Movie review by Greg Carlson Junk food cinema desperate to channel the sparkling charm of Stanley Donen’s “Charade” and other comic spy capers, James Mangold’s “Knight and Day” spirals out of control in the first few minutes and never finds a pleasant equilibrium for its attractive stars. Working much harder than Cary Grant, Tom Cruise […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson A deeply satisfying if imperfect conclusion (at least for now) to Pixar’s flagship franchise, “Toy Story 3” stands to make a fortune at the box office and win plenty of new converts to the beloved series. Boasting all the hallmarks of the company’s revered capacity for dazzling technical invention and […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson In “The A-Team,” director Joe Carnahan keeps most of the promises suggested by the title of his 1998 debut “Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane.” Cacophonous, shrill, stupid, and ugly, Carnahan’s retooling of the wildly popular NBC series that ran from 1983 to 1987 embraces the cartoonish hallmarks of its source […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Vincenzo Natali’s “Splice” splices together horror and science fiction with satisfying results, although real gore-hounds might be put off by the deliberate pacing and the significant amount of relationship melodrama that eats up far more screen time than the gruesome and queasy special effects masterminded by Robert Munroe, Howard Berger […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson The minor clamor over racially insensitive casting in “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” will probably be one of the only memorable aspects of the film, a Jerry Bruckheimer production that attempts to do for video games loosely based on the sixth century Middle East what “Pirates of the […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson The first installment in the “Millennium Trilogy” of movie adaptations of Stieg Larsson’s publishing juggernaut, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is a satisfying mash-up that combines the film equivalent of page-turning crime procedural with a cyberpunk-inspired heroine who spends as much time hacking computers as she does gunning her […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood” is reportedly the most expensive version of the popular outlaw tale to date, but the resulting mess places the film near the bottom of the heap – no mean feat considering Kevin Costner’s ill-advised turn as the fabled archer in 1991. With Russell Crowe in the […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Following the custom of superhero sequels, fans and reviewers will compare and contrast “Iron Man 2” with the inaugural installment, a moot point when the grand design is to engineer and weld the franchise into a cinematic simulacrum of the Marvel Universe that looks an awful lot like a money-printing […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson “Mother,” Bong Joon-ho’s follow up to the wild monster movie “The Host” is another genre-bending thriller that blends intellectual acuity with voyeuristic sparks. Deftly balancing suspense, fear, black-hearted comedy, and a touching poignancy, Bong confidently envelops his viewers with filmmaking gifts that echo masters like David Lynch and Alfred Hitchcock. […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Don Argott’s entertaining documentary “The Art of Steal” is a passionate, if one-sided, examination of the convoluted history and looming fate of an unparalleled collection of modern art currently housed in Pennsylvania. Framed as a decades-long battle between an iconoclastic inventor with a brilliant eye and a horde of uncultured […]