Transcendence

Pfister pounds a heavy-handed reverse Matrix out of No-lan’s Land.  Sludge slow pacing, artificially injected character arcs, and unsatisfying set-pieces fill the space between the unnecessary bookends like so much bland code in a self-destructive program.  Or perhaps it simply transcended human audiences and would be better enjoyed by machines.

Pacific Rim

Hunnam’s weak performance pierces the armor of this VFX juggernaut allowing excessive cheesiness to seep in and saturate the coolness.  Honey I Built the Robot eliminates any scientific credibility.  Clones, pregnancy, barcode scanner… boom.  Easily the biggest crap creature ever to crawl from the oceanic butthole in Del Toro’s head. 

Brothers (2009)

About time Donnie Darko and Peter Parker played ‘title.’ Inferior to older Danish brother, and somehow felt cold despite deep performances. Shepard and Portman fill out family adequately but eldest daughter steals the show. “Do you know what I did with these hands?” Yeah, Tobey, we know. You shot web.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

George Michael vs. Anne (Bland), Superman, and Human Torch in stylized masterpiece from Edgar ‘Shaun’ Wright. Cera gives depth to his usual character. Uses incredible stylization to compliment, not replace, content but periodically goes too far. Struggles to top opening fights and premature Evans introduction but still manages admirably. Epic!

Babel

Alejandro Inarritu takes his multiple storyline structure international to interweave several tales of communication breakdowns. Barraza and Kinkuchi perform as well as Pitt, Blanchett and Bernal. Many will argue that inclusion of Asian story doesn’t make sense, but confusion may not be a bad thing; the film is called Babel.