#7
American Sniper
DIR. Clint Eastwood
SPOT ON MOST ANTICIPATED OF 2014 LIST: N/A
For the same reasons Exodus: Gods and Kings was disappointing, this latest “effort” from Clint Eastwood is even more disappointing. I have to go all the way back to 2004’s Million Dollar Baby to find the last time I enjoyed an Eastwood movie and that’s a damned shame. I understand he has plenty of supporters, but for as much as some of his recent movies have been celebrated upon release (I’m looking at you Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima), they are hardly mentioned ever again once you get a few months from their release and awards hype. Eastwood, as a filmmaker, is someone I no longer think I can anticipate, which makes for good reason American Sniper wasn’t on my most anticipated list.
REVIEW SNIPPET:
The themes are all present. Kyle was clearly a soldier determined to keep his fellow soldiers safe with a strong sense of duty in a kill or be killed war, but the way Hall’s script and Eastwood’s directing muddles things up, had this film not starred Bradley Cooper you would have thought it was made for television. I guess we can at least give thanks that Eastwood and cinematographer Tom Stern have finally decided to add a little color to their images, rather than going for their signature near monochrome look, and even the score is a bit of a switch for Eastwood, but then again, soft piano themes wouldn’t really fit, though it’s not as if that’s stopped Eastwood before.
Read my full review here.
#6
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
DIR. Matt Reeves
SPOT ON MOST ANTICIPATED OF 2014 LIST: #16
I quite enjoyed Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but I think the review snippet below gets to the heart of the reasoning Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was a disappointment. Sure, apes with machine guns on horseback sounds cool, but if that’s the only reason I’m showing up to what is expected to be a more thoughtful and thought-provoking blockbuster then I think something has been missed.
REVIEW SNIPPET:
When viewed in pieces, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is very well made, but as a whole it’s a bit of a non-starter and I can hardly see the point. It feels small, inconclusive and the title doesn’t make much sense. Insurgency of the Planet of the Apes might have been better or Almost the Planet of the Apes as the whole film feels like a footnote to a larger, more compelling story. Of course, the intent is to leave room for Planet of the Apes 3, but if you’re going to skip over ten years of story prior to Dawn of the Apes to only tell me a story that takes place over a couple of days, it better be more than just a set up for another movie two years down the line.
Read my full review here.
#5
Inherent Vice
DIR. Paul Thomas Anderson
SPOT ON MOST ANTICIPATED OF 2014 LIST: #8
I tried reading Thomas Pynchon‘s novel and right then I quickly began to realize this one might not be for me. I just didn’t “get it”. I didn’t get what was so great about it and once the movie came around I found myself chuckling at times, but ultimately left in the dark. I tried watching it again and as much as I wanted to enjoy it I couldn’t even bring myself to complete it the second time around.
REVIEW SNIPPET:
My ho-hum reaction to Inherent Vice didn’t necessarily come as a surprise. I tried reading Pynchon’s novel earlier this year and made it a quarter of the way through before giving up. Like my reaction to the film, I wasn’t disinterested, but nor was I interested… I just didn’t care and Phoenix’s performance as Sportello, as spot on as it may be (perhaps too much in fact) and, at times, quite humorous, I just didn’t care about him one bit. I didn’t care about his investigation, I didn’t care about his run-ins with his LAPD nemesis, Detective Christian “Bigfoot” Bjornsen (Josh Brolin) and his ex-girlfriend, Shasta, can go missing forever as far as I’m concerned.
Read my full review here.
#4
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
DIR. Kenneth Branagh
SPOT ON MOST ANTICIPATED OF 2014 LIST: N/A
Here’s another one that made my worst of 2014 list, but it makes this list for a much different reason. How is it possible, with such a wide array of content to pull from Tom Clancy‘s novels, that such a terrible Jack Ryan story could be conjured. What is Hollywood’s fascination with origin stories that makes them think they can no longer just throw audiences into the thick of things and capture our attention? The Ryan stories are rife with franchise potential and this was a massive missed opportunity because Hollywood seems to just have no idea how to tell a story any longer.
REVIEW SNIPPET:
The character that originally began as a figment of Clancy’s imagination in a debut novel that had our own government wondering “How’d you know that?” has gone on to be featured in several of Clancy’s novels, and first appeared on the big screen in 1990 in The Hunt for Red October played by Alec Baldwin. Baldwin would be replaced by Harrison Ford in two more films only to have Ben Affleck attempt to restart the character in 2002 with the non-starter The Sum of All Fears. Go ahead and lump Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit with Affleck’s failure because unless Paramount is determined to make a sequel, or if their blanket marketing has managed to sell this cheap bag of goods to an unsuspecting audience, this is probably the last we’ll hear of Ryan for a long time.
Read my full review here.
