Just the Ticket #98: The Quick & the Critical

Greetings, Ticketholders!
We at Timedrop Publications (by which I mean myself, one small parrot, and all the voices in my head--just kidding) have returned after an extensive lack of inspiration to bring you the latest in my locally valued opinion of recent rental releases. On to the Critical Quickies, folks!

Big Game--Samuel L. Jackson (Avengers), Ray Stevenson (Dexter), Ted Levine (The Bridge): A low-production, high-action feature with Jackson as a timid Obama stand-in who gets stranded in the Finnish woodlands when Air Force One is shot down by heavily-armed terrorists. His only salvation lies with a local boy on his coming-of-age quest, who can barely draw a bow. The plot is predictable for movies of its kind, and the villains' motivation is thin at best, but the pacing of the film as a whole and the resourcefulness of its protagonists elevate Big Game to a level slightly above mindless fun.
B

Age of Adaline--Blake Lively (Gossip Girl), Harrison Ford (Air Force One), Ellen Burstyn (Interstellar), Kathy Baker (the Jesse Stone series): Lively (an attractive and positively unsettling combination of Gwyneth Paltrow and Helen Hunt) is an appropriate choice to play Adaline, a woman both gifted and cursed with immortality during a unique collision of the forces of nature. The immortality mechanism, like said collision, is a perfect storm of improbability and reality that does not distract from the romance and well-drawn characters that are the meat of any good film of its kind. Unlike The Longest Ride, its historical elements do not draw out or bog down the plot, but provide it substance in the exact quantity, at the exact moment it is needed. Perfect despite Lively's off-putting persona.
A-

Love & Mercy--Paul Dano (Little Miss Sunshine), John Cusack (Say Anything), Elizabeth Banks (The Hunger Games series), Paul Giamatti (Sideways): I like the Beach Boys. I'll watch anything that has Paul Dano in it. I'll watch half of anything with Paul Giamatti in it. I could look at Elizabeth Banks for twenty-four hours straight. But I'll also avoid pretty much anything with John Cusack in it. Love & Mercy is a decent biopic of Brian Wilson (the creative mind that drove and destroyed the Beach Boys and inspired the Barenaked Ladies to write one of their early hits), but the repetitive presentation of Wilson's deteriorating mental state--while well acted on the parts of both Dano and Cusack--grows tiresome as quickly as it makes the film progress slowly. Giamatti simultaneously adds and subtracts from the film with his portrayal of the elder Wilson's (Cusack) munchausen-esque physician by turning his usual brand of acidic self-loathing outward for a change. Much Love for the music, but not much Mercy for the motion picture.
C-

Hot Pursuit--Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line), Sofia Vergara (Modern Family): We've seen this before. It's The Heat meets Identity Thief, but without Melissa McCarthy. And it's not as dirty as either film, or as funny. Yeah, it's still funny. But after awhile, it was like "yeah, Reese Witherspoon is short. Ha-ha. Sofia Vergara is old. Ho-ho. And she's impossible to understand. Hee-hee. Some one take me away to the funny farm, where this movie is funny all the time and I can see those nice, young men in their clean, white coats...." Uh, sorry. Music tangent. What does it tell you that I would spend valuable review time to a weak, obscure, one-hit-wonder reference in the middle of talking about Hot Pursuit? It tells you, in a completely ironic, non-sequitor way, just how attention-grabbing and substantial I thought this movie was. Hot Pursuit wasn't funny all of the time. It wasn't memorable or deep. What it was all of the time was predictable. About the only thing Hot Pursuit had going for it was that, unlike Identity Thief, it had an ending that ended.
D+

Mad Max: Fury Road--Tom Hardy (Locke, The Dark Knight Rises), Charlize Theron (Snow White and the Huntsman): I don't get stoned, so I thought the original Mad Max was a waste of film. I saw Locke (what I could stand of it, anyway), so I think Tom Hardy is mostly a waste of film as well. And yet, I watched Fury Road. And I enjoyed it. Unlike the Mel Gibson original, Fury Road had a discernible, almost biblical story. It had action and personality up the tailpipe. It had Charlize Theron with one arm, kicking major ass. And it had Tom Hardy, barely saying a word. So in other words, a perfect action movie. And thanks to Wikipedia, I am pleased to know that writer/director/producer George Miller has at least one more sequel in the works, so bring on The Wasteland!
A

Furious 7--Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Ludacris, Jordana Brewster, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Jason Statham: I seem to have gotten into a theme with these last three reviews. The cast from Fast Five and Fast & Furious 6 return to...do what, exactly? They're not stealing money again, they're not stealing cars again (although they do sort of steal one for some reason I can't remember), and they're not Robin Hood-ing a dangerous billionaire (exactly). They're helping Vin Diesel get revenge on Statham for killing the kid from Tokyo Drift. But instead of tracking down Statham's likewise vengeful assassin and running him over several times, they air-drop into the middle of Djimon Honsou's tech-trafficking operation, kidnap a kidnapped hacker (because Kurt Russel asked them to, I guess), steal a really expensive car from a laughably not-very-dangerous billionaire and jump it through three adjacent buildings (because Paul Walker and his stunt-double brother really wanted to, I guess), and then drive around in circles while a heavily-armed drone tries to blow them up (because the movie still wasn't long enough yet, I guess). The Rock is barely in Furious 7, but in the scenes he has, he's a steroid-injected hunk of cheese made from the milk of the only mutant cow to ever be accepted into clown college. In other words, he comes off as too laughable to be cool, and in turn, not cool enough to be funny. There are some good fights involving Tony Jaa (the Ong Bak trilogy) and MMA fighter Ronda Rousey (Entourage: The Movie), not to mention the brutal streetfight finale between Diesel and Statham, and the gravity- and physics-defying autobatics that define the series are present in full force. But as a whole, Furious 7 feels like a directionless afterthought someone patched together in the wake of Paul Walker's death.
It's been said that the best part of any terrible movie is the end, and having just mentioned the actor's passing, I believe that the best part of Furious 7, spectacle included, was ending both film and franchise with a tribute montage and the simple, touching sentiment: "For Paul."
C+

Stay tuned for more Tom Hardy, another beloved actor's final film, a word that has three meanings, and something that would have a-mazed, were it not bear-ly in sync.
Good night,  you Ticketholders of Maine.
Ticketmaster,
tuning out.