brunt shows up in another role here). This piece of casting is simply inspired, as Hauer is and always has been awesome, and it’s obvious that he gives this role everything he has.

So, let’s get to the plot recap section of the review…Hobo With A Shotgun is about…well, a Hobo With A Shotgun, really. I…um…er…

Okay, I’m stopping the review here for a second. I just want to make it clear here that I’m about to give a glowing review to a film that most people will probably be disgusted by, or at the very least mildly annoyed. This movie has little in the way of plot, character development, or redeeming social or political messages or content. What is DOES have is non-stop, wanton violence, gore, and depravity. How this makes Hobo With A Shotgun a great movie is that it’s probably one of the very few I’ve ever seen that actually delivers on the premise of its trailer, and then some. Unlike Robert Rodriguez’s Machete, Hobo doesn’t water down its content by trying to tell a multi-faceted story spanning multiple characters, or by giving its main character a (*chuckle*) conscience…it simply embraces the exploitation genre it’s paying homage to and spills as much blood as possible while leaving the whole “delivering a message” thing to less manly filmmakers. I love its purity and single-mindedness of purpose.

Okay, back to the review: Rutger Hauer is a Hobo who just arrived in Hope Town (AKA Scum Town to its residents). He dreams of one day owning his own lawnmower and starting a lawn mowing business. The local pawn shop just so happens to be offering a nice little lawnmower for the reasonable price of $49.99, and the Hobo sets out to earn the dough, mostly by begging and degrading himself.

Hope Town is a cesspool of violence, drugs, prostitution, and police corruption, and just when the Hobo has earned enough money to buy his lawnmower, he witnesses a crime taking place and decides to do his civic duty. Instead of his beloved lawnmower, the Hobo spends his $49.99 on something far more entertaining for the audience: a shotgun! And with this shotgun, he lays waste to dozens of hoods, criminals, and perverts, washing the streets of Hope Town clean in a torrent of blood.

Of course, such activity attracts the attention of the criminal bosses of Hope Town, such as The Drake (Brian Downey) and his henchmen, including Rip and Grinder (Nick Bateman and Peter Simas). What results is an uplifting sit-down discussion between the involved parties which ends not in bloodshed or dismemberment, but in mutual respect, compromise, and above all else, peace.

Yeah, right. You didn’t believe that one for a second, didn’t you?

Hobo With A Shotgun is just crazy. It’s basically wall-to-wall blood and guts and one-liners and nothing else from beginning to end, and after enduring years and years of modern action films lacking any real grapefruits, so to speak, it’s refreshing to see one with a completely ruthless hero who just destroys the bad guys without a shred of remorse. The Hobo’s weapon of choice is wonderfully over-powered; one blast from his shotgun sends its recipient hurtling in an explosion of crimson goo for what seems like 20 feet. Just beautiful. If Rutger Hauer could team up with my hero, Liam Neeson, and make Taken 2, my life would be complete.

Other than Hauer, who displays his obvious talent and delivers a performance that, to be honest, probably belongs in a better caliber of film, the only other actor of note is Molly Dunsworth as Abby, the clichéd “hooker with a heart of gold.” You know…clean, attractive, willing to do the right thing, and not at all disease-ridden…in other words, a fictional character (sorry if any prostitutes are reading this). Everyone else in this movie hams it up, which is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what you expect out of a movie entitled “Hobo With A Shotgun.”

Hobo With A Shotgun is a campy, bloodstained affair destined to be revered in the near-future as a cult classic. It’s certainly not for everybody (that’s putting it mildly), but for those who love extreme, tongue-in-cheek action and gore, it’s hard to top this one, folks.

(Long Island, N.Y.) I just can’t get enough of the Fast and the Furious. I can’t explain why…well, I CAN, but it probably wouldn’t sway anyone who feels it’s just a series of vapid, poorly-acted, flashy action movies with no real redeeming value, mainly because they’d be right. Fast Five, the latest installment in the Furious series of street car racing/crime caper movies is all that and more, but to me, that’s not its weakness; that’s its strength. Fast Five doesn’t aspire to be anything more than an excuse to show off hot cars, hot women, hot action, and bad dialogue, and it revels in it.

In the last movie, 2009’s Fast and Furious…well, to be honest, I don’t remember much about that movie. As I said, these flicks are fun but ultimately hollow; you may enjoy them, but damned if you can’t remember what the heck happened 15 minutes later. Anyway, street racing legend and wanted criminal Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel in the only role that’s brought him any real success, sadly) is busted out of a prison bus by his buddy and former cop, Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) while Toretto is being carted off to the big house.

From there, the two split up and head south. Waaay south.

Later, the two meet up in Brazil, along with Dominic’s sister Mia (Jordana Brewster), and they attempt to pull off a heist involving some cars that ends up getting some DEA agents killed. This puts them on

the wrong side of DSS federal agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson, AKA

The Rock) and a local hood named Hernan Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida). On the run from

both the law and the lawless, Dominic and Brian gather together pretty much everyone

who’s ever been in a

Fast and Furious movie (except Tokyo Drift’s Lucas Black, who keeps getting the short end of the stick in this franchise due to his installment taking place last, chronologically speaking) and plan to pull off the ultimate heist before disappearing forever. Or, at least until they release Super Six next year, or whatever clever name they come up with for it.

What can I say about Fast Five that I haven’t already said? Well, when most movie series reach number five, they’re usually dragging their feet pretty badly, but in the hands of director Justin Lin, who helmed the last two flicks, the Furious series is just getting started, baby! Fast Five is fresh, exciting, and action-packed. As usual, the story doesn’t matter, the lines are terrible (but not quite as bad as usual), but the movie is so fast-paced and looks so pretty that you won’t care.

Also, there’s something to be said about the novelty of having so many returning cast members. If your series spans five movies, you’re sure to rack up a decent-sized supporting crew, and while you wouldn’t miss characters like Han Lue (Sung Kang) and Roman Pearce (Tyrese Gibson) if they weren’t there, their inclusion actually helps the film as a whole. Hell, even that slimy Vince (Matt Schulze) from the first movie shows up this time around. I’m really hoping that Super Sonic Six takes place in Japan, the location of Tokyo Drift, which is one of my personal favorites in this series, even if Lucas Black looked 45 while playing a high schooler in that one.

Of course, the glue that holds this series together is Vin Diesel. You know this is true, because what’s the one installment no one cares about? If you said 2 Fast 2 Furious, you’d be right, since it was totally Diesel-less. Tokyo Drift at least benefited from a surprise Diesel cameo at the end, in addition to (at the time) series newcomer Justin Lin’s expert direction. It’s just a shame that most of big Vin’s movies outside of the Furious series have been duds, since the man is a good actor and a huge bad-ass to boot. If anyone could have inherited the Action Hero crown from Arnold, it could have been Diesel…not sure what went wrong there. Oh yea, crap movies like “XXX” and “Babylon A.D.,” that’s what.

And the addition of Dwayne Johnson into the mix, yet another seemingly washed-up action star wanna-be, seriously helped to add some extra excitement to the proceedings. Johnson has size, he has charisma, and he has the physical ability…but unfortunately, up until now, his choice in movie scripts has made Diesel’s look like that of a world-renowned Oscar-caliber thespian on the box office roll of a lifetime. But perhaps Fast Five is a sign that The Rock is finally on the path to greatness. I doubt it, since this is the man who just recently starred in “The

Tooth Fairy,” for Disney, but it’s a start. At least the much-hyped fisticuffs showdown between Johnson and Diesel’s characters in Fast Five is pretty damn good.

So, you want a fantastic, fun, stylish, no-brains action movie? Fast Five fills that order, and then some. Check it out.

(Long Island, N.Y.) As a film critic, I occasionally get the privilege of actually getting to write my opinion of some truly great movies…but mostly, I have to wade through a lot of crap. Now, don’t get me wrong, ripping a bad movie a new one via pounding out a few paragraphs on my keyboard can be a lot of fun, but in the case of Scream 4, the new installment in Wes Craven’s horror franchise that nobody asked to be revived (10 blissful years have passed since Scream 3), it was more work than pleasure.

Craven (the now past-his-prime creator of A Nightmare on Elm Street) started the once-successful series back in 1996 as a parody of horror movie standards and clichés, but after three sequels Scream has simply become that which it once openly mocked. Good horror movies are already scarce these days…why dig up old bad ones and subject us to them as well?

You see, the whole gist of the Scream movies is that the characters are aware of the so-called “rules” of standard horror movies and they do their best to avoid doing the stupid things that stupid people do in horror movies that always end up getting them killed. Of course, this just meant that they’d come up with all-new stupid ways of dying instead. The first Scream handled this with some degree of success, which unfortunately led to a glut of cheesy tongue-in-cheek horror flicks in the 90’s that were a far cry from the (some would say) real horror flicks of the 70’s and 80’s. I, for one, was glad when that trend dried up and blew away.

Anyway, Scream 4 (or “SCRE4M” as the super-lame marketing types write it) continues the story of Ghostface, a masked killer whose identity changes with each installment. Series mainstay Neve Campbell returns as Sidney, the one victim that keeps surviving each movie. By this installment Sidney’s penned a tell-all book about her experiences with the Ghostface killers, and when she returns to her hometown (and scene of the previous killings) of Woodsboro to promote it…well, you’re all a smart lot, you guess what happens. Yup, someone else adopts the Ghostface identity and starts whacking numbskull teens, making Sidney a suspect in the process.

What follows is a fairly lame film that treads familiar waters, but after four entries, simply regurgitating horror movie clichés with a wink and a nod isn’t nearly as cleaver as it used to be. Instead, it just makes Scream into what it set out to make fun of to begin with; a parody of itself, so to speak. The problem, however, is that the filmmakers still think they’re being all “hip” and “cool” with the kids when Scream is now just viewed as a dated relic of the 90’s.

The other two returning actors from the series, David Arquette and Courteney Cox, add next to nothing to the proceedings, and the new gaggle of teenaged chowder-heads…um, excuse me, “actors” (haha)…are just there to line up

for the chopping block as random, faceless victims to Ghostface, a cinema serial killer not even fit to polish

Jason Voorhees’ machete. The film’s over-reliance on horror movie conventions, base, unfunny humor, a pretty mindless “whodunit” plot, and about 20 minutes or so that

should have ended up on the cutting room floor (in other words, this movie’s too long) all add up to you putting your cash back into your wallet and spending it elsewhere on something more worthwhile…say, toe clippers, or a hairnet. Perhaps a toilet paper cozy?

Still, I can’t bring myself to totally, 100% hate Scream 4, and there’s a dumb reason for that: in our era of endless reboots and remakes, this is one series that actually revived itself with an honest-to-goodness sequel. That’s amazing. Granted, it’s a rotten sequel that no one wanted, but not starting over from scratch is almost refreshing nowadays. That said, I hope Wes Craven waits another ten years before trying the next sequel.

So, in closing, if you just so happen to have a horror movie itch that needs scratching,

go out and support James Wan’s excellent Insidious instead of Scream 4. Trust me on this…your pal Chris wants you to have an entertaining movie viewing experience, not a physically painful one. It’s my job, after all.

(Long Island, N.Y.) Hanna is one of those quirky European action movies that occasionally find themselves getting a wide release in the States. Personally, I happen to like these kinds of movies. Remember how I’m always going on and on about Liam Neeson’s wonderful 2008 film Taken? French-made, baby. American action movies haven’t had teeth since the glory days of the late 80’s/early 90’s, but over in Europe, they know how to make a bad-ass flick with personality. Hanna is such a film, directed by Brit Joe Wright and starring Irish teen actress Saoirse Ronan (don’t ask me how to pronounce it) in the title role as a girl raised in the snowy wilderness of Finland (the Death Metal capital of the world, I believe) and trained to be a brutal assassin by her father, Erik Heller (Eric Bana).

The reason they’re living so completely off the grid (hell, Hanna has never experienced television or even seen electricity itself at work in any way) is that they’re hiding from Marissa Viegler (Cate Blanchett, aping what I think is a supposed to be a bad Southern U.S. drawl), an evil CIA agent who’s very interested in tracking down Erik and his deadly little daughter for reasons unknown.

One day, after Hanna has finally proven herself capable of kicking daddy’s posterior multiple times (after a series of Kato-style sneak attacks) after a short lifetime of daily, intense training, Erik decides she’s ready to pursue the goal she’s been specifically trained for: killing Marissa Viegler, who had murdered Hanna’s blue-haired hippie of a mother many years ago. Erik presents Hanna with a GPS that, when activated, will enable Viegler to track her down. Erik splits the scene, leaving Hanna to be apprehended by some commandos. In custody, the sweet-looking little girl succeeds in her mission of killing Viegler by snapping her neck…or so she thinks. In reality, it was a double sent in by the savvy Viegler, who apparently knows something about Hanna and her abilities that we the audience aren’t privy to at this point of the movie.

So, thinking she’s killed Viegler, Hanna escapes from the compound where she was being held to rendezvous with her father in Germany, but not before discovering a medical file on her, revealing that her DNA is “abnormal.” What exactly does that mean? I don’t know, but maybe it has something to do with why Hanna can beat up adult men who outweigh her by over 100 pounds. Anyway, Hanna is left to ponder this while hitching a ride with a family of tourists, not knowing that the quite-alive Viegler has summoned some of her deadliest killers to rub the girl out.

Hanna was a really solid little movie. I had read an early review comparing it to the great Luc Besson’s 1994 masterpiece The Professional (AKA Leon), and while I wouldn’t go that far (actually, I wouldn’t even come close to going that far), Hanna still manages some of the feats achieved by Besson’s film: charming (if not very fleshed-out) main characters, overall quirkiness, and brutal violence. There’s not much at all to the story (and that’s being kind), and there’s points where the proceedings drag a tad (but these instances don’t last long), but overall, the movie is well-paced, filmed with a stylish flair, and scored amazingly by British electronica duo The Chemical Brothers, who supply a pumping techno beat to the proceedings.

Acting-wise, Hanna is solid. Saoirse Ronan (who had previously starred in Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones) is an interesting casting choice for the title character. She’s quite talented in front of the camera, no doubt, but the thin, pale, delicate and wide-eyed actress is probably the last person you’d ever suspect of being able give you a proper beat-down; this makes it all the more surprising (and fun) when she does so. Eric Bana always brings the goods, no matter if he’s playing The Hulk, a Romulan, or a rogue ex-CIA agent training his kid to be Bruce Lee with an attitude. He lays on a thick accent here (I think it’s supposed to be Scottish? Or Cockney? Not sure), which is a lot more effectively maintained than Cate Blanchett’s wanna-be Cajun speech patterns. And speaking of Blanchett, she ended up being the only actor in the movie that just did nothing for me. I’m not sure if it was her bad accent, her character’s wishy-washy attitude (she seems all evil and corrupt, but several lame attempts are made to try and “humanize” her, which just don’t work), or perhaps that Blanchett was just phoning it in, but I found her the least compelling part of the picture.

Oh, and the old guy living in the mushroom house…where the hell did they find that weirdo? Sheesh.

So, Hanna is good. Not great, not amazing, and certainly not a match for Luc Besson’s The Professional like one insane reviewer claimed, but I still enjoyed it. It’s offbeat and unique (like many European movies are), and despite the threadbare story and poorly-developed characters, Hanna succeeds because of its personality and fluid action scenes. Check it out.

(Long Island, N.Y.) Considering that Insidious was made by the writing/directing team that gave birth to Saw, which has become the inbred, trailer trash grease stain of the horror movie world (although the original film had some potential), I was pretty much floored by how good Insidious actually is. Sure, it’s a whole lot Poltergeist, but it’s been a while since a movie’s made me check all the little dark corners in my pad before I go to sleep at night- it was effectively scary and pretty much kept me tense all throughout. It’s a very solid horror flick, especially considering that it’s only rated PG-13.

Josh (Patrick Wilson) and Renai (Rose Byrne) move into a new house with their three kids. Of course, the house is haunted, so they move to another house. Surprise! This one’s haunted too! Only, it’s not. You see, after their oldest kid Dalton (Ty Simpkins) falls into a bizarre coma-like state for no reason, Josh’s

mother Lorraine (Barbara Hershey) calls in her friend Elise (Lin Shaye), who’s a professional when it comes to spooky stuff. It’s then that we discover that the houses aren’t haunted…it’s Dalton! It turns out that the kid’s soul likes to go wandering into spirit world whenever he’s asleep and the dead are just lining up nightly to hijack his body. The reason he’s in the coma is because one night his soul wandered a wee bit too far and got itself lost.

So, here’s where the Poltergeist parallel comes in…since daddy also possesses similar abilities as his son, it’s up to Josh to traipse into the mysterious void where his son has gone missing and rescue him. However, his son isn’t alone in the spirit world, and the dead are closing in on his vacant body…

Man, Insidious just plain had to be spooked! As a lifelong fan of horror movies, I had been finding the recent crop to be fairly tame. In other words, nothing scared me. Insidious did. It had atmosphere, frightening imagery, gobs of tension…hell, even the cheap jump scares were well done. Director James Wan really managed to convey the fear of the unknown very effectively, proving that there are just some things in this universe that man just isn’t supposed to know about.

Oh, and that gas mask scene was especially freaky. Why was Elise wearing a gas mask? Who knows? Who cares? It was awesome. Insidious is a low-budget affair, but it’s an example of money well-spent. The filmmakers didn’t get overly ambitious…they realized they couldn’t afford giant CG dragons and castles like in the much higher-budgeted (but stupid) Sucker Punch, so they went with what they had, and they made it work. I’ve heard some people complain that they thought the spirit world looked like a cheap high school play set, but I really don’t see the problem. Personally, I found it effective and creepy.

The one main complaint to make about Insidious, however, is that they showed too much. Yeah, we all hate it when horror movies hide the monster in the shadows and you never get to see it, but too much of the opposite can be a bad thing as well; sometimes a suggestion and fleeting glimpses can cause your mind to conjure up far worse images than any movie director can conceive, especially if your character designer isn’t up to par. Case in point: the idea of a red-faced demon bad guy in Insidious was kinda scary before you actually got to see it clearly, and it wound up being a cross between Darth Maul, Freddy Krueger, and the X-Men’s Nightcrawler. In reality, this is actually much lamer than it sounds. It wasn’t enough to ruin the movie at all, but it did diffuse some of the creep factor once we got a load of that demon’s silly mug.

Oh, and to the nice people who were sitting in the last row of the theater who felt it was perfectly fine to talk and laugh throughout the entire movie: I hope your cars all explode. With you in them. A bad case of the runs wouldn’t hurt, either. So, Insidious winds up being a big surprise to me…I didn’t see this one coming at all. If you’re into horror flicks (and you should be, they’re awesome), you owe it to yourself to check this one out.

(Long Island, N.Y.) Sucker Punch: remove the last seven letters from the title of this movie and you’ll have my opinion of it. Yes, Zack Snyder, noted director of such hits as 300 and Watchmen, has created the ultimate plot-less, all style/no substance movie populated with vapid characters who possess zero personality or development. You care about nothing at all while watching it. Nothing.

In fact, Sucker Punch is everything that is wrong with modern movies. It actually depressed me more than anything else, because the trailers indicated a flick that would, at the very least, be fun on a base level; after all, it seemed to be throwing everything an action/fantasy geek could ever want into the mix. But the end result…ugh. Suffice it to say that if Emily Browning hadn’t been in it, it would have been unbearable to sit through. It still almost was.

To say the plot is threadbare is like saying that Uwe Boll is the next Ed Wood; we’re simply stating the obvious, folks. But hey, let’s recap it anyway: a girl named “Baby Doll” (Emily Browning) accidentally shoots her sister while trying to stop her Evil Stepfather from molesting them. Oops! So, Evil Stepfather uses this fact to have Baby Doll committed to an insane asylum, greasing the palm of an Evil Orderly named Blue Jones (Oscar Isaac) to fake the signature of the asylum’s lead therapist to get her lobotomized. This way, Evil Stepfather’s in the clear! What a cad.

Anyway, Baby Doll’s got five days before the doctor arrives to nip the tip of her frontal lobe, so she hatches a plan to escape with four other inmates: Amber (Jamie Chung), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), Rocket (Jena Malone) and Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish). But, you see, here’s where Sucker Punch’s gimmick kicks in: poor little Baby Doll can’t take the reality of her situation, so she retreats into a fantasy world where she envisions the asylum as a nightclub/brothel and her and her fellow loonies as prostitutes. Um, I guess that’s an improvement…?

But every time something happens in THIS reality that Baby Doll can’t cope with, like someone asking her to dance all sexy-like, she retreats into yet ANOTHER fantasy world, one stuffed to the rafters with every Sci-Fi/Anime/Action/Fantasy movie cliché you can imagine. Oh, and while there she and her friends are suddenly wearing skimpy little outfits for no real reason (I didn’t mind that so much). It’s here that Baby Doll’s escape plan unfolds: she’s instructed by a Wise Man (Scott Glenn) that, to make good her escape, she must go on a fetch quest: she needs to collect things like a knife, fire, a map, and so on.

Each quest takes place in a different realm, like a Japan World populated with giant samurai warriors armed with Gatling guns, a World of Warcraft world with fire-breathing dragons, a Nazi World with steam-powered S.S. officers, and a Train World where you have to fight T-1000’s. Each fantastical “quest” equates to Baby Doll’s efforts to steal some mundane everyday object in the real world.

However, the doctor’s on his way and Baby Doll’s time is running out. Can she and her friends navigate her twisted sense of reality and make good their escape in time?

I can’t remember the last time a movie had so little story, such bad dialogue, or characters so thin and undeveloped. Honestly, you won’t leave the theater knowing any more about the cast of Sucker Punch then when you walked in. The film just felt like an excuse to create the ultimate geek fantasy: girls in short skirts fighting all manner of creatures and robots and zombies with swords and guns and powered suits of armor, all while playing it off as Baby Doll’s “coping mechanism.” Even if it were true, the movie takes place in the 1950’s; why would a child of that era be daydreaming about every Anime trick in the book when it wasn’t even invented yet?

Otherwise, the film basically has no story. None. Zip. Nada. It’s really amazing: girl in nut farm steals trinkets to try and escape while imagining herself as Sailor Moon. That’s it. Oh, and let’s not forget the overuse of tired pop songs in the soundtrack, or the fact that 70% of the movie is basically a music video. More like 80%, actually.

Even from a pure action standpoint, Sucker Punch fails; the pacing between the “brothel” reality and the “fantasy” reality is so off that it really destroys the pacing of the movie as a whole. The visuals are sharp, yeah, but 90% of the time you’re painfully aware that the actors are standing in front of a green screen, not to mention the fact that the characters can take superhuman amounts of punishment with nary a scratch while in the “fantasy” world, removing any sense of danger from their battles.

Oh, and each time the super-annoying Scott Glenn laid out the girls’ mission objectives, it felt like it was the set-up for a video-game level, which is all this stupid movie really was. One big video-game.

Oh, and I love the people who are trying to say that Snyder’s use of half-naked butt-kicking chicks is actually supposed to be a deep statement AGAINST half-naked butt-kicking chicks, i.e. Hollywood’s objectification of women. Yeah, right. And even if it’s true, the end result is exactly the same: Snyder’s movie contains no actual social commentary on the matter…it’s just about half-naked butt-kicking chicks, which, honestly, is the only thing that kept me watching. If I wasn’t very much a heterosexual, this movie would have been almost unwatchable.

Sucker Punch takes everything that’s ruining modern movies – bad plots, lame, forgettable characters, flash over depth – and amplifies it by 100. Steer clear, lest we make Hollywood think we want more of this garbage.

(Long Island, N.Y.) Limitless is about a guy with no drive, focus, or ambition who takes a special non-FDA approved pill that makes him real, real smart. So smart that it gets him in lots of trouble. Okay, that’s it. See you next week when I review… Oh, wait, my review has to be longer than two sentences? Oh…okay.

Limitless stars Bradley Cooper (that really cool, smug dude from The Hangover and The A Team) as Eddie Morra, a loser writer who

lives in New York City. In addition to having been dumped by his girlfriend Lindy (Abbie Cornish) for being a complete nebbish, he also has a big, juicy book deal that he’s about to screw up, mainly because he hasn’t written a single word since he signed the contract. Instead he spends his days doing productive things

like bouncing balls and pounding down booze at the local watering hole.

That all changes when Eddie bumps into Vernon Grant (Johnny Whitworth), drug dealer and his ex-brother-in-law. Vernon hears Eddie’s tale of woe and offers him a free sample of a new illegal drug called NZT-48; this small clear pill, Vern says, can allow a human being to tap into the full potential of their brainpower. Eddie, skeptical, takes the pill nonetheless, and soon is shocked to discover that he’s suddenly remembering…well, everything he’s ever seen, heard, or listened to. Realizing the potential of these pills, Eddie heads over to Vern’s apartment to score more, and, through some unexpected circumstances, ends up with a great big bag of the stuff. Time to party!

Eddie starts popping NZT-48s like Skittles, and before you know it, he’s written his novel in four days, gotten a Jenny Jones makeover, done some sit-ups, and become rich playing the stock market. Soon, he’s working for Carl Von Loon (Robert DeNiro), one of the biggest tycoons on Wall Street. Heck, he even manages to get Lindy to take him back. Everything seems pretty darn great for our protagonist…until he starts getting disturbing side effects from the pills, runs into trouble with a crazy Russian gangster, notices that a mysterious man is following him around wherever he goes, and discovers that other NZT-48 users are turning up either dead…or worse.

Limitless was a pretty good damn movie that actually reminded me of David Fincher’s Fight Club in terms of its sense of style. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen Bradley Cooper display any real range in a film; usually he’s just playing cocky, funny, metro-sexual dudes. But seeing his transformation from go-nowhere slob into…well, a cocky, funny, metro-sexual dude, was pretty interesting. But when weird things start happening to his character, Cooper does a good job of summoning the necessary

emotion content (sadness, panic, anger) to effectively draw you into his situation.

As for the rest of the cast, Robert DeNiro does okay in what amounts to a glorified cameo. Don’t get me wrong – the former master thespian is still phoning it in like he’s been doing in roles for years, but at least here he’s acting like he has a pulse for once. He actually gets rather devious near the end of the movie (in case you haven’t seen the trailer, he’s one of the bad guys…OR IS HE??), which was actually pretty cool. Abbie

Cornish isn’t given much to do here, although she does get one cool scene where she outwits a bad guy by popping one of Eddie’s pills. I did get a kick out of Andrew Howard, however, who plays a Russian mob guy who becomes a thorn in Eddie’s side as the movie goes on.

As for the movie itself, it’s flashy and stylish, flows well, is actually somewhat clever at times, and maintains a distinct and unique visual signature throughout its running time. Limitless does a fantastic job of getting you inside Eddie’s head and allowing you to see through his eyes as his brain changes and his consciousness expands. As far as what you see and what you hear, Limitless is trippy and surreal, but it does so not just to wow you, but to convey the madness that Eddie’s world is slowly descending into.

Limitless is a fairly original film that manages to be funny and interesting. It also features some solid acting and storytelling and a charismatic lead in Bradley Cooper, so I’d say that it’s a safe bet for your hard-earned dollars. Go check it out.

(Long Island, N. Y.) I’m not a fan of Halle Berry. In fact, I consider her one of the worst actresses working today. It’s just my opinion, Halle Berry fans. Don’t take it personally. It’s hard to explain why I feel the way I do. Is it her wooden delivery? Her lack of range? How she feels fake in almost every role? Again, it’s just my opinion, but Berry’s presence in any movie just serves to instantly take me out of it.

Well…until now. After not appearing in many mainstream films in a while (at least, not any that I’m aware of), Berry pops up in The Call, a thriller film directed by Brad Anderson, and much to my shock, is surprisingly effective in her role as a 911 operator who gets involved in solving a kidnapping perpetrated by a vicious serial killer (Michael Eklund). But while Berry shows abilities I feel she has previously lacked, that doesn’t prevent The Call from pretty much falling apart in its second half, unfortunately.

Halle plays Jordan Turner, a police hotline employee who one day fields a call from a teenage girl hiding under her bed from a home invading serial killer. Jordan’s attempt to help backfires, allowing the killer to find the girl, and she is found dead several days later. Naturally, Jordan blames herself and as the saying goes, those who can’t do, teach; after her screw-up, Jordan instead becomes a 911 call center trainer instead, as she can no longer deal with taking calls.

Later, another call comes into the hotline as a result of the same serial

killer, courtesy of his latest kidnapping victim who is currently stuffed into the trunk of his car. When the rookie operator on the call is clearly in over their head, Jordan is forced to jump in and take over. From there, Jordan is determined to make up for her pervious folly, and does everything in her

power to prevent another young lady from falling to this crazed murderer.

What is so different about

Berry this time around, you ask? It’s hard to say…I think it’s just seeing Berry playing an “every-woman” who has to react, not to another on-screen person, but a phone headset, that bring out her acting strengths. It’s not an Oscar-caliber performance, but it’s certainly turned around my opinion of her. Maybe.

The Call does a very solid job of establishing a tense, suspenseful atmosphere for its first half. Things take place solely over the phone between Berry’s character and the killer’s newest victim, with the veteran 911 operator desperately trying to ascertain the girl’s whereabouts before it’s too late…it’s gripping stuff, and Berry’s frantic concern

and vulnerability really help to sell the premise completely.

However, The Call completely loses it in its second half, when Berry sheds the headset and sets out on her own to solve the crime. Yeah…this is pretty much as stupid as it sounds. From there onward, the movie just pretty much loses all its momentum and becomes a cliché-ridden, by-the-numbers thriller and completely unbelievable. Just terrible, especially considering how very decent the first half was; the borderline outlandish turn the second half takes basically ruins the great strides the previous half made in drawing you in.

So…if you’re in the mood for a tight little crime drama and a surprise good performance

from Halle Berry, you can do a lot worse than The Call…just walk out halfway through and make up your own ending. It’ll be better than anything you see if you remain in the theater, believe me.