Safe Haven (2013)

Safe Haven (2013)
Rating:
Dec 4, 2013Romantic Film/Fantastic Twist Ending
Weepie romantic chick flick adapted from a Nicholas Sparks novel, included here for a fantastic twist ending. Sparks has stolen much of his plot from Stephen King's Rose Madder. Even as such, wife-beating as the backdrop to a romance casts a distasteful shadow over the exercise

The Scorch Trials (2015)

The Scorch Trials (2015)
Rating:
Oct 30, 2015Young Adult/Post-Holocaust Adventure
The Maze Runner was one of the better Young Adult films, creating an intriguing conceptual mystery; this sequel ignores all of that, even throws the book out and is essentially a jumble of random sf tropes that amount to no more than running, shooting and things exploding

Power Rangers (2017)

Power Rangers (2017)
Rating:
Jun 24, 2017Teen Power-Suit Superheroes
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers with its ridiculous rubber monsters and dementedly over-the-top acting as one of the key pop culture phenomena of the 1990s. The question is what audience do producers possibly think that there might be for a dark and gritty cinematic reboot?

The Death Cure (2018)

The Death Cure (2018)
Rating:
Apr 21, 2018Young Adult/Dystopian-Post-Holocaust Adventure
The Maze Runner was a solid Young Adult effort that built out an effective Conceptual Breakthrough story; this the second of two sequels that feel like a series of canned action scenes in search of a purpose

Down a Dark Hall (2018)

Down a Dark Hall (2018)
Rating: ★★
Feb 17, 2019Sinister Happenings at a Girls’ Boarding School
Rodrigo Cortes, who made the fine Buried, directs a Young Adult horror, which is produced by no less than Twilight author Stephenie Meyer, concerning supernatural happenings at a girl's boarding school.