Too bad BBC canceled it less than a month after it aired earlier this year. The reason? “Too much crime,” which is a terrible excuse when the programming is par excellence. Zen — “It’s Venetian,” he says — is played by Rufus Sewell (TV’s “The Pillars of the Earth”); his love interest is the seemingly […]
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Limitless
Then a chance meeting on the street with a former in-law introduces him to a wild, new experimental drug called NZT-48 that unlocks all of the brain’s synapses to make you super-smart and super-productive before the effects wear off. Suddenly, he’s not only on a creative spree, but making a fortune playing the stock markets, […]
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Brother’s Justice
The veteran of MTV’s celebrity prank series “Punk’d” makes that move in “Brother’s Justice,” but alas, it’s only a mockumentary. Shepard gets this not-so-great idea to transform himself into a martial-arts star, and this faux film follows him trying to make that faux film, from wheeling in his producer pal Nate Tuck, to taking meetings […]
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The King of Fighters
In “Fighters,” three ancient artifacts — a sword, a shield and a chain-metal necklace that looks like Red Sonja’s thong — combine to unleash energy that opens a gateway to another dimension where characters compete in underground fighting tournaments to become the King of Fighters. There, logic and physics are on hold, tunnels are awash […]
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13 Assassins
And this is the same man who made “Audition”? Yes, but don’t worry: He just saves most of it for the second half. Rest assured, heads will roll, literally. See the film for its visuals, not for its story. Martial arts films rarely are imbued with much in the way of plot, and this one […]
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Arthur
As “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” proved, he’s only good in small doses; as “Get Him to the Greek” proved, he’s downright grating in large ones. Taking over Dudley Moore’s iconic, Oscar-nominated title role, Brand seems not to have undergone any great stretch to portray a rich, spoiled, drunken, promiscuous man-child. We’re asked to laugh at his […]
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Tekken
Turns out, the movie isn’t much more complex. Its near-future setting imagines a grim scenario following “the terror wars,” where the globe then is ruled by eight corporations. America has fallen to Tekken, where metal-helmeted warriors known as Jackhammers enforce the corrupt government, which has banned coffee, chocolate and oranges. But in the appropriately named […]
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Murdoch Mysteries: Season 3
In other words, it’s “CSI” at a time when everyone wore bowler hats, when authorities could be summoned with a whistle, when a woman showing her knickers in a photo was considered pornographic. Welcome to the world of this Canadian procedural series, as bright as “CSI” is dark. Subbing as William Petersen and Marg Helgenberger […]
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The Cat o’ Nine Tails
It has nothing to do with a cat, other than being supremely sly and getting out its claws when it needs to. Really more thriller than horror, the Rome-homed “Cat” purrs along like a good, pulpy mystery should. When a late-night break-in at a genetic research firm appears to have resulted in no theft, the […]
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The Last Gun / 4 Dollars of Revenge
Spaghetti Western fans are bound to be disappointed by this double feature, no matter how appealing the packaging for the Mill Creek Entertainment Blu-ray is, which is a lot. The two films just don’t have the balls of Sergio Leone and the like. In fact, for being of the same era as The Man with […]