Tag: review

The end is here — but we’re not done yet. No one has covered the eighth and final “Harry Potter” the way we have here at Hero Complex, but we’re not going to slow down now that the film has reached theaters. The movie is on its way to a massive opening weekend and the reviews are overwhelmingly positive as well. One of the best takes is by our very own Kenneth Turan, the senior film critic for the Los Angeles Times. Here’s an excerpt from his review: The Harry Potter films, like the boy wizard himself, have had their creative ups and downs, so it’s especially satisfying that this final film, ungainly title and all, has been worth the wait. Though no expense has been spared in its production, it succeeds because it brings us back to the combination of magic, ...

Overall, Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times goes against the early critical opinion of Warner Bros.’ “Green Lantern,” saying “it works in fits and starts as its disparate parts go in and out of effectiveness, but the professionalism of the production” makes it watchable in a “comic book kind of way.” Far from high praise, it’s not as scathing as the New York Times’ review or that Rotten Tomatoes’ score. Starting with Hal Jordan himself, Turan’s take on Ryan Reynolds seems positive; he says that “Reynolds can handle most of what the script by Greg Berlanti and Michael Green and Marc Guggenheim and Michael Goldenberg throws at him. The problem is, not all of that stuff is worth doing.” Turan goes on to point out that the visual depiction of the planet Oa, “home base of the Lanterns and their ...

Is it time for Jack Sparrow to sail off into the sunset? After seeing the fourth installment in Disney‘s “Pirates of the Caribbean” mega-franchise, Los Angeles Times film critic Betsy Sharkey writes in her review that Johnny Depp‘s kooky pirate charm keeps “On Stranger Tides” afloat, but the film is “not seaworthy, nor Sparrow worthy, for that matter.” Sharkey gives props to a few sparkling moments, including creepy mermaids and a cameo by the Rolling Stone‘s Keith Richards, but said that despite Oscar-nominated director Rob Marshall‘s efforts at the helm, overall, the movie lacks fun. Sharkey blames a bloated, overly complicated plot and bizarre production design. “Now if all that sounds like a promising place to work a lot of 3-D magic, then boy are you in for a major letdown,” Sharkey writes. “The Ds in this instance stand for dark and dismal and disastrously claustrophobic.” Here’s ...

DAYS OF THUNDER: We’ve been counting down to the release of “Thor” with a month of on-the-set reports, exclusive photos and interviews with the cast and crew of the first truly cosmic Marvel Studios film. Today: Kenneth Turan’s review.  Kenneth Turan is celebrating his 20th anniversary as a film critic for the Los Angeles Times and he’s watched as super-hero films have moved to new heights at the box office. After seeing “Thor,” Turan writes in his review that the film is a “smackdown” between two opposing forces – Kenneth Branagh,  ”a director still best known for superior Shakespearean productions,” and Marvel Entertainment, a “well-oiled mass entertainment machine boasting ownership of more than 8,000 comic book characters and more than $6.1 billion in worldwide box office grosses.” In Turan’s view, the contest was a draw, judging by the new film that is expected to dominate at theaters ...

Wondering whether you should answer the call and take a chance on “Scream 4” this weekend? Critic Peter Travers writes in Rolling Stone that despite the “diabolically funny start and a surprise climax” the movie isn’t worth your time, and Michael O’Sullivan’s review in the Washington Post offers one of the stranger metaphors in recent cinema criticism by calling the Wes Craven film “a 17-year-old bulimic girl … alternately bingeing on cheesy slasher-flick cliches, purging, by pointing out, over and over, just how gag-me-with-a spoon cheesy they are.” Roger Ebert just seemed weary after seeing the movie, reflecting on “one victim after another being slashed, skewered, stabbed, gutted and sliced, with everyone in on the joke” before shaking his head at the reader with this closing line: “Maybe that’s your idea of a good time.” The “good-start-but-slow-middle” assessment popped up ...

REVIEW In Japanese, otaku simply means “you,” but in America, it’s used to describe a fan of Japanese pop culture: anime, manga, video games, J-pop and/or cosplay. American otaku range from casual enthusiasts to hard-core fanatics; the latter are the subject of the eight-part reality series/documentary “America’s Greatest Otaku,” which premiered on Hulu on Feb. 24. Stu Levy, the founder of TokyoPop, a major publisher of manga in the U.S., serves as host, assisted by six college students who are self-proclaimed otaku. Over eight weeks, they visit 20 U.S. cities, observing various aspects of Japanese fandom and interviewing candidates for the title of America’s Greatest Otaku. It’s an uneven series, veering from interesting to just plain silly and superficial. In one of the better sequences, the apprentice reporters visit the Texas headquarters of Funimation, the largest U.S. distributor of anime. After ...

Susan Carpenter recently reviewed “Beyonders: A World Without Heroes” for the Los Angeles Times and said it tapped into a long legacy of dimensional escapades on the printed page. “For decades, kids have been inadvertently stumbling into alternate realities through children’s literature. In ‘The Chronicles of Narnia,’ it was a wardrobe that served as the portal. With ‘Beyonders: A World Without Heroes,’ it’s the yawning jaws of a hippo. This intriguing beginning leads to an even more imaginative quest in the kickoff to a new fantasy trilogy from Brandon Mull, bestselling author of the young-adult series “Fablehaven.” Jason Walker is just an average American teenager — studying for tests, practicing baseball and prepping to be a future dentist in the suburban idyll of Vista, Colo.”  Read Carpenter’s full review. – Geoff Boucher RECENT AND RELATED Collins: Lawrence is “beautiful, unforgiving ...

Los Angeles Times film critic Betsy Sharkey saw “Paul” and thinks it’s worth phoning home about… Don’t let “Paul’s” R-rating fool you. In the latest comedy from those funny Brits of “Hot Fuzz” and “Shaun of the Dead,” the wise guys have gone more off-center than off-color with this whimsical and surprisingly gentle road trip adventure about two friends, an obsession and an alien named Paul. After the sharp bite and harsh light of most American-style, guy-based funny films today, “Paul” comes as such sweet relief. If not for a lot of F-bombs and other naughty words, this would be a family film, a sort of fractured “E.T.,” with Seth Rogen never more likeable than as the bald-headed extraterrestrial who just wants to phone home (he should consider this kind of disappearing act, a la Mike Myers and Shrek, more ...

MANGA REVIEW Bakuman Volumes 1-3 By Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata Viz: $9.99 each, paperback; 194 pp. Thousands of kids in the U.S. and Japan dream of becoming manga artists; 14-year-old Moritake Mashiro, the hero of the new manga series “Bakuman,” isn’t one of them. He draws well, but he draws for fun. Moritake just assumes he’ll fulfill his parents’ wishes and become an ordinary white-collar worker, although the idea is hardly appealing. But when his classmate, A-student and aspiring writer Akito Takagi, sees Moritake’s drawings, everything changes. Akito proclaims, “Manga is the pride of our Japanese culture! We can become famous through it worldwide!” But Moritake’s not buying it. He lacks ambition, and his uncle Nobuhiro was a manga artist who scored one big hit, then worked himself to death trying to match it. Akito has also seen Moritake’s ...

Los Angeles Times film critic Betsy Sharkey has your intelligence report on “Limitless”… Very early on in “Limitless,” a psychological tease about a pharmaceutically enhanced brainiac, star Bradley Cooper is teetering on the thin rail of a high-rise balcony, contemplating one of those jumps that guarantees the sweet hereafter. It turns out to be as good a metaphor for Cooper as it is for his character, Eddie Morra; both are courting considerable risks in director Neil Burger’s wannabe thriller about a super-pill that will make anyone who takes it super-smart. For Cooper, the question was: Could he play smart-Eddie? He comes close enough to suggest there is something more to the actor than just smirking arrogant handsome guy, which until now has been the definition of most of his characters, notably his breakout role in “The Hangover.” For Eddie, it’s ...