In 2003, Marvel wasn’t a Universe and movie special effects weren’t scarily surreal. Those are two reasons “Daredevil” misses the mark, but they’re more like excuses. Nobody had to make the writing so ham-fisted and nobody had to make Ben Affleck a ridiculously computer-aided cross between Batman and Spiderman. Jennifer Garner’s Elektra is reduced to sugarless eye candy and Colin Farrell’s Bullseye comes off as some kind of crazy Irish Andre Agassi. And the courtroom scenes (Affleck’s a lawyer by day) are as preposterous as the special effects. Hopefully, he didn’t represent himself when he divorced Garner in real life.
Archives for posts with tag: Jennifer Garner
Garry Marshall died a few months after the release of “Mother’s Day” (2016) and I can assure you, he took no sitcom-style plot conventions with him to the grave. They’re all here: the younger and sexier second wife, the wacky parents, the sassy black friend, the wedding scene, the hospital scene, the graveyard scene. He did everything but have Fonzie jump a shark again. But that was Marshall’s gift. He could take boilerplate romantic comedy material and pan fry it in enough schmaltz to clog an artery, yet it would always come out satisfying (not great, satisfying). It’s cinematic comfort food.
It was hard to review “Draft Day” (2014). I don’t even know what it was supposed to be. A two-hour infomercial for the official car, truck, pizza, cellphone and television network(s) of the NFL? An NFL propaganda piece to overdramatize the annual college player draft so that it becomes completely untethered to reality? A star vehicle to prove that Kevin Costner can still bang actresses half his age? This movie is so preposterous, so implausible, so convoluted, so overwrought, so overacted, it became slightly entertaining. Like a car wreck. But with clown cars. Full of football players. And Jennifer Garner.
100wordreviews 