Monday, August 26, 2013
The Sum of All Fears (2002)
A CIA analyst must thwart the plans of a terrorist faction that threatens to induce a catastrophic conflict between the United States and Russia's newly elected president by detonating a nuclear weapon at a football game in Baltimore.
Over-the-top doomsday thriller, politically badly outdated and nearly naive, otherwise standard entertainment.
Halliwell (no star: "Bombastic hokum that uses the destruction of Boston by nuclear bomb solely to show off the gung-ho attitude of its hero, dourly played by the uncharismatic Affleck; it never recovers from this miscalculation."
Maltin**1/2: "Convoluted tale...Tries to have it both ways, with a story rooted in reality - but hinging on coincidences and improbabilities. Affleck acquits himself adequately as Tom Clancy's CIA agent hero, surrounded here by a top-notch cast."
New Stuff: Cabaret Voltaire
It was long overdue to check on Cabaret Voltaire, a band I kind of ignored at the time, cause I thought they were commercializing industrial music.
Super 8 (2011)
During the summer of 1979, a group of friends witness a train crash and investigate subsequent unexplained events in their small town.
Something like a Goonies vs. Alien, all done professionally and in good taste, but hardly exciting, and it takes ages till you get to see the monster.
Maltin***1/2: "Writer-director Abrams' homage to Steven Spielberg movies like CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND and E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTIAL, actually produced by Spielberg and appropriately set in 1979, has the kind of heart and passion missing from many contemporary blockbusters, along with storytelling savvy and state-of-the-art visual effects."
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