Opening Everywhere: I, Frankenstein
Opening Somewhere: Gimme Shelter, Enemies Closer, Knights of Badassdom
Filmdrunk Suggests: Build your own Frankenstein monster and set it loose on Hollywood. You’d be considered a hero. The good news is that American Hustle and Dallas Buyers Club are also in wide release for their Oscar runs, so catch those if you haven’t already.
I, Frankenstein
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 0% critics 5% critics (damn you, MovieWeb), 67% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
The real man-made monster in I, Frankenstein is the film itself, a ridiculous good-versus-evil story enrobed in a pastiche of religious symbolism and stodgy mythology and set in a world created in a computer special effects lab. – Linda Barnard, Toronto Star
Long on talk and incoherent action, devoid of humor, this listless supernatural actioner surely has Mary Shelley turning in her grave. – Andrew Barker, Variety
An I, failure. — Bill Gibron, FilmRacket
Armchair Analysis: How bad do things look for this horrible-looking cheeseball of a new twist on an old monster movie classic? Variety predicts that Ride Along will be No. 1 at the box office again by a considerable margin. One of these days I’m going to do a breakdown of Aaron Eckhart’s roller coaster of a career. It’s on the verge of being remarkable. On a positive note, I am plenty fine with Yvonne Strahovski being in many, many more movies.
Gimme Shelter
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 18% critics, 70% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
A happy-smiley Christian fairy tale disguised as a hard-hitting shard of social realism. – Tirdad Derakhshani, Philadelphia Inquirer
We’re drawn in because Hudgens is so good at making this wild child real. – Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger
Armchair Analysis: I hadn’t even heard of this movie until yesterday when I watched a commercial, and the very serious voiceover said that critics were praising the performance of Vanessa Hudgens, who typically isn’t a very good actress. But the first critic name that popped up with a rave review? Pete Hammond. Fight the propaganda, movie sheeple. If we work together, we can put an end to Hammond’s horrible, Safe Haven-loving reign.
Enemies Closer
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 75% critics, 24% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
Mr. Hyams keeps things moving briskly, building to an ending with a pretty good plot twist. – Neil Genzlinger, New York Times
Suffers from wincingly bad dialogue delivered as if by jocks in a high-school play and action choreographed as if for a gymnasium stage. – Annlee Ellingson, Los Angeles Times
Armchair Analysis: Those review scores are baffling. How is it that six critics loved a Jean Claude Van Damme film (in which he has that hair!) but hundreds of moviegoers mostly hated it? What is happening to my America?
Knights of Badassdom
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: N/A critics, 74% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“Knights of Badassdom” actually delivers everything the 2011 Danny McBride-James Franco comedy “Your Highness” purported to be but fell short on. – Martin Tsai, Los Angeles Times (whatever, dude, Your Highness was f*cking great)
A one-note joke and a whiff of a story that fails to offer a single reason – literal or metaphorical – why dressing up as a fictional character is enjoyable or rewarding. – Todd Gilchrist, The Wrap
Armchair Analysis: Normally, I’m hesitant to have faith in anything that involves Steve Zahn (Out of Sight and Sahara being exceptions) but Peter Dinklage and Summer Glau more than overwhelm that disdain with honest excitement.