Roland Emmerich

CHICAGO – “Midway” is an epic film that combines the best of what you love about a World War II film … the relationships of human beings during a global crisis with sensational and acrobatic battle sequences. It also looks at WW2 in modern hindsight, respecting both opponents in the Pacific theater. Actors Ed Skrein & Luke Kleintank are featured, as real-life participants.

CHICAGO – How could a movie in which the President shoots a rocket from the back of a limousine during a car chase on the White House lawn possibly be boring? Roland Emmerich somehow finds a way in the numbing “White House Down,” a movie that make absolutely no sense but fails to entertain as B-movie escapism (as his movies sometimes have in the past).

Rating: 1.0/5.0

CHICAGO – Roland Emmerich has been commonly mocked for his larger-than-life blockbusters that include “Godzilla,” “The Day After Tomorrow,” and “2012.” I would rather sit through a marathon of all three of those works back-to-back-to-back than suffer through “Anonymous” one more time. While those movies have undeniable flaws, they do so on a grand scale common with the words guilty pleasure. There’s absolutely nothing pleasurable about this self-serious and remarkably stupid drama.

CHICAGO – Roland Emmerich is a filmmaker in the classic tradition of B-movie auteurs who shamelessly exploited modern paranoia for the sake of getting butts in the seats. His global warming thriller, “The Day After Tomorrow,” had a sequence where characters were literally being chased by the cold. In “2012,” the protagonists are being chased by armageddon, and they’re always one step ahead.