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The Vow

by M. Faust
“My daughter saw it and she thinks it’s the greatest movie ever made,” said the lady behind the counter as I got my ticket for The Vow. “Of course, she’s 19 years old.”

Safe House

by M. Faust
When Tobin Frost, the turncoat CIA agent played by Denzel Washington in Safe House, was described as an “Expert manipulator of human assets,” I briefly hoped (eternal optimist that I am) that I might be in for a thriller indebted to Midnight Run, with Washington in the Charles Grodin part of a prisoner scheming to make use of his captor, a peace agent tasked with protecting him from bad guys who want to kill him. (That this would put Ryan Reynolds in the Robert DeNiro part was something I was willing to overlook.)

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island

by M. Faust
There was a time when Michael Caine was making so many movies with so little regard to quality that his name on the credits usually indicated that you should look again to see if there wasn’t something else you could be watching. Journey 2: The Mysterious Island isn’t quite that bad, but neither is it terribly good, aimed squarely at a market of eight- to 12-year-olds and, of course, the parents who will sit next to them at the theater. It’s a sequel to 2008’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, which starred Josh Hutcherson as a lad convinced that the novels of Jules Verne were based on actual events. Now in full rebellious adolescent mode, he’s off to the Pacific in search of his grandfather (Caine), who seems to have discovered the island which not only inspired Verne’s tale but Gulliver’s Travels and Treasure Island as well. In tow are his anxious-to-be-buds stepfather Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson, an incompetent helicopter pilot (Luis Guzmán) and his daughter, played by Vanessa Hudgens in outfits that may be appropriate to a 23-year-old actress but not to this 17-year-old character. The Rock, as he will probably forever be known, gets to sing and play the ukelele and participates in a bizarre comic moment involving his pectoral muscles that will probably make some divorced fathers squirm. Special effects involving giant insects and the climactic sinking of the island will entertain young viewers, though adults will more likely be bothered by such implausibilities as waterfalls that cascade off of free-standing mountains.



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