Dominic Cooper

The entirety of the Agent Carter finale feels like the writers’ room looked at their board of index cards cataloguing ongoing storylines and realized they’d bitten off more than they could wrap up effectively in eight quick episodes. In these last hours, ignored relationships fly back in (literally and figuratively) as quickly as they were scrapped half a season ago, the climax is kept decidedly small-scale and simple, and multiple shortcuts leave everything a bit un-factchecked and everyone a bit out of character for the sake of squeezing in the most important beats. The worst part about these shortcuts is that if some superfluous scenes had been removed, those wasted minutes could have been spent filling in details elsewhere. For example, the only true reason that the “6 months earlier” cut scene with Dottie and Howard Stark is important is because Bridget Regan looks gorgeous in that black evening gown. It doesn’t offer up any new information or insight into the characters; even Howard’s memory fails to get jogged about that earlier weekend once he’s in the hanger. Instead of inserting unnecessary tidbits such as that one, the finale would have been better off fleshing out more of the underserved specifics of the resolution.

Ambiguity isn’t tolerated by studios anymore, especially when it comes to high-profile characters that can serve as franchise-starters. And characters don’t come with a higher profile that the lord of vampires himself, Dracula. Origin stories boomed with Batman Begins and Casino Royale, unfortunately the only thing Hollywood took from the success of those films is that EVERY character needs their backstory completely explained. So now audiences will be served a gritty reboot of an icon they already know very well.

Aaron Paul stars as Tobey Marshall, a street racer framed for murder by Dino Brewster, Dominic Cooper’s rich racer villain. Rather than prove his innocence or reveal Brewster’s villainy, Tobey’s plan is to beat Brewster in an underground street race hosted by Michael Keaton’s Monarch, a retired racer who sadly does not live in a giant flying cocoon staffed by comical henchmen. With the police and Brewster’s bounty hunters in pursuit, Tobey must race across the country to the starting line.

The new film Need for Speed does not deserve its lead actor, as he proves in a number of the dramatic moments. Even those audience members not familiar with Aaron Paul’s outstanding work on the AMC drama Breaking Bad would likely notice the straining-at-the-seams emotional style he brings to his character here, which is somewhat unexpected in a movie that essentially wants to kickstart its own The Fast and the Furious-esque franchise. Those movies, like Need for Speed, boast plenty of pedal-to-the-metal street racing, outrageous stunts, beautiful women, more racing, more stunts, and so on. Need for Speed, however, tries too hard to be a real, grounded story of revenge and hate, too often tippling over into melodrama.

In some films, particularly of the twists and turns variety, a significant event, moment or even line of dialogue, can be summarized by the phrase “This changes everything”. This is known as a Game Changer, where the established landscape of the movie’s plot is irrevocably and dramatically altered, with no chance of ever going back. …

My Week with Marilyn Written by Adrian Hodges Directed by Simon Curtis UK/USA, 2011 My Week with Marilyn’s key strength, and obvious biggest point of interest for most viewers, is Michelle Williams’ turn as Monroe. Williams excels at portraying various facets of Monroe’s star image omnipresent in pop culture, but the quality of the performance …

The Devil’s Double Directed by Lee Tamahori Written by Michael Thomas and Latif Yahia, Based on the novel by Latif Yahia Belgium, 2011 Fantasia imdb The idea that there could be someone in the world who resembles us so much that they could pass as our double is a popular meme in literary imaginations, frequently …

The Devil’s Double Written by Michael Thomas Directed by Lee Tamahori Belgium, 2011 Make no mistake about it.  The Devil’s Double is worth seeing in theatres, if for nothing else than to see Dominic Cooper’s tour de force dual performance. Nothing previously in Cooper’s filmography could have prepared us for the work he does here.   …