Wild

Wild, 2014. A woman goes hiking for three months.

Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée. Written by Nick Hornby, based on a book by Cheryl Strayed. Starring Reese Witherspoon, with Laura Dern, Thomas Sadoski, & Keene McRae.

Concept: C
Story: C
Characters: B
Dialog: C
Pacing: D
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: A
Music: B
Enjoyment: It's slow and repetitive; there's absolutely no reason for it to be longer than 90 minutes (it's nearly two hours). Otherwise, it's pretty good. They don't do anything in the way of making me understand the character (or even seem to try), but she's kicked around enough that you can't help empathizing. B

GPA: 2.6/4

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, 2014. A power vacuum causes a small war.

Directed by Peter Jackson. Written by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Jackson, & Guillermo del Toro, based on a book by J.R.R. Tolkien. Starring Martin Freeman, & Richard Armitage, with Ian McKellen, Orlando Bloom, Evangeline Lilly, Lee Pace, & Luke Evans.

Concept: C
Story: D
Characters: D
Dialog: D
Pacing: C
Cinematography: D
Special effects/design: D
Acting: B
Music: C
Enjoyment: I've noted before that there's a great two-hour movie buried in this nine-hour trilogy. Only about 20 minutes of that would come from this movie. Bilbo is barely in this. It's mostly one long fight scene, which is considerably less boring than the first two movies, but does not belong in The Hobbit. Peter Jackson's Bloodlust: The Movie would be a more apt title. C

GPA: 1.6/4

Top Five

Top Five, 2014. A recovering alcoholic comedian is about to marry a reality TV star.

Written & directed by Chris Rock. Starring Rock, & Rosario Dawson, with J.B. Smoove, & Gabrielle Union.

Concept: D
Story: C
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: B
Enjoyment: Funny, but with only a handful of laugh-out-loud jokes. Otherwise, it's pretty intelligent. I imagine Rock could potentially make some great movies, if he keeps at this Woody Allen/Richard Linklater style. B

GPA: 2.7/4

The Theory of Everything

The Theory of Everything, 2014. Young Stephen Hawking marries with a life expectancy of two years.

Directed by James Marsh. Written by Anthony McCarten, based on a book by Jane Hawking. Starring Eddie Redmayne, & Felicity Jones, with Maxine Peake, & Charlie Cox.

Concept: C
Story: C
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: A
Acting: A
Music: C
Enjoyment: It's basically a soap opera, which just incidentally happens to feature a famous physicist. He could have any sort of academic job, and it wouldn't change the story. Which is for the best. Movies about Scientists Doing Science never work. Instead the focus is on well-proven and popular movie tropes of the Romance & Adversity variety. There isn't anything here that I don't feel like I've seen before, but they execute those pieces expertly, and do a good job putting them together into strong movie. B

GPA: 2.9/4

Mockingjay Part 1

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1, 2014. An unwilling symbol of rebellion joins the propaganda team against a dystopian government.

Directed by Francis Lawrence. Written by Peter Craig, & Danny Strong; adapted by Suzanne Collins from her book. Starring Jennifer Lawrence, with Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Philip Seymour Hoffman, & Julianne Moore.

Concept: B
Story: Knowing where it's going, I know it's the first half to a great story. But the first half of a story is not a story. D
Characters: Again, a little slice of a great character arc isn't a great character arc. B
Dialog: B
Pacing: A
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: A
Acting: A
Music: Finally, they got the music right. That was my biggest pet peeve about the first two movies. A
Enjoyment: I can understand how so many critics are indifferent to this movie. It's half a movie - and the set-up half, at that. If you don't know where the story is going, it probably seems like a rambling mess. But if you're a fan, it's pretty damn great. Much stronger than the first two movies. (If you're not a fan, wait until part 2 comes out, because this does not work on its own. If they keep up this level of quality, the two parts together will make an amazing movie, and it's a shame the year wait between them will ruin it for a lot of people.) A

GPA: 3.3/4

Interstellar

Interstellar, 2014. A wormhole is explored while Earth is dying.

Directed by Christopher Nolan. Written by Jonathan Nolan, & Christopher Nolan. Starring Matthew McConaughey, with Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Bill Irwin, Ellen Burstyn, Michael Caine, & Matt Damon.

Concept: A
Story: D
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: Rushed. It could easily have been 10 or 12 hours long, as a TV series maybe. C
Cinematography: A
Special effects/design: A
Acting: B
Music: A
Enjoyment: One of the crappiest of all time crappy endings. It's on par with "And it was all a dream," undermining the movie's entire plot. C

GPA: 2.8/4

Birdman

Birdman, 2014. An actor who used to play a superhero produces a crappy Broadway play.

Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. Written by Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, & Armando Bo. Starring Michael Keaton, with Emma Stone, Zach Galifianakis, Naomi Watts, Andrea Riseborough, Edward Norton, & Amy Ryan.

Concept: C
Story: C
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: C
Cinematography: One long take. It would be pretty cool and impressive if this were a suspense film. In a comedy, it's a disaster. B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: A
Music: A two hour drum solo. My head still hurts. D
Enjoyment: For a movie that has so much to say to criticize the artlessness of Hollywood movies, it has very little to offer itself. The characters are cliches, with no development worth mentioning. The big dramatic moments have no emotional weight. And, despite being advertised as a comedy and having a very funny cast, it has less humor than most good dramas. C

GPA: 2.3/4

Big Hero 6

Big Hero Six, 2014. A boy genius creates a team of superheros.

Directed by Don Hall, & Chris Williams. Written by Jordan Roberts, Daniel Gerson, & Robert L. Baird, based on a comic book by Duncan Rouleau, & Steven T. Seagle. Starring Scott Adsit, & Ryan Potter, with Daniel Henney, T.J. Miller, Jamie Chung, Damon Wayans Jr., Genesis Rodriguez, James Cromwell, Alan Tudyk, & Maya Rudolph.

Concept: C
Story: C
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: A
Acting: C
Music: B
Enjoyment: Fun. The story arc is a paint-by-numbers superhero movie, but other than that there are no real faults with it. B

GPA: 2.8/4

St. Vincent

St. Vincent, 2014. A grumpy old dirtbag gets a babysitting job.

Written & directed by Theodore Melfi. Starring Bill Murray, with Melissa McCarthy, Naomi Watts, & Jaeden Lieberher.

Concept: D
Story: C
Characters: B
Dialog: A
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: C
Enjoyment: Very funny. And, while I can see why critics complain that it's contrived, I thought it did pretty well on the emotional side of things. It could have been an awful movie with a different cast, but it works. B

GPA: 2.7/4

Fury

Fury, 2014. A tank advances through WWII Germany.

Written & directed by David Ayer. Starring Brad Pitt, with Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Michael Peña, & Jon Bernthal.

Concept: B
Story: C
Characters: C
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: A
Acting: A
Music: C
Enjoyment: It's pretty intense, considering there are no characters to empathize with. Just a lot of assholes, being assholes, with a tank - and one guy with a bad case of Stockholm syndrome. B

GPA: 2.9/4

John Wick

John Wick, 2014. A crime boss's son pisses off a former assassin.

Directed by David Leitch, & Chad Stahelski. Written by Derek Kolstad. Starring Keanu Reeves, with Michael Nyqvist, Alfie Allen, Willem Dafoe, & Adrianne Palicki.

Concept: B
Story: C
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: D
Music: It's crappy music, but it's right for the movie. B
Enjoyment: Plenty of fun while you're watching it, but instantly forgettable afterward. C

GPA: 2.4/4

The Book of Life

The Book of Life, 2014. The gods of the dead wager on some mortals' lives.

Directed by Jorge R. Gutierrez. Written by Gutierrez, & Douglas Langdale. Starring Diego Luna, with Zoe Saldana, Channing Tatum, Ron Perlman, Christina Applegate, Ice Cube, & Kate del Castillo.

Concept: B
Story: C
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: A
Acting: B
Music: B
Enjoyment: It struggles between being an ambitiously bizarre movie, and being a by-the-book children's movie. The latter wins out, but there's enough of the former (in addition to some good gags) to keep it fun. C

GPA: 2.7/4

The Drop

The Drop, 2014. A bar owned by the mob is robbed.

Directed by Michaël R. Roskam. Written by Dennis Lehane, based on his story. Starring Tom Hardy, with Noomi Rapace, James Gandolfini, Matthias Schoenaerts, & John Ortiz.

Concept: B
Story: A number of Lahane's novels have been adapted into critically-acclaimed movies. Clearly, being a good novelist does not make you a good screenwriter. D
Characters: Walking cliches, many of them boring. C
Dialog: C
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: C
Acting: B
Music: C
Enjoyment: A lot of talented people get together and do no one's best work. It tries hard to be intelligent and have something to say, but doesn't succeed. You could do a lot worse, but there's no reason to see this movie. Unless you need to watch Tom Hardy love a puppy. C

GPA: 2.3/4

Gone Girl

Gone Girl, 2014. A woman in an unhappy marriage disappears suspiciously.

Directed by David Fincher. Written by Gillian Flynn, based on her book. Starring Ben Affleck, & Rosamund Pike, with Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry, Carrie Coon, & Kim Dickens.

Concept: C
Story: A
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: C
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: A
Music: D
Enjoyment: It's about as bitter an cynical as a movie could get. A director with any sense of fun, or with a taste for suspense, could have made a great movie out of the material. But Fincher, as usual, prefers to wallow in his misery. The only strong response I had to anything in it was a sense of uneasiness from brutality (both physical and psychological). It's a lot like Seven that way. It has the general shape of a thriller, but it doesn't function so much as a suspense story as a series of awful things for us to gawk at. I still wouldn't say it's a bad movie, though, as it excels in a number of areas - especially the acting - enough to keep it watchable. C

GPA: 2.5/4

The Boxtrolls

The Boxtrolls, 2014. A boy raised by subterranean creatures must save them from genocide.

Directed by Graham Annable, & Anthony Stacchi. Written by Irena Brignull, & Adam Pava, based on a book by Alan Snow. Starring Isaac Hempstead Wright, Elle Fanning, & Ben Kingsley, with Jared Harris, Nick Frost, Richard Ayoade, & Tracy Morgan.

Concept: C
Story: C
Characters: The comic relief characters are fun. The main characters are awful. D
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: Good, but I'm unimpressed. I'm not sure I would even have noticed that it's not CG if I hadn't known. Not sure if that's the fault of poor projection at my local theater, or if it's the increasingly computerized approach to stop-motion. B
Acting: C
Music: B
Enjoyment: There are cute things, and the sense of humor is good, so you could do a lot worse. C

GPA: 2.4/4

The Maze Runner

The Maze Runner, 2014. A group of boys wake up with no memories in a giant maze.

Directed by Wes Ball. Written by Noah Oppenheim, Grant Pierce Myers, & T.S. Nowlin, based on a book by James Dashner. Starring Dylan O'Brien, with Aml Ameen, Ki Hong Lee, Blake Cooper, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Will Poulter, & Kaya Scodelario.

Concept: B
Story: D
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: Inconsistent effects, but some great design. B
Acting: B
Music: C
Enjoyment: For most of the movie, it seems pretty great. But it's a mystery with no solution, so it doesn't work. C

GPA: 2.4/4

Calvary

Calvary, 2014. A priest is informed that he'll be murdered in one week.

Written & directed by John Michael McDonagh. Starring Brendan Gleeson, with Chris O'Dowd, & Kelly Reilly.

Concept: B
Story: A
Characters: A
Dialog: A
Pacing: A
Cinematography: A
Special effects/design: B
Acting: I know a limited-release Irish film isn't going to get any Oscar attention, but I will still be upset when Gleeson doesn't get a best actor nomination. A
Music: B
Enjoyment: Easily one of the best films I've seen all year, and, objectively, one of the best-made I've seen in years, It's much less of comedy than the other McDonagh brothers' films - and too depressing to be a favorite of mine, despite its greatness. A

GPA: 3.7/4

The Hundred-Foot Journey

The Hundred-Foot Journey, 2014. An Indian family opens a restaurant in France.

Directed by Lasse Hallström. Written by Steven Knight, based on a book by Richard C. Morais. Starring Manish Dayal, & Helen Mirren, with Om Puri, & Charlotte Le Bon.

Concept: D
Story: D
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: B
Enjoyment: Painless. It has some charm - mostly from the cast, and the scenery is nice. C

GPA: 2.3/4

Boyhood

Boyhood, 2014. The childhood of a boy with divorced parents.

Written & directed by Richard Linklater. Starring Ellar Coltrane, with Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, & Lorelei Linklater.

Concept: A
Story: D
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: B
Music: B
Enjoyment: The gimmick works extremely well. Unfortunately, the ambitiousness is strictly limited to the approach of filming it; the script is nothing but an aimless pile of cliches. But watching these people age on screen is somehow enough to keep you captivated for the nearly-three-hour movie. Even though I didn't exactly like the movie, it made a strong impression on me. Hopefully they keep going and have a sequel 12 years from now. B

GPA: 2.7/4

The Giver

The Giver, 2014. A boy from a future society where no one has emotions gets memories from the past.

Directed by Phillip Noyce. Written by Michael Mitnick, & Robert B. Weide, based on a book by Lois Lowry. Starring Brenton Thwaites, with Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, Alexander Skarsgård, Katie Holmes, Odeya Rush, & Cameron Monaghan.

Concept: C
Story: D
Characters: D
Dialog: C
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: It bothers me maybe a little too much that people who can't see color dye their clothing. C
Acting: C
Music: C
Enjoyment: For the first two thirds or so it's an okay movie - a little flimsy in the suspension of disbelief department, and lacking in anything to make you care about it, but it has some promising ideas. Once the action gets going, it turns out to have nowhere to go, and the whole thing falls apart. C

GPA: 1.8/4