The DeCarlo Movie Guide

New Movies (2009 - present)

Angels & Demons 2009 Adapted from Dan Brown's lesser-known novel, this film delivers relentless suspense and an ever-twisting story. Symbologist Robert Langdon (Hanks), the slightly annoying know-it-all, is back, rapidly spitting out the underlying symbolism of another heart-pounding mystery. At the core of this film is the clash of technology and religion when the Illuminati - an ancient order of scientists seeking retribution for the Catholic Church's violence against science - attempt to destroy Vatican city. Most of the thrill and suspence comes from the idea of this secret organization infiltrating the Vatican and building enough power and influence to topple the church. Meanwhile, the plot is driven by Langdon's expert knowledge of the Illuminati and the intricate symbolism (conveniently) woven into their plot against the church. Most importantly, the story is very ambiguous in the battle between science and religion, strongly promoting the co-existance of the two ideologies amid this epic battle of survival for the religious and secular extremes. 138m. Tom Hanks, Ewan McGregor, Ayelet Zurer, Stellan Skarsgård, Pierfrancesco Favino, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Thure Lindhardt, David Pasquesi, Cosimo Fusco, Victor Alfieri. Music by Hans Zimmer. Written by David Koepp, Akiva Goldsman. Directed by Ron Howard.	Away We Go 2009 When Burt (Krasinski) and Verona (Rudolph) get pregnant, they embark on a journey to find a new city to call home. Each visit involves a short, but colorful stay with other couples, both friends and family. While still facing their own anxieties about raising a child, the people on their journey provide insight into marriage and raising children. The beauty of the film comes from its ability to develop and shape the main characters indirectly - through their interactions with the side characters. The result is a refreshing approach to addressing the anxiety of having a first child. Solid performances by Krasinski and Rudolph are accentuated by a slew of unusual and engaging side characters. 98m. John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph, Jeff Daniels, Carmen Ejogo, Jim Gaffigan, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Josh Hamilton, Allison Janney, Melanie Lynskey, Chris Messina, Catherine O'Hara, Paul Schneider. Music by Alexi Murdoch. Written by Dave Eggers, Vendela Vida. Directed by Sam Mendes.
The Brothers Bloom 2009 Stephen (Ruffalo) and Bloom (Brody) are misfit brothers who turn into professional con men. They deal in "perfect cons", where they provide some poetic service to the person they are coning, so that, in the end, they are happy to let the money go. Bloom, however, is terribly unhappy and threatens to quit the business. Stephen decides to write one more con for his brother to perform, this time aimed at providing Bloom with the emotional closure he needs. The mark is billionaire heiress Penelope Stamp (Weisz) whose entire life has been played out hiding in her mansion. The con is fun - not too contrived, and not too forced - but the real substance of the story is the growth of Penelope and Bloom, the centerpieces of the con. Added to the mix is Bloom's increasing feeling that he himself if being conned. Quirky characters, a fun plot, humorous storytelling, and good emotional depth make this a strong, well-rounded film. 113m. Rachel Weisz, Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo, Rinko Kikuchi, Robbie Coltrane, Maximilian Schell, Ricky Jay, Zachary Gordon, Max Records. Music by Nathan Johnson. Written by Rian Johnson. Directed by Rian Johnson.	Extract 2009 Most of the film's humor was exposed in the trailer. What remains is a very simple drama about Joel (Bateman)'s falling out with his wife (Wiig) and his attempts to sell his extract company. Unfortunately, the characters are all dull and a little stupid, preventing us from caring about any of them. The story is full of setups and opportunities to twist and turn, but it ignores all of them and stays painfully linear. There is some office humor and some drug humor, but the bulk of the film is flatly mocking the life of the simpleton (which includes everyone). If you find this humor particularly appealing, you will like this film, but for everyone else this will end up a surprisingly boring film. 92m. Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, Kristen Wiig, Ben Affleck, J.K. Simmons, Clifton Collins, Jr., Dustin Milligan, David Koechner, Beth Grant, Gene Simmons. Music by George S. Clinton. Written by Mike Judge. Directed by Mike Judge.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince 2009 In a sharp divergence with the rest of the series, this sixth film focuses on a very small core of characters, with most of the secondary characters marginalized or completely excluded. Virtually no classroom scenes and not a single appearance by Voldemort left a strange emptiness. If nothing else, this installment took a sharp turn toward simplicity: the vast majority of the film is either following the activity of the Death Eaters or the blossoming romantic lives of our young heroes. Still, it was nice to see more time devoted to the developing emotional lives of the heroes, and moving beyond the trust conflicts that have permeated the past few films. 153m. Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Jim Broadbent, Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter, Tom Felton. Music by Nicholas Hooper. Written by Steve Kloves. Directed by David Yates.	Inglourious Basterds 2009 Neither an action or a comedy, this film is by and large a suspenceful drama. Every scene of the film involves an interrogation of sorts: Nazis looking for Jews, soldiers getting information out of prisoners, and prying detectives looking for answers. Essentially every scene is drawn out at least twice as long as it needs to be, producing lots of redundancy and plateaus in the arc of the scene; too often you can go for five minutes without learning anything new about the characters or the situation. As realistic as that may be (I would call it hyper-realism), dialogue for the sake of dialogue is a very boring venture. In Tarantino's other films, the mundane dialogue spoke volumes about the characters, while the innocuous dialogue in this film, rather, is a thin veil laid over extremely intense emotion, something that is very emotionally draining to watch. While this forces us to share the unease of the characters, I was neither expecting nor interested in feeling like I was being interrogated for 2.5 hours. If this was their goal, then they succeeded admirably, but it is a movie experience that will appeal to a very limited audience. 153m. Brad Pitt, Mélanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Eli Roth, Michael Fassbender, Diane Kruger, Daniel Brühl, Til Schweiger, Gedeon Burkhard, Jacky Ido, B.J. Novak, Omar Doom. Written by Quentin Tarantino. Directed by Quentin Tarantino.
The International 2009 Salinger (Owen) has been investigating the illegal arms trafficking by the international bank IBBC. The bank is somehow portrayed as owning and controlling everything (including, apparently, all the supervisors at government agencies), yet is so fragile that the loss of the particular deal in motion would destroy everything. On top of this contradiction, you have Salinger and Whitman (Watts) who follow a bread crumb trail around the world, always one step behind the bank's dealings, and continually thwarted by corrupted law enforcement. While the story and cinematography successfully avoid standard conventions, the simultaneous power and fragility of the bank seems like a convenience to the story and the resulting suspense a bit contrived. 118m. Clive Owen, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Ulrich Thomsen, Brian F. O'Byrne, Jack McGee, Felix Solis, Nilaja Sun, Haluk Bilginer, James Rebhorn, Alessandro Fabrizi, Luca Giorgio Barbareschi, Patrick Baladi, Jay Villiers. Music by Tom Tykwer, Johnny Klimek, Reinhold Heil. Written by Eric Warren Singer. Directed by Tom Tykwer.	Star Trek 2009 An interesting story is woven around the core appeal of seeing a younger version of the original cast meet for the first time. A surprising amount of slapstick rounds out a good balance of action, drama, and suspense. I was a little disturbed by the portrayal of Kirk (Pine) as a hyper-rebellious youth. As there was no oppressive or immoral authority to rebel against, his constant rejection of the establishment was not morally courageous, but instead painted him as unappealingly arrogant. Time and time again, however, his meddling saves the day, so clearly his abrasive attitude is worth celebrating. That aside, the film is very well-rounded and the time-meddling in the story cleverly facilitated a rebirth of the characters and their dynamics, which easily stands above any other element in the film. 126m. John Cho, Ben Cross, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Winona Ryder, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Anton Yelchin, Eric Bana, Leonard Nimoy. Music by Michael Giacchino. Written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman. Directed by J.J. Abrams.
Watchmen 2009 An unusual superhero film, Watchmen follows a recent string of films exploring the darker side of being a superhero. When one of the watchmen is brutally murdered, the others begin to reconnect after years apart. The film sports interesting characters and is very successful in showing the lonely, superhero life. Lengthy - and often gruesome - montages are so frequent, the film begins to feel more like a string of music videos. This is an odd critique, but volume inconsistencies were so bad that I kept the remote in hand so that I could hear dialog and not go deaf during action. The majority of the film is told through flashbacks, with mainly dialogue happening in the present, resulting in very little dramatic tension. The final forty minutes of the film finally builds some direction and momentum which, unfortunately, leads to a weak ending. While it is an interesting glimpse into the darker side of humanity, the film's action and suspense was surprisingly unengaging. 163m. Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Carla Gugino, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Patrick Wilson. Music by Tyler Bates. Written by David Hayter, Alex Tse. Directed by Zach Snyder.