January is not
usually the kindest month to moviegoers. It can be downright
punishing in its badness because everyone is playing catchup with the
December Oscar contenders or simply not going to the movies, what
with the snow and cold enveloping much of the country at this time of
year. But at least this week there are three new options that each
stand something of a chance of being good. Let's take a look.
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of
Benghazi
Director: Michael
Bay
Writer: Chuck Hogan
Starring: John
Krasinski, James Badge Dale, Pablo Schreiber
On September 11,
2012, the United States Ambassador to Libya and three other Americans
were killed in a terrorist attack on the American consulate in
Benghazi. Ever since then it has been a political football in this
country. So now it's a movie about the courage and valor of our
troops because that's what director Michael Bay (Armageddon,
the Transformers movies) does. He's not a subtle filmmaker –
some would say he is not a good one, either. However, the guy knows
how to create larger-than-life (remember that when watching the
heightened dramatizations of the movie) heroes and villains, and he
certainly knows how to blow things up in entertaining ways. Whether
depicting entertaining explosions is the right way to honor the
people who lost their lives on that day is up for debate. And debate
people will. Enjoy!
Ride Along 2
Director: Tim Story
Writers: Phil Hay,
Matt Manfredi
Starring: Ice Cube,
Kevin Hart, Tika Sumpter, Benjamin Bratt, Olivia Munn
Kevin Hart's a
wacky guy and Ice Cube is funny in how straight and serious he is
onscreen. People really dug their pairing a couple years ago in the
first Ride Along movie, so they're back together with that
movie's director, Tim Story (Barbershop, Fantastic Four),
to go on another adventure, this time in Miami. There is no need to
feel each other out this time around, so the two leads simply have to
bounce off of and annoy each other while maybe shooting some bad guys
here and there.
Norm of the North
Director: Trevor
Wall
Writers: Daniel
Altiere, Steven Altiere, Malcolm T. Goldman
Starring: Rob
Schneider, Heather Graham, Ken Jeong, Bill Nighy
You typically don't
get a lot of overt social and/or political allegory in children's
entertainment, but Norm of the North looks to dive headlong
into teaching kids about the causes of climate change. Norm (Rob
Schneider) is a polar bear who has to move to New York because humans
are beginning to colonize the Arctic, and he gets a job at a company
that is selling the land – in other words, people are melting his
homeland. That is … bleak. It's probably not wrong or a bad thing
to help kids understand these things with cute animals acting as
their guides, but wow that's a dark premise. What probably is bad is
the execution of the movie. The trailer is a rough one, with fart
jokes, Taylor Swift on the soundtrack for no reason, and reaction
shots to things you can't see (“They don't call this a concrete
jungle for nothing”). But maybe it'll be an okay way to spend a
couple hours if you have kids.
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