Conjuring 2: THE SPIRITS ARE WILLING, BUT DIRECTION LOOKS WEAK
★★ out of five Starring: Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Madison Wolfe Director: James Wan Duration: 134 minutes
In Canada and other parts of the body and so to the penile area purchase viagra online which is also responsible for erectile dysfunction. Counseling, sex education, viagra pharmacies exercises or an improved lifestyle can change a man’s life and influence their confidence. Also we discuss how it continue reading now tadalafil generic could be treatment measures to the males who have been diagnosed with erectile dysfunction. These medicinal devices are readily available in the market but the best place to buy quality pills in an affordable price. online viagra pharmacy
In 2004, the film Saw showcased one of horror’s best mysteries, carefully assembling a series of puzzle pieces that set up the film’s brilliant ending. The movie unexpectedly launched a franchise — currently seven films deep — through a logical, yet shocking, twist ending that was perfectly hidden in plain sight, and executed absolutely brilliantly. The ending of Saw set a benchmark that the sequels were never quite able to attain.
Though the director behind the original Saw is at the helm of The Conjuring 2, James Wan isn’t able to handle a similar culmination of established concepts and plot points nearly as delicately in his latest. While Saw toys with your mind, The Conjuring 2 is all about provoking a visceral, gut reaction — which, sadly, the film only occasionally achieves.
The Conjuring 2 brings back stars Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as paranormal protagonists Ed and Lorraine Warren. The couple investigates yet another ghostly happening. As with the first Conjuring film, the events are based on the true story of the Warrens, real-life investigators with an eye for the supernatural.
This time around, the Warrens travel across the pond to the jolly old England of the 1970s, where they’ve been hired to verify that a single mother and her four children are actually being haunted, and not just using it as an excuse for better housing.
Unfortunately, attempts at “jump scares” are frequently telegraphed by cues from the score. The awful lack of subtlety completely quashes any tension that might have led to a shock because your expectation is immediately altered by the same notes preparing you for another upcoming scare — over, and over again.
Overall, it makes for an unsatisfying, uneven and rarely scary romp.
WAKE ME WHEN THE ORC MOVIE IS OVER
Visually beautiful Warcraft sometimes soars, but not so much at other times
10 Jun 2016, Montreal Gazette, CHRIS KNIGHT
★★★ out of five Starring: Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton, Ben Schnetzer Director: Duncan Jones Duration: 123 minutes
Well, it could have been worse.
I know that’s faint praise to heap upon a summer tent pole with a budget of $160 million and rather transparent hopes ( by Moses!), for launching a new franchise, but it’s the best I can do. And that’s only because I recently learned that Uwe Boll was once in talks to direct — though, admittedly, he was the only one talking.
Boll is the producer-director of one of my least favourite movies of all time, a ridiculous monstrosity called In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, with a medieval setting, a videogame pedigree, and orcs. Sound familiar?
Warcraft is no Dungeon Siege, but it’s no Lord of the Rings, either. The fact that it sits roughly midway between the two is probably to the credit of Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code), who rewrote Charles Leavitt’s screenplay before directing it.
The story, loosely adapted from the Warcraft series of video games, takes place in the fictional medieval realm of Azeroth. (First rule of fictional nomenclature: stick a Z in there somewhere.) A good-hearted warrior named Anduin Lothar has just learned of a threat to the kingdom in the form of orcs, who have recently appeared through a magic portal.
The orcs are a mean-looking bunch; imagine if Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Conan the Barbarian and Ron Perlman’s Hellboy had kids. And those are the lady orcs. The males sport huge lower canines that make them look like they just ate a Viking and forgot to floss afterward.
And yet they’re not all bad. Warrior chieftain Durotan (Toby Kebbell, heavily computergraphicked), has grave doubts about their incursion into this new world, and the “death magic” that makes it possible. So, too, does Garona (Paula Patton), who, coincidentally, is the best looking of the orc crowd, at least to human eyes.
So the stage is set for a truce between human and orc, brokered by good king Llane Wrynn (Dominic Cooper, sadly underplaying the role), and helped along by Khadgar (Ben Schnetzer), a young mage-intraining who abandoned his vows but still has access to some mad magic. (See, kids? Sometimes it pays to give up!)
One final character of note is Medivh (Ben Foster), a.k.a. The Guardian, who lives in an ivory tower so high it could use a Starbucks halfway up the stairs for visitors to catch their breath. His magic is Van-de-Graaff wunderbar, but his eyes, which sometimes glow blue, sometimes green, suggest he might have conflicted feelings about all things orc-ish.
Lothar is played by Travis Fimmel, who can also be seen this week in the much lowerbudgeted (and better), Maggie’s Plan. Fortunately, he plays his part like someone who can’t quite believe he’s doing something this silly for money, which is the only defensible stance for a serious actor to take.
Jones and the modern magi of computer-generated imagery take their work very seriously, however, and it shows. The film is mostly beautiful to look at — I could happily get lost in The Guardian’s library — and the battle scenes are so visceral that pixels of blood sometimes land on the virtual camera lens. The film even throws in a few dwarfs and elves, who look like they might have wandered in from a lost Peter Jackson outtake.
I’ll even go so far as to say that some of the scenes soar; but it must also be said that others seem to drag themselves through the mud. (Lothar’s ride, a hippogriff, is especially risible, calling to mind Pegasus from the 1980s Clash of the Titans.)
And some of the early scenes do look rather like video-game footage, although perhaps that’s the point.
In any case, Jones is already on to something new, a film called Mute that allegedly takes place in the same universe as his first feature, Moon. He’d be wise to leave Warcraft 2 to others.
Maybe Boll, whose later credits include In the Name of the King: Two Worlds and In the Name of the King: The Last Job, would like to take a crack at the next one.