Opening Everywhere: RoboCop, Winter’s Tale, About Last Night, Endless Love
Opening Somewhere: Adult World
FilmDrunk Suggests: Two remakes, two cheesy ass love stories (one of which is a book adaptation and the other is, you guessed it, a remake) and something that sounds like a porn shop. Way to be on top of the creative game, Hollywood.
RoboCop
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 49% critics, 67% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
This Robo-reboot tries fiercely to update the satirical punch and stylistic perversity Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 original. It’s a futile gesture. – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
It’s well made, polished, and hits every mark – but is it crazy to want a futuristic sci-fi action flick about a motorcycle-riding metal supercop to be just a little more fun? – Ian Buckwalter, NPR
Armchair Analysis: I think Hollywood finally broke me. I don’t even have the energy to complain about remakes anymore. I still think it’s shitty that someone tried to remake or recapture Paul Verhoeven’s style, but whatever. It’s going to happen whether we like it or not. I can’t wait til someone remakes Forrest Gump with Taylor Lautner.
Winter’s Tale
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 13% critics, 49% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
It might all make more sense to fans of the book. But you shouldn’t have to have read the book to be able to see and enjoy the movie. – Jocelyn Noveck, AP
Not only is the story of magic, angels, demons and predetermined destiny preposterous, but the characters are also unconvincing and the dialogue sanctimonious. – Claudia Puig, USA Today
Armchair Analysis: How does such a cast of gifted actors end up in a movie that looks like it was thought up by a kindergarten class?
About Last Night
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 74% critics, 82% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
Mostly, Hart aces his many showcase moments, not so much stealing the movie as occasionally letting the other actors possess it for a while. – Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice
“About Last Night” makes for a pretty terrific date movie… because it demands only a commitment to be entertained, but still manages to make you consider what it means to be in a relationship. – Todd Gilchrist, The Wrap
Armchair Analysis: Okay, if I understand this correctly, this isn’t a remake of the 1986 film of the same name, but it is a new twist on the David Mamet play, “Sexual Perversity in Chicago,” that the ’86 film was based on. This movie just uses the same title. But it’s not a remake. Or maybe it is. I’m really confused about this, mostly because I shouldn’t care but it bothers me so much. Regardless, I’m willing to bet that Kevin Hart will somehow appear in one movie every weekend in 2015. He can do it.
Endless Love
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 14% critics, 67% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“Endless Love” isn’t so much a remake of the 1981 Franco Zeffirelli film as it is an extended ad for the idyllic Abercrombie & Fitch lifestyle. – Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com
This new “Endless Love” doesn’t have enough going on to make it memorably terrible: Banality is its gravest sin. – Manohla Dargis, New York Times
Armchair Analysis: I have to give it to Alex Pettyfer’s agent. For a while, this guy had a reputation of being a spoiled a-hole, but he toughed through it and landed the perfect role in Magic Mike. We didn’t need to like him as an actor because we were supposed to hate his character. Now he’s being pushed on us as a leading man again, and so few actors make me say, “This f*cking guy again?” the way he does. His team definitely gets points for perseverance.
Adult World
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 50% critics, 70% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
Coffey knows his movie’s at its best when Cusack and Roberts collide, and repeatedly uses them to overcome the script’s limitations, and almost to dig a pit of chaos beneath it. – Andrew O’Hehir, Salon
“Adult World” proceeds by fits and starts, but fans of Cusack won’t want to miss his performance as the petulant poet, whose resistance is inevitably worn down by his persistent fan. – Lou Lumenick, New York Post
Armchair Analysis: I didn’t read the plot synopsis of this film until after I made that crack about the porn shop, but it turns out this is a movie about a girl who works in a porn shop called “Adult World.” So that’s pretty good then. Actually, the plot of this movie sounds great, as it’s about a girl who graduates college with a poetry degree, can’t find work and is buried in student loan debt. They should have called this movie REAL LIFE. I hope there’s a scene in which a guy tells her that while she’s writing poetry, she should learn how to fix a car or appliance, because that would make it my favorite movie ever.