I can’t stand it when critics spend their entire review on a film comparing it to its predecessor. After all, a film should be measured on its own merits, not why it is or isn’t better than a film made thirty-five years before. However, that’s exactly what I’m going to do with the unnecessary remake of Poltergeist, a classic horror film that, like the majority of films from the eighties, should have just been left alone. And the reason I’m going to do so is because with all of the advancements in special and visual effects over the last thirty years, what should have been a major improvement fails to live up to the archaic, but gritty, practical effects utilized back in 1982. Read Full Review

In an episode of The Big Bang Theory, Amy Farrah Fowler destroys our geeky friends’s lives when she notes that the climax of Raiders of the Lost Ark would have happened regardless of Indiana Jones. It’s one of those moments that forces you to see the film in a new light, but isn’t able to diffuse your enjoyment of the film in any way. In a similar vein, by the end of the first act of Mad Max: Fury Road, I finally understood why Max (Tom Hardy) was so mad — not only does his ostensive counterpart, Furiosa (Charlize Theron), go rogue to protect a very precious cargo from this world’s faux-Hitler (Hugh Keays-Byrne), she also decides to hijack the film right out from under him. In a certain way, the movie is more like Red Sonja, in which Conan simply makes an appearance in someone else’s film. Is Max an essential character within the framework of the film? That’s debatable, as he does make one key decision for the group that opens the door to the final conflict — but it’s a decision that could very well have been made by another character. The real question is, does it make Mad Max: Fury Road any less worthwhile? Read Full Review

Comedy is hard. It’s not just about cracking a consistent number of one-liners or enduring a countless number of pratfalls (or grossing everyone out, as many comedians and filmmakers today believe is the only definition of comedy); to be truly funny, you have to understand the art of comic timing. Without it, any type of joke can become really awkward or utterly confusing. For the most part, this weight generally falls on the shoulders of the actors, simply because they are the face on the screen — if they fail at drawing laughs, there really isn’t anything anyone can do to fix that. But they aren’t the only person that holds the blame when something fails to strike a chord in the funny-bone of the viewer. The director molds the final product and if they can’t find the right rhythm within the flow and editing of a piece, the timing the actors may have had on set can become jilted. And it’s clear early on in Hot Pursuit that director Anne Fletcher can be blamed for the inconsistency of laughs in a film ripe for utter hilarity. Read Full Review

When Marvel first decided to start their own production company so they could produce the movies they felt were in the best interest of the company as a whole, not a lot of people knew what they were getting into. Not until the end credit scene in the original Iron Man, when Samuel L. Jackson stepped out of the shadows as Nick Fury to entice not only Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) to join the Avengers Initiative, but the viewer as well, did we know that Marvel had just ignited an unprecedented cinematic experience. Since that time, Marvel has introduced us to a myriad of characters through very well-designed “phases” in order to build a universe that expands, well, the universe. And though Marvel has had one or two missteps and had to recast a couple of characters, for the most part, Marvel has delivered a brand as solid as what Pixar built in the late nineties and early 2000s. And with phase two coming to a close with the high energy Avengers: Age of Ultron, it doesn’t look like they will be slowing down anytime soon. Read Full Review