Battleship (2012)

“Battleship” -– based on the board game -– bombed in theaters, and a viewing reinforces its death as deserved. The is an ugly CGI-drunk mess, taking 40 minutes to start as director Peter Berg (“Kingdom”) and his screenwriters break their backs and our patience introducing a screw-up U.S. Navy hero (Taylor Kitsch) destined for greatness when evil aliens invade Earth. Plot? Aliens attack. Navy fights back. That’s it. Unless you count the burrito subplot as vital. I do not. This could have used a rewrite and a butcher’s knife in the editing room because even Liam Neeson, onscreen for 15 minutes, looks bored as the Navy commander/father of Kitsch’s girlfriend. Here’s the real riddle: Despite the dull rip off of “Transformers” and “Halo” that defines 95 percent of the flick, Berg coolly employs real veterans young (Gregory Gadson, amazing) and old (WW2 and Korean vets) as saviors of our Hollywood-cast cardboard heroes and this move openly calls bullshit on every rah-rah action hero ever made. Corny? Yes. But it works. Alas, inept studio mentality sinks smarts. Bombs away! C

Sleepy Hollow (1999)

“Sleepy Hollow” is perfect Tim Burton id: Gloriously dark atmosphere spiked with a wicked sense of humor, misfit characters that can only be saved by love, surreal violence, and a god-awful story with stabs of brilliance, but mostly ugly exposition. Burton and screenwriters Andrew Kevin Walker and (un-credited) Tom Stoppard take the Irving story and dump the school teacher for a NYC police constable (Johnny Depp, brilliantly good) advocating science forensics to his detriment in an age -– 1799 -– drunk on religion. Crane is sent to Sleepy Hollow to investigate a series of lobbed-off heads by a demonic man on a horse, minus his own head, and the latter is no joke, because this is Burton, and magic, evil, and trees of death puking blood abound. Crane’s arrival –- filmed by Emmanuel Lubezki, scored by Danny Elfman, with a set from purgatory –- is marvelous, fused with old Hammer Films and 1931’s classic “Frankenstein.” Brilliant: Depp plays Crane as a heinous wus, using a teenage boy as a human shield. Weak: Huge story errors and a conspiracy-heavy reveal that defies reason. Christopher Walken plays the horseman, growling with devotion to Burton’s majestic dark yearnings. I miss this Burton. B

Looper (2012)

In “Looper,” director/writer Rian Johnson (“Brick”) takes the worn idea of time travel and renews it, not just with vigor, wit, and head-turning suspense, but strong characters that act in ways never touched on before -– suicide. Well, not exactly suicide as we know it.

Joseph Gordon Levitt (“Inception” and also “Brick”) plays Joe, a hit man who kills mafia castoffs delivered from 30 years in the future where time travel is possible but illegal. Crazy? Don’t mind it. Joe is known as a Looper because, literally, one day he must execute himself, his older late-50s self. Close the loop. Get it?

The scratch in this time trick: Old Joe turns out to be a vengeance-seeking raging pissed-off man-of-action embodied by Bruce Willis in full “Die Hard” mode, ready to hunt and kill a mysterious young boy who decades later will become an evil Keyzor Soze-like crime boss that will ruin Joe’s — both Joes — life. (A day without referencing “The Usual Suspects” is a day wasted.)

This is trippy, shocking story-telling, and Johnson dares play his hand wide open by admitting onscreen that time travel is pure bunk, a mind screw that is best left unraveled, and then he stomps the gas hard for go, non-stop. He also goes “meta” by having Young Joe’s mafia boss (Jeff Daniels) sulk around as the world’s laziest mobster, opting for PJs over clothes, but able to pop off dark and violent when his underlings fail.

Best bits: Daniels as this mob boss denounces Young Joe’s motives as a hit man who has watched too many movies about hit men, and then Johnson goes onto practically film and his cast act out a full-on worship sequence of mafia hit man classic “Goodfellas.” Time is not just twisted here, but the world of movies, inside and out, is tweaked and turned on its head. Also up for debate grabs: The effects of child abuse, loveless parenting, and how we change — and in many ways remain stunted — as we age. Heavy, wonderful stuff all around.

Johnson scores a knockout, too, because his cast, writing, emotion, and the action are all stellar. Levitt -– under makeup -– makes a believable Willis. All the junk on his face is off-putting at first, but Levitt moves beyond it, and the story is so strong, such complaints fall by the way side. I’ll take occasional makeup mishaps any day over a plot-empty, CGI-drunk stinker such as “Battleship.” I thought “Brick” far too clever for its own good, setting a film noir mystery in a high school. It never earned the raves. This does, easily so.

Also, check out Paul Dano of “There Will be Blood,” playing a fellow hit man who meets a horrifying fate right out of the nastiest episode of “Twilight Zone” ever imagined, but never filmed. More so than even Levitt, Dano is an actor we’ll be talking about decades from now as the best of his generation, his and our time. A-

Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)

With “Paranormal Activity 4” topping the box office this weekend, I realize I only ever saw the first film, and bypassed a crop of sequels. Until now. “Paranormal Activity 2” may have been titled “Paranormal Activity Too” as it follows the sister (Sprague Grayden) of the woman (Katie Featherston) haunted and left fate unknown in the low-budget, hand-made 2009 box office smash. This is a prequel, stand-aside, and carbon copy, with the same found home surveillance and video camera “evidence” footage showing a mysterious force ripping apart a family. Cue slamming doors, bizarre attacks, and -- one hour in -- a frying pan falling off one of those pot hanger thingies in a kitchen I envy.  “PA1” was a surprise film made by a guy who wanted to scare the crap out of folks, and he made it in his own home. “PA2” has moments –- floating baby does provide spooks galore -– but it’s studio product made to make coin, and that’s very normal activity. The entire film builds up and previews “PA3.” Should I see that? B-

Robot and Frank (2012)

My PR job allows me to work with humanoid robots, so I was ready for the sci-fi drama “Robot and Frank” big time. With sometimes clunky bodies, humanoid robots are still in developmental infancy and several decades will pass before ’bots hit, say, toaster status. But, Sundance wiz “R&F” matter-of-factly shows a future with automatons all about, in libraries, homes, and on the street. Frank Langella plays Frank, a 70-year-old ex-thief with prison and a broken family behind him. Frank is sliding into dementia when his son (James Marsden) buys him a mechanical housekeeper/mother hen robot. Frank balks and fumes until he learns that the ’bot can be taught … um … unlawful night activities. Frank’s back in the game, and the scores revitalize him, and that’s the sweet/powerful joke behind director Jake Schreier’s and writer Christopher D. Ford’s feature debut. Crime pays and robots rock. Langella nails the part -- no show-off old-man breakdowns, but pure frail human emotion. The script gives Frank a romantic interest (always lovely Susan Sarandon) and it’s great until fate (the pen) insists on a wild card that feels forced. B

Equilibrium (2002)

“Equilibrium” is sci-fi loaded with dystopian fears of left-wing fascism zinged up by woo-hoo martial arts action set pieces. But it’s a shrill, dull, laughable rip-off of “Matrix” made for folks who have vaguely heard of “THX-1138” and never actually read “Nineteen Eighty-Four” or “Fahrenheit  451.” It’s recyclable parts from the start, melted down and served up with a cast that makes eating nuked leftovers almost palpable. Pre-“Batman” Christian Bale is our Winston Smith-meets-Neo hero, a futuristic soldier for a Big Bro gov’mint that has banned emotion and arts through drugs and force, all in an effort to prevent war. Irony being “Father” kills all protesters. Poo politics though, writer/director Kurt Wimmer (“Salt”) salivates over slo-mo fights with dudes dressed in black long coats stomping, kicking, and shooting each other into oblivion, until the finale when Bale (and his double) dons a white suit that would make Mr. Roarke’s tailor swoon during an anti-climactic O’Brian kill zone. Bale stars, the lovely Emily Watson plays a dissident, while Taye Diggs co-stars as a rival. All are upstaged by a puppy. No, really. C

The Master (2012)

In “There will be Blood,” Paul Thomas Anderson told the story of America’s greatest gifts -- capitalism and religious freedom –- gone mad. “The Master” does not rise to such heights, but it never could have. It also follows two men -– again representing one idea -– at odds. Joaquin Phoenix plays Freddie Quells, a World War II vet who is violent, perverted, alcoholic, immature, and a drifter, until he literally stumbles onto the yacht of a man close in age, but light years beyond Freddie’s mental reach. Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a scientist, writer, philosopher, and cult leader of a trillions-year-old self-help religion known as The Cause. (Scientology? Maybe.) Dodd has a family and scores of admirers. Quells wants it all, to be Dodd, but can’t recognize that impossibility. It is clear that Quell stopped maturing at 13. He’s all awkward male poses and farts, a hormonal teenager. Dodd sees Quell as a pet project, and Quell pings-pongs, loving and loathing Dodd as others point out the man’s fakery. Yet, Dodd is convinced of his own powers. So, who truly is the better man? Like “Blood,” Anderson offers few answers, but provides another riveting, fascinating, and endlessly debatable story. A

Abduction (2011)

No one gets abducted in “Abduction,” but for a “Bourne Identity” Junior knock-off staring the scowling werewolf from “Twilight,” I guess the title “Who’s My Daddy?” would not drag in the non-teenage fans, huh? It’s almost unfair to dub “Abduction” a “Bourne” knock-off, it’s a boot-licking mash note that name drops Matt Damon. The plot: High school misfit Nathan Parker (Taylor Lautner) learns from a missing children website that he is not quite himself. Just as Nathan confronts his “parents” (Jason Isaacs and Maria Bello), goons storm the suburban home. Guns blaze! Mom down! Dad down! Boy on the run, with a gal (Lilly Collins of “Mirror, Mirror”) in tow! See, Serbian terrorists set up the very website knowing that one day Nathan would visit it and flee right into their insidious trap to outsmart Nathan’s real father, a brilliant ex-CIA agent. Whew! Why not a Craig’s List ad? John Singleton directs on snooze, his “Boyz ’N the Hood” days long gone. Lautner acts listlessly here as he does in “Twilight.” Suspense? Zero. Unintended laughs? A villain warns, “There’s a bomb in the oven!” and our heroes run to check the oven! Hilarious. C-

Jaws (1975)

“Jaws” is the “Godfather” of beach movies. There is nothing better or scarier, even with all the sequels (3-D!) and rip-offs and homages (“Piranha” and even “Alien”). All the “Gidget”-like fun flicks from before? “Jaws” killed ’em. New to BluRay, “Jaws” is better than ever in crisp, glorious widescreen with sound racketed up so every thump of John Williams’ score booms inside your gut. The picture is so clean one can see the horizon miles past the shaken trio of Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw as they battle a killer shark in the waters of New England. I need not discuss plot, right? Everyone knows it. And no wonder: Steven Spielberg, in his mid-20s, out of his league, and working with physical special effects that barely functioned, pulled out a masterpiece that can never be duplicated. Not with all the CGI in the world. The panic and confusion off screen spills onscreen where anything can happen. The shark doesn’t appear for an hour, but by then Spielberg has pulled us in with brilliantly drawn characters and intense trickery. Shaw rules as the doomed shark hunter and has the best intro ever in a movie. A+

Five Graves to Cairo (1943)

Billy Wilder’s World II spy drama “Five Graves to Cairo” starts off grim as hell: A Brit armored tank drives aimlessly through the Egyptian desert, its crew dead except for one man who falls from the vehicle onto the desert sand. John Bramble (Franchot Tone) stumbles and then crawls his way to a nearby town, to a hotel called the Empress of Britain. Recall, the Brits ruled this land, lock, stock and key. But the Brits scrammed. The Nazis are in, full force. The sun-stroked Bramble is certainly dead. Except the hotel owner (Akim Tamiroff) takes pity, and sets Bramble up as the dead-by-bombing waiter Davos. Bramble as Davos learns the latter was a Nazi spy, so now Bramble can play the espionage card triple against Rommel (Erich von Stroheim). This is a great yarn, suspenseful, fun, gritty, and full of the era’s patriotic Us-Against-Them/Country-First propaganda, up to a fault: See the damsel-in-distress (Anne Baxter) of the pic is -– SPOILER ALERT! -– doomed because she dares put family first. It smacks not so much of war-time tragedy, but a sexist streak absent from Wilder in lighter classics a la “Apartment.” B+

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

“Whatever Happened to Baby Jane” is lightning caught in a whisky bottle, a miracle film of casting, script, time, and eerie black and white cinematography that can never be duplicated despite all the remake plans. Bette Davis and Jane Crawford play aging sisters living together in Hollywood Hell, their fame as movie stars forgotten. Jane (Davis) was the vaudeville child star clipped by Blanche (Crawford) who became the Hollywood starlet. Now Jane is a psychotic alcoholic permanently and by choice 6 years old. She walks around in children’s clothing, hair in curls, and giggles like a demon kindergartner. Her only kicks: Torturing Blanche, now paralyzed and virtual prisoner. The twists in director Richard Aldridge’s flick are sick and quick: Jane cooks up pets and rats to drive mad and starve Blanche, but when panic hits, “child” Jane runs to Blanche for help. The film and the actresses pull no punches: Davis and Crawford famously loathed each other and the seething torches every frame right up to an uncertain and shocking finale that will send you right back to the start. Davis is spectacularly grotesque, while Crawford is marvelously panicked. A+

The Lion King (1994)

As Disney’s Pixar continues to dazzle eyeballs with animated CGI fare such as “Incredibles” and “Toy Story” sequels, it’s easy to forget the unbeatable magic of hand-drawn animation, and “The Lion King” is absolutely one of the best of now extinct ink-and-paint glories. This is a jaw-dropping beautiful epic with a capital “E” movie with music catchable, happy, and chilling, and characters straight from Shakespeare. You know plot: Young African lion cub Simba is the apple of his father/king’s eye until the latter is killed, leaving Simba on the run, under the impression that he did in his daddy. It is, of course, the uncle, to blame. In other words, “Hamlet.” The voice cast is perfect, from James Earl Jones as the king/father, and full “Reversal of Fortune” evil Jeremy Irons as Uncle Scar, to Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Matthew Broderick as young and adult Simba. But it’s visuals I love -– the exact strokes made by men and women, not computers, of a cub sinking in the grass in fear of dad’s wrath or the same cub trying to awaken his dead father. Breathtaking. Amazing. Art. The 18-year-old “King” has aged like royal wine. Classic. A+

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)

John Carpenter’s cult-classic, >$100,000-budget action thriller “Assault of Precinct 13” is the parent to all “siege” movies that would come a decade later, including “Die Hard.” Itself a modern re-make of “Alamo”-type flicks, this also was to be set in the West, but Carpenter could not swing the budget. The bare plot: A mysterious pack of gang members attack a L.A. ghetto police station on the eve of its closure, trapping a stalwart African-American officer (Austin Stoker), several women, and convicted felons (including Darwin Joston) inside. “Assault” is a midnight feature that can play as a maybe-zombie film -– the gang members dabble with bowls of blood and are all but suicidal. Deep-thoughts: It’s a post-Vietnam American meltdown, or a satire on 1950s films that celebrated white heroics and all but demeaned blacks, flipped on its, middle finger held out proud. But the heck with deep anything, this is a blazin’ cool cheap “B” flick that excels its origins and is seriously nasty fun. The title, by the way, is infamously wrong. The besieged station is District 13, Precinct 9. “Assault of Precinct 9”? Hmmm. Na. “13.” B+

Safe House (2012)

“Safe House” is another corrupt CIA thriller that plays with the Hollywood rule that if a hotshot star (Ryan Reynolds) is the young hero and a middle-aged actor (Brendan Gleeson) of Oscar-winning fare plays the mentor/father figure, then the former must pop a lot of James Bond stunt work as the latter plays cool and adds another villain to his resume. Seen “Recruit”? This is it, again. Spoiler? No. “Safe” takes no chances and delivers just as many thrills, its script also Xeroxing “Training Day.” How so? Denzel Washington is back in bad-ass mode as Tobin Frost, a rogue CIA agent who lands under the care of Reynold’s Boy Scout as they lock horns while fleeing across South Africa from countless assassins. Along the way Frost schools Reynolds’ agent about the grim life working for Langley. Washington brings grace Frost barely deserves, while Reynolds gets his grit on as a guy who can take car crashes, beatings, stabbings, and a broken heart all in stride and still outsmart all his bosses. The character is so magical he could send Gleeson’s Mad-Eye Moody’s fake eye rollin’. C-

Extract (2009)

Mike Judge’s “Office Space” is a classic comedy for anyone who works at a desk and stores paper clips as if they were nuts for winter. “Extract” is another work comedy from the man who also gave us “Beavis and Butthead,” but set in the blue-collar arena. Jason Bateman is Joel Reynolds, owner of a company that makes baking extract. Running a business is the American Dream, right? Not for Joel. His desperate plan to sell out and retire with his wife (Kristin Wiig) is undone thanks to a bizarre factory-floor accident, a goofball bartender pal (Ben Affleck), and the arrival of a hot con artist (Mila Kunis). Judge makes small comedies about real people – oddballs and eccentrics, sure – but people we all know, and love and hate, including the gabby neighbor. His targeting of the privileged is ruthless, while his needling of common folk is rarely mean. Funny? Yes. But “Extract” is scaled as a TV movie, even if the warped marriage comedy thread playfully echoes “American Beauty.” B

300 (2007)

My snob self should hate the sandal-and-swords war romp “300” and its acid-trip virtual reality CGI effects salted by cliché dialogue about oaths of brutality as honor, and it’s need to be the War Porn film to end all War Porn films. Hell, it pits brave European men against soulless Prussians, i.e., lots of white guys squaring off against dark-skinned guys. But the hell with snobbery and politics, “300” is a blood-in-the-head, scream-at-the-top-of-your-lungs shock-and-awe blast for the eyes and ears that takes Frank Miller’s gloriously bloody graphic novel of King Leonidas’ last stand against Xerxes and puts it on the screen frame by panel, splatter by splatter, blood mixed with ink. Director Zack Snyder takes all the carnage of the page and adds in screaming, raging men, and thundering music primed for the male ego. Sexist? Homophobic? Ha. “300” has a massive female and gay fan base. One guess why: Those 300 men. This is not Best of the Decade film a la “There Will be Blood,” but when Gerard Butler -– in a star-making performance -– as Leonidas screams “This! Is! Sparta!” and kills a dude … “300” is my Guilty Pleasure of the Decade. A-

Detropia (2012)

No matter one’s politics, everyone knows the American economy started tanking in 2007 and crashed in 2008, and has yet to really recover. The documentary “Detropia” is about, of course, Detroit, and its past glory crushed by a collapsed auto industry hit hard by economic woes, international competition, and its own greedy execs who would rather pay foreigners pennies per day. Directors Heidi Ewing, a native of the city, and Rachel Grady, from the East Coast, talk to union reps, a retiree running a dying restaurant, and a video blogger among a few others helpless to save their homes. The city’s broke and every cure is bad and –- in the idea of creating massive farms -- lunatic. Ewing and Grady offer no answers or judgments, nor do they talk to big wigs or CEOs, but they do show some ironies -– including an opera house that plays to the rich, while the jobless suffer outside. One man sings in an abandoned train station that must have buzzed with a few hundred thousand people every day. It’s certain things will never be the same in Detroit or in America. Grady said she wanted subliminal. That’s cool. But it’s also fleeting. B+

The Traveler (2010)

The title of horror thriller “The Traveler” means zip. It isn’t about a tourist, or salesman. Instead former film star Val Kilmer plays a Drifter/Stranger/Nobody/Ghost who walks into the police station of a deserted town one Christmas Eve and confesses to the six officers on duty that he is guilty of six murders. He then proceeds to commit his confessions in acts so supernatural you can hear Dana Carvey whisper “Ssssatan.” The deeds -– whippings, hangings, shovel beatings, and suffocating -- are linked to the torture of a suspect by the same officers a year prior. Director Michael Oblowitz cranks down the mood with camera pans down dark hallways, but this is a “Tales from the Crypt” episode stretched to 90 minutes, with violence repeated and slo-mo’d to the point of tedium, hilarity, and eventually disgust. Kilmer is game, but appears uncomfortably overweight. Dude weighs 250, and people are worried about out-running him? The slapped-on title says it all. Why care when the movie makers don’t. C-