Reviews

Maciste was very useful for the Peplum genre since the Italian folk hero wasn't rooted in any particular mythological tradition. He could turn up anywhere, "born of the rock," as Maciste (Italian American bodybuilder Mark Forest, who also played Hercules this same year) explains in the first Maciste entry of the Peplum revival that began in the late 1950s. Here, he turns up in ancient Egypt, which is being overrun with Persian marauders aided by the evil Queen Smedes (Chelo Alonso), who in the first few minutes has her uncooperative Pharoah husband assassinated. A chance encounter has Maciste befriending the Pharoah's hapless son, who is eventually bewitched by the beguiling Alonso, but at least Maciste knows that the guy is basically okay.

There is the usual amount of double-crossing and mistaken ideas about various characters motivations, and most of the requite Peplum tropes, including the hero defeating lions and alligators and soldiers. Maciste gets several opportunities to perform feats of strength and Forest acquits himself well through all of it, flexing and looking strong. But this isn't one of the more engaging or entertaining entries in the genre, which was kicking into high gear. It's not as interesting as Forest's other 1960 Peplum, "Goliath and the Dragon" a.k.a. "The Revenge of Hercules." It largely wastes Alonso, who normally can be a dynamic presence in these films. She gets one decent dance number and has moderate fun trying to seduce Maciste, and of course she looks great and has good costumes. But the film could have done more with her, and suffers for not doing so.

The English-language version was retitled "Son of Samson," with some dialogue added about Maciste maybe being a son of Samson. It's unnecessary, doesn't make much sense, and doesn't really matter. Maciste was largely unfamiliar to non-Italian audiences, so most of the Maciste films were retitled with other heroes and often the character was called someone else. Here, at least, he gets to keep the name if not the title.

Unconvincing horror movie about train passengers stuck on a train stopped in a supposed forest, set upon by a band of werewolves. Or something like werewolves -- it's not exactly clear what these creatures are, nor where they come from, nor how they manage to survive in what looks more like a tame park than wilderness. Given that England obliterated most of its forests centuries ago, it can be challenging to execute the human vs. nature motif in films set there, but lots of movies have managed it nicely, from some Hammer horror films to "An American Werewolf in London." This one doesn't quite manage it. Unfortunately, it doesn't manage much else either, except a few tense scenes from time to time. The actors, led by "Downton Abbey"'s Ed Speleers. do what they can to breath some individuality into the stock characters they are stuck playing, but the script, the direction and even the costuming don't do much to make any of them memorable or interesting. I found it difficult to work up much concern about whether the mostly likable characters lived or the mostly unlikable characters died.

There are, at least, some decent production values and some good moments when the action ramps up. You have to sit through a slow start which, in a better movie, would be spent establishing something unique about the various assorted train passengers and crew, and a lot of wheel-spinning. The creature design is fine, but not so inspired as to make this a must-see for creature feature fans. All in all, while mildly and intermittently entertaining, this is a big "meh."

No doubt the reason for a brand of whey protein a power drink are thanked in the credits to "The Horde" is because they helped keep its multi-functioning star Paul Logan -- who also wrote, produced and did fight choreography -- shredded and pumped. Logan's big biceps and lean, mean torso are the main attraction of this turkey, and a few more shirtless scenes would have been welcome. There's not much else to look at or appreciate.

Logan plays a SEAL who accompanies his fiancé, the world's worst nature photography teacher at some kind of probably for-profit rip- off college, on an "extra-credit" class camping trip. She has great advice like "try different settings" and "experiment," and inspirational pitches like "there's beauty everywhere." Her remedial students aren't terribly interested in photography and seem barely able to hold a camera -- one could be forgiven for thinking the film's title refers to them instead of the group of inbreds who kill, kidnap and torture them in the woods, until of course the muscular Logan snaps into action. The students are all either one thing -- the spoiled rich kid is just a spoiled rich kid, the horny couple is horny all the time -- or nondescript. Logan the screenwriter hasn't mastered creating characters that are remotely lifelike, even his own is one-dimensional. That's probably why they cast terrible actors -- why waste the money on good actors when you aren't giving them anything to play?

This is a combination trip-to-the-woods horror film and "Rambo"/"Missing in Action" style military action film. I guess we are too far removed from Vietnam for Logan to be re-fighting that war, so instead he picks off mutants of the horde the way Chuck Norris used to pick off Viet-Cong. Unfortunately, the mutants are about as uninteresting and uninspired as the hapless soldiers were, which is a problem for the horror-film part of the story. Costas Mandylor does a good job as the horde's opportunistic ring-leader, and Matthew Willig looks suitably imposing as his main henchman, but isn't given enough to do. Considering how much build-up there is to the fight between Logan and Willig, it is really disappointing that it didn't turn out better. Logan the fight choreographer is fine if not innovative, and Logan the actor is good at action, but director Jared Cohn doesn't have a knack for shooting action sequences in a dynamic way, at least not on this film's obviously limited budget. There is less of a sense of place (it isn't set anywhere specific) or realism than in ultra-low-budget films like "Deadly Prey" (to which this owes a debt). They are about as deep in the woods as your average company picnic, yet somehow this mass of mutants has lived there for decades unnoticed by the people of Topanga, where this was filmed, or the staff of the Burger King that is probably 10 minutes away from the location shoots.

One oddity: Don "The Dragon" Wilson, for my money the least interesting action star of the 1990s, has an entirely pointless cameo. I guess they couldn't get Norris.

Since there were more Peplum extravaganzas than the U.S. market could absorb, television got into the act with a syndicated series called "The Sons of Hercules," which were 14 Italian Peplum not released theatrically in the U.S. that were re-dubbed as a loose series of 28 episodes with a catchy theme. "Hercules the Invincible" (Italian title: "Ercole l'invincibile") became "Son of Hercules in the Land of Darkness," starring big Dan Vadis as the hero renamed Argoles, who was supposed to be one of the sons of Hercules. This is the only version I've seen, so I can't really comment on the Italian original, but based on the material as presented, I can't imagine it was any good. This is one of the worst in the Hercules series, even though it packs in plenty of action. Unfortunately, it is almost all uninspired, unimaginative and very cheap-looking, with lots of running about and lots of dead spots. This has one of the worst fights with a lion in any Peplum film -- director Alvaro Manori either didn't know how it was done, or didn't care to make it look vaguely realistic or threatening. None of the considerable number of action sequences build any suspense, nor are they staged and filmed in a way that offers any tension or excitement. Even the obligatory dance number is anemic, consisting mostly of women rolling around on the floor. The look of the film, and the set designs, are equally as unimpressive.

The one thing this has going for it is large number of feats-of- strength opportunities for our hero (whatever you want to call him), and Vadis makes the most them, with the camera ogling and caressing his muscles. The biggest problem for Vadis is that he's sporting an extremely unflattering beard. This was his first of two times as Hercules. Perhaps someone thought that the best Hercules's -- Steve Reeves and Reg Park -- have beards, so Vadis should too. It was a colossal mistake in judgment. Despite the scruffy rug on his face, Vadis cuts an imposing figure as the legendary strongman. There's only one other moderately intriguing character in the whole movie, Maria Fiore as a conniving courtesan so desperate to become queen of the land Hercules invades that, once she achieves her goal she barely notices her kingdom falling down around her. But that's not enough to save this below-par entry in a genre that was rapidly becoming played out.

The strain of intense serialization takes a toll on "Thor: The Dark World," the eighth film in Marvel's on-going cinematic universe. Natalie Portman is back as Thor's earthly romantic interest, Jane Foster, which necessitates a slightly awkward part-explanation, part-avoidance of why Thor seemed to forget she existed during the events depicted in "The Avengers," in which Jane did not appear. Coming up with a compelling story that is about 70% a continuation of "Thor" and 30% a continuation of "The Avengers" and fits into the larger, on-going MCU story line that is supposed to culminate somewhere down the road paved with Infinity Stones is a tall order, and the multiple writers don't quite pull it off. Neither, however, do they completely fumble, and Alan Taylor's serviceable direction as well as a solid cast most of whom we're familiar with do a good job of smoothing over the rough spots as much as possible. The cast is really the best feature -- Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston are by now so comfortable with each other that it is easier that ever to believe these two were raised as brothers, it's good to see Portman again and Kat Dennings as Jane's sister is more of an asset to the story (and slightly less annoying) than she was in "Thor," Rene Russo as Thor's mother gets more to do, and there are a few pleasant if minor additions to the human side of the story, including Jonathan Howard and Chris O'Dowd.

Unfortunately, the movie doesn't spend as much time exploiting these strengths as it does on yet more universe-threatening, lazily conceived super-villains, the Dark Elves, and on fake science and fake legend about astronomical convergence. "Iron Man 3," the first film in the MCU to follow "The Avengers" and the one immediately preceding this, played it smart and didn't pretend the universe was at stake, for the obvious reason that such monumental stakes would call for the involvement of all Avengers. This film is not so smart. Despite the high stakes, the film really doesn't go very far afield. After the globe-trotting qualities of the most of the MCU, this one feels studio-bound and more reliant than ever on computers to create any sense of scale.

The fun thing about Thor as originally conceived was the supposition that what most people regard as Norse mythology was, in fact, based on powerful aliens whom the primitive humans would have perceived as gods. The first film got that; this film, rather than explore that motif in more depth or even play with it, opts instead for mumbo- jumbo about gravitational anomalies that helped ancient peoples build temples and what-not. It's meaningless drivel and a little insulting, both to ancient civilizations and audiences' intelligence. I'm all for suspending disbelief, but give us something worth suspending it for, not a grammar-school rehash of "Chariots of the Gods."

This is still better than "Iron Man 2" and not really appreciably worse than "The Incredible Hulk," which was more coherent but duller. It is, however, the first in the series that makes me wonder whether Marvel can really pull off its ambitious enterprise as consistently as it hopes.

The question posed by this version of "Cabin Fever" is "why?" Why remake a relatively recent horror film that, while it was nicely done and announced the arrival of a filmmaker (Eli Roth) lots of people had high hopes for, wasn't particularly groundbreaking? I thought I would find the answer in watching the remake, but as fine as this iteration is, it doesn't quite manage to make a case for its existence in a world where the original is still relatively fresh. The cast, the direction, the effects, and the cinematography are not appreciably better nor worse than the original. The story is almost identical, with a few minor variations. (The local hard-partying deputy sheriff in this version has been gender swapped, but otherwise performs the same function as in the original.) The rough spots of the narrative have not been smoothed over -- in fact, they tend to stick out more here than they did before. Even in the original, the rapidly devolving situation the main characters found themselves in and their reactions to the threats they faced came off, at times, as a bit abrupt. That's true here as well, only more-so because the somewhat higher production values make this feel more naturalistic and realistic. The character contrivances stick out more, and the eccentric nature of the townsfolk our city- kid anti-heroes are surrounded by seem even less convincing than they did in the more stylized (and decidedly lower-budget) original.

This is fine. Anyone who really loved it the first time around might like to see roughly the same movie again with updated technology (which, of course, doesn't work, so it's really mostly useless). I liked the first movie and was mildly engaged by this. Everyone else can safely skip it, unless you think you can arrive at definitive reasons why the filmmakers even bothered.

Marvel kicks off what it calls "Phase II" of its cinematic universe by going back to the character with which it launched the whole thing, which is a pretty good idea given Iron Man's primacy in the MCU and Robert Downey, Jr.'s primacy as the best actor it has playing one of its superheroes. It is risky only in the sense that "Iron Man 2" was a rare misstep for Marvel, one from which it recovers here. Shane Black is a great choice for director and co- writer, and not just because Marvel needed a movie set at Christmas time. This isn't exactly "Die Hard in the MCU," but Black's sensibility is a welcome respite from the planet-is-in-peril stakes of "The Avengers," which capped off "Phase I." His story and direction create enough excitement to make this good fun, give Iron Man a decent opponent, give Tony Stark some demons to wrestle with, and make very good use of the familiar supporting players in Iron Man/Stark's world.

Guy Pearce's Aldrich Killian is almost engaging enough to make me not miss Sam Rockwell, the best feature of "Iron Man 2." As Marvel villains go, Killian is nicely developed and reasonably compelling. He's no Loki, but he's big improvement on Mickey Rourke, and like Rockwell's, his evil plan is basically profit-driven. He doesn't want to destroy the planet, he just wants to get rich off the people who do. But his megalomania is nicely juxtaposed with Stark's, who is dealing with PTSD from the events of "The Avengers." Stark finally reaches out for help in a way that Killian can't, which makes a resonant dramatic point and also gives both Gwyneth Paltrow and Jon Favreau a lot more to do than they've previously been afforded. Both rise to the occasion, as does Don Cheadle as War Machine. And the film does all this without Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury popping up -- he must still be in mourning for Clark Gregg.

I was not as convinced by the sub-plot involving a child and his relationship with Stark. This is an over-long film for what it tries to accomplish, with one or two too many plot twists and turns for its own good. There is no cross set-up here that doesn't turn out to be a double-cross, which never gets confusing but does get wearying. The plot involving the boy Stark befriends seems like the most superfluous in a film that could stand some trimming to be as tight as it should be. Nevertheless, this is a good return to form for Iron Man and a promising way to continue the franchise.

Low-budget and above-average action from director Tony Leung, who also did the fight choreography. Top-billing goes to martial artist Gary Daniels, who was still very much in his on-the-job training phase trying to learn how to act (ten years into his acting career). The guy has the moves, the build and the looks, but he is stiff as a board when it comes to delivering anything but a well-placed punch or kick. He plays a semi-retired NYC cop with PTSD whose Australian accent is never explained, but probably stems from Daniels being unable to speak with an American accent.

Much better are the triple threat of Chuck Jeffreys as a cop who reluctantly drags Daniels out of retirement, gone-too-soon Darren Shahlavi as the martial artist killer the two are hunting, and Frank Gorshin as a stereotypical police chief. Gorshin embraces the type with so such relish that he elevates the pedestrian material and makes a character with no surprises fun to watch. Jeffreys brings a similar, if slightly more understated energy to his role and makes him likable even when he's doing magic tricks at a murder scene. Shahlavi, in an early English-language role that is more substantial than stunt double in Hong Kong action films, is dynamic and wonderfully unhinged as a fighter who is systematically taking out former champions. You never know quite what he's going to do next, especially with his maniacal laugh, and he gets some of the best lines (not that there are many gems). After beating one opponent to a pulp, he exclaims in frustration "Why aren't you better?!," and you get exactly what makes this guy tick. He and Daniels tangle quite a bit as the film progresses and both are skilled enough to make the action come alive.

The story and screenplay by Keith W. Strandberg isn't much to write home about, but it moves pretty swiftly. Leung, as a director, adds some nice touches, like the dissolve from a red moon to a red stoplight or the way the reflection from Shahlavi's blade lights the face of one of his victims, and he films 1990s ungentrified Manhattan with sufficient grime and grit to make one long for the old days. It's not exactly "Taxi Driver," but it's nice to see. (Only a few scenes take place in NYC, much of the film was shot in Wilmington and it is obvious and jarring when the locations change, but Leung still makes the most of the limited screen time NYC gets.) Mainly, though, it is Leung as action choreographer who shines here, packing the film with impressive sequences that take full advantage of his casts' athleticism. Despite clunky exposition and a leading man with some severe limitations, this is a solidly entertaining watch.

Moderately entertaining action-comedy about a teenage girl trained as an assassin who masquerades as an exchange student so she can have a typical high-school experience. "Barely Lethal" does very well with its youth casting, led by Hailee Steinfeld as Megan, the assassin "from Canada." It falls down on some of the adult roles, particularly Dan Fogler and Rob Huebel, who seem like they're too focused on their improv techniques to care about what movie they're in. In fact, the whole film could have done less with the adults in the cast, even those who do good jobs like Rachel Harris as the mother in Megan's host family and Samuel L. Jackson as the quasi- government overseer of the assassin school, in favor of spending more time with the kids. This is a teen comedy that de-emphasizes the teens too much, and turns most of the adults into perfunctory and ineffectual comic relief. The film gets in its own way too often, almost as if the screenplay and direction didn't have enough trust in the high-school story it could have told. The result feels disjointed, rushed and incomplete -- it feels like a lot was left on the cutting-room floor, and it doesn't spend enough time building the emotional investment it wants the characters and the audience to have.

Despite these problems, there is just enough here to keep it watchable and engaging enough. The action is underwhelming, even though it seems to have had an adequate budget (and more producers, executive producers and associate producers than far bigger productions), but not amateurish. Overall, this seems like it could have been a lot better than the diverting 96 minutes it turns out to be.

You'll need a vacation after watching "Vacation"! Ha! That's not a line in the movie, but it is representative of the bland, predictable humor that drags down this attempt to reboot National Lampoon's family comedy from 30 years ago. Requisite meta-humor copied from the Jump street films about sequels? Check. Guest appearances from original cast members? Check. Slew of mostly improvisational comedic actors peppered throughout to do bits that make you wonder if you're watching a themed episode of SNL rather than a real movie with a real story to tell? Check.

Predictability is not in itself necessarily a bad thing, if a movie is able to make good on what it promises, even if you can see it coming. Too much of "Vacation" falls flat, like the weaker sketches of a mediocre SNL. There were aspects that mostly worked, for me anyway - - the bizarrely configured Albanian rental car with the inscrutable remote control, the potentially murderous big rig truck driver possibly pursuing the Griswold family across the country. The story makes a good attempt at integrating Audrey Griswold (Leslie Mann), who turns out to be trapped in a gilded cage with an oversexed and overbearing husband (a pretty good Chris Hemsworth, trying to flex his comedic muscles), but it ends up not giving Mann much to work with. The rest of the film, and the rest of the comedians charged with bringing it to life, fall flat or worse -- especially an execrable Charlie Day as an unbalanced river guide and four actors I won't bother naming who embarrass themselves at the Four Corners.

It's possible this would have been okay, albeit uneven, if the central family had been better conceived. Only Christina Applegate's Debbie Griswold comes off as vaguely human and vaguely relatable. Ed Helms, usually so good at striking the right balance between likable and absurd, can't manage to make Rusty Griswold anything but dopey and annoying. His relentless enthusiasm and utter cluelessness is, I think, supposed to be endearing, but it just makes viewers understand his sons' mean-spirited contempt for him. And that's really what sinks "Vacation" in the manure -- we need Griswolds we can at least hope might have a good vacation, but in this film, no one really cares.

There is a truly brilliant movie buried within the ponderousness and self-importance that weighs down "Interstellar." Director and co- writer Christopher Nolan has never disappointed with regard to stunning visuals and design -- give this guy a big budget, and he puts it all on screen in spectacular fashion. Unfortunately, he doesn't have as sure a hand with regard to audio quality. Whatever audio effects (or affectations) he goes for, not for the first time in a Nolan film, render some of the dialogue unintelligible. Given some the of more hackneyed and overwrought dialogue that is intelligible, maybe that's for the best. I wouldn't suggest watching "Interstellar" with the sound turned down because the parts with dialogue that drag would be interminable -- plus, we'd miss Hans Zimmer's terrific score -- but the first 30 minutes or so might be improved by the sound of silence.

For one thing, Matthew McConaughey's irritating, overly emotive, actorly performance is most painful in the film's early scenes. He gets better and less annoying as the film progresses, partly because the screenplay stops burdening his character ("Coop," for Cooper -- ugh) with carrying the burden of mankind's horrible mistakes in his drawling delivery. For the record, I don't dislike McConaughey as an actor generally -- he's done some fine work along with some inconsequential drivel -- but he chose here to embrace Coop's dourness and disappointment in a way that helps throw the film off- balance, while his down-home supposed lack of pretension just gets tiresome. I have little doubt that he delivered exactly what Nolan wanted, and what Nolan wanted is the real problem.

The rest of the cast fairs much better, though I do wonder how sick Michael Caine must have become at the mention of Dylan Thomas's name. There is a bit of what might be considered stunt casting involving a major Hollywood star who shows up for a pivotal development in our heroes' search for a habitable planet, but far from being distracting or beside-the-point, it helps make for the film's tensest, most gripping and emotionally resonant scenes. While there are other set-pieces that almost get to that level, the odd pacing and sheer weightiness of a film that takes gravity as its main topic ultimately makes this a frustrating watch, if only because it's so beautiful and has so many jumbled ideas that it's easy to imagine it being so much better than it is.

Horror anthology loosely organized around holidays, where each short is thematically related to a different holiday. The usual problem with these sorts of anthologies is wildly uneven quality, but in this case the quality is fairly consistent and reasonably strong. One of the many oddities of "Holidays" is that the worst short is the one by the most famous director included here, Kevin Smith. It seems like he wasn't even trying with his Halloween short and its disappointing that they gave the most on-topic holiday for a horror movie to someone who seems so disinterested.

Another oddity is that the first five shorts all have female protagonists, with only one being written and directed by a woman. It is almost immediately apparent which that is, not because it is appreciably better or worse than the others, but because of its attitudes toward its female characters, and the way it handles nudity (something that is mostly absent in the rest of the shorts). The fact that several films in a row all feature not especially strongly drawn or unique protagonists, some of whom are almost interchangeable, is a problem. The shorts are organized chronologically through the calendar year, starting with Valentine's Day and ending on New Year's Eve, but I think it might have been better to reorder them so that a sense of repetition didn't start to set in before there was some variation. The final short is actually the best, in terms of telling a compelling story with the most interesting characters we meet in the whole series. It is largely a two-hander and ends on a satisfyingly twisty note. And that brings up a third oddity -- all except the final short, and Smith's, have intriguing ideas, set-ups and situations that the various writers and directors seem unable to resolve in a very satisfying way. Some of them just end, some try for a conclusion that is perhaps meant to be ambiguous or disturbing, but they fail to stick the landing. Its strange to watch a bunch of short films in a row that share the same strengths and the same weakness.

I'd say most of the writers and directors represented here show promise, even if most of them don't quite deliver as fully as I'd have liked, and I look forward to more from any of these filmmakers. I don't know that I'll be returning to this collection of shorts anytime soon.

The most remarkable accomplishment of "Jurassic World" is demonstrating that it is possible for Chris Pratt to be a boring screen presence. Its most remarkable aspect, in general, is illustrating how challenging these franchise reboots can be. We have had a number of decent-to-excellent reboots in recent years -- here's a healthy reminder of how leaden they can be when things go wrong.

There are a few good ideas buried in the film, especially the soft critique of corporate hegemony and its brand-everything mindset. It tries to have its cake and eat it too by incorporating the significant amount of product placement into this critique, thus attempting to make a virtue of necessity while it cashes the checks. This might have had more resonance if the film wasn't so soulless. The design of the world -- no longer just a park -- is a nicely conceived update of the original that allows for both visually stylish enhancements, like all the holographic projections, and plenty of visual callbacks to the original. Unfortunately, the latter just serve as several well- placed reminders of how much better "Jurassic Park" was. Jack Johnson's character, a coordinator in the central control room whose name I've already forgotten because he's so uninteresting, wears a t-shirt from the original park he bought on e-Bay and says how much he respects its legitimacy. This is another example of the film trying to insulate itself from obvious critiques. As with the product placement scheme, it doesn't really work as well as the filmmakers seem to think it does.

One of the worst aspects of "Jurassic World" is that it takes the least appealing parts of "Jurassic Park" and runs with them, especially the sentimentalizing and anthropomorphizing of the dinosaurs. "Park" was guilty of this too, at least compared to the harder-edged, more clear-eyed novel by Michael Crichton from which it was adapted, but only around the edges and only in service of broadening the film's appeal in an all-ages direction. "World" goes whole hog in this direction, despite regular monologues and commentary from Pratt's Owen Grady, who is supposedly training raptors, that these are animals and should be respected as animals - - commentary the film repeatedly undercuts by depicting the dinosaurs as military strategists. The lack of faith the film has in its own "assets," as Bryce Dallas Howard's corporate functionary who runs the park keeps calling the creatures, is the most depressing and cynical aspect of this whole enterprise, and left me wondering why I went to see a movie that trades on the wonder of dinosaurs while refusing to believe that actual dinosaurs would be wonderful.

In many ways, this is the kind of horror movie that Wes Craven's "Scream" was supposed to put on notice, making the case that you can't get away with stupid, thinly drawn, overly sexualized adolescent characters who seem not to have a clue about anything around them. I guess no one told director/co-writer Derick Martini or co-writer Bret Easton Ellis how ridiculous making such a clueless film would be in 2015. Not that the film itself would have been any better in 1989, but the act of creating it wouldn't have seemed so inane.

There is, at least, an intriguing premise -- that the curse of Downer's Grove is the death of one graduating high school senior each year. Exploring whether the curse is real, in horror movie terms, might have been interesting, or whether it is connected to some kind of revenge of the natives who once occupied the land. This is hinted at but never explored. But this film is too scattered to do that, instead dropping vague references to drug problems (never really explored or taken seriously) and thwarted ambitions of abusive fathers (never really explored or taken seriously). Everything and every character here is a cliché. It would be one thing if they started out as clichés and developed into characters we might care about, but they don't develop at all. It is perhaps unfair to criticize the performers because, really, what could they do with this junk?, but they are mostly pretty bad. Some of those whose work I'm a little familiar with, like Kevin Zegers, Lucas Till and Tom Arnold, have been much better elsewhere, so I'm prepared to believe that most of the rest can be better than their work here would indicate. Hopefully, this will be a resume low-light for them, rather than a career suicide. But if the pedestrian direction in any indication, Martini himself shouldn't get many more chances to badly mishandle any material at all.

This film sat on the shelf for a few years due to studio bankruptcy, but like some fine wines, it improved with age. For one thing, the stars of Chris Hemsworth and Jesse Williams rose in the interim, which is a bit ironic given that they are the weakest members of the excellent cast. They aren't bad, but they sometimes struggle with the subtleties of timing co-writer Joss Whedon's dialogue usually require of performers, while the rest of the cast -- especially Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford, along with Whedon veterans Amy Acker and Fran Kranz -- are more natural, relaxed and effective in their roles.

For another, the combined critique of and homage to horror entertainment seems to get more relevant, rather than to date, as the years pass. Director/co-writer Drew Goddard has a fine eye for paying visual tribute to contemporary and historic classics of the genre and his script is peppered with lines taken from those classics. Sometimes, the latter effort is a bit clunky, though the former never is. Horror movie and TV fans can have plenty of fun just playing spot-the-references, and there are videos on You Tube that will help viewers out with that.

But the film is so much more than a series of references. Like Wes Craven's "Scream," "The Cabin in the Woods" is a deconstruction of horror tropes and motifs, except that this time, the audience is ahead of the characters in terms of figuring out what's really happening. "Cabin" sets up a scenario in which it can offer intriguing and clever explanations for why characters in horror films do and say the dumb things they sometimes do and say, and in doing so makes a case that audiences need to demand better. These explanations aren't always explored in enough detail to be entirely convincing, clear or persuasive, but they generally get the job done. As long as you don't pull too hard on particular threads, the whole elaborate construction isn't likely to unravel. What is more clearly and consistently explained is why this particular assortment of character types is something we see repeatedly, with minor variations, across decades of horror films.

In the end, "The Cabin in the Woods" makes an argument that we need to blow up the horror genre and start again, yet it does so in a way that appreciates and emulates what makes a good horror movie so compelling to begin with. It's a tricky thing to do because the film itself, by weaving a magnificently entertaining and reverential example of horror at its finest, seems to undercut its own message. Somehow, it succeeds beautifully, in no small part by being a film that gives you a lot to chew on, but is clever and creative and fun enough to enjoy purely on its terrific surface.

Though best known for playing Hercules, Steve Reeves only played that character twice and spent most of the rest of his Italian film career playing similarly situated mythological or legendary heroes. "Goliath and the Barbarians" (originally titled "Il terrore dei barbari") has him, in the English-language version anyway, playing Goliath, the nom de guerre of Emiliano, a woodcutter whose Italian village is over- run by the multicultural barbarian hordes in the oddly specific year 568 A.D. Conveniently ignoring that Italy had been the seat of the most powerful empire in the West and had done plenty of conquering and pillaging of its own, this film portrays the Italians as salt-of-the-Earth, hardworking peasants beset by the evil foreigners. You know they're evil because 1) they are boorish; 2) they spend a lot of time in revelries and generally seem to be having much more fun than the Italians; 3) one of them is named Igor (a terrific Livio Lorenzon) and sports a vaguely Mongolian hairstyle; and 4) they spend as much time plotting against each other as they do conquering and pillaging. Basically, they're rude and not very disciplined -- straight up signs of bad guys.

Among the least disciplined is Chelo Alonso, as the barbarian chief's headstrong daughter Landa, who naturally falls for our hero as soon as she lays eyes on his big biceps. Alonso is usually one of the star attractions of Peplum cinema and she doesn't disappoint here, having not one but two exotic dance numbers (the second especially energetic and involving fire), and a parade of fabulous costumes. She brings a manic energy to her role and to the film and helps carry Reeves, who is more subdued here that he was in "Hercules Unchained." He has almost as much chemistry with Alonso as he did with Sylvia Lopez in that film. Also appearing is former Hollywood boy starlet, Bruce Cabot, who never quite managed to become an A-list star (despite rescuing Fay Wray from the original "King Kong") but had a long career as a supporting player.

The plot gets fairly convoluted, what with in-fighting and double- crossing among the rival factions of barbarians plus the Romeo-and- Juliet nature of the romance between Emiliano and Landa (being from opposing sides and all), but it mostly holds together. It tries hard to sell a particularly nonsensical bit where a captured Emiliano, whom the barbarians strongly suspect is this Goliath guy who has given them so much trouble, is given two tests of strength, called by Landa "Tests of Truth." The fact that he is strong enough to pass them is supposed to mean he's telling the truth when he says he isn't Goliath, but the fact that he passes them is also a pretty clear indication that he is the heroic strongman. It's a conundrum the film doesn't quite manage to solve, but it's fun watching it try, and those scenes are the best opportunities in the movie to show off Reeves's impressive physique. (Alonso is very impressed!) The only major Peplum trope omitted is a battle with some kind of mythological or wild creature, but since Emiliano dresses in costume as Goliath, to scare the barbarians, I guess he is supposed to substitute for an actual monster.

This is a crisply directed, well-paced film that provides plenty of battles and plundering and an all-around good time, if you're inclined to like this genre.

Long before DC pit Batman against Superman or Marvel instigated a superhero civil war, writer/director Pietro Francisci imagined a battle between legendary strongmen Hercules (Italian bodybuilder Adriano Bellini, billed as Kirk Morris) and Samson (Iranian actor Iloosh Khoshabe). This being an Italian production, it is somewhat biased in its portrayal of Greek civilization being more -- well, civilized -- than the equally advanced but more tyrannical lands of Judea and Gaza, where Hercules, Ulysses and assorted Greek fishermen find themselves shipwrecked after taking on a sea monster. (The sea monster, by the way, isn't very impressive, but has good sound effects.) The film doesn't really have a developed political or religious agenda, however, despite the benign opening scene in which a bored King Laertes listens to a dispute over a goat between two silly peasants contrasting with the brutal reign of the Philistines, who wantonly murder and burn anyone they consider traitorous. Nor is the fascinating idea of two rival heroes who get their awesome power from entirely different belief systems ever really explored. Though Samson insists his strength comes from his god, the rival concepts of monotheism and polytheism are never mentioned or even implicitly contrasted; in this telling, Hercules had never heard of Samson before getting stranded in the Holy Land, and he never actually mentions Zeus. Everyone is refreshingly blase about religious differences -- when it comes to the Greek interlopers, the main concern of the Philistines and Danites is their odd style of dress.

Women, on the other hand, don't come off as well. Even though Hercules is apparently happily married, his and other wives depicted here are hectoring and disagreeable. The principle villain of the story is Samson's nemesis Delilah, played with lusty gusto by Liana Orfei, consort of the Philistine king who manipulates everyone and tries to seduce Hercules on her way to trying to seduce Samson. She also gets the film's one and only dance number, and makes the most of it. Orfei embraces and relishes playing the baddest girl and is responsible for at least half the fun quotient of the film -- plus, her warrior outfit at the end is not to be missed.

Aside from Orfei's Delilah, the main attraction is the epic battle between Hercules and Samson. Since they are both depicted as righteous heroes, the story has to contrive a situation that pits them against each other without making one of them the bad guy -- the plot involves mistaken identities and erroneous but reasonable assumptions and isn't very important. The fight, against a backdrop of stone ruins that allows for falling styrofoam and various chunks of super-heavy objects the musclemen can hurl at each other, is well-staged and well- executed by Morris and Khoshabe, especially with regard to making them seem evenly matched. Since Samson doesn't really get much action until the climactic battle and Hercules has only some perfunctory fights with a bull and a lion, their fight is basically the centerpiece of the film. What it lacks in spectacle, the actors make up for in enthusiasm.

The English-language version adds Ulysses to the title even though he is, here as in many other Peplum films, a boyishly mischievous sidekick for Hercules. The point here, as the original Italian title ("Ercole sfida Sansone") suggests, is to pit Hercules against Samson, and the film delivers on that promise. It's a nicely shot, very bright and scenic film that makes judicious use of its limited budget and makes for an enjoyable watch.

Since I came to this film well past its release, I had plenty of time to prepare for what seemed to be almost universally regarded as one of the worst movies of 2015. As often seems to be the case with critical pile-ons, it turns out not to be that bad. That's not to say it is very good, but it's not the steaming pile of excrement lots of critics made it out to be. Most of the lazy, unsuccessful attempts at humor come from Adam Sandler and Kevin James, both of whom are more subdued and less obnoxious than is often the case. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have figured out anything interesting or funny to substitute for their usual antics, and so come off as boring. But a much better supporting cast than they deserve helps buoy the film when their own tedium threatens to sink it. Josh Gad, Michelle Monaghan, Peter Dinklage, and in smaller but well-played roles, Sean Bean and Brian Cox, as well as several lesser known actors keep this from being the painful experience I was half-expecting.

For my money, the premise buys a lot of good will. I didn't see the short "Pixels" is based on, but the idea of an alien superpower who misinterprets 1980s arcade games as a declaration of war and sends an army of Pac-Men, Centipedes and Donkey Kongs to attack the Earth is as inspired as high-concept concepts come. A filmmaker would have to go out of his way to screw that delightful idea up completely, and director Chris Columbus doesn't. Given that he has to work with a story where the most ludicrous notion is not that aliens attack us with Pac-Man, but that Kevin James is the President of the United States, he does a decent job of keeping the film mostly on-track and keeping the action light and fun. There are too many dead spots -- all of them when either Sandler or James are on-screen, and especially when they're together -- to make this as enjoyable as it wants to be or could have been. But if you find the concept of this film is at all attractive, you should give it a shot.

The nicest thing I can think about "Dark Moon Rising" is that some plucky kids got together and through grit, determination and hard work managed to make a movie and get it out there in some limited way so that the world could experience writer/director Justin Price's vision. (He also appears in the film, as do numerous groups people with the same surnames, suggesting that this was in no small measure and family & friends production.) They even managed to land two actors who once had some name recognition -- hey, look, it's Eric Roberts, as an addled Vietnam veteran, and Billy Blanks as a sheriff -- and got them to show up in the small-town Texas locations where they filmed this thing. Maybe the most intriguing credit, "Special On-Set Services," had something to do with that.

It's more fun and interesting speculating about how this came together than about the movie itself, which is mostly dull when it isn't ridiculous. The idea of some kind of werewolf family or curse or something brought back stateside from Vietnam has some potential, but whatever ended up on screen doesn't explore it. Instead we get a lot of hipster-emo-goth types running around to raves in thrift- store attire with silly haircuts that dated the film the day after the scenes were shot. We get bad lighting that renders some of the night scenes almost invisible. We get dialogue that doesn't make any sense or resemble in any way the manner in which a person might want to have what we generally call a "conversation." We get poor sound recording and mixing that renders some of that dialogue inaudible, especially when the ear-splitting music (also bad) drowns it out. We get a lot of actors not skilled enough to convey what the story needs them to convey, so there are numerous voice-over inserts in which they tell us what they're thinking, which turns out to be as dull as rest of the story. The only performer who brings any kind of intriguing energy, not to mention eye candy, to this is Matthew Simmons as a particularly vicious werewolf named Gecko (oh, yeah, the character names are all pretty silly) and who also does the fight choreography, which shows a little promise if only there had been more of it. When he's not on screen, the energy flags. I think the reason handsome lead actor Cameron White's (as "Chase," of course -- what, you were expecting "Bob" or "Jeff"?) emo hair is so often obscuring his eyes is so that we can't tell when he nods off. Unfortunately, we can tell.

Romantic comedy about Nancy (Lake Bell), who on the spur of the moment usurps a blind date with Jack (Simon Pegg), that strikes a good balance between sweetness and cynicism. This is about as formulaic as they come -- if you don't know from the moment that Nancy and Jack meet how they will end up, you probably have never seen a movie before -- and if you like the formula, you'll probably like this rendering of it. There aren't necessarily what I would call surprises in store over the course of the film, but there are plenty of unexpectedly clever bits thrown into the mix to keep its predictability from becoming boring. For example, Nancy and Jack bond over, among other things, love of the movie version of "The Silence of the Lambs," which would seem to be an unusual choice, but it sets-up a great plot callback late in the film that had me in stitches.

Several of the characters, especially Nancy and her lecherous school stalker Sean (Rory Kinnear), are just this side of being too obnoxious to want to spend much time with. Jack comes off a little better, not that he doesn't have his flaws of course, perhaps in part because it is impossible for Simon Pegg to be too obnoxious. Fans of the TV show "Catastrophe" might be surprised to see Sharon Horgan play a relatively benign character (Nancy's sister) who by comparison to others in the story is no where near as obnoxious as she can be. I never really believed that Nancy was supposed to be a journalist with literary pretensions, which seems like an oddly specific profession to hang on a character when the film spends no time exploring it. Jack's more nebulous "online marketing manager" strikes a better tone for a film that is set over the course of a long date. The film does a much better job of making London into a romantic city in which everyone is prosperous and healthy and needs only a grand romantic gesture to have a happy life. If you can swallow that, this film is for you.

Clever, creative but somewhat repetitive action-comedy from some of the team that brought us "Bridesmaids," including stars Melissa McCarthy and Rose Byrne and director/writer Paul Feig. This is mostly a James Bond spoof, which I guess partly explains why so many Brits seem to work for the CIA in the film's universe, with homages to Peter Sellars' Inspector Clouseau tossed in for good measure. (I think, technically, Jude Law's suave Bond-ish character is supposed to be American, but he exudes British manners.)

The script and direction require McCarthy and Byrne to carry this and they do great jobs, McCarthy as the seemingly bumbling but really quite capable CIA agent in the field for the first time, and Byrne as the seemingly capable but really quite inept international arms dealer who's just taken over the family business from her deceased father. They play off each other beautifully, which is nice to see because they didn't have nearly as much interaction in "Bridesmaids." To the extent that the film drags, it mostly results from excessive time spent on McCarthy's increasingly well-worn shtick. She is enormously talented but not subtle. Feig indulges her too often and for too long, but they always have Byrne in their back pocket to help ground the action and comedy when it threatens to spin wildly off course. They are ably assisted by Miranda Hart and Peter Serafinowicz, both of whom manage to charm their way through very broadly conceived roles, and Morena Baccarin, who doesn't get much to do but does it perfectly. The film's secret weapon and only real surprise is Jason Statham, who is revealed to be a top-notch comedic sensation. His hilarious take-down of his own action-stud persona is pitch perfect. He is easily the best thing about the movie and makes it worth watching even for people who aren't necessarily McCarthy fans.

The first time I watched this I was underwhelmed, but on a second viewing I found that it works much better with a self-imposed intermission of a few hours roughly half way through. That helped me get less fatigued by the sameness of the action and comedy as the film progresses and makes it a fresher, more engaging experience.

Inept attempt at psychological horror that fails to deliver on all fronts. It's so dull it doesn't even approach "so bad it's good" territory, which at least might have made it a passably entertaining watch. Co-writer and director Lucas Pavetto is probably Italian (I don't care enough to confirm this) -- the film was shot in Italy but doesn't seem to be set anywhere in particular. The dialogue sounds as if it was written by someone who's first language is not English, but that's the language the characters speak, with a bewildering array of accents. The most impressive thing about this film is that they didn't manage to cast even two people who sound like they might be from the same country, let alone the same region.

Bret Roberts and Gabriella Wright, as a couple trying to rebuild their relationship after a miscarriage by having a weekend getaway at the proverbial cabin in the woods, look and act like two models on a camping trip photo shoot for an outdoor lifestyle catalog. I don't envy them having to get through the stilted dialogue, but neither are remotely compelling or believable, with Roberts in particular giving some pretty cringe-worthy line readings. That's a huge problem considering that much of the run time is devoted to them.

Pavetto's idea of building tension consists of throwing in lots of distance shots that make it appear someone might be tracking a character, an annoying array of spooky music cues and sound effects, and the occasional attempt at jump scares. All of these things, when employed in service of a story that is genuinely building tension, could be effective -- here, they just serve to emphasize the degree to which nothing interesting is happening on screen. There's a twist ending most people will probably see coming a mile off, if anyone manages to make it that far.

For a far superior, more suspenseful and psychologically penetrating look at a couple breaking down in the wilderness, check out "Backcountry."

Brought to us by the redoubtable PM Entertainment Group -- namely, Joseph Merhi and Richard Pepin, would-be successors to Cannon's Golan and Globus -- this leaden rip-off of "The Terminator" and "Robocop" imagines a not-too-distant future in which the U.S. government has instituted a computerized justice system that is, of course, easily controlled by the megalomaniac head (an overblown Joseph Ruskin) of the corporation that developed it. The lack of imagination and sophistication of the political allegory this is vaguely trying to spin is best summed up by the Ayn Rand quote that pops up near the end, a quote that is as leaden as most of the rest of the film's dialogue.

There are basically two assets here, both of which unfortunately are largely wasted. One is the bad guy's henchman Richard Norton, the usually entertaining action film stalwart who is given too little to do, save one half-way decent fight scene. (The fight choreography is by Art Camacho, who also appears as a protester.) The other is title character Jim Maniaci, a sort of cut-rate Arnold, who looks impressive but is allowed no personality and given no characteristics that might make him somewhat intriguing. The rest of the cast, including star Don "The Dragon" Wilson, is pretty awful. It's hard to tell if the dialogue is so bad that the actors are defeated by it or if the actors are so bad that they couldn't possibly bring off any dialogue that had more wit or sparkle. Fans of Wilson -- and I presume he had some, because he made a lot of movies -- may feel differently, but I found him thoroughly dull and unimpressive here, as in most of his films I've seen.

Aside from the one decent fight amidst the abundance of uninspired action sequences, the only other aspect of this that held my interest is the low-budget 1994 ideas about what future technology might be like. It seems people have home computer assistants they can talk to and interact with almost as if they were human, but no cellphones. The coolest thing was a device that will let you go to sleep on command -- no more tossing and turning. Of course, if you really want to sleep, just queue up this movie.

A more descriptive title for this film might be "A Portrait of the Psychopath as a 9-Year-Old Boy," but whatever you call it, it's a creepy, mostly effective examination of profoundly disturbed child Ted (Jared Breeze) trapped in an isolated existence in a run-down, failing motel run by his broken father (David Morse).

Death and decay are the overriding preoccupations here, especially young Ted's growing fascination with anything dead and dying, so much so that he starts to engineer the outcomes he's intrigued by with increasingly dire consequences. This isn't a film that necessarily can be spoiled (though I won't give away plot developments) because you can see where it's going almost from the first scene. Director/co-writer Craig William Macneill is not interested in surprises or twists, but in constructing an atmosphere that leads inexorably to the what seems like the inevitable finale. He does so through long, static (or nearly so) shots of scenery and action that is often filmed at a remove -- characters half-hidden by obstructions of various types or framed in the background. He gets a lot of mileage out of the desolate beauty of his location. This was filmed in Colombia, but is set in non- specific rural U.S. roughly two days drive from Florida (that's as specific as it gets). Like Macneill's angelic-looking star, the scenery here could be quite pleasant, peaceful and innocent, but the film instead emphasizes its (and Ted's) more menacing, uncaring qualities. The particular combination of stylistic characteristics he evokes is a bit like Alfred Hitchcock meets Peter Greenaway, minus the lushness.

Breeze and Morse carry the lion's share of the film on their very capable shoulders. Rainn Wilson and, somewhat surprisingly, Mike Vogel are also on hand in smaller, not terribly demanding roles. Breeze, especially, is very effective without resorting to showier. idiosyncratic or self-conscious acting that child performers in horror movies are often directed to perform. Breeze's matter-of- fact, naturalistic performance helps sell the extent to which some of what Ted gets up to is what any lonely kid trying to amuse and occupy himself would do, while some is only what a child lacking any empathy could do.

This is a pretty dour movie -- there aren't any obvious characters to root for or even be engaged by save Ted and his unfortunate father. There's not much to cheer here, nor much relief from the bleak view of humanity, nature and how they intersect. As such, it's not a fun watch, but it is intriguing and stylish enough to hold viewers' interest, if they approach it in the right frame of mind.