The Secret World of Arrietty (2010, Hiromasa Yonebayashi) – Although it’s really just another retelling of Mary Norton’s famous children’s story The Borrowers, The Secret World of Arrietty showcases the trademark stunning visuals one comes to expect from Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli. Working from a screenplay by master animator Miyazaki, the film stays true to the story’s original roots despite stumbling slightly late in the film by adding tension and the appearance of a villain somewhat awkwardly.

Young Shawn (voiced by David Henrie) has recently moved to the country to live with his Aunt Jessica and her housekeeper Hara (Carol Burnett). Shawn is there to kill time away from his work obsessed mother before a serious heart operation that he might not live through. In the walls of Jessica’s house live the Clock’s, a family of little people known as “borrowers” who sneak into people’s kitchens at night and take only what they need to survive and keep house. The daughter of the clan, Arrietty (Bridgit Mendler), has just turned 14, meaning she’s old enough to start borrowing on her own. But when she’s spotted by Shawn on her first mission with her father (Will Arnett), it begins a series of events that put the small family in great danger. Shawn, desperate for a friend, looks to Arrietty for someone to talk to, much to the chagrin of Arrietty’s parents.

No dubbing of a Ghibli film will ever be equal to subtitled version of the same film (Amy Poehler seems pretty out of place as Arrietty’s histrionic mother), but here the script holds some of the film’s wonkier elements. While Miyazaki and co-writer Keiko Niwa (and translator/English dialog writer Karey Kirkpatrick) do a great job setting up both the world of Shawn and the background of the Clocks, the film’s pacing seems a bit off. While most adaptations of Norton’s original work make it known that the housekeeper character will turn out to be somewhat villainous, here the story turns almost on a dime and simply turns Hara into someone acting crazy just for the sake of having conflict. It creates a sense of disconnect in the film’s second half that’s a little hard to get past, but forgivable in the light of the film’s other strengths.

The Blu-ray looks phenomenal, bringing out every colour perfectly, and the film offers the viewer to watch the film subtitled with the original DTS-HD Japanese Master Audio, which sounds even crisper than the English language dub. There’s also another version of the film in the special features made entirely from storyboards as the English dub plays along that’s pretty neat for completists to follow along with. There’s also a couple of music videos and the original Japanese trailers, teasers, and TV spots included here. (Andrew Parker)

CONTEST: Enter to win a copy of The Secret World of Arrietty on Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack from Dork Shelf and Walt Disney Home Entertainment! (Ends Wednesday 5/23)

The Grey (2012, Joe Carnahan) - If you had told me ten years ago that Liam Neeson would reinvent himself as a late-career action hero, I would have slapped you in the face and called you Mr. Sillypants (or perhaps a slightly more insulting name). Yet, somehow the actor has pulled it off, stepping into Harrison Ford’s shoes as Hollywood’s go-to grumpy aging action star in over his head. The Grey reunites him with writer/director Joe Carnahan after the duo collaborated on a feature film version of The A-Team that was far better than it had any right to be. This time they are stripped of any ties to a campy 80s TV show and create a rough n tumble survivalist thriller. Despite some occasionally misplaced art film aspirations, The Grey is a thrilling R-rated mid-budget genre flick, the kind of movie that isn’t supposed to be made anymore.

Neeson stars as a damaged man (obviously) who works for an isolated Alaskan oil team. His job is to sit with a sniper rifle and kill any carnivorous wild life that threaten the other workers (in other words, he’s a professional bad ass). The whole gang piles onto an airplane to visit their families and it crashes, leaving them stranded in the artic in the middle of a wolf den, who slowly hunt them down one by one. It’s a classic guy movie survivalist set up executed by filmmakers who clearly love the genre. Neeson and his team of miscreants are all fantastic as they get worn down by the elements and bicker over alpha male status.

For Carnahan, it’s yet another rock solid B-movie following up the likes of Narc and Smokin’ Aces. He directs his team of dude’s dudes well and ratchets up suspense expertly, crafting a number of genuine shocks and thrills (including a spectacular POV plane crash and some surprisingly effective CGI wolves). Unfortunately, as the film wears on he becomes a little too enamored with the existential themes of the story, trying to awkwardly transform a solid genre flick into a thinkpiece with mixed results. Still, all of Carnahan’s efforts have been flawed in some way and The Grey is easily one of his most consistent outings. The guy has it in him to create a fantastic John Carpenter-esque B-movie with a brain and has shown enough signs of improvement over his career to suggest that will happen sooner rather than later. Carnahan is definitely a genre filmmaker to watch and hopefully this isn’t the last time he puts Liam Neeson through the ringer.

The Grey’s Blu-ray is unfortunately a mixed bag. The technical specs are fantastic and there’s no better way to see the movie. However, the special features are a little lacking. The featurettes are clearly promotional viral videos barely clocking in at 3-minutes a piece, while the cast and crew interviews are comprised of awkwardly edited B-roll from those viral clips with embarrassing sound-drops. Considering that those slapped together featurettes suggest someone had a collection of interviews and on set footage from the punishing artic shoot, it’s a mystery why a proper making-of documentary wasn’t cut together. The commentary with Carnahan and his editors is also a disappointment, too often turning into a self-congratulatory back slapping-session that takes the film way to seriously (at one point they call The Grey “a thinly veiled art film” and compare it to The King’s Speech) without offering much in the way of production details. Still, even if the special features disappoint, the film doesn’t. If you miss 80s/90s era of R-rated genre movies aimed at teens and regressed adolescents in age brackets that classify them as “adults,” The Grey is a must see. (Phil Brown)

The Woman in Black (2012, James Watkins) – While in no way a reinvention of the haunted house film, The Woman in Black offers genre fans a tightly crafted and loving throwback to Hammer horror films and sly nods to the works of genre veterans Sam Raimi and Wes Craven. Director Watkins and star Daniel Radcliffe work together to make this slight, but atmospheric chiller into something gripping and exciting.

At first, it might be a little surprising to see just how much Radcliffe has grown up in the role of Arthur Kipps. Radcliffe not only plays an adult here, but a young, widowed father of a young boy. Arthur is an early 1900s legal aide forced by his boss into getting back to work by sending him from London to the coastal countryside to go over the paperwork of an estate currently up for sale. Upon his arrival in the village where he intends to stay, the locals do everything in his power to send Arthur away before he even makes it to the secluded former estate of Alice Drablow. Driven by the desire to provide for his son and to keep his currently tenuous job, Arthur presses on and learns the hard way the tragedy that befell the residents of Marsh House.

Watkins uses his eye for detail to cleverly misdirect the audience at every turn, and Radcliffe makes the most of what’s essentially a one man show, including a wonderful extended sequence where there’s no dialogue and he’s the only person in the house. Things do get a bit amped up for the conclusion (which borrows a bit too much from Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell) as it turns into a pretty standard film, but there’s surely a lot to like here.

The Blu-ray has great sound, amplifying the creaks and groans of Marsh House splendidly, but the picture quality doesn’t really bring out the darker tones of the film as nicely as they looked on screen. There’s a couple of small featurettes that don’t do much, and a commentary track from Watkins and screenwriter Jane Goldman, which is pretty mechanical when talking about filmmaking details, but oddly entertaining and candid to listen to. (Andrew Parker)

INTERVIEW: Check out our interview with star Daniel Radcliffe!

This Means War (2012, McG) – Great news everyone (and by great I mean terrible)! One of the most insufferable films thus far in 2012 is now available in an even longer version for added “value.” The woefully botched and amateurish Spy Vs. Spy styled romantic action caper This Means War isn’t helped by any sort of added content despite a stacked Blu-ray. It’s just as terribly acted and pointless as it was back in February.

The asininely named Tuck (Tom Hardy) and FDR (Chris Pine) are two best friend CIA operatives and wetworkers who fall for the same woman, a perky-but-not-exactly-quirky consumer rights advocate named Lauren (Reese Witherspoon) who has been forced into the world of online dating by her married, alcoholic, quirky best friend (Chelsea Handler). Tuck meets Lauren through the dating site and is immediately smitten with her, while FDR meets her by chance in a video store (which I will get back to in a minute) and they have their own “meet cute” flirting session. Lauren doesn’t know that the two men are so close they’re practically brothers/lovers, so she dates the two men concurrently while the animosity between the besties grows to heights that find the men using company resources illegally to spy on and sabotage each other’s dates. Oh, and this all happens while a crazed criminal genius (Til Schweiger) looks for revenge on Tuck for accidentally killing his brother in the film’s opening sequence.

An absolute nadir in the career of the already much derided McG, this film is ugly, incoherent, illogical, and worst of all, lazy to the point where no one on screen seems to care about what’s going on. Witherspoon looks like she just got up from a nap. Hardy seems to be constantly looking around for direction, but at least makes the only effort from the cast. Pine suffers the worst with a performance so bad it nearly erases any good will he’s earned in recent years. Also, please don’t get me started on Chelsea “I only know one joke that I’m going to run into the ground until the day I die” Handler as Lauren’s married friend.

Every sequence is shot like a Honda commercial, with very little inventiveness outside of the occasional production design achievement. The action sequences are edited into incoherence, are relatively bloodless, and hold absolutely no dramatic tension. They are also marred by some of the worst and least convincing CGI outside of an Asylum release, especially in the first of the film’s three(!) endings, which thanks to the wonder of Blu-ray drags out even longer to an unconscionable 107 minutes. (Also in the special features there are 2 MORE alternate endings, serving as further proof that no one here had any clue what they were doing.)

The Blu-ray looks and sound fine, and McG delivers commentary on both the theatrical and extended cuts of the film (with little difference), some deleted scenes and a previz look at an alternate opening. There’s a halfway amusing gag reel that’s funnier than the actual movie, but it’s in no way worth buying just for that. (Andrew Parker)

Red Tails (2012, Anthony Hemmingway) – Corny as an Iowa field and oddly put together, Red Tails feels pretty slapdash despite being one of producer George Lucas’ passion projects. This tale of the formation of the famed all African American fighter pilot squad, The Tuskegee Airmen,  never takes off thanks to some surprisingly cut rate production values, scenery chewing performances (especially from squadron higher-ups played by Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrance Howard), and a script that’s way too overstuffed with needless subplots.

The film starts in 1944 Italy where American pilots are vastly being outclassed and outmanoeuvred by German pilots with better technology and a better idea of their surroundings. In search of a new tactic that could help win the air war, the US government reluctantly begins using the underutilized squad of all African-American fighter pilots in the 332nd fighter squad. The film follows the exploits of a handful of the soldiers into battle after previously only being used for taking out trains and other forms of transportation.

Aside from the stunning dogfights and the massive attention to period detail (except for an insert wide shot of the Pentagon that was clearly shot in modern day), Red Tails has no structure or discipline whatsoever. This film feels unfinished and almost in unreleasable condition. No scenes actually transition between each other with some bleeding over or fading into the next one without rhyme or reason.

The Blu-ray can’t save all of the film’s problems, but it does come together in a nice package. The picture and sound have improved since the theatrical release, but there’s still quite a bit missing on screen. There is, however a pretty great hour long documentary (narrated by Gooding) that chronicles the history of the squad, as well as some great featurettes that show the effects guys at ILM working their tails off. There’s also talks with Hemmingway, Lucas, composer Terrance Blanchard, and the individual cast members. (Andrew Parker)

Peter Berg’s Battleship has been constructed to do nothing more than act as a loud, noisy ass kicker of a movie. Almost nothing like the board game it gets its name from, it’s a tricked out, comically overblown American muscle car of a movie. Sleek, stylish, well-maintained, driven by pretty boys, fun to look at, but possibly annoying and tiresome if you have to stand next to one that spins its wheels for too long. It dispenses with things like “narrative credibility,” “reality,” and “science” within seconds of starting and it never looks back. It’s brazen, brash, and surprisingly far more entertaining than those Michael Bay Transformers films it will get compared to. It won’t stick in the viewer’s mind for very long, but if you’re willing to give in to its “go big or go home” style, you’ll be in for a real empty headed treat.

Lazy layabout Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) has been mooching off his military commander brother Stone (Alexander Skarsgard) for too long when he gets tazed by the police for breaking into a Hawaiian convenience store to steal a frozen chicken burrito for a random hottie in a bar. Fed up with his shenanigans, Stone forces Alex into joining him in the Navy where he’s a chronic screw up on the verge of getting kicked out. He’s also about to marry the girl from the bar (Brooklyn Decker), who just so happens to be the daughter of his commanding officer (Liam Neeson).

While out at sea (embarking from Pearl Harbor, no less) on the “military ballet” that is the RIMPAC naval championships involving navies from around the world (but really just Japan and the U.S.), a real threat arises when an alien threat from a “Goldilocks planet” (meaning not too hot, not too cold, and just the right distance from the sun) named Planet G lands in the ocean thanks to some nearby satellites that can help them take over the Earth or some shit like that. They set up a force-field around themselves, fly around in heavily fortified ships, and lay waste to most of the destroyers in the area, taking numerous lives. It’s up to the previously responsibility averse Alex to rise up and save the day.

Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way early before we proceed, because thanks to the participation of Hasbro the Transformers comparisons won’t go away until we talk about them. Unlike the humourless and often icky work of Michael Bay, Berg (The Rundown, Hancock) understands how ridiculous his film is. Sure, there are some obvious surface level comparisons in terms of the film’s plot, creature design, and fawning over the military, but what it’s missing is Bay’s annoyingly right wing political viewpoint, his somewhat racist tendencies, and his sexualizing of female characters. Not once does the film stop to show some “loathsome” peacenik saying that there should be a diplomatic solution getting thrown under the ship, and the female characters are just as wooden and ill-defined as anyone else on the ship. Also the hilariously implausible and conceptually inane final act shows more love for the armed forces than any five seconds of any Bay film.

None of this means that Battleship isn’t overkill, though. The film does showcase its explosions and visual effects better than it does in the trailer, but after a while it becomes almost exhausting to watch no matter how good it looks. The sound design, oddly enough, might be the thing that divides audiences the most. It’s meant to be played as loudly as possible to the point of being deafening. It’s probably as close to a sea battle as most filmgoers are going to get, but there was a whole lot of cringing at the screening I attended from people who simply couldn’t take it. (For the record, I really dug the sound design and its Oscar for that category is probably already in the mail.)

The cast isn’t much of an entity here since there isn’t much room for performance around such constant spectacle, but Berg does know exactly how to use Kitsch as a leading man thanks to their time bonding on TV’s Friday Night Lights. He’s an affable, mercurial dumbass simply there to learn a few lessons and move the plot along. Neeson’s role barely registers above a cameo, but fans of the actor will get a kick out of just how cool he can act when the world is under attack by aliens. Decker and pop star Rihanna are really just there, with the former serving more as a last minute plot saviour and the latter doing what she does best by glowering and looking serious.

It’s quite telling that the scene that most closely resembles the board game would be the dullest in the film, but it’s almost a welcome respite from the film’s almost hyperactive desire to jostle the audience by any means necessary. Thankfully, the film comes devoid of the unrelenting mean streak and self-righteousness that Michael Bay would have brought to such a similarly themed production, but to compensate for that, everything else is as unrelenting as possible, including its almost joyful stupidity. At nearly two and a quarter hours, it’s a bit much, but if you can get behind a film where enormous bombs whiz improbably close to people’s skulls and the film’s greatest scientific mind (played here by, of all people, indie film darling Hamish Linklater) acts like a cross between Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park and Professor Frink from The Simpsons, there’s some enjoyment to be had. Battleship couldn’t be more upfront about what it’s trying to do, and it’s something you’ll either go along with or you should stay away from entirely. While I appreciated how much the film cops to its own stupidity, the final choice is ultimately yours on this one.

Dark Shadows (Friday) – Burton and Depp’s latest honeymoon has been prematurely met with trepidation by those who two outings ago were already saying “Burton’s throwing some make-up on Depp? Aren’t we done with this yet?”  I was not one of those people and actually thought Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Corpse Bride made 2005 a standout year for the director. Even the lackluster Sweeney Todd still had a lot going for it and did not prepare me for the slap in the face that the insultingly bad Alice in Wonderland would be. But I’ve given it a lot of thought and have decided to forgive them for taking their Disney-sized paycheques and running with that one and to share my optimism for Dark Shadows.

Click here to view the embedded video.

What I hope sets this one apart from the previous film is a passion shared by the director and star for the source material. I’ve never watched the Dark Shadows series but by all accounts it’s ripe with camp and humour, two things Burton has excelled at in the past. As the trailers have made clear, they’re going for a lot of laughs with this one, and assuming they haven’t given away the best jokes, they’ll get plenty. Even though it has a PG-13 rating, I don’t get the sense that it’s trying to hit the largest possible demographic the way Alice was, so hopefully we’ll get more of the kind of quirkiness that made films like Ed Wood and Mars Attacks! work so well.

Click here to view the embedded video.

On top of the laughs we’ll also be treated to visuals far more designed than you would normally see in a comedy. After a ten year hiatus from working with long time collaborator Rick Heinrichs, Dark Shadows marks a reunion with the talented production designer who I believe had a lot to do with establishing Burton’s style early in his career. Bringing a Gothic 18^th century vampire into the tacky 70’s seems perfectly suited to their shared design sensibilities. This is actually the first time Burton has taken on fanged nightwalkers (the one in The Nightmare Before Christmas doesn’t count), nor has Depp played a vampire before, which is pretty surprising when you think about it, though I’m sure it’s not a coincidence that vampires are ‘so hot right now’. So never mind the naysayers, Dark Shadows looks like a good humoured romp with lots to please the eye and should be a fun one to kick off the summer with. (Noah Taylor)

Battleship (May 18^th) – Although greeted with the typical big box office and middling reviews from an early overseas release that most summer blockbusters get anyway, director Peter Berg’s Battleship could end up being one of those summer movies that oddly endures if it just ends up being a big budgeted action extravaganza designed for audiences that only want to watch things go boom.

Click here to view the embedded video.

There’s also a lot more riding on Battleship’s success than one might think, especially for budding star Taylor Kitsch who probably still hasn’t gotten over the sting of John Carter’s failure, and who also has to worry about overexposure with a high profile role in Oliver Stone’s Savages later this summer. Kitsch isn’t the only one who needs to worry. This is director Peter Berg’s first big screen outing since Hancock several years ago. Liam Neeson has a supporting role here in a genre even he admits he’s getting too old for, and for singer Rihanna, it could mark the beginning of a potentially lucrative big screen career.

Also with a lot riding on this is the owner to Battleship’s branding rights, Hasbro Toys. Based on a board game bearing little resemblance to the film, this sci-fi epic about an alien entity engaging with ships at sea for control of the Earth could spin off a whole new line of toys and a Transformers-styled franchise to add to Michael Bay’s feather in the toymakers crown.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Judging from the film’s numerous divisive trailers, it would be hard to say if audiences are willing to go along with 131 minutes of rampant explosions and PG-13 styled high seas carnage, but there actually aren’t any other brainless options for that particular brand of audience this summer. A May release seems more of a risk for this film, because by June or July, Battleship could be just what audiences needed. (Andrew Parker)

The Dictator (May 16^th) – After audiences almost collectively rolled their eyes at prankmeister general Sacha Baron Cohen’s previous outing Bruno, The Dictator seems like a welcome retreat to fictionalized comedy instead of outward embarrassment to a bunch of unsuspecting rubes.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Even more of a mockumentary than his previous outings thanks to the use of an actual cast of heavy hitting comedic actors (including John C. Reilly and Anna Faris), Cohen looks to throw himself into the role of General General Aladeen, a despotic dictator from the fictional Republic of Wadiya who has been called upon to defend his rule to an increasingly flummoxed United Nations.

Despite moving away from punking random celebrities and notables, Cohen stays close to the Borat and Bruno wheelhouse by once again teaming with director Larry Charles for a star studded affair of people who seem to be in on the joke. The biggest battle the film faces, is ultimately Cohen himself, who’s become a divisive figure among the press and general public. Following his numerous in-character appearances as Aladeen, the reaction seemed more lightly amused and slightly bored than outraged or curious.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Still, there’s a lot to be admired in Cohen’s go-for-broke style of performance art that probably makes Andy Kaufman smile with glee from the great beyond. So few people have gotten this far from continually trying to piss people off, and there are few comedians as physically and mentally conditioned as well as Cohen. And if this fails, at least he has a Madagascar sequel to fall back on later this summer. (Andrew Parker)

Men in Black III (May 25th) – Even though an entire wall-crawling franchise has come, gone, and been re-booted since the last Men in Black movie was in theatres, 2002 still doesn’t feel that long ago to me. Since this late entry may seem somewhat obscure to younger audiences, I’m banking on MIBIII aiming over the heads of those who don’t remember when Will Smith was the king of July 4^th openings or don’t know most of the lyrics to the ‘Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ theme song by heart. While I’m not anticipating a maturation of Toy Story proportions, they must have at least taken into consideration the fact that those who fell in love with the original film did so 15 years ago… let’s just hope the concept has aged as well at the two leads.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The element added to mix this one up a little is time travel, a totally plausible addition to the reality of the MIB universe. Josh Brolin looks perfectly cast as the young Agent K, I expect his Tommy Lee Jones impression to the steal the show and am curious to see which of the two gets more screen time. We can also look forward to laughs from supporting cast members such as Jemaine Clement and the hilarious Bill Hader as Andy Warhol; a part I sincerely hope extends beyond the scene shown in the trailer. According to IMDB, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, and Tim Burton all appear in it as well, but I’m guessing their images will just be used in that old gag where we see all the famous people who are really aliens.

It’s easy to be skeptical about this sequel given the strength of the last one, but here are some more names that give me faith in it: music by Danny Elfman, screenplay by David Koepp (Jurassic Park) and Etan Coen (Tropic Thunder), shot by Bill Pope (The Matrix), production design by Bo Welch (Edward Scissorhands) and produced by Steven Spielberg (Eagle Eye). The sci-fi comedy genre is always fun one that doubles its chances of success: if you don’t like the jokes, hopefully you’ll get a kick out of the action and special effects, if you don’t like those, then maybe you’ll get a laugh from J and K’s odd couple dynamic or the absurdity of the much used ‘neuralizer’. The very least we can hope for is something a little more inspired than the film’s theme song, Back In Time (Huey Lewis’ lawyers are looking into it). (Noah Taylor)

Also out in May:

An all-star cast (including Cameron Diaz, Chris Rock, Dennis Quaid, Anna Kendrick, Jennifer Lopez, and Matthew Morrison) head up what can only be an intensely loose adaptation of Heidi Murkoff’s how-to series of What to Expect When You’re Expecting books, which looks to hold the same kind of can’t miss appeal as the loose Steve Harvey adaptation Think Like a Man tapped into. Kirk Jones (Nanny McPhee, Waking Ned Devine) directs. (May 18th)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Paranomal Activity mastermind Oren Peli, lends his name as a writer and producer to special effects supervisor Bradley Parker’s directorial debut Chernobyl Diaries, a not-entirely-found-footage styled film about a group of “extreme tourists” who get more than they bargained for on a trip to the famed nuclear disaster site. Look for this one to clean up if horror and suspense starved audiences aren’t wary of the microbudget feel. (May 25th)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Good for: The Environment

As if the success of The Hunger Games with its heavy environmental and sociological subtext wasn’t enough (workers who provide energy and no-renewable resources are marginalized), this was a great start to the year for movies that tell audiences not to mess with Mother Nature. Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax made a mint at the box office, second only to Hunger Games in overall performance. Big Miracle, a movie about saving a family of whales trapped under ice in the arctic, outperformed in its opening weekend and even though it vanished pretty quickly after that, it will find an audience on home video with ease. The roughneck oil workers in The Grey get their comeuppance from a group of pissed off wolves. Even those damned kids in Chronicle shouldn’t have been messing around in the woods in the middle of the night. With all of the record above normal temperatures being recorded in the US and Canada, maybe it’s the perfect time for audiences to be flocking to this type of fare.

Good for: Canada

Aside from Goon making almost four million dollars at the Canadian box office, and untold amounts from its VOD run in the States, this was a great season for independent filmmakers in Canada, with auteurs Guy Maddin and Bruce McDonald seeing releases of their latest films, and with several micro-budget features (Moon Point, The Odds) finding their way into Toronto area megaplexes instead of simply shuffling off after a one time rep cinema screening. The quality of some these films might not be at the level they need to be in order to perform on the world stage, but showing support for local and emerging talents is certainly a step in the right direction.

Good for: Channing Tatum

So what was the third highest grossing movie of the year right behind Hunger Games and The Lorax? The Vow. Holy crap did that movie make a lot of money from people around the Valentine’s Day holiday. You know what was right behind that and looking to eclipse the success of that movie? The action comedy 21 Jump Street. Sharing the common bond of star Channing Tatum – who was the best thing in both films despite one of them not being very good – these films proved that he’s here to stick around for a while as a leading man. Sure, he’s still learning the craft to some degree, but this summer when he re-teams with Steven Soderbergh (following Haywire, where again, Tatum was a highlight) for the somewhat autobiographical Magic Mike and he returns to the G.I. Joe franchise, he stands to become the year’s biggest breakout star in a huge way.

Good for: The Little Guy

While people didn’t exactly travel to the arthouse in the purest sense of the word, they did make several modest releases fairly buzzworthy so far this year. The Raid: Redemption has garnered quite the following as it found its widest release this past weekend, making a nice little profit in North America alone without even going into how much it made overseas. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen has quietly bounced in and out of the top 10 for six weeks now, performing almost consistently well and showing an almost yeoman like longevity. And even though it starred Will Ferrell, industry insiders were shocked that his Spanish language indie Casa de mi Padre was able to debut in the top ten on its opening weekend despite an 800 screen release. People certainly started looking beyond the megaplex in early 2012, which is strange to see in a season usually dominated by Oscar holdovers. This wouldn’t have been as surprising in December, but in March and April it seems to be showing a slight shift in viewing habits.

Bad for: The 18-35 demographic

It’s already started. The complaining and eye-rolling from the internet speculators that The Cabin in the Woods has vastly under performed in its opening weekend at the box office. A similar complaint arose earlier this year when The Grey opened well and then faded from sight, and by many defenders of John Carter. The sad truth is that most of the people doing most of the complaining come from the same demographic that complains about everything. Young-ish adulthood has become the new 80-year old telling kids to get off their porch. It’s a sad but true fact that most of the people in this demo don’t even bother going to the movies. They are generally the poorest, with the least expendable income, and more likely to download or stay at home and stream a movie rather than going out to a night at the movies. This is why advertisers in the future will just stop catering to you guys. They will aim lower and higher, but never on your level. And if you guys don’t get your shit together, they will just stop making movies for you altogether. Stop complaining that things are failing. Get engaged and support them. Tell your friends. Get out of your house. I know there are tons of problems with going to the movies these days, but if you don’t keep going, you need to stop complaining. Studios are starting to catch on fast that internet complaints in no way earn them any money, and they’re beginning to question if the “credibility” it buys them is even worth it sometimes.

Bad for: Smart sci-fi and horror

Speaking of John Carter, I don’t think we can get through this column without at least mentioning the astronomically budgeted sci-fi epic tanking at the box office. While the actual budget is as immaterial as your opinion of the film, it’s kind of a bummer that a film that’s actually trying to make something with some brains to it can’t even make half of what Underworld: Awakening made. Again, you guys need to be careful what you support.

Bad for: Misplaced epics

Mirror Mirror and Wrath of the Titans kind of failed on their own merits this season. Well, maybe they didn’t. I can’t really tell, but not too many people seemed to outright adore either of them. Plus, from a budgetary perspective, both films look alternately stunning and somewhat cheap. Both are hard movies to really peg down, but it seems like audiences are gravitating away from opulent looking epics and action films that have little more than tenuous literary hooks. Ditto this week’s Lockout, which debuted in ninth place in its opening weekend most likely because it didn’t really know what it wanted to be outside of a near carbon copy of Escape From New York in space.

Bad for: The MPAA and Harvey Weinstein’s already tenuous credibility

If the kerfuffle over the MPAA ludicrously slapping an R-rating on Lee Hirsch’s documentary Bully wasn’t bad enough, Harvey Weinsetein taking to the pulpit against them before caving in and dubbing in some of the film’s salty language felt like such a cynical, marketing driven move on the part of a movie that genuinely had its heart in the right place, The battle could have started here in the necessary fight to revoke or retool the MPAA charter, but nope. We can’t have that when there’s money to be made from controversy. The movie Bully is vital and somewhat flawed, but there are no winners in this behind the scenes situation. Everyone just looks silly.

The Jury’s Still Out On: The found footage film

So the first film to be released in 2012 was the God-awful found footage horror The Devil Inside, which despite near universal hatred, still managed to make thirty times (!) its budget in a single weekend. That film probably didn’t help the genuinely awesome Chronicle’s chances of doing more than just a really great opening weekend. Then there’s Project X, which despite having more detractors than defenders has quietly made a really tidy sum of money this spring. The found footage trend hasn’t shown signs of slowing down, but it’s getting harder and harder to tell which of these movies will work and which will sink like stones.

The Jury’s Still Out on: Middle aged action heroes

Aside from Safe House crossing the hundred million dollar mark at the box office with Denzel Washington tormenting young buck CIA agent Ryan Reynolds, it seems like it might be time for a new breed of action star. Again, The Raid: Redemption did well in limited release and 21 Jump Street killed in wide release because they were giving people something that one the surface seemed fresh and new. Even the inexplicably popular Act of Valor which cast real life Navy SEALS and non-actors in a video game styled depiction of modern warfare, at least gave people something that felt visceral and untried. The Grey and Wrath of the Titans both proved that even Liam Neeson can only take a movie so far. Katherine Heigl failed to re-ignite the 80s female bounty hunter caper with the dreadful One for the Money, and Mark Wahlberg under performed as a smuggler in Contraband. I’m sure none of these people are in trouble to find work as actors, but their days of running around firing off guns and screaming at people might be coming to a close.

The Jury’s Still Out on: Jason Segel and Paul Rudd

With The Five Year Engagement yet to be released, it should be noted that Jason Segel hasn’t really set the world on fire as a box office force to be reckoned with. Sure, The Muppets was a fun movie, but it never hit the coveted hundred million dollar milestone at the box office everyone though was all but assured. His indie film from this spring, Jeff, Who Lives at Home was a miserable disappointment even by semi-mainstream arthouse standards. The same could really be said for Paul Rudd, who couldn’t give away tickets to Wanderlust earlier this year. Neither of these Apatow grads have really been able to live up to their perceive potential as leading men, but they are always pretty great in whatever they do. Before they both re-team with Apatow this December for the Knocked Up spin off This is 40, Segel’s successes hinge on Five Year Engagement (directed and co-written by Muppets and Forgetting Sarah Marshall cohort Nicholas Stoller) while Rudd will retreat somewhat back to the indie realm with a role in the long anticipated adaptation of The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The material has been there for the most part, but audiences have been somewhat fickle. It will be interesting to see what the rest of this year and the near future have in store for these guys.

Saying that Wrath of a Titans bests its 2010 predecessor Clash of the Titans is like saying…

Oh, the heck with it. Wrath of the Titans shows marked improvement in terms of acting and the use of 3-D, but it’s too lazy to even warrant an analogy of any kind. The movie doesn’t seem to care that it’s even a movie. It’s just a bunch of crap happening for little to no reason, and it’s brought to you by director Jonathan Liebsman (Battle: Los Angeles, Darkness Falls), who after killing this potentially fun sword and sandals franchise off is about to put his hack hands all over that Michael Bay produced Ninja Turtles reboot everyone’s been bitching about. I’ll just let that sink in while you proceed on with the rest of the review.

Called upon by his father Zeus (Liam Neeson), the heroic demigod Perseus (Sam Worthington) gets called away from raising his son in peace when Ares (Edgar Ramirez) teams with Hades (Ralph Fiennes) to resurrect their father Kronos – the original God that Zeus took over from – in order to destroy the world, or something like that. It’s honestly never made clear, but everything you need to know is delivered by Neeson in one thirty second long speech approximately three minutes into the film. The three person writing staff’s devotion to really not giving a shit is quite admirable, in hindsight.

At least, Neeson and Fiennes are back because Sam Worthington still isn’t anywhere near the leading man every suit in Hollywood seemingly wants to make him. But while it’s fun to watch Neeson and Fiennes face off against one another in their few scenes together, it’s painfully clear that Neeson wasn’t even there for half the shoot since he’s chained up with his back to the camera most of the time. They’re usually good in bad movies only because they are fun to watch doing pretty much anything, but Liebsman gives them absolutely no material to work with. Ditto the poor Rosamund Pike as a warrior general, Toby Kebbell as the son of Poseidon, and Bill Nighy who shows up only to be a plot convenience and an unfunny comedic relief as a fallen God and weapons maker.

There are fleeting moments where Liebsman understands how cheesy and one note his film is, but aside from the craziest instance of a snake biting the audience in 3D since Comin’ At Ya, every single thing he attempts after the film’s set-up stinks. He seems in such a hurry to get to the finale that none of the other action sequences comes across as anything more than incomprehensibly edited filler with zero stakes and absolutely no logical or logistical sense.

This is the kind of movie where characters are just forgotten about for stretches because the writers have no idea what to do with them; the kind of film where people somehow miraculously teleport from point A to point B because, again, the writers and the director have no logical way to account for them being anywhere else; the kind of film where when the group of heroes is separated they shout each other’s name incessantly like it will make a lick of difference. Every cliché from lazy action epics that could possibly get crammed into a film show up here, and things only get more incompetent as the film reaches its deathly long and uninteresting conclusion that makes a 100 minute film feel like an eternity.

The visual effects are more accomplished and the 3-D is markedly improved despite an obviously lower budget than the first film. In the hands of a better director, this might have elevated Wrath of the Titans, but Liebsman seems to be crafting a sequel to his headache inducing nightmare Battle: Los Angeles instead of a movie with two headed dragons and minotaurs. The blend of handheld camerawork, 3-D, and some of the most spastic editing since Transformers 2 induced the worst headache I probably ever got from watching a film while I wasn’t already previously sick. Such a shame, too, since the creature design and make-up work here is top notch.

While watching Wrath of the Titans, I couldn’t shake the fact that I would rather be watching a movie where Neeson and Fiennes were buddies talking about all the strange movies they’ve done in their careers. There’s a sequence where they turn to each other and smile when they talk about what they did when they were younger. I wonder if they even knew the camera was on. It’s a rare moment of grace in an otherwise graceless movie. I also liked the sequence because it was one of maybe ten minutes in the film where I could clearly see and understand just what was happening and why it was happening.

Liam Neeson has seemingly reinvented himself as cinema’s new favourite badass following the successes of Taken, The A-Team, and Unknown. After being quite well known for having a different set of skills entirely as an actor appearing mostly in serious dramas and prestige films (the Patrick Swayze potboiler Next of Kin, not withstanding), Neeson reteams with A-Team director Joe Carnahan for The Grey, a reasonably entertaining B-movie about men trying to survive in a harsh climate with even harsher wildlife.

Neeson plays Ottway, a depressed sniper hired by an oil company to keep wild animals from attacking the workers at a remote Alaskan refinery. On his way home from his most recent scheduled rotation, his plane crashes in the middle of the tundra and he becomes one of only seven survivors, most of whom are either too self involved (since most of the roughnecks he worked with were outcasts, loners, and criminals) or too scared to be any useful. Ottway attempts to impart some sanity and survival skills in an attempt to bring the men together before a pack of nearby wolves (whose den the plane crashed near) pick them off one by one.

While all the talk of how awesome it would be to watch Neeson punch a wolf in the face has reached a fever pitch, the film definitely arrives with a hype that needs to be tempered just a tad. While Carnahan delivers what’s easily his best film since 2002’s Narc, the material here isn’t entirely enough to sustain a dragged out running time and a story that loses steam as the crew of survivors begins to dwindle.

In typical horror and disaster movie fashion, the supporting cast members are all archetypes, but Carnahan is smart enough to not kill them all off in the order most genre fans would be expecting. The action sequences are intense, and while the wolves themselves don’t appear very convincing (seen mostly in melee style flourishes), Carnahan creates a mood and feeling that lulls viewers into a false sense of confidence. Nearly every attack in the film is a complete out-of-the blue surprise, which is commendable in any film of this nature.

Other than dragging his story out, Carnahan’s script (co-written with Ian Mackenzie Jeffers, who wrote the short story the film is based on) aims to be another pretentious economic parable in the same vein as David Mamet’s The Edge. At times, it’s a bit too poetic for its own good, especially down the draggy stretch where the action should be picking up instead of slowing down. Plus there’s that whole “wolves don’t actually attack people” business, but then again, this really is just a simple B-movie with slightly grander intentions.

Although to Carnahan’s further credit, this film was tailor made for Liam Neeson. No one else could play the role of Ottway the way that he does. Audiences clamouring for Neeson in full on ass kicking mode will be pleased, but also quite pleasantly surprised by how deep his character actually is. It’s made known early on that something is deeply troubling Ottway, but nothing is fully established until very late in the film what’s going on behind his gruff exterior. Carnahan also gives Neeson a line that will easily become as iconic as some of his best onscreen moments and is guaranteed to get cheers and claps from appreciative audiences.

Neeson hasn’t been better than this in quite some time. His films have always been decent, but here he gives a fully realized performance. In a way, Ottway’s sadness and anger feels like an actor tapping into something deeply personal. For the first time, Neeson has actually tapped into a logical scholarly defence for his entire recent filmography. Neeson tells more here with a single pained and pensive glance than reams of Carnahan’s dialog ever could.

While the film undeniably satisfies the craving for some action, it’s hard not to see the ending as a bit of a let down. It doesn’t ruin the movie, but it’s more needlessly “poetic” than the rest of the movie and not nearly as strong as the first hour and forty minutes of the film are. It’s a snarling dog of a movie that goes out like someone stepped on its tail. Then again, there is a little something at the end of the credits…

Click here to view the embedded video.

This film could really go either way, the original screenplay for Clash of the Titans was written by the legendary writer-director Lawrence Kasdan, but the script has since been reworked by the writers of Æon Flux and The Tuxedo.  However, Leterrier has an extremely good eye for action and that’s what you’re looking for in a sword and sandals epic like this.  Let the comparisons to 300 begin.  Clash of the Titans is set for release on March 26th, 2010.

Via FirstShowing.net