Spring Breakers (2013)

Harmony Korine’s purposefully delirious drama/horror/satire “Spring Breakers” is shocking, but not for any onscreen debauchery, but how bright and shiny, and dull it is, and how much it strives to be “Girls Gone Wild” meets “Natural Born Killers.” Circa 1994. The story: Four college girls (led by Disney princesses Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez, plus Ashley Benson and Rachel Korine) head to Florida and plunge into binge drinking, drugs, sex acts, and scooter racing without helmets. When they land in jail, a redneck drug dealer (James Franco) “saves” and woos the group with guns, piano skills, and love of “Scarface.” After Gomez as a Christian named “Faith” (fancy that, eh?) bolts for home, the other three turn pink-masked gangbanger. Really. Korine spills ironic observations about youth obsessions with sex, gun culture, and celebrity, and our affinity to get bored, no matter where or what we are. But he’s working from a sketchy 30-page culture thesis triple spaced to 90, with scenes and sounds (guns!) repeated without end. Boiled down: Korine’s only real trick is getting two Mickey Mouse stars to go Mickey and Mallory for faux shock value. To break taboos? Or filmgoers’ patience? Franco, btw, is madly genius. C+

The Man with the Iron Fists (2012)

When hip-hop guru RZA (aka Robert Diggs) scored Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill,” he apparently liked what he saw on set so much he opted to star, write, and direct his own martial arts entry, “The Man with the Iron Fists.” 

Akin to “Bill,” this entry is soaked in 1970s cinema with yellow-splatter-font credits and lots of blood and wonky theatrics to make it all retro. RZA is the titular hero, a runaway U.S. slave in late 1800s China, working as a blacksmith who gets mixed up in a gold theft involving a clan leader (Byron Mann), a whorehouse madam (Lucy Liu), and a Brit knife/gunslinger (Russell Crowe), plus 99 other characters I dare not list. Hence the title, our hero loses his hands but comes back punching. 

RZA is high on an admirable labor-of-love vibe, but “Fists” is fugly and scattershot, with blitzed editing that ruins every fight scene. There’s no majesty or cool factor to the choreographed violence, just chopped-up limbs and blood, and almost all CGI on the latter. 

Worse, as an actor, RZA confuses lifeless with stoic, and that leaves a massive hero hole in a 95-minute film that feels kitchen-sink garbled and amateurish. D+

Deadfall (2012)

“Deadfall” is a snowy thriller more generic than its title. Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde crack the plot open as Alabama sibling thieves gunning for Canada because all criminals adore good ol’ Canada.

Plans go bad. The couple crashes their ride in wintry Michigan, kill a cop, and split ways, but not before bro eyes sis’s ass. She likes it. Ick. Brother kills a Native American, loses a finger, saves a woman and child from a bad dad, and has a shootout with police. Sister hooks up with an Olympic ex-con (Charlie Hunnam) on the run to his parents (Sissy Spacek and Kris Kristofferson) for Thanksgiving. 

Stick a pack of monks in a room and they’ll guess how this drama -– from Oscar-winning director Stefan Ruzowitzky (“Counterfeiters”) -– will end: Buckets of blood and trite family confessions over turkey. 

Character arcs roam random, but not more than Bana’s accent which starts Forrest Gump goober veers Australian and ends bland American. 

Worst crime: Casting Kate Mara (“127 Hours”) as a deputy marginalized as a useless girl dolt by her sexist peers, then writing her character off as a useless girl dolt. Awful. D

Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)

Fairy tales are always ripe for reinterpretation, and director Bryan Singer (“X-Men”) does that and openly plays with the notion of scrambling legends in “Jack the Giant Slayer.” 

That’s the new film about the beanstalk kid with the piss-poor mom, the cow, and the beans, all busied up with one giant eye (sorry) on “Lord of the Rings” and the Hollywood obsession of turning every adventure story into a war epic. 

Nicholas Holt is Jack, who lives with his uncle and stupidly trades a horse (changes!) for magic beans which lead him and a princess (Elanor Tomlinson) to the land of giants. Rescues by Jack abound because even now the princess still must be helpless. Pfft. P.S. No golden eggs here. 

“Jack” endured a tortuous production and a recent title change, and the troubles show: The giants are dodgy CGI creatures passable 10 years ago. Ewan McGregor as a valiant hero is a hoot, and Stanley Tucci as the villain has fun with bad teeth. 

But two game actors and the often witty dialogue can’t keep this “Giant” from getting cut off at the knees. Also, bless his heart, but I bet Holt has never even visited a farm. C+

Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (2012)

“Delirious Lynchian mind-screw” doesn’t come to the mind when one sits for an action flick (and fifth in a series) starring Jean Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren, but that exactly is “Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning,” a skull-smashing, gun-heavy treat. 

Director John Hyams (son of Peter) daringly switches-up the concept of the first (and awful) film about slain U.S. soldiers genetically reengineered as unstoppable warriors, and plops them right in the U.S. of A., playing on Tea Party paranoia, government black ops, and “Apocalypse Now” showdowns with Van Damme as Kurtz, ghoulish in heavy makeup. 

The plot follows a man (Scott Adkins) who awakens from a coma nine months after watching his family slain by mysterious intruders. Grieved and lost, he obsesses over the attackers. He’s also hunted by seemingly unkillable men who unexplainably like his own body can grow back appendages after they are chopped off. 

The less you know the better, because it’s a kick of a nightmarish journey with hidden meanings about NRA kill-or-be-killed addictions so off kilter from this typical genre, I wanted more. The junk dialogue and headache-inducing strobe-light effects are easily forgiven. B+

Gosford Park (2001)

Robert Altman’s art-house hit “Gosford Park” has been high in interest for the past three years thanks to Brit series “Downton Abbey,” both written by Julian Fellowes and concerning early 20^th century England where wealthy, connected families made caste system upstairs/downstairs a way of home, and of thought. 

Here, an aging benefactor (Michael Gambon) hosts a shooting/dinner party, bringing in family, friends, and hangers-on from local lands and across the pond in America. After the feast, a hunt, and other stuff you or I don’t ever do, the old man ends up murdered, and suspicion abounds. 

Among the cast: Kristin Scott Thomas as the wife, Maggie Smith as an (imagine!) uppity bird, Ryan Philippe and Clive Owen as footmen, Bob Balaban as a filmmaker, and Helen Mirren as a head house-woman. 

“Park” is purposefully slow as we follow these people in their routines before the murder pops every one’s bubble. Watching the film now, it’s a cool gift to see characters and dialogue lifted for “Downton,” and Stephen Fry brings the comedy as a bumbling detective. But it’s often a check-your-watch sit. 

The cast is marvelous, working for a film master sorely missed. B+

Rust and Bone (2012)

The moment “Rust and Bone” –- an erotic and harsh French drama from director Jacques Audiard (“The Prophet”) -- lost me: Marion Cotillard, who wowed Americans in “Inception” and is back in her native language, stands triumphantly upon prosthetic legs, holds her arms out Jesus-style, and smiles into the sun as Katy Perry’s “Firework” blares in her memory and our ears. Screech.

Cotillard is Stephanie, a screw-authority, sensual whale trainer whose life is derailed when one of her “pets” chomps off her legs. Seriously. Only in France. 

But hold tight. Stephanie is a secondary character to Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts), a single dad fucking and torching his life away, brawling for cash in a fight club. He dotes on his son when not angrily throwing him across a room. 

So, yes, Steph and Ali need each other. For redemption, for fuck-buddy sake, because these romances happen in movies, and fellow lost-soul hook-up drama “Silver Linings Playbook” was too happy.  

The cast is divine, the pain real-ish, but never serve up Perry in a serious film, and never cast firework Cotillard as a tortured, legless woman whose journey to redemption boils down to coveting a good orgasm. Disappointing. B-

A Good Day to Die Hard (2013)

“A Good Day to Die Hard” is not a “Die Hard” movie. It’s an ugly, tired, dull action flick that regurgitates everything grand from the 1988 classic. It has no soul or point. It's an abomination. A cash grab by tired people who do not care anymore. Five minutes in I hated it. A tired Bruce Willis is “John McClane” -– quotes needed -– who bolts to Moscow to save his grown CIA agent son (Jai Courtney) stuck with a murder rap. The short of it: John and John go Roy Rogers on a pack of terrorists, one of whom eats carrots. Really. It all ends in Chernobyl in a swimming pool. Not joking. Actually, nothing here is funny. What’s worse: The Tea Party way director John Moore treats all foreigners as stupid trolls, or the way he turns McClane -– long ago scared, bleeding, but desperate to do right -– into some Stallone blockhead that the first film so beautifully refused? There is not even a delicious villain to root for. Twinkies were the food choice in 1988. This is a shit served cold. Yippee-ki-yay mother F.

Seven Psychopaths (2012)

Martin McDonagh hit orbit with feature film debut “In Bruges,” a crazy good and crushing mob film about two killers dealing with a hit gone bad. In “Seven Psychopaths,” the writer/director spins further out onto the edge, tearing apart Hollywood clichés of serial killer thrillers, revenge flicks, and mob tales. He cheekily revels in those same tricks. 

Colin Farrell is (get it?) Martin, a bloke dead set on writing a screenplay titled “Seven Psychopaths,” because the title sounds cool. He has not gotten past the title. His useless best pal Billy (Sam Rockwell) steals dogs and then claims rewards from the distraught owners. 

When Billy foolishly swipes the puppy of a ruthless mobster (Woody Harrelson),  barking and scratching ensue. Mob style. We get car chases, shoot-outs, and demigod Tom Waits playing a lunatic, which is what Waits does best. Christopher Walken goes sublimely off-the-charts. 

Hooked yet?

McDonagh toys with film-goers' expectations from the first scene, burning plot rules and the long-held traditions of downing women and upping violence. Even if the climax stalls, “Seven” is a needed kick to the film-goosed brain. The cast is aces, especially Rockwell. A-