3 Days to Kill Review

Rated PG-13 (Intense Sequences of Violence and Action, Some Sensuality and Language)

Running Time: 1 Hour & 57 Minutes

Cast-

Kevin Costner-Ethan Renner

Hailee Steinfeld-Zoey Renner

Amber Heard-Vivi Delay

Connie Nielsen-Christine Renner

Richard Sammel-Wolfgang Braun/The Wolf

Tómas Lemarquis-The Albino

Marc Andréoni-Mitat Yilmaz

Bruno Ricci-Guido

Jonas Bloquet-Hugh

Eriq Ebouaney-Jules

Joakhim Sigue-Abbate

Alison Valence-Sumia

Jonathan Barbezieux-Louis

Michaël Vander-Meiren-Jacques

Directed by Joseph 'McG' Nichol

Wait a minute, you're not Liam Neeson!

Note: Screened on Wednesday, February 19, 2014 at AMC Loews 34th Street 14.

Ever since he starred in Pierre Morel's 2009 action thriller "Taken," sixty-one year old actor Liam Neeson has been enjoying a major career resurgence, with the hit film redefining him as a bona fide action star in the eyes of moviegoers. Looking to go the same route is Academy Award-winning director/actor Kevin Costner, who plays—you guessed it—an aging CIA operative in Joseph 'McG' Nichol's "3 Days to Kill," the latest product from Luc Besson's factory-like production company EuropaCorp. Since its inception fourteen years ago, EuropaCorp has been responsible for the glut of mid-range action films that have been hitting theaters over the last decade. Some, like 2002's "The Transporter" and even 2007's "Hitman," are passable in a guilty pleasure sort of way while others, like the aforementioned "Taken," are downright entertaining but more often than not, the quality of EuropaCorp's releases have ranged from mediocre to abysmal. The problem with Besson's work is that they all feature disposable B-movie plots with cheesy villains who are one step away from growing out their evil mustache. It's no better than the trashy thrillers that premiere on late-night cable; the only difference is that the films bearing Besson's name are directed with a little more flair and just happen to star a recognizable Hollywood actor. "3 Days to Kill" falls firmly into mediocre territory, with McG and Besson unable to decide on whether their film wants to be an action thriller, a father-daughter drama, or a comedy. Their choice to do all three has resulted in a wildly erratic picture that's all over the map in terms of tone and execution.

Grizzled CIA field operative Ethan Renner (Kevin Costner) has been with the agency for thirty-two years, neglecting his wife and daughter in the process but his old age catches up to him during a mission to capture a notorious arms dealer named Wolfgang Braun, who calls himself 'The Wolf' (Richard Sammel). While chasing after The Wolf's enforcer 'The Albino' (Tómas Lemarquis), Ethan suddenly collapses on the street but he manages to wound his target in the foot before losing consciousness. He wakes up in a hospital some time later and learns from the doctor that he's been diagnosed with terminal brain and lung cancer, with only three to five months to live. Forced into retirement, Ethan travels to Paris, France in a last-ditch attempt to reconnect with his estranged wife Christine (Connie Nielsen) and teenage daughter Zoey (Hailee Steinfeld). With Christine going on an impromptu business trip to London, Ethan is tasked with taking care of Zoey for three days but his hope of making up for lost time is complicated when a rogue CIA agent named Vivi Delay (Amber Heard) contacts him out of the blue for one last job. She offers Ethan a big payday as well as an experimental drug that could cure his cancer; in exchange he will locate The Wolf and his associates, and put an end to their lives.

"3 Days to Kill" is a film that doesn't know what it wants to be. On the surface, it looks like a derivative copy of Pierre Morel's "Taken" but while it shares some stylistic similarities with the 2009 film, McG's picture is an odd concoction that mixes an earnest father-daughter melodrama with a trashy B-movie action thriller plot. The end result is a film that's tonally all over the place, with the script (written by Luc Besson and Adi Hasak) being frequently pulled into random subplots that will leave you staring at the screen in absolute bewilderment. The opening scenes, while generic as action thrillers go, show some promise as Kevin Costner's Ethan Renner (watching a little too much "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol," Mr. Besson) is on a mission to take down an arms dealer who goes by the cheesy Eurotrash nickname 'The Wolf.' A bomb explodes, followed by a massive shootout and before we know it, Renner's in the hospital where he's given the bad news about his cancer going terminal. Given that he only has three to five months to live, it's understandable that Renner wants to spend what little time he has left with his family, and since this is a film written by Luc Besson, you would think said family comes into danger when the aforementioned arms dealer comes after him looking for revenge. If "3 Days to Kill" had followed that loose plotline, it could've at least been a passable, albeit utterly predictable, affair but Besson instead spins his wheels for close to two hours, trapping the main character in a repetitive series of events where Renner tries to bond with his daughter, is suddenly called away on an urgent mission and then finds out that he messed up again upon returning from his absence.

It's clear that Besson and Hasak were trying to go for a comedic tone by juxtaposing Renner's cold efficiency as a government operative with his complete ineptitude as a father to a teenage daughter. Unfortunately, McG lacks the directorial skill to pull off that kind of tonal balancing act. At best, it's not funny and at worse, it's bizarre to watch. To locate The Wolf, Renner goes after two of his known associates: high-end car salesman Mitat Yilmaz (Marc Andréoni) and accountant Guido (Bruno Ricci). He takes each of them back to his apartment (where a family of African squatters has moved in, just because) but before the aging CIA agent can interrogate them, his daughter calls. This leads to several surreal moments where Renner resorts to asking for parenting advice from Mitat and later, forces a tied-up Guido—who talks like he's Super Mario—to divulge an old family recipe when Zoey reveals that she wants to cook a romantic dinner for her boyfriend. As if the film wasn't weird enough already, there's a running gag involving Renner's new ringtone (Icona Pop's I Love It), which immediately sucks out whatever tension McG was going for every time it rears its ugly head. By the time "3 Days to Kill" finally returns to The Wolf, it's all but an afterthought because the script never makes him a credible threat. However, what really kills the film is the inconsistent tone, leading to a disjointed 'what kind of movie am I watching' vibe.

Kevin Costner may be two years younger than Liam Neeson but the critically-acclaimed actor looks much older with his wrinkled blue eyes and five o'clock shadow. While he certainly nailed the appearance of a world-weary, burnt-out government agent, Costner's performance in McG's film is rather disengaged, to the point where it feels like he's about to fall asleep in the middle of a scene. Not helping matters is the fact that he moves like molasses during the film's few action scenes. On multiple occasions, the audience only witnesses the aftermath of Renner's handiwork with numerous bodies strewn across the floor. If Costner's goal was to follow in Neeson's footsteps, he hasn't succeeded. Hailee Steinfeld fares better as she manages to bring some depth to her role her as Zoey, a teenager who outwardly spurns her absentee father but secretly yearns to repair their relationship. Amber Heard seems to have stepped out of a completely different film with her femme fatale turn as Vivi Delay. We learn absolutely nothing about her character, with Heard moving in and out of the narrative at random. The beautiful Connie Nielsen is wasted as Renner's estranged wife Christine while Richard Sammel's The Wolf is another in a long-line of cookie-cutter Eurotrash villains that Besson just loves to populate his films with.

Released on February 21, 2014, "3 Days to Kill" has received largely dismal reviews with 29% on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics found that it 'uneasily mixes technically accomplished action sequences with an underdeveloped family conflict.' The audience at the advance screening didn't know what to make of the film either, with some voicing that they were misled by the initial trailers. Box office wise, "3 Days to Kill" attracted little attention from moviegoers as it grossed only $12.2 million in its weekend debut. At this rate, it'll creep past $30 million before fading away from theaters. I don't know what Luc Besson was smoking when he sat down to write "3 Days to Kill." He takes a somewhat-promising premise and handles it in the laziest way possible while failing to keep a consistent tone. Maybe it's time for Besson to retire before he sullies whatever goodwill he has left.

Final Rating: 2 out of 5

"I don't want to spend the rest of my life killing for you."

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Pompeii 3D Review

Rated PG-13 (Intense Battle Sequences, Disaster-Related Action and Brief Sexual Content)

Running Time: 1 Hour & 38 Minutes

Cast-

Kit Harington-Milo

Emily Browning-Cassia Severus

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje-Atticus

Kiefer Sutherland-Senator Quintus Attius Corvus

Jared Harris-Marcus Cassius Severus

Carrie-Anne Moss-Aurelia Severus

Jessica Lucas-Ariadne

Sasha Roiz-Proculus

Joe Pingue-Graecus

Currie Graham-Bellator

Dylan Schombing-Young Milo

Jean-Francois Lachapelle-Milo's Father

Rebecca Eady-Milo's Mother

Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson

Man, that wind machine is quite powerful.

Note: Screened on Wednesday, February 12, 2014 at AMC Empire 25.

In his review, Jordan Hoffman describes "Pompeii" as 'basically a whole lot of sitting around [while] waiting for the THING that got you into the theater to happen' but Paul W.S. Anderson's big-budget disaster flick remains a disappointingly derivative picture even when said thing finally happens. Destroyed and buried under four to six meters of ash and pumice when Mount Vesuvius suddenly erupted in 79 AD, the Roman city of Pompeii has always fascinated me because the inhabitants are literally frozen in time, with full-body plaster casts eerily capturing their final moments of agony. Doug Stewart of Smithsonian magazine writes that 'it was as though an eyewitness from antiquity had stepped forward with photographs of the disaster.' Due to the lack of air and moisture, the objects buried beneath the city have been remarkably well-preserved for almost two thousand years, providing a rare snapshot of Roman life during the Pax Romana. The idea of a film set during the final days of Pompeii certainly had potential but Anderson and his writers squander all that by simply ripping off of James Cameron's "Titanic" and Ridley Scott's "Gladiator." Since making his directorial debut in 1994 with the crime film "Shopping," Anderson's career has pretty much coasted on the "Resident Evil" franchise, based on the popular video game series published by Capcom. Although none of his work has ever earned a positive consensus on Rotten Tomatoes, I admit to having a soft spot for 1995's "Mortal Kombat," arguably one of the better films based on a video game, and a fighting one at that. Unfortunately, it looks like his streak of negative reviews is set to continue unabated. The final thirty-or-so minutes of "Pompeii" are without a doubt visually impressive but the rest of the film is just dull filler that fails to engage in any meaningful way.

Led by the sneering Commander Quintus Attius Corvus (Kiefer Sutherland) and his equally corrupt aide Proculus (Sasha Roiz), an army of Roman legionaries brutally wipe out a Celtic tribe of horsemen in Londinium, Britannia, circa 62 AD. The only survivor of this massacre is young Milo (Dylan Schombing), who hid beneath a pile of corpses while witnessing his parents being slaughtered. However, he is soon captured and sold into slavery. Seventeen years later, an adult Milo (Kit Harington) is now a deadly gladiator where he is forced to battle for his life every day in violent matches for the amusement of the blood-thirsty crowd. His talent as a fighter catches the eye of Graecus (Joe Pingue), who decides to take the gladiator with him to the Roman resort city of Pompeii. While en route, Milo crosses paths with Cassia (Emily Browning), who hails from the wealthy Severus family. She takes a liking to him due to his natural affinity to horses. Arriving on the eve of the Vulcanalia festival, Milo is pitted against reigning champion Atticus (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), an African slave on the verge of earning his freedom. All he has to do is kill his new opponent. Also on-hand to take part in the festivities is Corvus himself, now a senator who lusts after Cassia. He threatens her parents—Marcus (Jared Harris) and Aurelia (Carrie-Anne Moss)—with blackmail, forcing them to agree to let their daughter to marry him. Meanwhile, Milo warms up to Atticus, with the two becoming fast friends and inspiring a rebellious spirit within each other. However, an even greater danger looms overhead in the form of volcano Mount Vesuvius.

The main draw of any disaster film has always been the disaster itself and Paul W.S. Anderson's "Pompeii" is no different but he and his team of writers (Lee and Janet Scott Batchler, and Michael Robert Johnson) could've at least made an effort to think outside the box when it came to the story. Blatantly derivative, the film is essentially just an artless photocopy of James Cameron's "Titanic," with almost every plot point lifted wholesale from the 1997 Academy Award-winning hit. The only difference is the historical tragedy at its center. What we have here are types instead of characters and what's worse is that Anderson doesn't even try to hide the fact that he's just slowly spinning his wheels until the grand finale by frequently cutting to an ominous shot of Mount Vesuvius. The central romance in "Titanic" may have been too cheesy for all intents and purposes but Cameron at least spent time developing his characters so that when the eponymous ship finally sank, there would be a real emotional weight to it. Don't look for that here in "Pompeii;" outside of two scenes and the finale, Milo and Cassia barely have any screen-time together. As Collider's Matt Goldberg writes, their love story basically boils down to 'I'm a nice person; you're a nice person.' Not content with just ripping off one film, Anderson also 'borrows' from Ridley Scott's "Gladiator," right down to the inclusion of Juba, I mean Atticus. There's some enjoyment to be found in the arena-set action scenes but it's hampered by the PG-13 rating. However, they're not as incompetently edited compared to January's atrocious "The Legend of Hercules." Of course, people are paying to see the big bad volcano explode and Anderson certainly pulls out all the stops with fireballs raining down from the sky and a massive tsunami hitting the city. It's all visually impressive, although not quite worth the premium price of 3D. Plus, the destruction goes on for far too long and becomes mind-numbingly dull after the first ten minutes.

The performances don't leave much of an impression, with "Game of Thrones" alum Kit Harington doing his best as slave-turned-invincible gladiator Milo but he fails to imbue the character with enough of a personality for him to stand out. Emily Browning's Cassia is miswritten as a modern girl in a Roman world and is later reduced to another throwaway damsel-in-distress. As main villain Quintus Attius Corvus, Kiefer Sutherland is woefully miscast as he shouts and sneers with his ridiculously distracting accent. It's hard to believe that Corvus and Jack Bauer are even played by the same person. The only worthwhile actor to watch is Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, who manages to lend his character Atticus some semblance of depth while offering up a few funny one-liners. In fact, he provoked the biggest reaction from the audience (much to my annoyance) and frankly, I wished the film had Akinnuoye-Agbaje as the lead instead of Harington. Rounding out the rest of the cast is Jared Harris and Carrie-Anne Moss, who are fine in their roles as Cassia's wealthy parents but they do little to hide the fact that they're only appearing in the film to just pick up a paycheck.

Released on February 21, 2014, "Pompeii" has received largely negative reviews with 31% on Rotten Tomatoes. I imagine Anderson is pretty used to such a reception by now. Critics concluded that 'this big-budget sword-and-sandal adventure lacks the energy and storytelling heft to amount to more than a guilty pleasure.' With "The LEGO Movie" still playing in theaters, "Pompeii" will be lucky to reach an opening weekend debut of $15 million and will have to pick up the slack overseas given its $100 million production budget. The destruction of Pompeii is a fascinating moment in world history as its subsequent preservation provides a rare glimpse to the past but in the hands of Paul W.S. Anderson, the 16,000 Roman citizens who perished are nothing more than cannon fodder for a mediocre disaster film that will all but be forgotten come next week.

Final Rating: 2 out of 5

"You could hear the shrieks of women, the wailing of infants, and the shouting of men. People bewailed their own fate or that of their relatives, and there were some who prayed for death in their terror of dying. Many besought the aid of the gods, but still more imagined there were no gods left."

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Winter's Tale Review

Rated PG-13 (Violence and Some Sensuality)

Running Time: 1 Hour & 58 Minutes

Cast-

Colin Farrell-Peter Lake

Jessica Brown Findlay-Beverly Penn

Russell Crowe-Pearly Soames

William Hurt-Isaac Penn

Jennifer Connelly-Virginia Gamely

Eva Marie Saint-Adult Willa Penn

Will Smith-Lucifer

Mckayla Twiggs-Young Willa Penn

Ripley Sobo-Abby Gamely

Kevin Corrigan-Romeo Tan

Kevin Durand-Cesar Tan

Matt Bomer-Peter Lake's Father

Lucy Griffiths-Peter Lake's Mother

Directed by Akiva Goldsman

Oh look, they're riding the TriStar logo!

Note: Screened on Tuesday, February 11, 2014 at the Zeigfeld Theater (Red Carpet Premiere).

Akiva Goldsman's directorial debut "Winter's Tale" spends a lot of time exploring the nature of miracles but the cruel irony is that not even a miracle can save this silly and misguided romance film. Born in New York City in 1962, Goldsman has had a long and illustrious career in Hollywood as a writer and producer, winning an Academy Award in 2002 for Best Adapted Screenplay for Ron Howard's "A Beautiful Mind." However, this is also the same man that gave us 1995's "Batman Forever" and 1997's "Batman & Robin," the latter of which is one of the worst films ever made, comic book adaptation or not. Goldsman's name has been attached to a number of high-profile blockbusters such as 2004's "I, Robot" and 2006's "The Da Vinci Code" but more often than not, reviews for his work has been negative and at best, mixed. Sure, he's written some good films—"The Client" and "Cinderella Man" come to mind—yet they feel more like flukes when they're compared with the rest of his résumé. Based on the critically-acclaimed 1983 novel by Mark Helprin, "Winter's Tale" has been a passion project for Goldsman for quite some time but he probably should've taken a tip from Martin Scorsese, who wanted to adapt the 700-page tome for the big screen but was forced to abandon it as he deemed the story to be 'unfilmable.' Unabashedly sentimental, Colin Farrell and Jessica Brown Findlay manage to make their characters' love story work while it lasts yet the same can't be said for the rest of "Winter's Tale," a fantasy romance film that dumps all the fantasy on the audience's lap without logically making any sense of it, resulting in a disastrous picture that's just too cheesy and nonsensical to take seriously.

In 1895, a Russian couple (Matt Bomer and Lucy Griffiths) arrives at New York City's Ellis Island in the hopes of starting a new life together with their infant son but they are denied entry when the doctor discovers that the husband is seriously ill. Forced to return to Europe, the father decides to set his baby adrift at sea in a model sailboat bound for the New York Harbor. Twenty-one years later, the baby grows up into a handsome young man named Peter Lake (Colin Farrell), a petty thief who is now on the run from his old boss Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe). Cornered by Pearly and his crew, Peter is saved by the TriStar logo, I mean a mysterious (and seemingly magical) white horse called Athansor. Gathering his belongings, Peter hopes to lie low in the countryside with his new companion but Athansor instead leads him to the home of wealthy newspaper publisher Isaac Penn (William Hurt). Believing that the horse wants him to burglarize the place, Peter breaks into the house and is about to crack open the safe when he hears someone playing the piano. It is Penn's beautiful daughter Beverly (Jessica Brown Findlay) and the instant (and I mean this literally) Peter lays eyes on her, he falls in love. However, Beverly is slowly dying from consumption (tuberculosis). Just when he's finally found happiness, Peter loses it as Beverly succumbs to her disease shortly after they make love. Following a deadly encounter with Soames on the Brooklyn Bridge, Peter loses his memory and spends the next century wandering the streets of New York with no purpose. A chance meeting with a New York Sun food columnist named Virginia Gamely (Jennifer Connelly) gives Peter renewed hope as he faces Soames, revealed to be a demon from Hell, once more.

There's a scene midway through "Winter's Tale" (no relation to the 1623 William Shakespeare play) where Peter and Beverly finally make love in a tent on the Penn mansion's roof but this tender and passionate occasion is ruined when she dies shortly after. Actually, 'shortly after' isn't fully accurate as Beverly pretty much dies the minute her orgasm ends and what is meant to be a sad moment instead becomes laughable because Goldsman makes it seem like Beverly died from the sex rather than from her disease. When a character's death ends up being funny in what is supposedly a romantic drama, than you have a serious problem on your hands. "Winter's Tale" is a beautiful film to look at thanks to Caleb Deschanel's cinematography but the script—written by Goldsman—is an absolute mess. While I knew that there would be a supernatural component to the story since the novel belongs to the 'magical realism' subgenre, the director has unfortunately failed to translate that aspect to the big screen because he doesn't even bother to explain the logistics of how this mythical universe works. This means the audience will be left scratching their heads in bewilderment when a white horse just seemingly sprouts wings and flies off into the air like the TriStar logo. Rather than immersing you into the plot, these supernatural moments end up being distracting because you're struggling to grasp how the fantasy elements mesh with the turn-of-the-century love story. From what I understand (and believe me, I tried really hard), New York City is some sort of battleground between good and evil where demons masquerading themselves as humans are trying to prevent people from using their 'miracles'…or something to that effect. See, attempting to even make sense of it will only end in frustration. The dialogue is awful as well and is composed of hokey mumbo-jumbo about how people turn into twinkling stars when they die and includes such gems like 'The sicker I become, the more clearly I can see that everything is connected by light!', and then the entire shot is filled with J.J. Abrams-styled lens flare for inexplicable reasons. You can't even make this sh*t up, not even when you're drunk. Oh, and Will Smith plays Soames' demonic boss Lucifer. Yep, the former Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is now the Fresh Prince of Darkness, complete with earrings the size of thumbs and a Jimi Hendrix t-shirt. So I guess it's true, rock-and-roll really is the devil's music!       

The only aspect that succeeds is the romance between Peter and Beverly and its all thanks to the charming performances from Colin Farrell and Jessica Brown Findlay (Lady Sybil Branson from the popular British television series "Downton Abbey"). Whenever Goldsman focuses on them, "Winter's Tale" becomes a tolerable film despite the schmaltzy way he handles their characters. Farrell and Findlay display enough chemistry with each other that for forty-or-so minutes, you're actually invested in the story…until she dies and that damn flying horse returns. The rest of the supporting cast fails to match the two leads, with Russell Crowe hamming it up as the demonic gangster Pearly Soames. Hell, most of Crowe's dialogue is completely indecipherable due to the heavy Irish accent he adopts. William Hurt and Jennifer Connelly do what they can but they're trapped in thankless roles. Connelly in particular spends the climax crying while cradling her character's daughter (Ripley Sobo) as Peter and Pearly engage in a fistfight on a frozen lake. Eva Marie Saint pops in as well but her character's inclusion makes no sense whatsoever. Assuming her younger self is around age ten, that would make Saint's character 109-years-old. Sure, there are people who live past a hundred yet Goldsman doesn't even acknowledge it and even if he did, he'd probably just say it was magic that kept her alive.

Released on February 14, 2014, "Winter's Tale" has received overwhelmingly negative reviews with a paltry 15% on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics noted that Goldsman 'tries to retain the grandiose sweep of its source novel, but [he] fails to fill it in with characters worth rooting for or a sensible plot.' I saw this film during its world premiere and people were actually laughing while the cast and director were sitting in the audience. To add insult to injury, "Winter's Tale" flopped during its opening weekend, coming in at eighth place with only $8.1 million. Maybe Warner Brothers will think twice before throwing $60 million into the hands of Goldsman. I'm almost tempted to recommend this film just so you guys can see this train wreck with your own eyes but I don't want a mob coming after me with pitchforks. However, I will say this: in directing, writing, and producing "Winter's Tale," Goldsman has given us another "Batman & Robin"-sized disaster for us to laugh at. If that's what he was going for, than bravo!

Final Rating: 1.5 out of 5

"Is it possible to love someone so completely that you can't die?"

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RoboCop (2014) Review

Rated PG-13 (Intense Sequences of Action including Frenetic Gun Violence Throughout, Brief Strong Language, Sensuality and Some Drug Material)

Running Time: 1 Hour & 57 Minutes

Cast-

Joel Kinnaman-Detective Alex Murphy/RoboCop

Abbie Cornish-Clara Murphy

Gary Oldman-Dr. Dennett Norton

Michael Keaton-Raymond Sellars

Jackie Earle Haley-Rick Mattox

Jennifer Ehle-Liz Kline

Jay Baruchel-Tom Pope

Michael K. Williams-Detective Jack Lewis

Samuel L. Jackson-Patrick 'Pat' Novak

Marianne Jean-Baptiste-Chief Karen Dean

Aimee Garcia-Dr. Jae Kim

Patrick Garrow-Antoine Vallon

John Paul Ruttan-David Murphy

Douglas Urbanski-Mayor Durant

K.C. Collins-Andre Daniels

Zach Grenier-Senator Hubert Dreyfuss

Directed by José Padilha

Dead or alive, you're coming with me...again!

Note: Screened on Monday, February 10, 2014 at AMC Loews 34th Street 14.

'Dead or alive, you're coming with me!' Despite being saddled with a ridiculous premise (a cop killed in the line-of-duty is revived by a malevolent mega-corporation as a superhuman cyborg), director Paul Verhoeven's 1987 sci-fi flick "RoboCop" is now widely regarded as one of the best action films ever made. Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner's brilliant script not only captured the horrific situation the main character was trapped in but it also cleverly used his plight to gleefully satirize American capitalism while scenes of comically over-the-top violence played out before our eyes. The film quickly became a big part of my childhood even though it was wildly inappropriate for my age and I fondly remember owning a RoboCop action figure whose visor would light up when you pressed the little button on his chest. For those of you who are curious, this was the figure I owned and yes, the packaging is inviting you to 'just touch him.' That's rather creepy, Officer Murphy. The critical and commercial success of "RoboCop" prompted Orion Pictures to green-light a sequel but Verhoeven was unable to return as he was already committed to "Total Recall." In his place was "Empire Strikes Back" director Irvin Kershner. Released in 1990, "RoboCop 2" received dismal reviews from critics, who praised the special effects and action sequences but felt that the human element had become lost in a sea of nihilistic violence. This was followed by 1993's watered-down "RoboCop 3," which stripped out all the graphic violence and satire. In its place was a cheesy Saturday Morning Cartoon. With the film series becoming increasingly muddled by television spin-offs (both animated and live-action), it was clear that RoboCop's glory days were long over…until some studio executive came up with the bright idea to remake Verhoeven's classic.

Given Hollywood's current penchant for remakes, this news shouldn't come as a total surprise. Development on a "RoboCop" remake began in 2005, when Sony Pictures announced that the project was being worked on through their subsidiary Screen Gems but it was suddenly halted a year later, to the collective relief of fans everywhere. In March 2008, "RoboCop" was listed in a press release from MGM regarding franchises the studio would be developing in the near future. Three months later, a poster with the tagline "RoboCop: Coming 2010" was unveiled at the Licensing International Expo. Whether we wanted it or not, "RoboCop" was being remade. Darren Aronofsky was initially set to direct the film but he left the project due to creative disagreements with MGM and their unresolved financial issues. Thanks to the commercial success of 2007's "Elite Squad" and its 2010 sequel "The Enemy Within," Brazilian director José Padilha was hired to replace Aronofsky. With up-and-coming screenwriter Joshua Zetumer working on the script, it looked like the "RoboCop" remake was finally back on track but rumors of studio interference began to surface and every fan's worst fear came true when it was confirmed last summer that the film would be rated PG-13, as opposed to the original's R. With this news, I was fully expecting the worse despite the admittedly slick-looking trailers. To my surprise, Padilha's "RoboCop" is actually pretty good, less a remake and more of a reimagining. The script, while thought-provoking, doesn't fully explore all its themes to their full potential and lacks the impact of Verhoeven's classic but this new version of "RoboCop" remains an above-average sci-fi action film, a remake that's anchored by a solid cast and elevates itself by not feeling 'like it rolled off of an assembly line' (Todd Gilchrist, The Verge).

In the year 2028, multinational conglomerate OmniCorp is on the cutting-edge of technology as it provides groundbreaking cybernetic implants for amputees as well as advanced exo-skeletal suits that enhance a soldier's strength and speed. However, they are best known for their ED-209 and EM-208 security droids, which have become the de facto police force in maintaining social order around the world along with the XT-908 aerial drone. OmniCorp CEO Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton) wants to bring his company's controversial security technology to the home front but are barred from doing so by public opinion and the Dreyfuss Act, which states that machines cannot be used as a police force in the United States because it cannot feel and therefore, has no actual humanity. To get around this law, Sellars devises an ambitious project with his lawyer Liz Kline (Jennifer Ehle) and marketing director Tom Pope (Jay Baruchel): by putting a man inside a machine. When dedicated Detroit police detective and family man Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) is horribly injured in an assassination attempt by crime lord Antoine Vallon (Patrick Garrow), OmniCorp persuades his wife Clara (Abbie Cornish) to allow her husband to be used for the company's man-in-a-machine program. Housing the officer's head and his few remaining organs inside a mechanical body, chief scientist Dr. Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman) transforms Murphy into a cyborg that the public dubs 'RoboCop.' Pressured by Sellars, Denton suppresses Murphy's human emotions in order to make RoboCop more efficient but this ends up back-firing when Clara reaches out to her husband despite being barred from seeing him by OmniCorp. This prompts the cyborg to overwrite his original programming and turn the tables on the amoral company that created him.

Let's get this out of the way: José Padilha's "RoboCop" is far from being the failure that I initially thought it would be but like with most remakes, the film pales in comparison to the original and one of the biggest reasons why is the PG-13 rating. When Paul Verhoeven submitted his film to the MPAA back in 1987, it was given an X rating (this was before the NC-17 rating was established) due to the graphic violence. The film would receive that same rating eleven more times before it was finally granted an R. As funny as the original "RoboCop" was, Verhoeven's futuristic vision of Detroit was depressingly bleak. The decayed, dilapidated city made Gotham from Christopher Nolan's "Batman" films look like Disney World in comparison. RoboCop's existence was necessary because the level of crime that Detroit suffered from was too much for the police department to handle but in Padilha's film, the family-friendly approach hampers its depiction of a rotting Detroit. In fact, it doesn't look like a bad place to live and has no more crime than the average American city. Likewise, the action is relatively tame when compared to the original in spite of the bullet count being higher. RoboCop now has lethal and non-lethal means of taking down enemies, which fits in with OmniCorp's intention of putting a 'human face' on their product. Much praise has been heaped on the action scenes from Padilha's "Elite Squad" films and while most of the combat sequences in "RoboCop" are effectively choreographed, he does rely a little too much on shaky cam, especially during the gun battle between a pre-RoboCop Murphy and Antoine Vallon's goons in a crowded restaurant. Although RoboCop does go head-to-head with three ED-209s in a massive shootout, the climax is surprisingly low-key. However, it does deliver a nice nod to the original that feels appropriate rather than shoe-horned in.

The remake's greatest strength lies in the script's themes as Padilha, along with writer Joshua Zetumer, paint America as an imperialistic bully due to the way OmniCorp has privatized our nation's foreign policy. Set in Iran's capital city of Tehran, the opening scene finds the multinational conglomerate's security droids roaming the streets and doing full body scans on every citizen. Given the country's already-contentious relationship with the United States, such a situation wouldn't be that farfetched as a corporation with considerable influence could play on peoples' fears of a terrorist attack and convince politicians to use their weapons to preemptively invade other nations in the name of 'safety and security' but in reality, they're just worried about their bottom line. Retaining the original film's satirical tone, Padilha occasionally interrupts the story with faux broadcasts from a Bill O'Reilly-like television show called "The Novak Element," hosted by Samuel L. Jackson's Pat Novak. The political commentator frequently lambasts the American public's unwillingness to embrace robots while the rest of the world has (not by choice, I assume), invoking the age-old debate of how much freedom people are willing to surrender in the name of security, or even if they should at all. I'm glad that Padilha is going the extra mile to explore contemporary issues like the ethics over the use of drone warfare or corporations manipulating the media to promote their own agenda but his attempts at satire feel disappointingly shallow. The points he raises, while valid, aren't especially revelatory and much like the film's violence, it lacks teeth.

Padilha's "RoboCop" is stronger when the focus shifts to Murphy and his struggle to keep in touch with whatever humanity he has left. The Frankenstein sub-text is even more apparent in the remake as Murphy is grateful to Dr. Norton for giving him a new lease on life but wonders if he'll be able to experience a sense of normalcy ever again. There's a ghastly scene where Norton, at Murphy's insistence, shows him what's left of his body and we see that he's basically a face, hand, and a pair of lungs. How can he be a father to his son, much less a husband to his wife, when he can barely interact with them physically? Given that 95% of his body is just metal and circuitry now, can he even be called a man at anymore? Murphy's existential crisis is at the heart of Padilha's film but this serious and solemn approach can be a detriment at times. Don't get me wrong, Verhoeven's version had its fair share of drama too yet it also remembered to have fun, especially with its over-the-top gore and ironically upbeat newscasts. When compared side-by-side, the remake just feels too sanitized, too…clean. As I mentioned before, Padilha's "RoboCop" is far from terrible and is quite good when taken on its own terms but it has none of the original film's impact due to being handicapped by its PG-13 rating.

At least the cast is committed to their roles. He may not be as iconic as fan-favorite Peter Weller but Swedish actor Joel Kinnaman (from AMC's "The Killing") manages to deliver a sympathetic performance as Detroit police detective Alex Murphy, effectively capturing the pain and anguish of his character's horrific situation and how he comes to terms with it. Unfortunately, Kinnaman is let down by Abbie Cornish as the two fail to generate much heat despite their characters being husband-and-wife. Part of the problem is the script as it pigeon-holes Cornish as the 'grieving wife' and then later reduces her to another damsel-in-distress. Gary Oldman's turn as Dr. Dennett Norton is by far the most nuanced, with the morally indecisive scientist struggling to help Murphy ease into his new life while placating his corporate overlords. If there's one actor who comes close to recapturing the sleazy magic of the original, it's Michael Keaton, who chews on his role as villainous OmniCorp CEO Raymond Sellars with gusto. I can only imagine what Keaton can do if he wasn't hobbled by the film's rating. Jennifer Ehle and Jay Baruchel are fun to watch as well, even though their roles lean toward caricature while Jackie Earle Haley sneers with menace as a military tactician on the company's payroll. Finally, there's Samuel L. Jackson, who's clearly enjoying himself with his riff on Bill O'Reilly. In a moment that would make Verhoeven smile, he lets loose on an expletive-filled rant against America's spinelessness, telling the public to stop whining and get with the program. It is sadly the only scene that comes close to matching the gleeful satire of the original.

Released on February 12, 2014, "RoboCop" has received mixed reviews with 49% on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics noted that 'it's far better than it could have been [but] José Padilha's…remake fails to offer a significant improvement over the original.' It doesn't seem like audiences are embracing the film either as it debuted to a rather terrible $2.8 million. Sure, the constant snowstorms on the East Coast will keep some people away from theaters but its effect on the box office is often overstated. Still, it's unlikely that "RoboCop" will earn more than $25 million over the President's Day weekend. While Sony Pictures is obviously hoping for higher, the remake will probably end up being a mild success for the studio as it's pulling in some solid numbers overseas. It doesn't hold a candle to Verhoeven's film but José Padilha's "RoboCop" is still no slouch, delivering a sci-fi action picture that at least aspires to be something more. It's pretty much the best you can hope for in a remake.

Final Rating: 3.5 out of 5

"We're gonna give Americans a product they can love, a figure they can rally behind. We're gonna put a man inside a machine."

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The Monuments Men Review

Rated PG-13 (Some Images of War Violence and Historical Smoking)

Running Time: 1 Hour & 58 Minutes

Cast-

George Clooney-Lieutenant Frank Stokes

Matt Damon-Lieutenant James Granger

Bill Murray-Sergeant Richard Campbell

John Goodman-Sergeant Walter Garfield

Jean Dujardin-Lieutenant Jean Claude Clermont

Bob Balaban-Private Preston Savitz

Hugh Bonneville-Major Donald Jeffries

Dimitri Leonidas-Private Sam Epstein

Cate Blanchett-Claire Simone

Justus von Dohnányi-Viktor Stahl

Holger Handtke-Colonel Wegner

Sam Hazeldine-Colonel Langton

Serge Hazanavicius-Rene Armand

Michael Dalton-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Christian Rodska-President Harry S. Truman

James Payton-Adolf Hitler

Directed by George Clooney

It has an impressive ensemble cast but they can only do so much against the slack direction in George Clooney's "The Monuments Men."

Note: Screened on Wednesday, February 5, 2013 at AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13. To learn more about the Monuments Men and their accomplishments, you can go here: http://www.monumentsmen.com.

With over sixty million casualties (and that's just a rough estimate), World War II remains by far the deadliest military conflict in human history yet this global clash is routinely portrayed through rose-tinted glasses as a 'good war' where all the sacrifices made by the Allied powers were entirely justified and worthwhile. This idealistic myth of World War II as 'a morally clear-cut conflict between Good and Evil' (1) has been continuously reinforced not just by politicians and teachers but also in video games and countless motion pictures. George Clooney's latest film "The Monuments Men" doesn't veer from this idealized vision as he explores a little-known historical saga about an inexperienced eight-man platoon whose mission is to recover and preserve artistic masterpieces stolen by the Nazis and if possible, return them to their rightful owners. It's a story that's obviously worth telling but the subject matter isn't very cinematic and would've been better served as a History Channel documentary instead. "The Monuments Men" has its heart in the right place, with the humor and easy camaraderie of its all-star ensemble cast helping to salvage this decidedly old-fashioned picture from complete mediocrity but there's no escaping the fact that Clooney's latest effort is a flawed and ultimately disappointing film.

As World War II rages on in its fourth year, Harvard art historian Frank Stokes (George Clooney) convinces a reluctant President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Michael Dalton) to form a 'Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives' program in order to help protect cultural property in areas affected by the war. Tasked with the mission of retrieving valuable works of art from Nazi control, Stokes gathers a group of like-minded individuals—medieval art curator James Granger (Matt Damon), architect Richard Campbell (Bill Murray), sculptor Walter Garfield (John Goodman), French art dealer Jean Claude Clermont (Jean Dujardin), and theater impresario Preston Savitz (Bob Balaban)—and heads to the European front, where they are joined by British officer Donald Jeffries (Hugh Bonneville) and German translator Sam Epstein (Dimitri Leonidas). To cover more ground, Stokes decides to split the men up as they scour France and Germany for any leads that might shed light on where the Nazis are hiding the stolen art. Granger is sent to Paris since he's able to speak French and comes across Jeu de Paume curator Claire Simone (Cate Blanchett), who has vital information regarding the location of the hidden masterpieces but is unable to bring herself to trust the American, believing that the United States is only recovering the art so that they can keep it for themselves. With the war steadily winding down, Hitler issues the 'Demolitions on Reich Territory Decree'—commonly known as the 'Nero Decree'—which states that if the Führer were to die, all the art the Nazis had taken must be destroyed. Locked in a race against time, Stokes and his men must recover the stolen art before the Nazis burn it all or the Soviets get their hands on them as 'reparations.'

In the production notes for "The Monuments Men," Matt Damon eloquently explains that not only does art represent 'the very best of us, of humanity,' it also represents 'the soul of society [and] the very best things that we have achieved. To destroy that is to obliterate something irreplaceable.' As a film critic, I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment but Clooney's script, co-written with frequent collaborator Grant Heslov and based on Robert M. Edsel and Bret Witter's 2009 non-fiction book The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History, only pays lip-service to this. Despite its fascinating subject matter, the resulting film is a meandering picture that's tonally inconsistent and lacking in any real sense of urgency until the last fifteen minutes. Almost all Hollywood adaptations of real-life events take liberties for dramatic purposes and "The Monuments Men" is no different yet many of the alterations fail to make much of an impact. Even more problematic was the fact that I didn't know most of the characters' names until the end credits and mainly identified them by the actors portraying them. It's not that I wasn't paying attention; it's because they're introduced in quick succession (by the time the opening credits are over, Stokes has already gathered most of his team) and then split up before the audience even gets a chance to know them. Fortunately, some of the pairings lead to some amusing and heartwarming moments. Clooney deliberately set out to make a film 'that was straightforward, old-fashioned, and had a positive forward movement to it' so don't expect "The Monuments Men" to focus on 'the horrors of war' like Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" and Terrence Malick's "The Thin Red Line." Instead, this is a picture where a lone Nazi soldier can hold two Americans at gunpoint and then enjoy a smoke with them minutes later while laughing about John Wayne. To his credit, Clooney does touch on the Nazi's use of child soldiers during a tense shootout involving Garfield and Clermont and indirectly references the Holocaust when the team discovers a barrel full of gold tooth fillings taken from concentration camp victims but these scenes are glossed over to prevent the film from becoming too somber. I don't doubt the sincerity of the story; Clooney obviously cared enough to delay the picture so that he can pay tribute to the 345 men and women of the MFAA in the best way possible yet there's no getting around the fact that this a flawed film that would've worked better as a documentary mini-series. The idea of saving a people means also saving their cultural legacy is a noble one and if done proper justice, could've added a brand-new perspective to World War II. Unfortunately, it seems that the material just got away from Clooney's hands in spite of his noble intentions.

The lackadaisical script doesn't do them any favors but the all-star ensemble cast still manages to make the most of their thinly-written roles and prevent the film from falling into mediocrity. George Clooney probably didn't want to step on anyone's shoes and largely coasts by on sheer charisma alone while Matt Damon shares some nice chemistry with Cate Blanchett. The recently Academy Award-nominated actress brings depth to what is a one-note role and even though Damon's character is married, I actually wanted the two of them to get together (not that I condone cheating on your spouse). Bill Murray serves as the comic relief, with his character well-paired with the easily annoyed Preston Savitz, played by Bob Balaban. Most of the funniest scenes in "The Monuments Men" come from these two and there's a sweet moment where Preston, as a surprise to his new friend, plays a record sent by Campbell's daughter and grandchildren. Likewise, the pairing of John Goodman and Jean Dujardin is also strong, with the two sharing what is arguably the film's most emotional moment. Hugh Bonneville (from the hit ITV television series "Downton Abbey") plays a British officer struggling with his alcoholism and he too has a moving scene where he apologizes for every wrong he has committed in a letter to his father. Perhaps the best praise I can give to this extraordinary cast is that like Clooney, they cared about the themes that the film espouses and deliver performances that are both sincere and authentic, even if the story fails to measure up to their immense talents.

Released on February 7, 2014, "The Monuments Men" has received lackluster reviews with 33% on Rotten Tomatoes. It was previously set for a December 18th release last year but was pushed back (sacrificing its chances of garnering a few Academy Award nominations) as Clooney had trouble balancing the humor with the serious nature of its subject matter. Critics noted that the film's 'intentions are noble and its cast is impressive, but neither can compensate for [its] stiffly nostalgic tone and curiously slack narrative.' Box office-wise, the film will likely debut with $20 million at most and then quickly fade away. "The Monuments Men" could best be described as a missed opportunity. The stellar cast saves Clooney's film but unfortunately, nothing really stands-out outside of a few scenes and that's a damn shame because this is a story that should be told.

Final Rating: 3 out of 5

"They tell us, 'Who cares about art?' But they're wrong. It is the exact reason that we're fighting. For a culture, for a way of life."

End Notes:

1. Studs Terkel, "The Good War" (New York: Pantheon, 1984), P. vi.

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The LEGO Movie 3D Review

Rated PG (Mild Action and Rude Humor)

Running Time: 1 Hour & 40 Minutes

Cast (voice)-

Chris Pratt-Emmet Brickowoski

Elizabeth Banks-Lucy/Wyldstyle

Will Arnett-Bruce Wayne/Batman

Morgan Freeman-Vitruvius

Alison Brie-Unikitty

Nick Offerman-Metal Beard

Charlie Day-Benny

Will Ferrell-Lord Business/President Business/The Man Upstairs

Liam Neeson-Bad Cop/Good Cop/Pa Cop

Channing Tatum-Clark Kent/Superman

Cobie Smulders-Princess Diana of Themyscira/Wonder Woman

Jonah Hill-Hal Jordan/Green Lantern

Will Forte-Abraham Lincoln

Todd Hansen-Gandalf the Grey/Additional Voices

Jorma Taccone-William Shakespeare/Additional Voices

Shaquille O'Neal-Shaq

Keith Ferguson-Han Solo

Anthony Daniels-C-3PO

Billy Dee Williams-Lando Calrissian

Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller

Can anyone say "sequel"?

Note: Screened on Saturday, February 1, 2014 at AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13. 

On January 28, 1958 at 1:58 PM, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen made a visit to the Danish Patent and Trademark Office in Copenhagen in order to file a patent for a little plastic brick with a stud-and-hole design. This seemingly innocuous event not only transformed the concept of toys as we know it but would even revolutionize childhood itself. For over fifty years, the LEGO brick has been a ubiquitous part of our childhoods yet the popular construction toy had rather humble origins. Born in Filskov, Denmark in 1891 to an impoverished family, Ole Kirk Christiansen grew up to become a carpenter and purchased a modest woodworking shop in Billund in 1916. Initially helping to construct houses and furniture, Ole decided to expand his business and built a bigger workshop after the old one burned down in a fire in 1924. However, the Great Depression left Ole with few customers and to keep himself busy, he constructed miniature versions of his products as design aids. It was these models that inspired him to produce toys. In 1934, Ole christened his up-and-coming company with the name 'LEGO' (a self-made contraction of the Danish phrase 'leg godt,' which meant 'play well'; coincidentally, the term can also be loosely translated to 'I assemble' in Latin) and began making an early version of their now famous interlocking bricks in 1949, dubbed 'Automatic Binding Bricks.' Based in part on the Kiddicraft Self-Locking Bricks and manufactured from cellulose acetate, the product was initially not well-received due to customers preferring wooden or metal toys over plastic ones. Ole's son Godtfred, who had become the company's junior managing director in 1954, saw the potential for creative play in their LEGO bricks and worked to perfect its design. Four years later, the modern LEGO brick that we know and love today was developed and while it would take until 1963 for the company to switch to an ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) polymer when mass producing them, Godtfred had already filed a patent during a lunchtime visit to the Danish Patent and Trademark Office. The rest, as they say, is history.

Toy trends rise and fall but the little LEGO brick has proven itself to be surprisingly resilient, with the company that Ole built currently residing as the third largest toy manufacturer in the world in terms of revenue, behind Mattel and Hasbro. Approximately 560 billion LEGO parts have been produced as of 2013, a number that is eighty times greater than the population of the Earth and will only continue to grow. What initially began as a simple construction toy for children now encompasses theme parks, educational tools, video games, and by this Friday, a full-length feature film. There have been LEGO films before but they've often been based on licensed properties such as Batman and Star Wars. "The LEGO Movie," as it came to be called, does not revolve around any particular toy line or license yet the idea of a film based entirely on a branded property still felt like an excuse to hock even more expensive play-sets when Warner Brothers green-lit the project in 2008. Although cynical audiences probably won't be changing from that mindset, they'll unfortunately be missing out on a truly wonderful film. With "The LEGO Movie," directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have crafted a hilarious and endearing picture that not only celebrates the eponymous construction toy's long history but also the creativity it continues to inspire in both children and adults all around the world. Everything may be awesome but "The LEGO Movie" is even more awesome and is the first truly great film of 2014.

In the LEGO universe, the evil Lord Business (Will Ferrell) steals a magical artifact called the 'Kragle' in order to remake everything in his own image but the great wizard Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman) warns him that one day a citizen would be revealed as the 'Special'—the one person that is interesting and important enough to wield the mythical 'Piece of Resistance' and put a stop to the mad tyrant's plans. Lord Business, however, dismisses Vitruvius' ridiculous prophecy, believing the wizard is making it up. Reinventing himself as the benevolent 'President Business,' the power-hungry micro-manager tightly confines the citizens of the LEGO universe to their respective realms while enforcing a strict set of instructions to maintain control. He distracts the populace with a line of products from his massive company, the Octan Corporation, and keeps them docile using the catchy song Everything is Awesome. Emmet Brickowoski (Chris Pratt) is an ordinary construction worker who is happy to follow the instructions but his life is turned upside down when he stumbles upon the fabled Piece of Resistance. Mistaken as the 'Special,' Emmet is joined by tough-as-nails freedom fighter Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), the crime-fighter Batman (Will Arnett), the adorable Unikitty (Alison Brie), 1980-Something Space Guy Benny (Charlie Day), robotic pirate Metal Beard (Nick Offerman), and the now-blind Vitruvius on a quest to save the LEGO universe from being destroyed by Lord Business.

There's never a dull moment in "The LEGO Movie" as directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, along with the incredibly talented animators at Sydney-based studio Animal Logic, have created a film that's bursting at the seams with eye-popping color and silly, irreverent humor. Following a prologue where the comically tall Lord Business steals the magical artifact known as the 'Kragle' (I'll leave it up to you to discover what that really is), we are introduced to construction worker Emmet, an utter nobody who is happy to wake up every morning and follow 'the instructions,' which is literally a LEGO instruction manual. He watches the same television show that everyone watches, drinks the same expensive coffee that everyone drinks, and listens to the same song that everyone listens to but in spite of his jovial personality, no one wants anything to do with him. As he prepares to go home after a hard day's work, Emmet runs into Wyldstyle and immediately becomes smitten with her. However, he clumsily trips and falls down a freshly excavated pit, where he accidentally stumbles upon the long-lost Piece of Resistance. Touching it causes him to lose consciousness and witness a strange vision. When Emmet wakes up, he finds himself in an interrogation room with the Piece of Resistance now glued to his back. What follows is a thrilling adventure that's equal-parts bizarre and hilarious. With the help of the animators, Lord and Miller utilize the famous LEGO bricks in clever ways, such as having the characters frantically build complex vehicles or special items in their fight against Lord Business. The 3D itself feels rather perfunctory but the way Animal Logic has brought the LEGO universe to life is unlike anything you've ever seen in an animated film before. The movement of the various figures is intentionally jerky and stilted, as if the entire experience had been painstakingly created by repositioning the plastic toys and photographing them one frame at a time, like stop-motion. Elements like smoke and water swirl around as a mass of solid bricks, with the rough animation giving the film a lovingly handmade quality that will surely conjure up nostalgic childhood memories of our own experiences with LEGO.

Written by Lord and Miller with the help of Dan and Kevin Hageman, the overall plot in "The LEGO Movie" is the same-old hero's journey that we've seen dozens of times before. It's basically a riff on the Wachowski siblings' first "Matrix" film with a dash of "Star Wars" thrown in but what elevates the story is the humor as the directors poke fun at the construction toy's history by positioning popular LEGO play-sets like the 'Wild West' and the Tolkien-esque 'Middle Zealand' as one of many infinite realms. Cameos abound as DC characters like Superman (Channing Tatum) and Wonder Woman (Cobie Smulders) make an appearance, with Jonah Hill's Green Lantern depicted as a needy crime-fighter who wants to be friends with the cool heroes on the block. Not surprisingly, Batman is given the most screen-time as Will Arnett hilariously parodies Christian Bale's infamous 'Bat-growl.' It's a shame that Warner Brothers couldn't work something out with Disney and include some Marvel characters. Lord and Miller could've took the lazy route by cramming their film with celebrity voices and post-modern humor but fortunately, they go one step further and inject their story with a heartwarming third act that perfectly encapsulates the enduring appeal of LEGO. While it's easy to follow the instructions and build whatever is on the box, the reason that LEGO has continued to flourish for almost sixty years is that you literally can create anything with them. The joy of playing with LEGOs, regardless of whether you're a child or adult, is the creativity it inspires and what's great about that sentiment is that it can be applied to life in general. "The LEGO Movie" celebrates an idea that is distinctly American, that each and every one of us has the ability to create something unique if given the chance. Creativity fosters innovation and to stifle that like Lord Business does is not only detrimental but destructive to a society. Sometimes, you have to break a rule and just think outside the box but that's okay; it's what makes everyone and everything special, and yes, even awesome too.

The ensemble voice cast is absolutely wonderful in their individual roles. Chris Pratt, whose career has been steadily on the rise thanks to his starring role on the NBC mockumentary "Parks and Recreation" and a number of memorable supporting turns in various films, proves to be the perfect choice as the lovably dim-witted construction worker Emmet. The likable actor maintains a wide-eyed enthusiasm and sincerity to the character despite being thrust in an extraordinary situation where the entire fate of the LEGO universe is in his hands. Pratt will be appearing as Star-Lord in Marvel's "Guardians of the Galaxy" (set to come out this August) and I can't wait to see him finally tackle a big-budget blockbuster of his own. Elizabeth Banks is excellent as the tough-as-nails yet insecure Wyldstyle (and no, she's not a DJ) while Will Arnett is clearly having a ball lampooning Christian Bale's performance as Batman in "The Dark Knight" trilogy. Morgan Freeman is equally hilarious as the blind wizard Vitruvius, where he uses the character to mock the gravitas of his own voice and of course there's Liam Neeson, who plays a schizophrenic police officer that just can't decide whether he's good or bad. Nick Offerman completely disappears into his role as the transforming robot pirate Metal Beard and rounding out the main supporting cast is the always-adorable Alison Brie and the eternally-hyperactive Charlie Day. However, the real surprise is Will Ferrell, whose turn as the evil Lord Business stands as one of his funniest roles to date but he also ends up being part of the film's overall message, which is something I did not see coming. I won't spoil how and why but Ferrell's performance is the catalyst that re-contextualizes "The LEGO Movie" in a new light. Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, and Cobie Smulders make up a few of the cameos that audiences will encounter, which also includes a familiar duo from a galaxy far, far away.

To be released on February 7, 2014, "The LEGO Movie" has received overwhelmingly positive reviews so far with a whopping 98% on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics praised it as 'colorful fun for all ages' thanks to its 'beautiful animation, a charming voice cast, laugh-a-minute gags, and a surprisingly thoughtful story.' Despite the advance screening being held at 10 AM on a Saturday morning, the film still drew a huge crowd and was met with a universally enthusiastic response, especially from kids. Box office success is all but assured yet I can't help feeling that Warner Brothers made a mistake in releasing the film in February. Given all the praise it's already received, "The LEGO Movie" could've easily grossed at least $300 million if it came out during the summer or fall. Regardless, the studio should be happy all the same. "The LEGO Movie" may be based on a familiar brand but in the hands of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, it's a hilarious and touching reminder of every person's potential to be 'special.'

Final Rating: 5 out of 5

Emmet: I'm not the Special. I'm just a regular, normal guy.

Wyldstyle: You have the ability to be the Special because I believe in you.

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