Posts tagged creature feature
MOVIE REVIEW: Cocaine Bear

We’re all Dewey Cox because a good bit of cocaine and its effects sound amazing! Without ingesting a gram of the real Mexican Percocet, Cocaine Bear will forcefully stimulate each of those buzzy symptoms in its audience. This madcap movie from director Elizabeth Banks operates with a constant herky-jerky energy between humor and horror that slaps a skeleton of funny bones, rapid blood vessels, and other delicate nether regions of weakened constitution.

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MOVIE REVIEW: Beast

Anyone who’s watched an MGM movie for a century has heard the majestic pop of a lion’s roar. That’s all well and good, but the part that’s even better is the growling lead-up. The guttural purr of a lion is all-natural, distinctive, and menacing. The sound is an evocative draw and an arresting warning at the same time. It’s a precursor to danger. You hear it and your human instincts go off like fireworks because, as a wise character in Beast says, if it’s between you and the lion “it is not a fight you are designed to win.”

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MOVIE REVIEW: Kong: Skull Island

“Kong: Skull Island” taps into the same definition of “spectacle” that applies to “Jurassic World” nearly two years ago.  This ain’t your old “King Kong.”  This is “go big or go home.”  If you’re looking for the version steeped in awe and wonder, go watch the 1933 original.  To expand the original’s wonderment with the best of today’s special effects, go watch Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake.  If you want a rip-roaring roller coaster with no strings, rules, or heavy gravitas attached, you’ve come to the right place in 2017.

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MOVIE REVIEW: The Great Wall

"The Great Wall" is an imposing creature feature that stands as a three-headed glamour project.  You have an A-list star venturing overseas for international credibility and a splashy director landing his official English-language debut.  Aiming higher in aspiration is a production company hoping to open a new and profitable pipeline of investment between Hollywood and China.  Visually splendid from top to bottom, this epic adventure squeaks by on its looks and spares no expense to make sure of that.

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