Review: Premium Rush (2012) peaks too early and struggles to fill its feature-length running time.

Premium Rush

2012
90 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

The first thirty minutes and last twenty minutes of David Koepp's Premium Rush have the makings of a pretty great B-movie.  It has all the ingredients of a solid piece of genre, with engaging heroes, a terrific villain, and some genuinely entertaining and fresh action sequences.  For its first third, it powers along with an uncommon confidence, establishing its central conflict while dazzling the viewer with stunts that are all the more impressive for being real.  But at around the thirty minute mark, the film slams on the brakes and spends an unholy amount of time with expository flashbacks and needless exposition, testing the viewer's patience and leaving us waiting to get back to the chase.  The film eventually kicks back into gear in time for the relatively successful climax, which both satisfies and makes us realize that the proceeding half-hour or so was all the more needless.  Premium Rush would have made an excellent hour-long short film, but as a feature-length motion picture, it frankly doesn't have enough meat on its bones.

For those who care - a truckload of The Dark Knight Rises photos...

I'm shocked... SHOCKED that Time Warner's biggest summer movie has made the cover of Time Warner-owned Entertainment Weekly's annual summer movie preview issue.  I'm just happy that I don't have to keep using that same 'Batman aims his laser-gun' shot every time I write about the movie.  Anyway, I'm not going to dissect these to death, and I presume that Nolan and company aren't releasing anything that could be over-analyzed anyway.  But I will say that Bane looks not terribly intimidating in action and it's a little silly to see Batman wielding what appears to be an IPad (minor carping I know...).  Anyway, while most of the Internet was buzzing about Anne Hathaway's ass earlier this week (the promo image was an apparent unauthorized leak and has been removed), I was all about that 'Ella-Enchanted-quality' hair.  But that's no surprise if you know me well enough.The rest are after the jump.   Enjoy.

Scott Mendelson

Trailer: Looper looks like an old-school 'movie' in the best sense of the word.

Well, this looks like pure unadulterated genre fun.  Yes it looks not all-that different from any number of action thrillers, but I'm the guy who gave a "B" to Lockout.  Kudos for apparently casting Emily Blunt as something other than the stock love-interest (Piper Perabo seems to be filling that role, despite being five-years older than Joseph Gordon-Levitt no less). Kudos for getting the exposition out of the way and not revealing all-that much after the first-act hook.  There are certainly hints of twists and turns (Jeff Daniels looks like a walking story turn) and this looks like a rock-solid B-movie blast.  Point being, this is another fine example of the most promising trend of the last few years: the return of the 'movie'.  You know what I mean.  It doesn't cost $150-$300 million.  It has real stars and real character actors playing in the genre sandbox.  It's not based on a well-known source material and it may even be wholly original.  It's not a tentpole or would-be franchise starter, it's just (hopefully) a good story well-told with good actors delivering sharp dialogue.  You know... a 'movie'.  *That's* what Looper looks like and what it represents.  Looper drops September 28th.  As always, we'll see...

Scott Mendelson 

Actual Batman 3 news! Marion Cotillard isn't Talia Al Ghul, Joseph Gordon-Levitt isn't Black Mask, Dr. Strange, or Alberto Falcone.

As usual, everything you think you know about The Dark Knight Rises is wrong. After months of 'rumors', Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard have been officially signed for the third Chris Nolan Batman picture. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Cotillard is not be playing Talia Al Ghul, but rather 'Miranda Tate, a Wayne Enterprises board member eager to help a still-grieving Bruce Wayne resume his father’s philanthropic endeavors for Gotham.' This is certainly a notable development on two fronts: A) It implies that Wayne's relationship with Rachel Dawes will not be tossed under the rug and forgotten in the wake of her murder in The Dark Knight. B) It also implies that Nolan may be getting away from the whole 'Bruce Wayne pretends to be an asshole so no one suspects he's Batman' shtick that I do so loathe. It's a classic trope of the comics over the last twenty-five years or so, but it remains a silly and self-defeating concept, as it neuters the theoretically much-greater potential for social good that Bruce Wayne can provide so Batman can run around at night and beat up muggers.

Introducing 'Rumors from the crazy guy on the corner': Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the Riddler in Chris Nolan's Batman 3 (AKA - Shadow of the Bat)?

I've wrestled for sometime with how to discuss news in a timely manner when so much of the relevant movie news begins as rumor. I don't like to discuss rumors as if they are factual, but I also like to discuss stuff when it allegedly breaks. So, this will be the start of a new feature: 'News from the crazy guy on the corner'. To put it simply, anything I discuss here should be considered 100% rumor, and any analysis I offer should be taken as a theoretical 'if it turns out to be true' capacity. So if I find myself discussing something like that relatively debunked 'Indiana Jones goes to the Bermuda Triangle' story from a couple of days ago (I liked Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, so I say go for it), or whether or not Joseph Gordon-Levitt is in talks to play the Riddler in Nolan's third Batman picture (makes sense, Nolan likes to poach actors from project to project), please know that I am not assuming that any of this will turn out to be correct.