Timecop (1994)

Often cited by Jean-Claude Van Damme devotees as being one of the star's better efforts, Dir. Peter Hyams' film is a time-hopping sci-fi actioner with some awful fight scenes that are badly shot and even more poorly assembled. The film relies on clichés built atop clichés and the comic-booky plot frequently makes little sense and/or contradicts its own established rules.
As for Van Damme, he brings nothing of value to the role that many equally physical actors couldn't have did just as well (or better). His chemistry with onscreen wife Mia Sara, his love for whom is supposed to be a crucial aspect of characterisation, is laughable, as is her unsurprisingly bad acting. If you're not a JCVD fan, there may be very little to interest you in Timecrap.

1 breakable window out of 5

Sleepers (1996)

Four boys from Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, see violence everyday, in the streets and behind closed doors, but the sense of belonging they feel to the place where they grew up, where their lifelong friendship was forged, offers a kind of safety. When they're moved to a young offenders facility, the youths experience violence of a different kind, one that's inescapable, even after it ends. Years later, a chance for revenge may offer a semblance of closure.
Split between showing adolescence and adulthood, the film presents a story of loss and abuse of power that at times is reminiscent of Scorsese and Leone's period gangster films. In addition to upsetting imagery, a v/o provides a more personal insight into topics that are controversial and challenging.

4 snapping bolts out of 5

Sinbad of the Seven Seas (1989)

Erroneously claiming to be based on an Edgar Allan Poe short story, it's a Sinbad yarn in the form of a bedtime fairy-tale being read to a young girl.
The titular sailor is played by Lou Ferrigno. He's not the devilishly charismatic character that he ought to be, but nor is he the worst Sinbad that I've seen. His nemesis, an evil wizard named Jaffar (John Steiner), fares much better in that regard - like a Shakespearean villain, he puts theatrical passion into his lines.
If none of the human actors win you over, there's some bitchin' B-Movie FX to have fun with, and a couple of Munchhausen-esque solutions to problems.
It's not as timeless as the Harryhausen films, but kids with sufficient imagination and/or fans of bad-good fantasy movies might still enjoy it.

1½ sacred gems out of 5

Philomena (2013)

Based on a true life event, it's a fictionalised account of how a publicly disgraced political spin doctor, while attempting to revive his previously successful journalistic career, helped a privately shamed old woman discover the truth about a life-changing event in her past, fifty years previously.
I expected more of a comedy, given that it stars and was co-written by Steve Coogan, but Philomena is more than just that. It uses v/o and flashbacks to show the wronged woman's past, while in the present it's a story of two people with almost nothing in common, sitting at opposite ends of the class ladder, working together to achieve the same goal. But what makes it more than the sum of its parts is Judi Dench, especially in the film's latter half.

4 secret knots out of 5

Demolition Man (1993)

Because responses to movies are ofttimes influenced by the viewer's state of mnd at the time, I'll occasionally give a second chance to one that I disliked and/or turned off partway through on my first viewing. In DM's case there was about twenty-four years between my first and second attempt. I've changed a lot in those years, but I don't feel that DM has got any better with age.
Stallone stars as a hard-as-nails LAPD sergeant who's cryogenically frozen for thirty-six years, thawed out to track down a "maniac" criminal from his own era, namely Wesley Snipes with a mad shtick that makes Nic Cage look good.
At times it's similar to the woeful version of Judge Dredd (1995) that Sly was also in, but, remarkably, is even more excruciating to watch. Interestingly, to me, anyhow, the computer voice, heard but not seen, is Adrienne Barbeau.

1 presidential joke out of 5

Spinning Man (2018)

Pierce Brosnan plays a respectful but resolute detective who's investigating the disappearance of a seventeen-year-old girl, last seen near a lake that college professor Evan Birch (Guy Pearce) had reason to be close to on the day in question. Birch outright denies the accusations, but his weak memory envelops his movements with an air of doubt for both police and viewer.
It resembles a Nordic crime thriller, which makes sense when you consider that director Simon Kaijser da Silva is Swedish, but the distinctive Nordic approach doesn't work quite as well in a US environment. Also, while the professor's lectures on philosophical approaches to truth play into the plot, their use isn't compelling enough to permeate the overall feeling.

2½ apropos talks out of 5

River's Edge (1986)

Dir. Tim Hunter's controversial work is as powerful today as it was upon its original release. It follows a group of US kids, mostly of high school age, one of whom has murdered his girlfriend. The others learn of the killing, but their deep-seated apathy toward life means the crime goes unreported.
Thematically dark, for the most part, bordering on saturnine, the slow pace segues effortlessly from weird to quietly disturbing.
I've seen it likened to Richard Linklater's work, which is an understandable but not entirely helpful comparison. It made me think more of Marisa Silver's Permanent Record (1988), even though the two films deal with post-traumatic emotions very differently. Coincidentally, both feature Keanu Reeves.

4 grim triggers out of 5

Some Kind of Wonderful (1987)

I hadn't seen SKoW before, but it felt very familiar. It turns out it's a retelling of Pretty in Pink (1986) with some gender roles reversed. (Thanks, Wiki.).
In this version the love-struck youth is Keith (Eric Stoltz), an eighteen-year-old working class student who falls for Amanda (Lea Thompson), a high-schooler with a self-important attitude that's encouraged by her middle class friends.
It wears its 80s heart on its sleeve, but has weak leads and a final third that's some kind of boring. The only memorable youths were Keith's tomboy friend Watts (Mary Stuart Masterson), who resides on the sidelines, overlooked and underappreciated, and the bullying skinhead played by Elias Koteas.

2½ drumsticks out of 5

Forsaken (2015)

A slow-burning Western starring real-life father and son Donald and Kiefer Sutherland as an onscreen father and son. The elder man is a staunch reverend with bitter feelings toward his boy, John Henry Clayton, who is only now returning to the family home after having gone to war many years before.
There's not much gun-play, and the unscrupulous rich man (Brian Cox) who'll kill to acquire land isn't very original, but I enjoyed the setting, it serves the feelings of estrangement well and enables a promise made but not yet kept to be unearthed alongside a physical toil. Overall, it's not the best example of its type, but if you appreciate a reflective drama that doesn't rush toward its end, then it might fill a lazy afternoon for you, too, like it did for me.

3 assertations out of 5

The Island (2005)

Even though it steals almost all of its ideas from some classic, well-known and much-loved sci-fi movies of yesteryear, the early part of Michael Bay's movie feels like it could've did something worthwhile with the pickings. But the potential is destroyed by his woefully inappropriate direction, cack-handed editing, a leading duo with zero chemistry, and a music score that aspires to little more than blandness. When the director lets loose with his trademark action scenes, including helicopters (naturally), cars tipping on busy highways, flashing lights, etc, it becomes Bay-by-numbers, indistinguishable from every other movie of his that I've managed to sit through. His talent for making excitement be terminally dull is almost unsurpassed.

1 identifier out of 5

The Rewrite (2014)

A desperate screenwriter named Keith (Hugh Grant), living under the shadow of his one major success, takes a job as writer in residence at an American university that's 1000+ miles away from his comfort zone. His British cynicism and apathy are at full mast, but the conscience that he didn't know he had is lurking, waiting for the right time (and person) to stir it to action.
It's a rom-com with some clever wordsmithery, but an equal amount of the same that falls flat. Given the setting, etc, film-fans with an interest in literature may find more to latch onto than folks who don't have that focus.
Marisa Tomei plays a crucial role, insightfully reading between the lines, but she has less screen time than perhaps her character deserved.

2½ ill graces out of 5