The Patriot (2000)

“Braveheart” goes Tea Party in “The Patriot,” a three-hour drama/revenge flick starring Mel Gibson as a Very Angry Man that only pretends it’s aghast at the terrible effects of war on one man’s soul and family, but really it’s jerk-off gun worship as every battle and death ups our blood and demand for Gibson to kill and maim. Gibson’s Benjamin Martin is a veteran turned Southern plantation owner – the blacks on his field are (cough) free, not slave – who gets sucked into the Revolutionary War after Brits kill his middle child. Director Rolland Emmerich needs his movie Red Coats -- led by Jason Issacs as a sniveling colonel – to be as evil as possible and commit atrocities that would make Nazis shudder to justify Martin’s blood lust. I get it, it’s a movie and we moviegoers love our Mel in seething Mad Max mode, but the flag-waving propaganda crosses into perversion. More aching is the depiction of slaves. The scene where a black man is conscripted by his cruel master, only to be followed by a comedic ginger 6-year-old boy asking to sign up for battle? Who the fuck thought that was a good idea? Patriotism with no insight. C-

White House Down (2013)

It’s a tough year for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Obama is tanking badly, and movie wise, North Korean terrorists attacked the White House in “Olympus Has Fallen,” and comic book flicks “Iron Man 3” and “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” both put the Executive Mansion under threat. So does “White House Down,” with the D.C. landmark falling (again) to terrorists. Hollywood sure likes a theme. This version concerns right-wing military fanatics going ape shit with a World War III plot that screams 1985, but with a Tea Party bent that somehow feels exactly like what Sarah Palin and her ilk must dream of at night. Who wants peace when war is so profitable? Self-righteous pricks. Channing Tatum has the heroic John McClane role, down to the tank top, while Jamie Foxx is the Prez. Foxx’s casting is key as he channels BO down to the Nicorette, while director Roland Emmerich (“Independence Day”) seems to be openly daring/baiting Obama, “Stand up and lead!” These veiled jabs of satire and several fourth-wall busting asides (“This is so stupid” our hero mutters to himself) make this dead-horse plot of White House distress fall smooth. B

Anonymous (2011)

“Anonymous” plays on the theory that Shakespeare wrote no play, poem, sonnet, or even a letter to mom. Here, he is portrayed as an alcoholic half-literate naïf actor. The real author of “Romeo and Juliet,” et al – according to this Roland Emmerich-directed flick -- was Edward de Verve, a Brit royal who dare not put his name to literature, then marked as heretical by the Protestant Church. The film is densely plotted as we start in present day, jump to the 1500s, following Edward’s shuffled deck tragic life, and back again. The edit jumps and myriad of characters are too numerous, and the script shreds many facts to oblivion, especially concerning Christopher Marlowe, and Edward’s alleged anonymity, which actually isn’t true. Another grind: The film smacks of elitism, arguing that middle-class Shakespeare could never have the talent of a rich royal. Really? But it’s a juicy, well-staged conspiracy drama that scores when showing how then-audiences cheered, booed, and stormed the stage in rage at the plays we know well, and its portrayal of the Church as a power-mad entity unsurpassed in corruption. Rhys Ivans plays Edward with a striking sadness, a man eternally haunted by hunchbacked men of God. B-

10,000 B.C. (2008)

In “10,000 B.C.” a young warrior (Steven Strait of “Sky High”) is hunting big hairy mammoths with his tribesmen one day and then chasing after the mysterious “four-legged demons” (that is, men on horses) who took his woman the next. This is a disaster movie of a different sort from Roland Emmerich, master of the Earth in Peril genre (“2012”). The set-up, including the temple climax is much like Mel Gibson’s 2006 adrenaline bloodbath “Apocalypto,” but made for little boys who gawk at the “PG-13” rating. I just yawned at the so-so actors mucking about as cavemen with bad wigs and clean shaven faces out of a Norelco commercial, fighting nothing more deadly than continuously bad CGI. Everything on screen -– languages, climates, animals, those pyramids -- are sure to give scientists and Creationists alike heart attacks as they fume over what’s correct. Me? The movie's not worth any effort. D+

2012 (2009)

Roland Emmerich’s latest world-ender “2012” is a helluva lot like his previous efforts “The Day After Tomorrow” and “Independence Day” – humankind ignores glaring signs of cataclysmic event/big attack and suffers for it. Immensely. Billions die. Most of our heroes and their dog (where's the cat, man??) live. The end.

“Tomorrow” was heavy-handed leftist crap and silly. “Independence” was clever – and I kid you not – the best sci-fi genre satire ever made. (I have erased “Godzilla" from memory, only recalling that I wished every character on screen would die. Bloodily.) “2012” falls in the middle, jumping off the age-old premise our number is up in two-plus years.

It has all the eternally re-rehashed Emmerich elements – the father, his estranged child(ren), the ex-wife, the brilliant scientist, the tough president, the a-hole bureaucrat, blah, blah, blah. John Cusack stars. I need not go into details. OK – one detail – Woody Harrelson is the guy with the scoop of being dead-on correct smothered under 40 gallons of crazy glue. Harrelson looks like he couldn’t wait to get on set every morning. He’s a delight.

As long as the dim-witted chore “Transformers” sequel, “2012” mostly squeaks by all the science and logistical plot holes and “come on!” scenes where characters walk around in freezing temperatures but the actors barely seem slightly chilly. The special effects are seriously top-notch, and let’s face it -- this film exists for no other reason than to wow people with special effects. Consider me wowed.

Yet, the film irks, even past the Emmerich standards. There are long moments where - despite the thrills – I’m watching billions of people die and skyscrapers fall. For fun. I got the feeling Emmerich watches news footage of earthquakes, terrorist attacks and tsunami’s with one eye for mild concern and the other glazing over with an “I smell movie” high. The movie snob and liberal inside me winces. The other part of me, who laughed his way through the most tragic scenes in “Independence Day” (and got mean glares for it), stares in awe. For awhile.

Like the film’s long climax, "2012" is a washout. B-