With so much marketing and promise going into it, Hitman fails to break the game to movie curse by relinquishing most of what made the gaming series unique and intriguing instead turning it into another run of the mill, guns akimbo, shooting fest that has the flavor of the Transporter with only a fraction of the fun.

Hitman‘s main protagonist, Agent 47 (Timothy Olyphant), has been one of the most interesting leading men in video games with is dark black suit, signature red tie, and dual Silverballer weapons, the bald assassin had style and was interesting in all aspects. The game series’ storyline was also one of the more intriguing elements of the whole package with a genetically engineered assassin working for a secretive agency which adds layers to the fold as the series continues. The movie is a 2D extrapolation of this with only 47 and his handler Diana surviving. The script for the film shuns any real influence from the game series, instead placing Agent 47 into a Russian political controversy complete with a witness who knows too much and a compassionate hero who kills, but still has a heart.

There’s just so much cliché elements to the story that it becomes weighted down by its own lunacy as the picture wears on. The story is loose as best, and seems to only want to string together gun fight after gun fight. Yet, where movies like Shoot ‘em Up did this correctly, leaving story by the wayside and going strictly for testosterone fueled mayhem, Hitman just can’t leave behind its fractured narrative, which is a real shame because the game series has a unique and sometimes involving crux to stand on in the storytelling department. This should come as no surprise, however, from the man who wrote the similarly shallow Swordfish.

Olyphant, a personal favorite for his work on HBO’s Deadwood, seems uncomfortable in the role originally intended for Vin Diesel. His action comes off as wooden, although this could be attributed to the character. He spends the entire movie hauling around Nika (Olga Kurylenko) a prostitute who has been marked for death who was only saved by 47’s realization that he was set up to kill her. This all boils back into the political espionage plotline that is never really developed and turns into more of a joke than anything else as the story goes on.

Throughout the film 47 is pursued by Interpol and the Russian secret service, one hoping to capture him, the latter hoping to kill him to cover up their dark secret. All that really matters here for fans of the game is that the original storyline does nothing to really introduce us to the title character, nor inherit anything worthwhile from the game series even though the marketing of the film would lead you down that path. No where in the running time does it explain how 47 is “protected by divinity” and even through a series of flashbacks and a few fleeting lines of dialog do you even know how he came to be. A simple origin story, and the early missions would have been a great movie if done right, instead, this is what we get.

Hitman is yet another failed attempt to successfully create a mass-market video game movie while keeping the fans happy and the consumers buying tickets. Maybe one day a movie based on a game will be made where the source material is used more liberally, and the constructive story that’s been created over an entire console generation is not ignored. As it stands the film is a splattered mess of idiotic proportions and failed opportunities, yet another notch on the bedpost of mediocrity.

How do you continue on a successful horror series when your antagonist is very, very much dead? Unlike your Friday the 13ths and Halloween movies, Saw‘s lead baddie is down for the count, for good, no crazy reincarnation, no sudden body disappearance, Jigsaw’s body is autopsied in the first scene of the latest sequel in the franchise in gruesome detail, and there’s no body coming back from that.

Still, a little problem like being worm food will not stop Jigsaw’s work, and that’s what Saw IV sets out to do for the audience, show them that even though the frail man we’ve seen deteriorate in the past three movies has finally died, his work is just beginning and the franchise lives on.

The film works as sort of a prequel and sequel to the first Saw and Saw III, respectively. We learn how John Kramer (Tobin Bell) came to be Jigsaw after a traumatic event in his life sent him over the edge, forcing those who have wasted their lives to save themselves or be flushed from society.

Saw IV‘s timeline is a big part of the movie so we’ll avoid that spoiler here, but part of the film responds to the aftermath of the previous films in the series. After Rigg (Lyriq Bent) sees the dismembered body of his former partner Kerry (Dina Meyer), who was killed in Saw III’s rip-splitting “angel trap,” he begins to question his life.

Jigsaw sets him up to perform a series of tests, to see what he sees, feel what he feels, and do what he does in order to allow people to save themselves. Throughout the film Rigg is tasked with making the choice of saving criminals or leaving them to save themselves, he has 90 minutes to pass all of his tests before several of his colleagues will die. This is the standard part of any Saw film, a person being put in an impossible situation, testing what we come out to see as a weak point in their personality and Jigsaw giving them a choice.

The second storyline in the film deals with the aforementioned flashbacks to John Kramer and his wife, Jill (Betsy Russell), and how their relationship rapidly falls apart as John begins his work as Jigsaw. We are even treated to Jigsaw’s first trap which even falls apart and fails as his subject attempts to solve it. Luckily the killer who never kills has a contingency plan, but it’s nice to see Kramer as a normal human being for a while. In fact, as the revelation of the event that caused Jigsaw to emerge is played out, you honestly feel bad for the guy, making him the most likable character in the film and the one the audience is likely to be the most sympathetic towards.

The film’s big reveal (as with the three previous entries in the series) gives the audience a lot of information to process at once. After first viewing the movie, especially with this entry, you’re likely to be more confused than anything. However, as you digest everything that happens in the final minutes, put the pieces together, you then realize that the writers have outdone themselves once again in creating a memorable way to end yet another volume in the franchise.

After it’s all said and done, Jigsaw’s taped message for Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) is very true, this was only the beginning and we’re less than a year away from finding how it all starts again.

When you think about the hundreds of ways you can kill a man with ordinary household objects, chances are that using a carrot is not high on your list, or at all. After all those orange vegetables loathed by kids and loved by rabbits on their way to Albuquerque could never be really used as a weapon, right? Leave it to the ambiguously named Mr. Smith (Clive Owen) to use a carrot more than a few times in the cartoonish gun-fight send up Shoot ‘Em Up to dispense his brand of justice, and you know what? It works out really well.

Make no mistake about it, Shoot ‘Em Up shouldn’t be a good movie in the sense of the way The Shawshank Redemption is a good movie. There’s no plot, no character development, the script is rife with one liners and the cobbled together narrative that just links gun fights together. It’s utterly absurd in most respects, it’s lacking in everything but pure popcorn value, but in the end, you leave the theater with a huge smile on your face and the images of gravity defying acrobatics and guns attached to strings running through your head.

Since the gun fights are the primary draw, it seems only reasonable that they would be out-of-this-world in style. The Matrix holds nothing up to Shoot ‘Em Up in this capacity as Mr. Smith unloads clip after clip while dodging bullets, eating his aforementioned favorite vegetable, and trying to save a baby born to harvest its bone marrow (yep, that’s the entire story). The highlight battle being in a gun factory, of all places, where Smith prepares a death trap of wood, string, and lead that would make Jigsaw proud.

And that’s basically it, the entire movie summed up three paragraphs. Even after it’s all said and done the brisk 87 minute runtime yields just enough action to be satisfying by not over staying its welcome. Owen shines once again as the quipping leading man with Paul Giamatti stepping into the villain’s role without any hesitation. Shoot ‘Em Up is a rare breed of film that shuns pretty much everything except balls-to-the-walls gun play and still manages to come out ahead, and encouraging children and adults alike to eat their vegetables.

The most eagerly anticipated film of the summer is finally here, the long in gestation Transformers film came to the big screen never shying away from the controversy fans bestowed upon it. The choice of Autobots and Decepticons to be included was derided from day one by Generation 1 fans who wanted Soundwave included in the film, or Megatron to transform into his original pistol form, or Bumblebee to remain a VW Beetle. The list goes on of what people wanted to see in the film, but without actually seeing it, could they really be disappointed?

The question still remains open, but after seeing Transformers for the first of many times, and after reading the quotes, listening to the sound bites, analyzing the trailers one thing is entirely certain, Michael Bay knows how to do action movies, and Transformers is both his greatest film and a nostalgic fanboys dream come true.

The gigantic robots, who started life as a toyline and a comic book in the mid-1980’s, come to the big screen in a very big way. From the moment we see Bumblebee transform for the first time, to the triumphant battle between Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) and Megatron (Hugo Weaving) your eyes are left in wonder at the spectacle before you. Transformers may be one of the single greatest achievements in visual effects on par with WETA Digital’s work on the Lord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong (2005). The robots’ new look is sure to cause even more controversy, but by aiming for the “scientific aspect” of the transforming process ILM and the producers have captured each character’s distinct look while making the way they transform as practical as it can be for a 40-foot robot to transform into a mid-size sports car.

As a movie Transformers is a flawed film, there’s not much to the story that finds Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) buying Bumblebee at a car dealership and eventually unraveling into a plot to obtain the location of the All Spark Cube which crashed on Earth thousands of years ago. Its all really lip service to string together the thin storyline with epic battles pitting man against machine and, more impressively, machine against machine.

The most surprising aspect of the film is its focus on the humans more than the namesake robots, but in the end it doesn’t matter too much. Megatron has a criminally little amount of screen time, never appearing until the film’s climax, but his battle with Optimus Prime and his characteristic disregard for life (robot or human) make up for any shortcomings. Even Megatron’s single line of banter to Starscream about failing his mission makes any fan feel right at home.

The filmmakers certainly know where the series has been and what the fans expect. Throughout the two-and-a-half hour running time there’s in-jokes, self-referential quips, and classic lines reborn for a new generation. The biggest standout is the casting of Peter Cullen to reprise his iconic role as the voice of Optimus Prime. From the moment he declares, “My name is Optimus Prime…” you know the film has you, no matter how bad you think it might be, in the end, that bit of fan-service was a major turning point in your opinion of the film.

Not enough can be said about Industrial Light and Magic’s work, its Oscar worthy stuff bringing the boxy animated toys from the 1980’s and infusing new life, ideas, and artistic care into them in an effort to modernize them for generations who both grew up on the series, and are being introduced to it for the first time.

Transformers as an experience is unrivaled by anything at the box office this year, it’s the epitome of popcorn pleasure with large set pieces, even larger robots doing battle on those sets, and a fan base who will wait four hours in line the day before the official opening date to be one of the many to see a semi-truck transform into a hero. There’s going to be things written about how the story won’t stand up, or how it’s all just eye candy and lip service to fans with disposable income, but as one of those fans, Transformers was so much more than a nostalgic $9 trip down memory lane. It’s the movie going experience of a theater packed with fans, decked out in T-Shirts bearing the familiar Autobot logo, and cheering the very first time that red and blue Peterbilt appears on screen with the ever familiar and soothing voice.

Transformers is an experience like no other, and until the inevitable sequel, we may not see one like it again.

Brad Bird knows how to make an animated movie, scratch that, Brad Bird knows how to make a masterpiece of a movie, period, his just so happen to be animated films with enough character, class, humor, love, and everything else that goes into making award worthy cinema. After the success of The Incredibles and its adult slant on Pixar’s well known writing, Ratatouille furthers Pixar’s reign as the animation powerhouse in the industry with a masterpiece that can only be described as magnificent.

Ratatouille is the film that justifies the move to computer generated animation from traditional, hand drawn 2D. The film has so much personality, so much style, so much everything in the design of the kitchen right down to the ears of the rats which gives each and every one a little something different to make them stand out.

Sure the story is a bit far fetched, a rat, Remy (Patton Oswalt), longs to become a masterful chief, using his heightened senses to create the most elaborate of dishes. Problem is, as a rat there isn’t a whole lot he can do in the real world. In comes Linguini, a garbage boy with a subtle flair for making dishes that taste horrible. After Remy aids Linguini in making a delicious soup, it’s up to the pair to keep their secret hidden and to avoid any unneeded questions.

Ratatouille isn’t the funniest Pixar film, but for a G-rated animated film, this comedy provides more than enough laughs to make it through it s nearly two-hour runtime. There are times when the film slows down and when plot devices are overused and noticed from miles away, but none of this really matters as the majority of the movie would be considered the “good” part, and these “good” parts nearly blow away any ill-feelings you might have towards the film.

The strongest point is the script, albeit flawed in parts, as described above, the character of Remy is developed in such a way that you honestly feel for him and his plight, do you choose the life you were born for, or do you follow your dream?  With a supporting cast including the talents of Brad Garrett, Janeane Garofalo, Will Arnett, and old stand-by John Ratzenberger, there’s a lot of comedy genius working on this film, once again, making each character unique and fitting into Bird’s vision.

Ratatouille is Pixar’s finest film, and regardless of its opening box office numbers, the film’s strongest point is its unforgettable characters. Sure you may not recognize members of the cast, and you may not feel all that great about rats in the kitchen, but this movie is served for you fresh and ready to go. All you need to do is sit back and savor it.

WARNING: Major Spoilers Within

Street Thief is a great film, but its no documentary. No matter how much the marketers want you to believe that the contents could be, or are real, there’s just too much to this film that plays out too conveniently for you to ever really take it as a serious piece of documentary filmmaking. The film is a stylized, suspenseful and very entertaining look into the life of a burglar, planning his jobs, casing the places, and putting himself into all sorts of situations where getting the job done is key, and being forgotten is almost mandatory.

The film focuses on criminal Kasper Carr who we understand is being followed by a few documentary filmmakers wanting to focus in on his craft and how he does what he does. Right from the start you’re hesitant to believe this as anything but a fictionalized and glorified life, but the screen presence of director Malik Bader, who portrays Carr,  is so engrossing that your almost hostage to watch. Our introduction to the character is him so eloquently breaking into a corner store and making off unknown amounts of cash. As he explains, it’s best to hit minority neighborhood businesses who do everything in cash, this certainly holds true until the film’s ultimate score.

The camera work is another dead giveaway to the nature of the film’s truthfulness as highly stylized lighting and camera work shies away from the more one-the-fly filming you’re used to for a film like this. Personally watching This Film Is Not Yet Rated and Street Thief back to back only amplified the gritty nature of the documentary and the clean look of Carr’s misdeeds.

It isn’t until the final act of the film that the wheels start to unravel in the storytelling department as the mysterious disappearance of Carr is inter-cut with clips of him earlier in the film maybe foreshadowing his ultimate plan, but there are a lot of loose ends that the filmmakers neglect to come through on. During the film’s big heist at a Cinemark Theater there’s special effort made to show Carr stealing a number of VHS tapes, although we never find out what they were. We also never learn what happen to Carr, and as huge advocates of the non-Hollywood ending this should please even the staunchest critics, but the open door here is more of a tease than anything else.

As a work of fiction Street Thief is a great way to spend 90 minutes, and as infatuated with the big heist film as we are in America (see: Ocean’s series) there’s a lot to like and a lot of pulp to this piece. The studio and cable network might want you to think of it as something more, but in the end it’s a work of fiction, good fiction, but fiction all the same.

Another second sequel, but this time the third, and reportedly last, outing of the Ocean’s crew comes out better than expected, securing itself as the best sequel of the summer (so far). There are still some problems here, but after the lame outing that was Ocean’s 12, 13 is the magical number for the series bringing it almost up to par with the unbelievable first outing.

The crime this time is revenge, and not so much for the benefit of the crew, but for the destruction of Willie Bank (Al Pacino) who backed out of a deal with Reuben (Elliot Gould) causing him to have a breakdown into a near coma. Danny Ocean (George Clooney) gathers the crew for a big score, rigging all the games in Bank’s casino to pay out to nearly everyone on the floor causing him to lose more money than they ever stole from Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), who also shows up.

The story isn’t so much important as the caper, and the unbelievable nature of how everything seems to be thought of before it happens for Ocean and his crew. Every time it looks like something is going to go wrong, the film throws in that traditional Ocean’s twist to show you, and it was planned all along. The double crossing was seen before it happen, the endgame devised before it may have been thought of. The audience is clearly on to most of these twists, but even without the surprises and suspense that kept us in our seats during the first film in the series, there’s a great popcorn film here that keeps you interested and makes up for the other trite the common consumer has had to endure over the last six weeks.

Series newcomer Al Pacino puts in a convincing, although subdued, role as Willie Bank, a Las Vegas real estate tycoon who are just convinced to hate by the film’s opening where he nearly kills Reuben after backing out on a deal for the target hotel. The rest of the cast clearly shows how working together two times previously has put them into a sort of gel-state where they play off of each other very well, although with a cast as huge as this, no one really gets any remarkable screen time, even headlines like Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Matt Damon. The absence of Catherine Zeta-Jones and Julia Roberts is actually played for laughs as both Pitt and Clooney comment on how their respective women throughout the film as a running gag.

There’s a lot to like about Ocean’s 13, just nothing to get overly excited about. These movies may be expensive to make, but it’s an easy cash crop for Warner Bros. as the sheer star power of the leads combined with the marketability of a Vegas heist and the comedy aspect make it a certain hit amongst fans and casual movie-goers. You aren’t getting the same fresh feeling that you got in the 2001 original, but even without it, it’s a good two hours at the movies.

Knocked Up has been described as an ‘instant classic’ in the comedy genre and there’s little to sway me in agreeing with that assertion whole-heartedly. Writer and director Judd Apatow has crafted such a masterful mesh up of the slacker/stoner comedy and infused it with elements from romantic comedies and a big helping of heart that you really feel for the characters and you really, really want to see the movie again after the first viewing.

The film stars Seth Rogen as Ben Stone and the lovely Katherine Heigl as Alison Scott a fictional reporter at E! who gets impregnated by Stone after a one night stand. Alison confronts Ben a few months after their hook-up to reveal the news. Over the course of the film the two fight, bicker, and seemingly can’t get along, but they also fall in love, and while the Hollywood ending is usually frowned upon by this establishment, it seems justified here.

One of Apatow’s greatest abilities is to not only focus on the leads in his movies but also write, big, convincing parts for the supporting cast as well. Here we have Paul Rudd and Apatow’s wife Leslie Mann as a married couple looking for a connection. Alison uses their troubled relationship to picture how she and Ben would end up, this causes a bit of turmoil in their relationship, but by the end of the movie, even the supporting B-storyline has been wrapped up nicely.

In opposition of most comedies, the jokes aren’t front-loaded into the film, Knocked Up is consistently funny with not just belly laughs, but just the little things that make you only chuckle, but still feel as though you are watching a comedy past the one hour mark. Ben’s collection of wayward friends, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, Martin Starr, and Jason Segel, provide enough scene stealing moments and ad-libbed dialog to warrant their own movie, here they’re utilized just enough to be hilarious without grating on your nerves.

Not a lot has been said about Heigl and her performance. Coming from the soapy Grey’s Anatomy hasn’t afforded her many opportunities for comedy work, but she performs admirably her, not just relying on her good looks to stream through the movie. She does a great job of personifying Alison as a twentysomething moving up the corporate ladder only to be thrown through a loop.

The real star of the show is Seth Rogen, easily the funniest supporting character in Apatow’s The 40-Year-Old Virgin, he’s elevated to leading man status her and owns the show. Why he has been passed up for so long will never be certain, but his celebrity stock certainly went up over the weekend with box office numbers and his excellent performance.

As bold as it is to say, Knocked Up could be better than The 40-Year-Old Virgin in many respects, but that’s going to rely on personal opinion more than anything else. What matters most is everything in this film is clear, concise, and clips along through its two-hour runtime providing a more than satisfying beginning, middle, and end. What recent movies can you say that about?