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Tag: Action/Adventure

Collateral (2004)

Action/Adventure Rated R

First and foremost a continuation of director Michael Mann’s love affair with nocturnal urban landscapes, Collateral centers around a night-shift cabbie (Jamie Foxx) kidnapped by a professional killer (Tom Cruise, callous and funny) and forced to drive him from hit to hit. Fluorescent lighting courses through the movie, set as it is in Los Angeles,

Training Day (2001)

Action/Adventure Rated R

As a Los Angeles police detective gone bad, Denzel Washington is so determined to put the heroic characters of his past behind him that he turns this one into a villainous cartoon. All of his trademarks – his authoritative speech pattern, that unwavering stare – are turned inside out here and amplified, to less than

Miami Vice (2006)

Action/Adventure Rated R

Most of Michael Mann’s movies have been broad-chested exercises in machismo – Heat, Collateral – but few have dealt in the sort of self-parodic chest-beating that undoes Miami Vice. This was supposed to be the serious version of the 1980s television series Mann created, but it’s worth remembering that the series took itself pretty seriously,

Core, The (2003)

Action/Adventure Rated PG-13

This could have been a good bad disaster movie, but despite its laughable dialogue, third-rate special effects and ludicrous premise, The Core fails to work as an apocalyptic hoot. Aaron Eckhart plays a geophysicist who leads a team of “terranauts” to the center of the planet in order to jump-start the earth’s stalled core. Once

Blood Diamond (2006)

Action/Adventure Rated R

Edward Zwick (Glory) has long been one of Hollywood’s more thoughtful studio filmmakers, but his thoughtfulness gets the best of him here This story of how “conflict diamonds” fueled the civil war in 1990s Sierra Leone should be about those whose lives were upended because of the illicit diamond trade. It does feature one such

Punisher, The (2004)

Action/Adventure Rated R

Perhaps because it is the directorial debut of screenwriter Jonathan Hensleigh, The Punisher has just the sort of narrative economy most comic-book movies lack. Thomas Jane plays a FBI agent bent on avenging the murders of his family. It’s a story born of brutality, and the graphic violence grows wearying. Yet the movie offers plenty

Tears of the Sun (2003)

Action/Adventure Rated R

Tears of the Sun deals with messy subject matter – Africa, ethnic cleansing, American foreign policy – but it wades through such subjects wearing big rubber boots, and then spends its silly finale hosing them off. What begins as a provocative drama about a U.S. rescue mission in civil war-torn Nigeria turns into an ignorant

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)

Action/Adventure Rated R

A sturdy, reliable entry in the Arnold Schwarzenegger series – a lot like the stomping cyborg the star plays. As overseen by genre craftsman Jonathan Mostow rather than original director James Cameron, Rise of the Machines is miles away from the slick spectacle of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, yet it respectably returns the series back

Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, The (1999)

Action/Adventure Rated R

Director Luc Besson brings some modern visual flash to the oft-told story of the 15th-century French martyr, but otherwise this is a fairly routine rehash of the historical battles and church politics that have been documented in many movies before. Milla Jovovich holds her own in the title role until she’s sold out by the

Battlefield Earth (2000)

Action/Adventure Rated PG-13

Aside from the curious fascination that comes with watching John Travolta make a fool of himself (his evil alien cackles incessantly and wears a hairdo that makes him look like Marge Simpson in dreads), there isn’t anything enjoyable about this bloated adaptation of L. Ron Hubbard’s futuristic novel. From its first frame to its last

Recent Reviews

Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026)

Action/Adventure Rated PG-13

“The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind of Spider-Man movies…”

Disclosure Day (2026)

Action/Adventure Rated PG-13

“Disclosure Day lobbies for our right to believe in something…”

The Sorrow and the Pity (1969)

Documentary Rated PG

“… a wake-up call to anyone who thinks they can simply ride out humanity’s worst impulses.”


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