Movie Review: After The Hunt (2025)

Genre: Drama  

Director: Luca Guadagnino  

Starring: Julia Roberts, Ayo Edibiri, Andrew Garfield, Michael Stuhlbarg, Chloe Sevigny  

Running Time: 139 minutes  

Synopsis: Alma Imhoff (Julia Roberts) is a well-respected philosophy professor at Yale University. Married to Frederick (Michael Stuhlbarg), she is in a friendly competition with fellow professor Hank Gibson (Andrew Garfield) to secure a tenured position, and their relationship is at least flirtatious. Black post-graduate student Maggie (Ayo Edibiri) is the daughter of important donors, and harbours a crush on Alma. When Maggie reveals that Hank sexually assaulted her, careers are threatened, generational fissures are exposed, and long-held secrets re-emerge.

What Works Well: This drama dives into the deep end of the campus cesspool, where multiple culture clashes encompass the generational divide, racial tension, sexual misconduct, faculty rivalries, and plagiarism. The overlapping crises disrupt a pretention-packed intellectual salon, and Julia Roberts allows Alma to navigate an uncharted path with a mixture of courage, fumbles, and outspokenness.

What Does Not Work As Well: The intentionally dark and muddy visual aesthetic reflects moral murkiness, but is nevertheless suffocating. Within an already odious liberal arts academic milieu, misguided self-obsession combines with false entitlement to classify all the characters as insufferable. The music score is gimmicky, the running time 30 minutes too long, and even within the frame of no easy answers, plenty of loose plot ends are left hanging.

Key Quote:

Maggie: I don't feel comfortable having this conversation with you anymore.

Alma: Not everything is supposed to make you comfortable, Maggie. 

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Movie Review: The Mexican (2001)

Genre: Crime Adventure  

Director: Gore Verbinski  

Starring: Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, James Gandolfini, J.K. Simmons, Bob Balaban, Gene Hackman  

Running Time: 123 minutes  

Synopsis: In Los Angeles, bungling thief Jerry (Brad Pitt) is dispatched by his boss Bernie (Bob Balaban) south of the border to secure "the Mexican", a precious antique gun. Jerry's girlfriend Sam (Julia Roberts) is tired of being ignored and heads to Las Vegas, but is soon kidnapped and held hostage by tough guy Leroy (James Gandolfini) as a bargaining chip in case Jerry goes rogue. In Mexico, Jerry tangles with local thieves seeking the same prize, and is eventually joined by Ted (J.K. Simmons), another member of Bernie's gang. Back in Vegas, Sam and Leroy get to know each other.

What Works Well: The unexpected bond between a goon and his victim emerges at the heart of a sprawling plot, with J.H. Wyman's script encouraging James Gandolfini to explore a henchman's surprising vulnerability. The different versions of a flashback to the legendary gun's early history are delightful mini faux-epics teasing out the unreliability of oral histories. Overall, the Mexico scenes benefit from gritty locations complemented by an Alan Silvestri music score playfully interpreting Ennio Morricone. Brad Pitt provides Jerry with a pleasing amiability, and Gene Hackman shows up with a late contribution to inject authority.

What Does Not Work As Well: In an example of more is less, the running time drags, false endings give way to more false endings, and new characters are introduced too late to properly contribute, all resulting in a loss of coherence. While Roberts' scenes with Gandolfini are excellent, the script unfortunately reduces Sam to tiresome manic screaming whenever Jerry is within earshot, a complete waste of a dream Hollywood star pairing.

Conclusion: Ragged and undisciplined, but still contains many sparkling moments.

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Movie Review: Leave The World Behind (2023)

Genre: Survival Drama

Director: Sam Esmail

Starring: Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke, Kevin Bacon

Running Time: 141 minutes

Synopsis: Stressed out New Jersey couple Amanda and Clay (Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke) book a family weekend getaway at a secluded Long Island house-for-rent. A day at the beach with their kids Rose and Archie is interrupted by an out-of-control oil tanker, then the internet and television signals mysteriously fail. In the middle of the night, the tuxedoed G.H. (George) Scott (Mahershala Ali) and his daughter Ruth (Myha'la) knock at the door, with George claiming to be the home owner, as evidence mounts of strange events occurring at a large scale.

What Works Well: The adaptation of Rumaan Alam's book (and a good companion piece to 2015's Into The Forest) slowly but surely builds sinister momentum at personal and global levels. From the racial tension of two unknown blacks intruding late at night onto a white family's perceived sanctuary, to broader societal cracks giving way under external pressure, director and writer Sam Esmail constructs a portrait of psychological and physical fragility. A tick, a drone, a vague but persistent emergency signal, and a piercing sonic assault are joined by larger catastrophes - beware the driverless Teslas! - to signal the end and the beginning. Esmail's directing is full of top-down flourish, and while Julia Roberts and Mahershala Ali never need to stretch, they do add the necessary intellectual and psychological touches.

What Does Not Work As Well: Without demystifying the premise, the long running time should have accommodated sharper event interpretations. The metaphysical involvement of animals (primarily deer and flamingos) is only tangentially resolved, and some character actions (a kid setting off alone into a strange house) and event resolutions (just take those blue pills for a seemingly horrifying ailment) stretch credibility.

Conclusion: Weekend getaways may just be gateways to much heightened anxiety.

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Movie Review: Ticket To Paradise (2022)

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Director: Ol Parker

Starring: George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Kaitlyn Dever

Running Time: 104 minutes

Synopsis: Divorced couple David and Georgia Cotton (George Clooney and Julia Roberts) are aghast when their daughter Lily (Kaitlyn Dever) chucks her legal career aspirations and decides to marry Gede (Maxime Bouttier), a Bali-based seaweed farmer. The bickering exes rush to Indonesia and concoct a plan to undermine Lily's wedding, with Georgia's current lover Paul (Lucas Bravo), a suave airline pilot, in close pursuit.

What Works Well: George Clooney and Julia Roberts bring plenty of star power to an otherwise routine rom-com, and Kaitlyn Dever is a winsome bride-to-be discovering there is more to life than the corporate ladder. Director Ol Parker captures pristine Indonesian landscapes in rich colours.

What Does Not Work As Well: Old fashioned sensibilities frequently border on trite, as the plot rides a linear path with stops at all the foregone conclusions. The humour rarely rises above juvenile incidents (including a dolphin encounter, a snake bite, resort room confusion, and an accidental headbutt). Billie Lourd as Lily's best friend is underused, and the movie all too often resembles an Indonesian tourist infomercial.

Conclusion: Harmless and weightless.



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Movie Review: Larry Crowne (2011)

A harmless romantic comedy, Larry Crowne is filled with good people overcoming familiar crises. The film bobbles sideways rather than ever moving forward.

In Los Angeles, middle aged and divorced Larry Crowne (Tom Hanks) is a dedicated and good natured employee at a big-box store. A 20-year Navy veteran (where he served as a cook), Larry was never promoted to the front office due his lack of a college degree, and now he is shocked to be laid off.

Determined to improve his education, Larry enrolls in language and economics courses at a local college, where he meets Mercy Tainot (Julia Roberts), the demotivated teacher of an english communications class. Larry also buys a scooter to save on gas money, finds a job as a diner cook, and befriends popular student Talia (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), who introduces him to her scooter-riding friends. Mercy is stuck in a failing marriage and has lost her passion for teaching, but gradually she warms up to Larry.

Two of Hollywood's all-time most popular stars team-up for a pleasant-enough romance. Tom Hanks directs himself and co-wrote the script with Nia Vardalos, and they keep the plot free of villains, contrived complications, or silly misunderstandings. Larry's world is instead filled with nice people navigating the ups and downs of life. The scooter represents the perfect summary of the narrative intentions: pragmatic and docile fun. The background context has Larry dealing with a life-at-a-crossroads moment, his lack of a college education and the breakdown of his marriage combining to drop him into an economic storm. Mercy is grappling with a smoldering wreck of a marriage, whatever potential her writer husband Dean (Bryan Cranston) once had now being consumed by an online porn habit. 

Both Hanks and Roberts can play these roles in their sleep, and Hanks as director allows himself to overplay the perpetually befuddled mannerisms of a mature student in a college full of kids. Gugu Mbatha-Raw provides a positive spark, as Talia takes the old guy under her wing and helps him scrape off some of the accumulated moss.

A classy supporting cast brightens the peripheries, and includes Cedric the Entertainer as Lamar, Larry's friend, neighbour, and brilliant yard sale entrepreneur. Taraji P. Henson is Lamar's wife, Pam Grier is another college teacher, and Rami Malek is an animated student in Mercy's class. The best comic moments are provided by George Takei as Dr. Ed Matsutani, a college professor somehow combining arrogance, compassion, and a maniacal laugh.

The peak moment of tension is limited to a drunken smooch between teacher and student, embarrassing them both before the fog lifts and the path is cleared for the requisite happy ending. Larry Crowne rides his scooter on a straight and narrow path, seeking only the amiable stops.



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Movie Review: Conspiracy Theory (1997)

An semi-serious action thriller, Conspiracy Theory piles on the escapades but skimps on the the foundations.

In New York City, taxi driver Jerry Fletcher (Mel Gibson) is a paranoid conspiracy theorist. He also has a crush on Justice Department lawyer Alice Sutton (Julia Roberts), who is still grieving the murder of her father, a judge. After Jerry publishes his latest conspiracy theory newsletter and mails it to a subscription list of five people, he is suddenly apprehended and tortured by government-type goons led by the mysterious Dr. Jonas (Patrick Stewart). Jerry escapes and connects with Alice for help. She gets caught up in his crazy world and tries to decipher what is going on in his frazzled brain, as multiple assassination attempts are made on his life.

Conspiracy Theory provides jaunty, non-stop entertainment with a glib attitude. It is also frustratingly shallow. Despite a running length of 135 minutes, writer Brian Helgeland take an awful long time to reveal a coherent plot line, and then proceed to bungle it. The main conspiracy apparently swirls around a never-seen dead person, a never-seen defendant, and a never-seen assassin, all linked to a secret defunct government program. Director Richard Donner omits actually showing any of the events that define the plot, and instead Mel Gibson's Jerry blurts out the jumbled details a few minutes before the closing credits.

Otherwise, the movie is a long series of chases and escapes interspersed with Jerry's conspiratorial ramblings. Donner assembles the action scenes with welcome coherence, and injects the right doses of madcap humour to relieve the intensity. The presence of Gibson and Julia Roberts injects star power, but cannot help the lack of narrative discipline. Gibson brings a shifty manic energy to the role, and Roberts does enough to avoid decorative status. Patrick Stewart delivers a prototypical villain with some inspiration from Laurence Olivier. 

Jerry's trundled flight from a torture chamber while strapped to a wheelchair is a highlight, and other good moments are found in his cramped apartment, a showcase for a runaway mind demanding locks on coffee cans inside a locked refrigerator. It's no surprise but still delightful that Jerry anticipates an intrusion and plans a comprehensive self-destruct procedure. Conspiracy Theory does not dwell on logical impetus, but does enjoy the resultant rational madness. 



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Movie Review: Secret In Their Eyes (2015)

An investigative crime drama and romance, Secret In Their Eyes boasts a spectacular cast but is needlessly complicated and coldly uninvolving.

Ex-FBI Agent Ray Kasten (Chiwetel Ejiofor) returns to Los Angeles and reconnects with former colleagues Claire Sloan (Nicole Kidman), now the District Attorney, and Agent Jess Cobb (Julia Roberts). Ray is seeking Claire's permission to pursue a man called Marzin (Joe Cole), a suspect in an unsolved murder with a personal connection to Ray and Jess. Flashbacks reveal events from 13 years prior. In the shadow of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Ray and Jess are tasked with monitoring a mosque-based cell, where their colleague Agent Siefert (Michael Kelly) is running an informant. Ray is also attracted to Claire, a lawyer newly appointed to the Los Angeles office. 

The surveillance operation is disrupted when Jess's daughter Crystal is murdered and suspicion falls on Marzin, a member of the mosque community revealed to be Siefert's snitch. District Attorney Morales (Alfred Molina) prioritizes counter-terrorism ahead of solving the murder, leaving Ray frustrated and Jess disillusioned. Now more than a decade later Ray is back for another attempt at capturing Marzin, and he also rekindles his relationship with Claire.

Secret In Their Eyes has too much going on, and also not enough. Billy Ray directs his own script, and while the ambition to cast a personal quest against seminal events is apparent, this is a muddled story always emphasizing the wrong thing. With a backdrop of history's worst terrorist atrocity and then the murder of an FBI agent's daughter, the stuttering romance between Ray and Claire repeatedly gets in the way. She is a cool, cold and calculating lawyer, he is a scrappy field agent, the chemistry never materializes, but Ray keeps on trying.

Meanwhile Julia Roberts finds herself deglamourized and shoved to a background role. Little is revealed about Jess and less is known about her murdered daughter, leaving an emotional void around the central mystery obsessing Ray for 13 years. Marzin as a generic and ill-defined bad guy adds to the impressive blankness.

The constant time jumps make matters worse. Only minor hairstyle changes help differentiate the scenes in the present from those in the past, and with Ray pursuing Marzin in both timeframes, it is often confusing to keep track. And even the action scenes are a let down. On multiple occasions Ray gets close to Marzin, triggering routine confrontations with the same outcome, investigative work undone by operational ineptitude.

Ejiofor, Kidman and Roberts are never less than watchable, but Secret In Their Eyes is a tractionless waste of talent.



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Movie Review: My Best Friend's Wedding (1997)

A mean-spirited romantic comedy, My Best Friend's Wedding wastes the star power of Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz on unfunny and unromantic drivel.

New York restaurant critic Julianne (Roberts) broke up with sports writer Michael (Dermot Mulroney) nine years ago and they became best friends. Secretly she remains in love with him but terrified of committing to anyone. Now Michael calls from Chicago to invite Julianne to his upcoming wedding to college student Kimmy (Diaz), a seemingly perfect soul mate who comes from a wealthy family.

Julianne travels to Chicago with every intention of sabotaging the wedding. She meets Kimmy and finds her sweet, loving and dedicated to Michael. Nevertheless Julianne tries to create a wedge around Kimmy's planned sacrifices for Michael's on-the-road career. When Julianne's efforts misfire, she calls her gay friend George (Rupert Everett) for help, but he will not necessarily support her devious intentions.

Despite the expected glossy production values, My Best Friend's Wedding never shifts into gear. Writer Ronald Bass attempts to subvert the genre my placing sweetheart Julia Roberts in the despicable role of breaking up a wedding, and the results are as expected: a selfish, hostile and dark soul as the supposed protagonist, sucking all joy out of the film.

In her rush to destroy the happy couple Julianne sprints past rash and into pure dumb territory, never once pausing to reflect on the type of relationship she may have with Michael should she succeed in ruining his perfect day. And it's not as though Michael is presented as any sort of prize. In Dermot Mulroney's hands the beau is a bland open-mouthed shell of a man, providing no clues why women like Julianne and Kimmy would fall for him. The vacuum at the core creates an opening for Rupert Everett as George to ride in and almost save the day, Julianne and George inadvertently emerging as the real best friends.

With no wit to be found in the script, director P.J. Hogan resorts to repetitive and elemental physical comedy from the trip-and-fall category, even trudging out the let's-all-run-after-each-other trick. Elsewhere, a karaoke session and a restaurant sing-along both start with promise but are then over-played. 

My Best Friend's Wedding should be cancelled due to lack of effort, heart and soul.



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Movie Review: Stepmom (1998)

A family drama, Stepmom barely rises above rudimentary levels, wasting a stellar cast on a listless and unfocused script.

New York City fashion photographer Isabel Kelly (Julia Roberts) is the new live-in lover of attorney Luke Harrison (Ed Harris), but struggles to connect with his two children, 12 year old Anna (Jena Malone) and the younger Ben. The kids are still attached to their mother Jackie (Susan Sarandon), a former book editor who can barely contain her disdain and resentment towards the younger Isabel.

Luke attempts to maintain the peace, but Anna is not interested in evolving a relationship with Isabel, and Jackie uses every opportunity to disrespect her husband's new lover. But Luke is determined to marry Isabel, while Jackie receives health news that will alter her life.

Stretching for an interminable 125 minutes and with a schmaltzy John Williams music score over-amplifying the sentimentality at every opportunity, Stepmom steps into a pile of television-level drivel despite movie superstar talent. Christopher Columbus sleepwalks through directing duties as a wayward script steers in every wrong direction, five different writers adding layers of clutter.

The film cannot sustain cohesive focus, starting with a title that refer to no character since Isabel is not even married to Luke. The story initially settles on her struggle to gain the kids' respect, but that idea is abandoned with Julia Roberts effectively sidelined as suddenly a disease enters the picture. Stepmom becomes all about the original mom endlessly prolonging aversion towards her replacement while a death-in-slow-motion narrative extends forever.

Roberts and Sarandon cannot help but rise way above the material, and together they maintain a basic level of watchability despite the wash-dry cycle of cliches their characters suffer through. In an early role Jena Malone is also much better than the film as a woman-in-the-making caught in an emotional purgatory between mother and stepmom-to-be. Her scenes exploring the evolving dynamic with Roberts are among the few bright spots, and Stepmom would have been much stronger investing in that fertile territory.

Instead the film goes for cheap tears and creates a moist mess.

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Movie Review: Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind (2002)

A biography contaminated by an attention-seeking juvenile imagination, Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind undermines itself with frivolous distractions.

It's the early 1980s and Chuck Barris (Sam Rockwell) is despondent and holed-up in a New York hotel room, refusing to open the door for long-term girlfriend Penny (Drew Barrymore). He starts writing his memoirs, chronicling his often futile pursuit of women. By the late 1950s television is a burgeoning industry and Chuck conceives of The Dating Game, although the networks initially reject the idea. He finds domestic bliss with Penny but refuses to consider marriage.

Chuck's memoirs also contain a fictional narrative about his life as a CIA-trained Cold War assassin. Recruited by the mysterious Byrd (George Clooney), Barris is assigned targets in various European cities, and meets fellow agents Patricia (Julia Roberts) and Keeler (Rutger Hauer). When The Dating Game finally takes off, Chuck uses his chaperon cover to complete his CIA missions. An assignment goes wrong in West Berlin, but Chuck finds huge success with a string of tacky television shows.

Chuck Barris left an imprint on the world of cheap television catering to the lowest common denominator and helping create a foundation for the later abominations of reality TV. Despite a seemingly boorish and self-absorbed personality he may provide the basis for an interesting story, but it's not on display in Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind.

First-time director George Clooney adapts Barris' autobiographical book but keeps all the hokum about a double-life as a secret agent. Big chunks of the film are therefore preoccupied with an alternative fictional reality, but unlike compelling dramas like A Beautiful Mind, Barris' fantasies dangle as unaddressed vestiges of a troubled psyche, cratering his real story. Meanwhile, his actual life is dealt with in a perfunctory manner, Clooney and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman unable to colour in the man behind the garish shows.

Clooney overcompensates with an infusion of style, the assassination scenes underlining fictionality with a combination of absurd humour and film noir shadings. Meanwhile Sam Rockwell throws himself into the role, fractured and frenzied as it is, in a performance that cries out for more narrative depth and less superficial glitz. Julia Roberts and Rutger Hauer add star power but are wasted in stock secret agent characterizations.

Barris may have had a mind dangerous to himself and to unsuspecting cultural victims of his television shows, but his so-called confessions are best forgotten.

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Movie Review: Runaway Bride (1999)

A middling romantic comedy, Runaway Bride reteams Julia Robert and Richard Gere with surprisingly lacklustre results.

Without any fact checking, New York newspaper columnist Homer "Ike" Graham (Gere) writes a dismissive piece about a woman called Maggie Carpenter who has apparently left a succession of men stranded at the altar. He is fired for sloppy reporting, but a magazine editor offers him a chance to pursue the real story.

Ike travels to the quaint small town of Hale, Maryland, and finds Maggie (Roberts) engaged to be married to football coach Bob Kelly (Christopher Meloni), her fourth attempt to get hitched. Her three previous engagements did indeed end with her fleeing the wedding ceremony. As a result of her romantic misadventures, all caught on video, Maggie is a local punchline, with her family joking about her exploits at every opportunity. After initially resenting Ike's intrusion into her life, a romance blossoms between them, much to Bob's disappointment.

After the success of 1990's Pretty Woman, reconnecting Julia Roberts with Richard Gere in another Garry Marshall-directed romantic comedy must have been considered a fail safe idea. But while the stars provide the necessary energy for Runaway Bride, the sparks just don't fly as may have been expected. The story is competent and strives for some level of originality within the confines of the genre, but overall the film just ambles along in safe and predictable territory.

The blame for the missing fireworks needs to be shared. Roberts marginally overacts her way through the film, never settling down into any kind of comfort zone as a real person. Gere oscillates awkwardly between cavalier newspaperman and dreamy romantic. The script by Josann McGibbon and Sara Parriott lacks wit and cutting edge, while Marshall allows the film to bloat to an unnecessary 116 minutes.

The secondary cast members do their best to enliven proceedings. Meloni as Maggie's latest experiment in love, using trite football coaching tactics to help her over the line, is joined by Joan Cusack as Maggie's grounded best friend and Paul Dooley as her frequently inebriated dad. Rita Wilson and Héctor Elizondo lend further depth and talent.

Runaway Bride tries to reach for some weightier conversations about knowing yourself before committing to couplehood, but any profound statements are well beyond the capabilities of all involved. This bride is just content to gallop across nondescript fields.

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Movie Review: Ben Is Back (2018)

A drama about a mother and her son coping with the consequences of his drug-addicted past, Ben Is Back explores the substance abuse crisis through one family's trauma.

On Christmas Eve, Ben Burns (Lucas Hedges) suddenly reappears at his family's suburban home. He is supposed to be at a drug rehabilitation centre, but claims his sponsor allowed him the visit due to the good progress he is making. Ben's mother Holly (Julia Roberts) is delighted to have her son back for the Holidays; his sister Ivy (Kathryn Newton) and stepdad Neal (Courtney B. Vance) are more circumspect.

Holly keeps close watch on Ben, insisting on a drug test, accompanying him to the mall for some last minute shopping, and tagging along to a support meeting. Although Ben appears to be genuinely trying to leave his troubled past behind, small incidents shake her trust. When the family returns home to a vandalized house and their dog missing, Ben and Holly set off into the night to try and make things right. She is exposed to her son's secret world of drug addiction, dealing, and crime.

Directed and written by Lucas' father Peter Hedges, Ben Is Back examines the damage caused by addiction from the perspective of mother and son. The intimate scope allows the seemingly insurmountable problem to be probed at a human scale, the psyche of two people serving as gateways. Within an efficient 103 minutes the film takes place over less than 24 hours around Christmas Eve, Hedges using the time of family gatherings to emphasize the season of joy's dark side.

Themes of lost trust, blind love and not giving up permeate the film. Holly and Neal allow Ben to stay for one day as long he agrees to remain under Holly's eagle-eyed supervision. Even then, a hushed conversation with a fellow-addict and the closed doors of the bathroom or the mall dressing room represent potential breaches of trust. Neither Holly nor Ben are sure they can believe anything he says, and every action and conversation is an awkward dance pregnant with the suspicions of past betrayals.

Nevertheless, Holly will not give up on her son, and she is not beyond stretching the truth and straining her own credibility to justify actions and cover tracks, even at the expense of eroding trust with Neal and Ivy. As the night goes on Holly is further exposed to all the horrors of Ben's past, and she doggedly stands by him, for better or for worse. Her lies and willingness to find excuses come from an admirable place of love, but are part of the ripple effect propagating societal damage.

Julia Roberts wears the film's heart on her sleeve, delivering a poignant performance filled to the brim with a mother's resolve. Lucas Hedges brings out the darkness behind a young man's troubled eyes, achieving the difficult feat of giving Ben humanity despite his propensity for connivance.

Intentionally uncomfortable, Ben Is Back lifts a corner of the curtain hiding the insidious epidemic eating away at the community fabric.

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Movie Review: Flatliners (1990)

A drama and thriller with some horror elements, Flatliners offers an intriguing premise and proceeds to bungle it with wayward execution.

At a prestigious medical school, Nelson (Kiefer Sutherland) is a student obsessed with exploring the death experience. He convinces his friends and classmates Rachel (Julia Roberts), David (Kevin Bacon), Joe (William Baldwin) and Randy (Oliver Platt) to participate in flatlining experiments, killing themselves with electric shocks for a few minutes before being revived with a defibrillator and CPR.

Nelson goes first, followed within days by David, Joe and Rachel, with each student prolonging the death stretch ever longer. The troubling visions they experience during their brief deaths are derived from their past and present lives, and continue to haunt them in the days after the experiments. Nelson, David and Rachel encounter figures from their childhoods, while the womanizing Joe confronts the consequences of his selfish actions.

Directed by Joel Schumacher, Flatliners is most notable for featuring a good collection of up-and-coming talent in the form of Sutherland, Roberts and Bacon. Despite the lack of adequate character depth, the often pouty star potential is potent, their hair carries flowy vestiges of the 1980s, and they collectively improve the film's otherwise ragged watchability factor.

The proposition around keen young medical students with Nobel Prize stars in their eyes eager to make a name for themselves by experiencing death and living to talk about it from a scientific perspective has the basis for a good film. Unfortunately, Schumacher and scriptwriter Peter Filardi lose their way early. Schumacher goes for a faux gothic aesthetic featuring gargoyles and a spooky old building under renovations where Nelson and his group set up shop to conduct their experiments. The decision to steer the film towards horror-lite territory is questionable, and displaces what was proclaimed as an intellectual pursuit.

And so the students one by one undergo the flatlining experience in increasingly repetitive scenes, and not once does Nelson follow through on his initial scientific quest to question, explore or discuss what it all means and where does science go with the visions experienced during death.

It is ironically left to sceptical and secular David to figure out some semblance of how to beat back the diabolical threats haunting the students after they return to life, in what proves to be a most tepid resolution about the need to seek absolution by confronting past misdeeds, real or imagined. Flatliners claims to seek inventive ideas, and ends up with lukewarm guilt leftovers.

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Movie Review: Wonder (2017)

A tender family drama about fitting in, Wonder is heartwarming and sweet, if at times too sugary.

August "Auggie" Pullman (Jacob Tremblay) was born with a genetic deformity resulting in hideously contorted facial features. A series of operations somewhat help, but Auggie is most comfortable wearing a toy space helmet in public. Now that Auggie is 10 years old, his mother Isabel (Julia Roberts) insists he needs to switch from homeschooling to join the public school system and adjust to being around other kids. His loving father Nate (Owen Wilson) and eternally patient sister Olivia "Via" (Izabela Vidovic) are tentatively supportive.

At school Auggie experiences the expected bullying, many stares, but also support and friendship, including from classmate Jack Will (Noah Jupe). The principal Mr. Tushman (Mandy Patinkin) does his best to provide a normal environment. Meanwhile Via is experiencing troubles of her own, as her best friend Miranda (Danielle Rose Russell) is suddenly and inexplicably aloof and distant.

Directed by Stephen Chbosky and based on the book by R. J. Palacio, Wonder resonates as an eternal story of fitting in. Auggie's challenge is his facial disfigurement, but it may as well be skin colour, ethnicity or sexual orientation. Wonder excels thanks to a well-rounded perspective. The film is not just about Auggie, but also about the family supporting him and the classmates and school eco-system adjusting to his presence, in good and bad ways.

For the most part, Chbosky keeps the emotions real, featuring as many ups as downs. The students in Auggie's classroom are a mix of curious, standoffish, bullies and potential friends, and Auggie has good days and bad days. The adults are refreshingly adult, although the parents of a bully show up late in the film as a reminder of how close the apple falls relative to the tree.

The focus on family dynamics is refreshing. Isabel is the mother who sacrificed everything to support her son, putting her career aspirations on hold in the process. Via is the daughter who had to make space - lots of space - upon the arrival of a younger brother with special needs. Her quiet acceptance of her status and the friendship she continues to offer to Auggie are among the film's highlights. Izabela Vidovic's tender performance is second only to Jacob Tremblay's affecting turn beneath all the make-up.

The film has time for a couple of sub-stories as well, including Auggie's first friend Jack and Via's former friend Miranda, but these narrative threads are less developed.

Wonder does eventually push every button and pull every lever in search of emotional highpoints, and Chbosky opts for plenty of syrup through multiple climaxes featuring a school play, a science project, and school year-end ceremony. While the repetitive crescendos flirt with the tedious line, the film's greatest achievement is in quickly allowing Auggie to be just a kid. He looks different, and thankfully, so does everyone.

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Movie Review: Erin Brockovich (2000)

Based on a true story, Erin Brockovich is a stirring drama about two struggles: one woman fights to redefine herself, and one suffering community takes on a big corporate polluter.

In the Los Angeles area, Erin Brockovich (Julia Roberts) is twice divorced and trying to raise three kids on her own. Desperate to find employment, she finally lands a filing clerk position at the ramshackle office of lawyer Edward Masry (Albert Finney) after he fails to secure compensation for her in a car accident case. At Masry's office Erin stumbles onto files related to the Pacific Gas and Electric Company and the small community of Hinkley. PG&E is attempting to quietly purchase the houses of many residents who appear to be suffering from various serious health ailments.

Erin takes it upon herself to personally investigate the case, and meets Donna Jensen (Marg Helgenberger) and her family to better understand their plight. She spends days digging up records at the local water authority office, and pieces together a soil and water contamination cover-up involving the dangerous chemical hexavalent chromium. Erin's personal, down-to-earth approach allows her to connect with more than 600 potential victims as the ramifications of the case grow into hundreds of millions of dollars, but all the hours at work are taking a toll on Erin's children and her latest boyfriend, next-door biker George (Aaron Eckhart).

Directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Susannah Grant, Erin Brockovich is a classic David versus Goliath story multiplied by two. Erin bulldozing her way into a respectable career against all odds plays out next to her efforts to win compensation for a tiny community from a behemoth corporation. Soderbergh makes both stories work in an engaging narrative that balances the deeply personal aspects of Erin's story with a high-stakes investigative drama about environmental maleficence.

The character of Erin is a huge part of the film's charm. Clobbered by life ever since she won a local beauty pageant, Erin has reached the stage of fighting back, and loudly. Unloading with profanity-laced tirades whenever she senses her rights being wronged, Erin is at once irrepressible, approachable and thorny. Insisting at all times on big hair, small skirts, uncomfortably high heels and either tight or transparent cleavage-revealing tops, the one thing she now refuses to do is fade away. Her scrappy attitude, persistence and street smarts make for a potent combination.

Julia Roberts brings Erin to life in an Academy Award winning performance. Roberts is not about one highlight scene or revealing profound depths of character. Rather, over the two hours of running time her portrayal focuses on capturing a real and uncompromising woman with all her faults, fears, strengths, and spirit. She dominates the film and never dips into sentimentality or victimhood.

Albert Finney provides the perfect foil as the veteran lawyer Edward Masry. Finney allows Masry to be Erin's opposing force, absorbing plenty of her flack and firing back with no shortage of his own understated venom. The two gradually work their way to becoming a formidable duo, her energy and his experience gelling into a powerful team.

The investigation into the soil and water contamination mystery remains admirably grounded in facts and legal process. Erin's truth-seeking efforts consist of unglamorous digging through files in government offices coupled with finding then talking to the victims to learn their affecting stories of disease and suffering. Gradually insiders and informers also step forward to provide key puzzle pieces. Soderbergh constructs the process of connecting the dots with a welcome pragmatism and avoids needless theatrics.

In keeping with the film's focus on reality, most of the tension comes from Erin trying to hold her personal life together as the case consumes every waking hour. Her relationship with her children suffers, and boyfriend George is reduced to an unhappy babysitter. Balancing kids, career and partner becomes a daring juggling act.

Erin Brockovich is a compelling drama about the individual and the collective, engaged in a common fight for recognition and respect.

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Movie Review: Notting Hill (1999)

A romantic comedy, Notting Hill is heavy on star power and ambiance, with enough moments of humour to help navigate an overlong running time.

International movie star Anna Scott (Julia Roberts) is in London to promote her latest film. She visits the bookstore owned and operated by the divorced Will Thacker (Hugh Grant) in the Notting Hill neighbourhood. After another accidental sidewalk encounter involving spilled orange juice, Anna and Will share a kiss and start a tentative low-key relationship. Will's eccentric roommate Spike (Rhys Ifans), his friends Max (Tim McInnerny) and Bella (Gina McKee), and his starstruck sister Honey (Emma Chambers) can barely believe what Will is up to.

But soon reality intervenes in the form of Anna's Hollywood boyfriend Jeff King (an uncredited Alec Baldwin), and Will gets on with his life. But Anna suddenly reappears at his apartment, seeking refuge from an exploding scandal involving pre-stardom nude pictures. Will has to decide whether a relationship with one of the most famous women in the world is worth the trouble.

With Roberts and Grant both close to their peak wattage as big screen stars, Notting Hill benefits from an endless supply of photogenic opportunities. Director Roger Michell adopts languid pacing, allowing the romance to blossom at a measured, almost hesitant speed, but more importantly always lingering on the attractive faces of his two leads for just a bit longer than each scene should allow.

The other star of the film is the community of Notting Hill, the film setting up in a trendy corner of London and making best use of a location less obstructed by tourist traps and enlivened by natural street activity and charming architecture.

The Roger Curtis script avoids many of the genre's worst traps. Will's competition for Anna's heart is not another man or a series of contrived misunderstandings. Rather, her status as one of the planet's most admired women sits uneasily with his reality as a modest store owner with quirky friends who sit around the table arguing about who has the saddest life. Straddling the divide between the manufactured glitz of Hollywood and the authenticity of everyday life is the challenge facing this romance.

Julia Roberts essentially plays herself and does a fine job. She generates plenty of apparently genuine down-to-earth emotion, but always allows room for the character of Anna to be in potentially acting mode. Hugh Grant reins in his roguish tendencies and stays well within himself while allowing the sensitivity of an often disappointed man to shine through.

After a couple of unnecessary machinations that push the running time past two hours, Notting Hill does end with the perfunctory madcap race-against-time for the two lovers to have their final encounter. It's a better-than-most romantic comedy, but it's still a romantic comedy.

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Movie Review: Mirror Mirror (2012)

A fantasy drama comedy aimed at a family audience, Mirror Mirror enjoys a unique, over-the-top fairy tale aesthetic and an enchanting Julia Roberts performance.

Snow White (Lily Collins) is the beautiful daughter of the kindly King (Sean Bean), a popular and benevolent leader. Unfortunately he disappears while riding through the forest, and his devious wife Queen Clementianna (Julia Roberts), who is also the narrator, takes over as ruler of the land. A vain woman obsessed with her beauty, Clementianna confines Snow White to one room and a darkness descends onto the land.

Prince Andrew Alcott (Armie Hammer) of Valencia tangles with the seven dwarves while riding through the forest and is rescued by Snow White, who is on an unsanctioned trip outside the palace. Clementianna sets her eyes on the handsome prince as marriage material, and arranges for her assistant Brighton (Nathan Lane) to kill Snow White. But Brighton does not have the heart to do so, Snow White takes refuge with the dwarves, and starts to plot her return to power.

Directed by Tarsem Singh, Mirror Mirror is an irreverent take on the Brothers Grimm Snow White story. Tangentially side-swiping the legend from the perspective of the evil Queen, here the dwarves are dirtier and edgier, they fight on stilts and teach Snow White battle tactics, and a power-hungry and lustful love triangle features mother-in-law and daughter.

While the plot does tilt more towards adult themes than children's fare, Singh entertains younger eyes with outlandish sets and ridiculous costumes. Despite a limited number of locations and what appears to be a confined and theatrical milieu, Mirror Mirror pops with colour, oversized hats, and inventive set design. The basics of the story may be well known, but the presentation is highly imaginative.

As the eyes absorb all the fantastical aesthetics, Roberts entertains the ear with snarky narration. Her take on the Queen is unapologetically manipulative, a satirical extrapolation of a culture obsessed with looks, fame, power and little else. By design, this is mostly the Queen's story, but Snow White is provided with some feminist steel in the second half of the film, choosing a warrior's costume, standing up to her rights, and going toe to toe in forest fights as she battles to win back her land and claim her man. Lily Collins does well in the role, infusing it with quiet confidence.

Mirror Mirror is a reimagining of a popular fairy tale; all the elements are familiar, but the warped reflection is reasonably enjoyable in its weirdness.

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Movie Review: Sleeping With The Enemy (1991)

A battered wife romance thriller, Sleeping With The Enemy carries the distinctive stink of a bad made-for-television production masquerading as a serious film.

Laura (Julia Roberts) is married to wealthy investment advisor Martin (Patrick Bergin), and they live in a gorgeous Cape Cod beachfront house. Martin is a possessive control freak who does not hesitate to physically abuse Laura, before showering her with gifts the next day. Fed up, Laura plots an escape involving faking her own drowning death when the couple take a sailing trip.

Laura assumes a new identity and settles in Iowa near the care home where her elderly mother lives. Soon she meets and starts a relationship with dishy next-door neighbour Ben (Kevin Anderson), a college drama teacher. But Martin soon connects the dots, uncovers Laura's deception, and comes looking for his wife with revenge on his mind.

One of Julia Roberts' worst early career missteps, Sleeping With The Enemy is burdened with an atrocious script, over-the-top acting, and bland, paint-by-numbers execution. Written with plastic dialogue by Ronald Bass as an adaptation of a Nancy Price novel and directed without emotion by Joseph Ruben, the film never rises above the easily calculable.

Banal, bland and eye-rollingly vanilla, Sleeping With The Enemy has no appetite to delve into any of the issues it purports to tackle. The physical abuse dished out by Martin is reduced to two blows, and Roberts' looks are never compromised in the name of authenticity. The romance with Ben is immediate and unobstructed, complete with nauseating meet-cute moments involving his impromptu dancing with a water hose and her stealing his apples. There is a stultifying montage sequence to the tune of Brown Eyed Girl as Roberts tries on numerous wigs, hats and dresses in Ben's company, the producers clumsily reaching for a Pretty Woman shopping moment and failing miserably.

None of the characters are afforded any depth, with Bergin sinking into bug-eyed madness as the aggressor Martin and Anderson wallowing in doe-eyed long-haired lover territory as the dreamy and all-too-perfect Ben. Roberts is much better than the material, but Ruben is so clearly smitten by his star that his directing defaults to training the cameras on her and standing back in admiration.

Sleeping With The Enemy does not even manage to be trashy fun: it's just inept.

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Movie Review: Money Monster (2016)

A hostage thriller, Money Monster addresses the collision between television celebrity business advice and the real world where investment decisions can have ruinous implications.

Lee Gates (George Clooney) hosts the weekly live Money Monster show on cable television where he dishes out stock investment tips in a glib flash-and-dash format. The more grounded Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts) is his producer, and she stitches the show together despite Lee's often juvenile antics. During live filming, the stage is invaded by Kyle Budwell (Jack O'Connell), a deeply disturbed man waving a gun. He forces Lee to put on an explosive vest and insists that the cameras keep rolling.

Kyle is upset that he followed Lee's advice on a previous show and invested all his life savings in the stock of a company called IBIS Global Capital, run by CEO Walt Camby (Dominic West), who has now disappeared. IBIS stock promptly tanked when the company lost $800 million due to a so-called algorithm glitch. Live on-air, Kyle rails against the corrupt system. With Patty communicating through his earpiece, Lee regains his composure and tries to buy time by trying to find answers as to what really went wrong with the stock. The solution to the mystery of the missing millions passes through IBIS Chief of Communications Diane Lester (Caitriona Balfe), as well as an algorithm expert in Seoul, hackers in Iceland, and a miners' strike in South Africa.

Directed by Jodie Foster, Money Monster works well when it's within the confines of the television studio. With an unstable Kyle hijacking the show, Lee's world flashing before his eyes and Patty trying to maintain some semblance of control, Foster constructs a taut story that gives a face to the victims of stock market machinations and exposes the shallow world of television punditry. The film maintains a steady current of tension, with the aggressor's instability invading the carefully crafted world of slick marketing, and just the right drizzle of humour injected to keep the drama in check.

The script (co-written by Alan Di Fiore, Jim Kouf and Jamie Linden) works its way to the uncomfortable foundations of the modern system of capitalism. Honest blue collar working men like Kyle are the recession victims, and their only mistake is trusting the make-believe world of charlatans like Lee Gates, a modern-day snake oil salesman. Walt Camby is revered for creating wealth by transferring money using inexplicable software, and while he is the celebrity of the business world men like Kyle simply pay the price in wrecked lives.

The parts of the film away from the studio are not as impressive. Foster takes brief sojourns to Asia, Europe and Africa to underline the interconnected modern world of global finance, but these scenes end up being mere snippets. The final third breaks out of the studio completely with the quest for answers spilling into the streets of Manhattan, and the film starts to unfortunately resemble a contrived Bruce Willis type action film.

The two central performances are excellent and never flag. George Clooney and Julia Roberts, despite sharing few scenes together, exude smooth star charisma and confidence. Clooney's wattage translates perfectly to the cocky personality of Lee Gates, forced through the hostage ordeal to see himself as others see him. Roberts' calm performance allows Patty to emerge as the one voice of reason is a world gone quite mad in pursuit of riches and revenge. Jack O'Connell is suitably unhinged, giving Kyle depth as a man seeking apologies and answers, but not without faults of his own.

In a world where money is virtual and no questions are asked as long as wealth is created out of thin air, Money Monster has no heroes, just victims and charlatans.

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