Movie Reviews, Digital HD Reviews, and Television Reviews

Reviews By Stephen Compall

Here at FlickDirect, our goal is to provide up-to-date reviews on theatrical, home entertainment, and television series. Check out the scoop on upcoming films or programming, and even our take on the classics.

Our Family Wedding

(Stephen Compall) 7/27/2010 8:19 PM EDT
I thought I'd seen Our Family Wedding before. To wit, there are two different cultures to be presented here. They're different, because they're different. And what happens when you put them together? They clash. But you know that they're human, and humans are clever enough to figure out how to get along... Read More

Cop Out

(Stephen Compall) 7/26/2010 10:15 PM EDT
Some time ago, Cop Out director Kevin Smith (Clerks, Chasing Amy) played a minor role in Bruce Willis (Die Hard, The Sixth Sense) action vehicle Live Free or Die Hard. He told this story in one of his Evening specials. At some point later, Willis found that Smith was a real live writer and director of real live-action movies, and contac... Read More

Salt

(Stephen Compall) 7/23/2010 2:20 AM EDT
Salt may be a spy movie, but we begin by eschewing the spy movie form in favor of the slightly awkward introduction of plot device Mike (August Diehl, Inglourious Basterds), followed by headlong ascent into what seems to be a fugitive film. In pursuit of Salt (Angelina Jolie, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, A Mighty Heart) seem to be exactly the cha... Read More

Predators

(Stephen Compall) 7/12/2010 11:12 PM EDT
Do you realize how great things are now? No longer are we bound by the conventions of cinema to listen to Jesse Ventura wax metaphor on his sexual prowess. The adhocracy of special effects devices has been banished in favor of computers, and shall ever be unmourned. The false camaraderie of impossible men is replaced by the true mutual mistrust of ... Read More

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

(Stephen Compall) 7/8/2010 9:59 AM EDT
Let us say that, like Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman, Jack & Bobby, Gamer), you find yourself in great need of a quick education in ancient Greek mythology, despite a preternatural understanding of the written language. Then, perhaps, rather than returning to primary school for the parts you seem to have missed, you could watch Percy Jackson... Read More

Predator

(Stephen Compall) 7/3/2010 11:03 PM EDT
Do you remember how great things once were? It was then that your helicopter pilot wouldn't insist you put out your cigar in flight. When chewing tobacco would make you virile and hardly ever ill, and every man knew what the mission was, even when they didn't. Everywhere you looked in those days, things were different. For one thing, you on... Read More

When in Rome

(Stephen Compall) 6/15/2010 7:52 AM EDT
When in Romeabandons the two-way and three-way romantic structures typical of romantic comedies in favor of a six-way; official couple Beth (Kristen Bell, Veronica Mars, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) and Nick (Josh Duhamel, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!, Transformers) plus... Read More

Solitary Man

(Stephen Compall) 6/10/2010 12:08 AM EDT
It is not so much that Ben (Michael Douglas, Wall Street, Falling Down) is alone, the thematic underpinning that the advertisements for Solitary Man would have you see in this film, as it is that there is so little foundation underlying the alliances and friendships he forges that they might as well not be there at all. Ben is competitive with his ... Read More

Caddyshack

(Stephen Compall) 6/1/2010 9:19 AM EDT
I am by no means biased against the "zany" genus of comedy. The Airplane! movies and Hot Shots! movies I consider classic films among any form, and Mel Brooks's Robin Hood: Men in Tights I still consider on a level with the recent Robin Hood, as good as I may have granted that.These films, however, cloak their zaniness in an alternate... Read More

Robin Hood

(Stephen Compall) 5/16/2010 1:18 AM EDT
This latest adaptation of Robin Hood is quite careful in the way in which it connects itself to the traditional legend. The dénouement serves as a sort of origin story for the Robin Hood of legend, and it is fairly believable in its inevitability, both as legend and as the natural outcome of the preceding events, that it well rewards t... Read More