Author: Jason Zingale

Arnold is back. A dozen years after the blockbuster release of “T2: Judgment Day,” Arnold Schwarzenegger has yet to make one solid action film. Hoping to temporarily line his pockets again, he’s decided to return for a third Terminator installment, “Rise of the Machines.” Regrettably, “T3” is really just “T2” minus the testosterone injected Linda Hamilton, the classic directorial style of James Cameron and a fresh, original idea. After his first encounter with the Terminator 10 years before, John Conner (Nick Stahl) now lives “off the grid” with no ties to telephone records or other electronic databases used to track…

Although director Danny Boyle’s (“Trainspotting”) new film “28 Days Later” was released nearly a year ago in the U.K., and available on bootleg months before the U.S. release, it is still a fresh summer entry. It’s also hard to call this a zombie film because the monsters in this movie aren’t really zombies, but Doyle truly reinvents the horror genre with this intellectually political and intensely horrifying film. “28 Days Later” begins with four activists freeing from a secret lab test chimps that are contaminated with an artificially constructed disease referred to as “rage.” True to the film’s title, 28…

The Incredible Hulk may be the latest superhero to make the jump to the big screen, but he’s probably going to disappoint more than a few fans this summer – namely because he isn’t so much a superhero as he is a psychiatrist’s worst nightmare. The supposed action blockbuster doesn’t even belong in the same class as the likes of “Spider-Man” and “X-Men,” because even though Ang Lee’s psycho-dramatic portrayal of the big green machine is certainly a unique direction to take, it’s ultimately not what the fanboys were expecting. “Hulk” isn’t a complete failure, but when it takes nearly…

There’s nothing like a fun, buddy cop film to help string together the blockbuster releases of the summer, and “Hollywood Homicide” brings the goods when director Ron Shelton combines the downplayed comedy of Harrison Ford with the fresh talent, Josh Hartnett. Ford stars as Joe Gavilan, a veteran detective who has just been assigned a new partner, K.C. Calden (Hartnett), in the murder of a four-man rap group just beginning to hit it big. While on the case, the two also help one another with their own problems of personal growth; Gavilan is trying to break into the real estate…

Racing into theaters even faster than most sequels based on runaway hits, “2 Fast 2 Furious” welcomes an almost entirely new cast (not to mention a new director in John Singleton) for a film that actually isn’t as bad as you might expect, even without the presence of breakout star Vin Diesel. The only familiar face here is Paul Walker, returning as Brian O’Connor, now an ex-cop after letting Diesel’s Dominic Toretto get away at the end of “The Fast and the Furious.” With his police career in the dump, Brian has since moved to Miami where he street races…

It’s hard to imagine it was ever going to live up to the original, but the 2003 update of “The Italian Job” – which will likely send remake haters into a rabid frenzy – isn’t nearly as bad as many were expecting. In fact, it’s actually pretty good. Loosely based on the 1969 Michael Caine film of the same name, director F. Gary Gray has crafted a fun summer film packed with action, comedy, and a talented ensemble cast. Mark Wahlberg stars as Charlie Croker, a master thief who, along with the help of his crew – inside man Steve…

“Charlie’s Angels” may have been one of the worst film ideas in history. Fortunately for the movie, it had an energetic director and an explosive cast (all the way down to the supporting roles) to make this first TV-to-film outing a complete success. Taking place after the original “Charlie’s Angels” TV series, the audience is introduced to three new Angels, a trio that favors martial arts instead of guns while still holding true to the classic Angel persona, selecting three beautifully unique actresses to serve the tastes of all men. Natalie (Cameron Diaz) is the pretty but dorky blonde bombshell,…

Sitting down in the theater this past weekend to watch Jim Carrey’s new comedy “Bruce Almighty,” I was excited to finally see Carrey perform some of the old-school comedy that first propelled him into superstardom many years ago. Unfortunately, this latest film is dominated less by real humor and more by the script’s dramatic angle, which manages to transform “Bruce Almighty” into just another sappy romantic comedy. Bruce Nolan (Carrey) is a mediocre news reporter who’s constantly assigned fluff pieces that are overshadowed by the more important stories delivered by Bruce’s nemesis, Evan Baxter (Steve Carell, formerly from Comedy Central’s…

Fans of “The Matrix” will be very pleased. The second installment of the groundbreaking trilogy from the Wachowski brothers lives up to all the hype and sets the stage for the climax later this year with the third and final chapter. At the end of the original film we learned that Neo (Keanu Reeves) was in fact “the One” who would lead the fight to free the humans from the Matrix and the grip of the machines. In “Reloaded,” we see Neo at the height of his powers as he truly becomes the master of the Matrix and a cult…

Comic books have made immensely successful jumps to the big screen with the releases of both “X-Men” and “Spider-Man” the past few years. Now Marvel is expanding its film universe with last February’s “Daredevil” and this summer’s release of “The Hulk.” While the increase in movies and characters is always a good thing for film and comic fans alike, sometimes all we need is a reminder of how good the first films were. Director Bryan Singer gives us this with “X2: X-Men United,” a bigger and better sequel to the 2000 original. Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is still journeying through Canada…