Review: ‘Ninja Assassin,’ Starring Terrible CGI

Gabe Toro — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:04:00 +0000

Filled with a whole bunch of plot that narrows down to, “This guy’s gotta punch that guy and then it’s over!” and dragged down by a series of dour, ineffectual performances, “Ninja Assassin” is an old fashioned load of crap from beginning to end. There’s nothing to hold onto — the characters’ relationships are perfunctory, the action is impossible to follow, and there’s zero thematic resonance. It’s not that poorly made, per se — James McTeigue knows how to use a camera — but is depressingly bland and unoriginal.

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Does Every Generation Deserve It’s Own ‘Cliffhanger’? Neal Moritz Remakes Sylvester Stallone’s Eighth Most Popular Movie

Gabe Toro — Fri, 15 May 2009 22:37:00 +0000

What’s the ceiling on a mid-level, 90’s-style action film gross? We’d say the ceiling was set pretty definitively by 1993’s “Cliffhanger,” one of the better “Die Hard On A ” variants that set the tone for the last pre-CG era of action filmmaking in which outsized personalities like Sylvester Stallone took precedence over flashy effects. The film took in $84 million in America, but more than doubled that overseas. Like many mid-nineties action pictures, it generated a large profit without ever really tapping into the cultural zeitgeist.

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Review: ‘Ninja Assassin,’ Starring Terrible CGI

Does Every Generation Deserve It’s Own ‘Cliffhanger’? Neal Moritz Remakes Sylvester Stallone’s Eighth Most Popular Movie