Weekend Movies: Gimme a Break

If last week had a congested slate of new movie releases, this weekend offers slim pickings.

Today’s only wide release looks like the love child of ‘Van Helsing‘ and ‘Underworld‘ – which is definitely not a good thing. Aaron Eckhart plays author Mary Shelley’s iconic monster, the creation of Dr. Frankenstein, in ‘I, Frankenstein‘. Set in modern times, two breeds of evil creatures wage a war against one another and Frankenstein’s immortal monster has to stop it. I imagine that the fate of the world rests in his hands, but can’t say for certain because Lionsgate isn’t exactly going out of the way to hold screenings for this little gem. I like the idea of a good anti-hero, but one based on Frankenstein’s monster is just silly. May God have mercy on your soul should you actually pay to see this, for I feel the sucker’s punishment is immortal damnation.

‘I, Frankenstein’ offers the second round in the director’s chair for former screenwriter Stuart Beattie, whose first film, ‘Tomorrow, When the War Began’, was a much better ‘Red Dawn’ remake than the actual ‘Red Dawn’ remake. What’s up with this Beattie guy? Does he have a stipulation in his contract that each of his movies must have a needless comma in the middle of its title?

Roadside Attractions is releasing the drama ‘Gimme Shelter‘ on 384 screens. Despite the title, no, this is not a film about the Rolling Stones. Vanessa Hudgens plays a pregnant teen who can’t live with her estranged father and doesn’t want to live with her abusive mother, so she takes to the streets until she makes friends with a seemingly nice stranger. Until now, I’d never heard anything about ‘Gimme Shelter’ – which I’m sure Robert Redford would blame Roadside Attractions for – but it co-stars Rosario Dawson, James Earl Jones and Brendan Fraser.

Opening on an unnumbered quantity of screenings is ‘Knights of Badassdom‘, a comedic fantasy adventure flick from the director of ‘Wrong Turn 2‘. The movie stars a ‘True Blood’ actor Ryan Kwanten and co-stars Peter Dinklage, Steve Zahn and Summer Glau as a group of LARPers who accidentally open the gates of Hell and have to fight real forces of evil. While the plot sounds like it has some potential, I still have a bad taste in my mouth from ‘Unicorn City’. Haven’t heard of it? Look it up. I’m sure we’re getting more of the same.

3 comments

  1. EM

    The comment about the commas being needless betrays a deplorable ignorance of punctuation grammar, shocking in an alleged professional writer. I pity Josh for the thankless ministrations he must be heaping over these articles.

      • EM

        I like the titles, but they may be too pretentious for the actual movies they adorn. I don’t remember hearing of this Tomorrow film before, but I, Frankenstein sounds like a nifty concept gone horribly yet quite predictably wrong.

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