“The Taking Of The Pelham 123” is
a unnecessary remake of the Joseph Sargent-directed crime classic.
The original was perfect, but nonetheless, fauxter hack Tony Scott — he of the green filters, jumbled, flashing aesthetics, unnecessary subtitles and dyslexic editing that’s only two steps removed from the chaos that was “Natural Born Killers” — is directing.
John Travolta takes the crafty criminal role played by the late, great Robert Shaw and Denzel Washington inhibits the part of Walter Matthau’s slow, but keen Lt. The rest of the cast including James Gandolfini, Luis Guzman, John Turturro and Gbenga Akinnagbe (Chris Partlow from “The Wire”) is superb, but Scott hasn’t made a decent film since “Enemy of the State” in 1998. The release date is July 24.
In “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince,” Hogwarts meets adolescence as the crew battles the teenage blues while continuing the struggle against Voldemort. Harry Potter fans went absolutely berserk when the movie’s release date was pushed back to 2009. David Yates directed the previous installment, so you should probably already know if you are going to see this one or not on July 17.