Can I just ask “Why?” Really. The actors were sleepwalking, but even if they’d been at the top of their game, still…Why? Yeah, I know, to turn a buck (which I don’t think they did). You can’t improve on certain films. The Wolfman is one of them. So is Bride of Frankenstein. (Let’s make a pact that if anyone announces a remake of that we do the angry villagers scene – for real.)

FF=3

A film with a fatal identity crisis. Confused and confusing. Shia Lebeouf is miscast, Gordon Gekko has lost his mojo, all of which are bad enough, but to exacerbate this unfocused mess with the off-key wails of David Byrne in the background…much of my FFing was through the soundtrack: awful, awful, awful.

FF=3

All Jesse Eisenberg all the time (see Holy Rollers plus he’s starring in Social Network as well). Twitter would trend this as #comingofageinsummermovie.  It has its charms but not very compelling.  I got bored.

FF=3

Not sure how I feel about this one. Casey Affleck is chilling as an affectless (no pun intended) homicidal psychopath but the beat-downs of Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson are look-aways. Alba’s went on far too long and the director seemed to be a little too much into it. Left a bad taste. Even without that, it’s still 2nd-rate noir.

FF=3

Why do I do this? Against all advice, I watched this. I have a weakness for Biblical apocalyptic stories (all those years in Catholic school, I guess) and figured, How bad can it be? Well, pretty bad. I mean, I never knew you could kill angels with bullets. (I missed that in Catechism class.) Maybe a coherent story existed in the script; it sure as hell didn’t make it to the screen.

FF=3

If you saw the original “[REC],” there’s not much new here except more backstory.  The action picks up right after the first film (remade here as “Quarantine”) ends.  So, if you liked the first, you’ll like the sequel (which bears no relationship to “Quarantine 2”).

FF=3

Almost as bad as Peckinpah’s The Killer Elite (a completely different story, btw). One improbable scenario after another. The talented cast seemed as confused as I was and never gelled. Supposedly based on a true story but it’s hard to invest in a plot where so many supposedly smart people do so many dumb things. I couldn’t wait for it to be over.

FF=3

A thoroughly unpleasant film involving plague and the Medieval Inquisition. It takes some unpredictable turns but I find the various inquisitions among the darkest hours of the human soul and watched this at arm’s length. (It occurred to me while watching that the same mentality persists among the political correctness crowd which still demands a periodic auto da fe.)

FF=3

Mary Elizabeth Winstead is very easy on the eyes, but this film has a lot going against it. First off, the fact that it’s a prequel puts the audience way ahead of the cast. That would be okay, but the characters do such stupid things. Let’s not tell anyone what we found. And hey, why don’t we drill into the block of ice to get a tissue sample from the creature? Really? No thought to alien microbes? This needs to be done under level-4 contamination precautions. I lost confidence in the screenplay there. The fillings were a clever touch, but mostly, to quote “Motorpsycho Nightmare” – “Oh, no, no, I’ve been through this movie before.”

FF=3

Yet another film that doesn’t deliver on the promise of its trailer. The big names in the cast are window dressing. Gina Carano has good action chops but provides no emotional handle. Lots of running around. Maybe if I watched it again the plot would make sense to me, but that’s not gonna happen.

FF=3