I confess, I've never really understood the appeal of Woody Allen. I enjoyed Annie Hall, but I only got about halfway through Manhattan before deciding I'd rather do anything else. I did get a chance to see Midnight in Paris a couple years back, but found it underwhelming and dull. I had a similar reaction to Allen's latest Blue Jasmine, which is only a marginal improvement. Sure, Cate Blanchett gives a great performance, but she's about the only great thing in this movie. The scattershot plot is frustrating and unsatisfying and the characters come across as shallow and pompous. Allen keeps the viewer at arm's length with his pretentious sensibilities and annoying self-aware dialogue. I'm so busy being frustrated with his inane attempts to come across as 'intelligent' that I can't even bother to invest in this sorry excuse for storytelling.
FINAL RATING: 2/5
Is there anything Joseph Gordon-Levitt can't do? His feature film debut as a writer/director is bursting with creativity and boundless energy. Don Jon is funny, sweet and features great performances from an excellent cast. It's not without its fair amount of flaws, though. It feels as if it was two acts of a story in desperate need of a strong third act and its final thirty minutes feel a bit uncharacteristic considering everything that precedes it. Regardless, the film is a modest success and Mr. Gordon-Levitt shows great promise as a writer and director. Count me in for his next feature.
FINAL RATING: 3.5/5
The World's End is, if nothing else, a whole lot of fun. Sure, it's missing the manic energy and zaniness of its superior predecessors Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, but this final entry of the superb Wright/Pegg/Frost Cornetto Trilogy is still a worthwhile trip to the movies. It takes quite a bit of its precious time getting warmed up in the first act, but once it gets going, the laughs and excitement rarely let up. One of the best trilogies around!
FINAL RATING: 4/5
WWZ could go down in history as the blandest zombie movie ever made. Actually, calling it a movie is giving it way too much credit; it's barely even that. The whole enterprise gives the impression that someone had a half-assed idea for an identityless, boring zombie movie and Brad Pitt, desperately wanting to star in an adaptation of the worldwide bestseller World War Z, snagged the screenplay and plastered the novel's title all over it in the hopes that it might make a buck or two. It looks like the plan worked, but any smidgen of creativity ends there. I haven't had a chance to read the book yet, but I can only presume you're better off checking that out or watching The Walking Dead than you are wasting your money on this nonsense.
FINAL RATING: 1.5/5
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