Tim Burton's garish, CGI-addled, 3-D Alice In Wonderland (Disney) isn't a bad film, it's just a mediocre one. His standard hero's-quest story works through a checklist of Lewis Carroll's characters without bringing anything new to the table except his visual design and Johnny Depp's desperate energy (and weird romantic tension) as the Mad Hatter. But audiences ate it up, it made close to a billion dollars worldwide, and the DVD/Blu-ray release (not in 3-D, mind you) will no doubt push it over the top. Still, it's a pity the story and the treatment of the characters isn't as innovative as the film's overall look…
Ultimately directed by Joe Johnston, Universal's remake of The Wolfman went through a lot of creative teams before making its way to the screen. Why? It's a movie about a wolfman and that's hard to muck up. Johnston and stars Benicio Del Toro and Anthony Hopkins don't completely flub the task, but apart from a few (literally) visceral rampage sequences, this remake makes for a pretty dull ride…
Russian director Alexander Sokurov isn’t known for delivering the yuks, but The Sun—the third in his trilogy on “ultimate power” dictators like Stalin (Taurus) and Hitler (Moloch)—finds plenty of culture-clash comedy in Emperor Hirohito’s surrender after World War II. Brilliantly played by Issey Ogata, Hirohito is portrayed as a kind of tragic fool, a man who has to go through the humbling process of renouncing his status as a deity in order to concede to General MacArthur…
With the immigration debate currently raging, it might be good time to catch up with Wayne Kramer’s flawed but pulpy and compelling Crossing Over, a sprawling tapestry of individual stories that could fill a 10-hour miniseries. Set in L.A., and concerning a cross-section of people involved in immigration and deportation, the film gets fine performances from big stars (Harrison Ford, Ray Liotta, Ashley Judd) and has enough punchy scenes to overcome some lugubrious stretches.