GRITZ Movie Reviews: Street Kings, Nim's Island, The Ruins
Posted: Apr 13, 2008STREET KINGS
Keanu Reeves stars as Detective Tom Ludlow, a man with a lot of personal pain that he is always trying to drown with Vodka mini-bottle shots. When his former partner is gunned down inside a neighborhood quick stop, Reeves begins an investigation to get to the bottom of the murder, all the while dodging bullets as a suspect himself in the case. The all-star cast is terrific, and includes Oscar Winner Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie (House), Chris Evans, Jay Mohr (Saturday Night Live cast member 1993-95), John Corbett (Northern Exposure, musician), Cedric The Entertainer, Naomie Harris, Linda Washington machete-wielding Selena in Danny Boyle’s science fiction thriller and Tia Dalma (the grotesquely bedecked witch in “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” and its sequel, “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End”). and rapper Common. It’s all action all the time, in the tradition of The Departed, with drugs, guns, and corrupt cops. An outstanding film that will keep you guessing all the way until the end.
Five Stars
NIM’S ISLAND
Abigail Breslin, the hardest working kid in show-biddness, is the daughter of oceanographer Jack (Gerard Butler, who also plays the character Alex Rover) and the two of them live on an uncharted island. Jack’s wife is dead, or lost at sea, and he raises Nim as a single father. When he goes out to sea to conduct tests for 2 days, and is still gone 4 days later, Nim writes an email to Alex Rover, the fictional Indiana Jones style hero of all the books she loves so. When she asks Alex to come and help her find her dad, the book’s author Alexandra Rover (Jodie Foster) travels to the island to help, even though Foster has a chronic phobia about even leaving the house. It’s a fun movie for kids, but for us grumps, it falls just a little short.
Three and One Half Stars
THE RUINS
Four twenty-somethings vacation to Mexico, where they meet a German dude who invites them to his brother's archeological dig at some Myan ruins. Of course, things go bad quickly as a group of locals surround the kids and refuse to let them leave the pyramid. And then there are the living vines that sing and imitate cell phones, and get into your skin and cause you to go all Charlie Manson and start slicing your own body to pieces. Pretty sick. Pretty boring.
One Star
All Reviews by Michael Buffalo Smith
Comments
outlawcountry says...
Saw Street Kings today! Great movie. I almost always agree with you but I hated Leatherheads. Bored me to tears.
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