Samurai films tend to lean toward either overly talkative and boring or hyper-stylized to the point that credibility comes into question. Striking that middle ground, however, can lead to greatness, or rather — great honor. Takashi Miike’s “13 Assassins” might not match the great Akira Kurosawa films, but boy does it come close, and it [...]

Pulp flicks can sometimes get a bit too ahead of themselves. Sometimes all you need is a hobo, a shotgun and a twisted sense of justice. Rutger Hauer stars in “Hobo with a Shotgun,” the second film after “Machete” to be derived from a fake trailer created for the Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino double-feature “Grindhouse.” Although [...]

Festering somewhere in the chaos of “Sucker Punch” is an exotic narrative twisted into an epic adventure waiting to be born. But Zack Snyder has pulled his bun out of the oven way before he’s given it time to rise. A multi-layered rock fantasy that could find a permanent home on MTV2, Snyder’s premature brainchild [...]

A small but existent segment of the American population believes that any and all combinations of cars, guns and naked women make for the perfect care-free cinematic cocktail. But like any cocktail, there’s a perfect blend required, not simply throwing them in a blend-er. Behold the difference between the “Fast and Furious” franchise and “Drive [...]

Few films can brag that they were adapted from a fake grindhouse movie trailer, which is exactly what makes “Machete” special. Few filmmakers can pull off an exploitation flick quite like Robert Rodriguez and although “Machete” will never be a cult classic, Rodriguez is to thank for helping popularize this often laughed-at sub-genre. There are [...]

Ever since 2002, Hollywood has had a case of mistaken “Bourne Identity,” pulling the trigger on any script that weaves government Intelligence with guns and combat and centers on a protagonist who doesn’t know his or her own strength. “Salt” is another byproduct of the “Bourne” era, yet barely executes half as well as that [...]

There are very few movies out there that will amp you up like “The Expendables.” Maybe not so much for the ladies, but Sylvester Stallone’s battle royal of action stars and other renowned muscle men from the last three decades will convince almost every man that lifting weights, eating a steak and potatoes dinner and [...]

It had been 12 years since John McClane (Bruce Willis) last stopped a criminal mastermind’s mass terrorist plot and “Live Free or Die Hard” tries to make up for every single one of them. John drives three pedestrian cars, a police car, a mack truck and flies a helicopter; he survives at least three long-distance [...]

There are countless ways to interpret a comic series for the big screen, not including story. “The Losers” could’ve been done as a straight-up action film about a team of black ops soldiers getting revenge on the man who left them for dead, but director Sylvain White opts to honor the source material with an [...]

To label “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief” as Harry Potter with Greek mythology is to fault the zebra for having stripes because the tiger had them first. The hero’s journey story of a young protagonist realizing he or she has a destiny and entering a world previously unknown to him or her [...]

It’s possible that any sequel ten years in the making would be bound to fall flat. “The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day” might have been destined to do so from the beginning. The cult following if not worshipping of the original beckoned creator Troy Duffy to bring us the McManus brothers once again, even [...]

It’s time to suit up, because the comic film genre has a new face bringing it back to life and it’s a shiny one. “Iron Man” delivers everything you want in a comic book adaptation. It’s also probably the best thing to happen to Marvel Studios since Spider-Man 2 – that’s nearly four years and a [...]

Any good film, book, essay or song has a grabber that catches your attention and hooks you through the rest of that work. “Speed” is a two-hour grabber. It is the consummate thrill-a- minute movie, the kind where all sins of bad acting and preposterous events are forgiven because the action and suspense are like [...]

Admitably, there’s something innately satisfying about watching the hypothetical demise of the entire planet by means of natural disaster/earth crust displacement. There might even be something profound science fiction-wise lurking about in the concept of the Mayan apocalypse and the end of the world as we know it. For better or worse, “2012″ is a [...]

“Crank” is a high-octane concept movie that busts out of the gate and never stops. Unlike most adrenaline-junkie action films, however, “Crank” justifies its juiced-up rip-roaring wackiness because the movie is actually about someone who needs to keep his adrenaline up in order to live. Not many other “action porn” movies can say they have [...]