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F1’s Big-Screen Thrills Slicked by a Boneheaded Script

Apple’s high-speed Formula One blockbuster bid to break into large-format moviemaking – complete with Hollywood stars, slick, expensive production details, a deluge of product placement, and a who’s who of behind-the-scenes legends (Jerry Bruckheimer! Hans Zimmer!) – doesn’t crash out in flames, but it hardly mounts the podium the way this $300M movie hopes to. What we get is a largely cliché-ridden sports drama about grizzled veteran driver Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) and his cocky rookie partner Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), who have to overcome their differences to get their new team, APX GP, helmed by Javier Bardem’s unconventional Ruben Cervantes, out of first gear and actually winning races. Read More

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Tim Burton’s Creatively Bankrupt ‘DUMBO’ Doesn’t Take Flight

As told by Tim Burton, Disney’s Dumbo is a glossy kiddo-approved spectacle piece sure to entertain the youngins in the audience while offering no reason for its existence beyond the plain-faced cry for box office chowder. Adapting the 1941 story of a circus elephant whose oversized ears enables him to fly, Burton and screenwriter Ehren Kruger (Ghost in the Shell) co-opt the basic premise of the original tale and fluff out the barebones story with a cast of uninteresting human characters and a corporate subplot that offers a kids a warning about bad employers and carefully reading contracts.  Read More