‘THE BEEKEEPER’ Makes John Wick Look Like Walt Whitman

January 11, 2024 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Bobby Naderi, David Ayer, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Jeremy Irons, Josh Hutcherson, Kurt Wimmer, Reviews, The Beekeeper 6 Comments

Just because a movie actively acknowledges how dumb it is doesn’t make it any less so. This is the case with The Beekeeper, a low-rent John Wick knockoff that almost plays like a spoof. There’s plenty of quick-cut bloody action, a truly mind-boggling amount of references to bees and bee hive politics, and some of the worst dialogue this side of an Expendables movie. Pretty much everyone involved in the project seems to be in on the joke, hamming up the lowbrow camp when not administering decent, if unmemorable, action shoot ‘em ups, but that doesn’t make its consumption any less grueling. Read More

He Did It, He Actually Did It: The Journey of ‘ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE’

March 24, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Amy Adams, Ben Affleck, Ezra Miller, Gal Gadot, Henry Cavill, Jason Momoa, Jeremy Irons, Jesse Eisenberg, Justice League, Ray Fisher, Reviews, Willem Dafoe, Zack Snyder 3 Comments

Pluck the plumage off the bird because I’m prepared to eat some crow. For years, I doubted the fact that the long-rumored Zack Snyder director’s cut of Justice League would ever exist in a format suitable to be watched outside of a producer’s screening room. It just didn’t make one iota of sense. With WB having moved on from Snyder’s vision after the director was forced to leave the film mid-production when his daughter tragically committed suicide, the “Snyder Cut” was incomplete, with tens of millions of dollars in VFX shots never even brought into post-production. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘HIGH-RISE’

April 29, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Amy Jump, Ben Wheatley, Elisabeth Moss, High-Rise, J.G. Ballard, Jeremy Irons, Laurie Rose, Luke Evans, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Sienna Miller, Tom Hiddleston Leave a comment

In 2011, Ben Wheatley proffered one of the horror genre’s best new finds in Kill List. In this sophomore feature, Wheatley showed a fierce command of the film medium, creating a dizzying religious parable set among a world of violent crime and ethereal justice with dreamlike sadistic cults operating levers best left unmolested. And though Kill List fit most easily into the horrorscape because of its acrid use of bloodshed and razor wire tension, it also established a director predominantly preoccupied with splicing genres together. He did so again with 2012’s brilliant black comedy Sightseers, blending elements of horror and dark English satire, and once more in 2013’s wildly experimental, black and white historical drama/“horror” film A Field in England, though to lesser effect. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE’

March 22, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Amy Adams, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, Ben Affleck, Chris Terrio, David S. Goyer, Gal Gadot, Henry Cavill, Jeremy Irons, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Zack Synder 3 Comments

Overlong and under-focused, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is a deceptively dark furlough into the blackest corner of DC’s batcave where men battle gods, Wonder Woman finally gets the spotlight (guitar solo and all), Jesse Eisenberg puts on an entertainingly manic Lex Luthor face, and none of it feels like much fun. As expected, the heavy-handed fog that is 155 minutes of super-porn allows itself splashes of clear-eyed splendor, most notably those that center around Ben Affleck’s positively boiling Batman, but Batman v Superman hardly has the desired ratio of grandeur to gratuity to do the battle of the century it’s pitched as justice. Read More

Tom Hiddleston Totally Loses It in Insanely Awesome ‘HIGH-RISE’ Trailer

January 7, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Trailers Tagged Ben Wheatley, Elisabeth Moss, High-Rise, James Purefoy, Jeremy Irons, Keeley Hawes, Luke Evans, Sienna Miller, Tom Hiddleston, Trailers Leave a comment

Director Ben Wheatley is perhaps the most underrated name in the horror game and his latest, High-Rise, looks to continue his streak of being a total badass with a camera. High-Rise will be the director’s fifth feature film effort – coming off the heels of the rather eccentric A Field in England – and has the potential to live up to Kill List and Sightseers, easily two of the best post-millennium horror movies bar none. Wheatley has proved a capacity to drastically alter his style, with Kill List being an unrelenting, absolutely terrifying horror show, Sightseers landing with much more darkly-tinted comedic barbs and A Field in England being, well, A Field in England, so it makes sense that High-Rise looks nothing like anything the director has delivered in the past. Read More