There’s almost nothing good coming out this week guys, honestly you might as well stay at home. Or go watch Jurassic World again. But whatever you do, please don’t give Adam Sandler any more money. Pretty please?
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Pixels
As kids in the 1980s, Sam Brenner (Adam Sandler), Will Cooper (Kevin James), Ludlow Lamonsoff (Josh Gad), and Eddie “The Fire Blaster” Plant (Peter Dinklage) saved the world thousands of times – at 25 cents a game in the video arcades. Now, they’re going to have to do it for real. In PIXELS, when intergalactic aliens discover video feeds of classic arcade games and misinterpret them as a declaration of war, they attack the Earth, using the video games as the models for their assaults — and now-U.S. President Cooper must call on his old-school arcade friends to save the world from being destroyed by PAC-MAN, Donkey Kong, Galaga, Centipede, and Space Invaders. Joining them is Lt. Col. Violet Van Patten (Michelle Monaghan), a specialist supplying the arcaders with unique weapons to fight the aliens.
Oh dear. Well no can say that they’re surprised that Pixels turned out so badly, but it turns out it’s way, way worse than anyone could have imagined. Utterly unfunny and failing in basically every aspect, it barely managed to squeeze 1.5/5 stars from Kervyn, and he was probably being too generous. Along with the abysmal 13% on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s pretty obvious Adam Sandler’s retirement is long overdue.
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Entourage
Entourage,” the much-anticipated big-screen version of the award-winning hit HBO series, reunites the show’s original cast, led by Kevin Connolly, Adrian Grenier, Kevin Dillon, Jerry Ferrara and Jeremy Piven. Movie star Vincent Chase (Grenier), together with his boys, Eric (Connolly), Turtle (Ferrara) and Johnny (Dillon), are back…and back in business with super agent-turned-studio head Ari Gold (Piven). Some of their ambitions have changed, but the bond between them remains strong as they navigate the capricious and often cutthroat world of Hollywood.
I never watched Entourage the TV show, but I’ve heard it’s very good. The movie picks up right where the show left off and, while it does try to do the show justice, the source material worked better in 30 minute chunks. Die-hard fans will most likely enjoy it though, and there’s enough humour and glossy escapism for everyone else to scrape together a 32% on Rotten Tomatoes.
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Kidnapping Freddy Heineken
In 1983, a group of childhood friends pulled off the crime of the century: kidnapping one of the richest men in the world, the heir of the Heineken beer empire (Anthony Hopkins). The shocking capture–by gunpoint in broad daylight on the streets of Amsterdam–resulted in the largest ransom ever paid for a kidnapped individual. It was truly the perfect crime…until they got away with it.
Even though it’s based on a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction real-life story, Kidnapping Freddy Heineken turns into a completely generic and predictable crime caper, instead of the strange, gripping thriller that the real story was. The only bonus you’ll get is the ever-charming Sir Anthony Hopkins as the titular Freddy Heineken, everything else is more watered down than a Millers draught.
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Rudderless (Cinema Nouveau)
Billy Crudup plays Sam, a former high-profile advertising executive whose life is torn apart by the sudden death of his son. Living off the grid on a docked sailboat, he wastes away his days while drowning his pain in alcohol. When Sam discovers a box filled with his son’s demo tapes and lyrics, his own child’s musical talent is a revelation for him, a grieving father who felt he’d been absent from his son’s life. Communing with his deceased son’s dashed dreams, Sam learns each song and eventually musters the will to perform one at a local bar. When Quentin (Yelchin), a young musician in the audience, is captivated by the song, the unlikely duo forms a rock band that becomes surprisingly popular and revitalizes both of their lives.
For a small, performance driven indie movie with a semi-big name cast, critics aren’t too wild about Rudderless. While some have described it as heart-warming, touching and moving, all the usual epithets, others think that it’s hollow, manipulative and stretches the imagination too far. Still, even with those divided opinions, Rudderless has managed to score 63% on Rotten Tomatoes.
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Faberge: A Life of Its Own (Cinema Nouveau)
This captivating new film tells the fascinating story behind the most prestigious name in luxury: Fabergé. Enjoying unprecedented access to the most esteemed private collections, insights from world experts and interviews with the descendants of the Fabergé family, this is a rare opportunity to discover the genius of the family behind the finest objects ever created. The special cinematic event release will also feature exclusive access to two historic new pieces – the first new creation in almost 100 years, and a recently re-discovered lost treasure – and presents them to an international audience for the first time, before they return to the secrecy of their very private collections.
Surprise surprise, I couldn’t find any reviews for an art-house documentary about fancy decorative eggs and I will admit I’m slightly baffled by its release in cinema. Honestly, this sounds like something you’d channel surf past on the History Channel on a Sunday night when the M-Net movie isn’t that good, and keep going until you found a show about sloths on Animal Planet. But, to each their own I guess.
Last Updated: July 24, 2015
