Many of my reviews are facetious, but “Man On Fire” (2004) is too good to deserve that. It’s also too dark for some people to like or understand. I think that says more about those people than about the movie itself. It’s beautiful and ugly, jarring and tender, bloody and ethereal. Denzel Washington, an alcoholic former (CIA?) assassin, turns up in Mexico. His paramilitary buddy, Christopher Walken, helps him get a job as a little girl’s bodyguard, setting off a story of vengeance, amorality, justice and classic movie lines. Forgiveness? That’s God’s job. Denzel’s just there to arrange the meeting.
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Underdog Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards beat the odds to make history as an Olympic ski jumper. It’s a sweet story. All the makings for a movie. Unfortunately, movies can’t leave well enough alone. Instead of just sweet, “Eddie the Eagle” (2016) gets infused with high fructose corn syrup, emulsifiers and xanthan gum (whatever that is). Eddie’s unique story gets refabricated to resemble every other formulaic sports movie ever made, with the pep talks, speeches, father-son conflict, the coach with something to prove, the horny fraulein manager at the biergarten, blah, blah, blah. (Wait! What? Before the blah, blah, blah part.)
To understand the Michael Keaton “Batman” movies, you have to understand the context. Our generation was most familiar with Adam West Batman and wasn’t as interested in comic books as today’s geeks. In that context, Michael Keaton’s Batman is truly “dark” and “Batman Returns” (1992) is not all that bad. But does “Batman Returns,” Danny DeVito’s Penguin or Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman stand the test of time? Absolutely not. At this point, this movie only has value to students of Batman movies and geeks who want to say they saw every Batman movie (which might be one in the same person).
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