Category: Reviews
The Avengers: Review
An unlikely group of heroes (Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Captain America, Hawkeye, Black Widow) are recruited by S.H.E.I.L.D director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) to take part in the “Avengers Initiative” when the world is threatened by Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and an army of alien beings known as the Chitauri.
Marvel has been setting this movie up for the past four years through careful planning and weaving stories together. Since the special clip after Iron Man have people been waiting for the day that The Avengers would arrive in theaters. Well finally the day arrived……..and it was glorious. Each film that led up to this provided a small piece of The Avengers puzzle and it all fit together nicely. From the very start of the film it was full of action with Loki making his presence felt. Little by little the other characters were reintroduced (not that they really needed to be) with the most time I think being given to The Hulk/Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo). I had my hesitations with Ruffalo seeing as this is the third incarnation of The Hulk in recent years but that quickly went away after seeing the chemistry between him and the rest of the cast. Especially Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.). I’m not going to go as far as saying he stole the show but he came pretty damn close. I did like that they did show a bit of a “alpha dog” situation with Iron Man and Captain America (Chris Evans) like the way they would show in the comics but by the end of the movie Cap was throwing out orders and plans of attack like a true leader. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) was again fantastic as the God of Thunder (even though I believe they referred to him as a demi-god). He was a perfect fit to spit out the Joss Whedon one-liners that were given to him. Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) were a perfect pairing. Seperate they were fantastic but when they shared the screen together you could see the sparks fly. There are rumors of individual films for Hawkeye and Black Widow but I think I “team-up” film would be waaaay better. I only have two (very small) issues with the movie. One of them being the burying of Loki. I feel like they built him up to be this huge villian and he essentially just got used for comic relief on a few occasions (it did provide some really funny moments though) and the focus kind of strayed from him. The second one was the lack of any sort of elaboration of Captain America being thawed out in the present time. From the looks of it the movie picked up a short time after the Cap movie and they showed in a brief moment flashbacks what happened but didn’t really go into the way he felt at all. I mean, a guy being suddenly thawed out in modern times would probably mess with his brain a bit. Maybe they’ll do that for CA2 but I still think they should’ve addressed it a bit. Other than that the movie did really well at giving each hero enough screen time and their “hero moment”. I’m a huge Joss Whedon fan and I felt like the writing was really solid and the film was a Marvel film with little Whedon moments thrown in here and there. That was nice. As of this moment of me typing this up everyone should have already seen The Avengers once if not a few times. If not, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!?!
Side Note: Something you should already know. Stay until after the credits.
American Reunion: Review
This direct sequel to the hit American Pie movies, American Reunion again follows Jim (Jason Biggs), Michelle (Alyson Hannigan) and the rest of the usual suspects as they are at another milestone in their lives. Their 10 year high school reunion.
Right from the very beginning of the movie you expect the usual embarressment scene that has become common place for the AP movies and it pretty much set up the movie. At this point everyone has gotten older, spread apart and developed lives of their own. That’s when they find out about their reunion coming up. They use that as an excuse to have one last hurrah and of course hilarity ensuses (when does it not?). I really liked this movie more than I wanted to. Mainly because the whole original cast was back I think. Yes the jokes were pretty much the same jokes that have been told over and over throughout the AP movies but it may have been just a nostalgic factor that kind of took it back to the very first film. Like all of the previous films (excluding the direct to video ones) they all have some life lessons included and this one was no different. People change, marriage is work and its always important to keep the people important to you close. I don’t know if they will make another AP movie or not (it probably wouldn’t be a good idea if they did) but this one does feel like it gives a sense of closure and comes full circle with all the characters involved. All in all it was an entertaining movie with lots of raunchy adult humor that had the right idea but just didn’t deliver completely or bring anything new to the table. If you are a fan of the previous films then you’ll enjoy this for sure.
The Hunger Games: Review
Based on the young adult novel written by Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games stars Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss, Josh Hutcherson as Peeta and Liam Hemsworth as Gale. This movie takes place in a post-apocalyptic nation known as Panem where it is also divided into districts. Every year a televised battle to the death known as The Hunger Games occurs that pits a boy and a girl (picked from a lottery) from the ages 12 to 18 from each district against each other. The battlefield is vast and the children’s survival skills are put to the test. There can only be one survivor.
I purposely stayed away from reading the books because when I did get to see I wanted to watch it with a clean palette so to speak. Usually everyone always comes out of the movie saying the same thing “The book was way better”. After giving you that small disclaimer I have to say that I really enjoyed this movie. It took a premise that had been similarly done before (ex: The Running Man and Battle Royale) and did it on a much bigger scale. I was pleasantly surprised by it and personally cant wait for the rest of the movies to come out. The ONLY thing that made me cringe just a bit was a moment when the “gamemakers” started to manipulate the battle environment and 3 words slipped from my mouth. The Truman Show. It reminded me so much of that movie but a lot less funny. Everything else in the flick was action packed and suspenseful and had a great blend of it being a primitive land but with an obvious futuristic twist. The action sequences were great and smart as well but had ALOT of camera movement. I’m sure it was to hide the child on child violence but it did get a bit annoying at times. Jennifer Lawrence did a really fantastic job as did Josh Hutcherson (which was the real curveball for me). Jennifer is already skyrocketing and look for the same to happen with Josh as well. I give this a big two thumbs up and check it out if you haven’t already!!
The Darkest Hour: Review
Emile Hirsch stars in this sci-fi/action movie about a pair of friends that take a business trip to Moscow Russia. When the deal goes sour the decide to go out on the town to drown their sorrows. As the evening progresses and they leave an establishment, they see glowing alien creatures coming from the sky that soon turn invisible. As the surrounding citizens get closer to inspect the creatures they find out quickly that they didn’t come in peace. Now all that matters is their survival and to find how to stop them.
I enjoyed this flick quite a bit. I think mainly because I’m a big fan of sci-fi movies. This isn’t the best sci-fi movie I’ve seen but it was still pretty interesting. The fact that the threat is invisible added a certain amount of suspense to it as well. The aliens themselves were unique also. They weren’t seen at all for the most part but when they were revealed their look was a cross between the aliens from Independance Day and a some sort of glowing ball of energy (sorry, that’s the best I could come up with….lol). At times it did kind of feel like a big budget SyFy Original movie but I think the thing that did keep it afloat was Emile Hirsch. His acting ability really did help make this movie enjoyable as well and I thought he did really good in an action environment. Too bad there wasn’t a sweet Eddie Vedder sountrack to go along with it (I kid, I kid). This movie had a very ambitious ending and left it open to a sequel but I think thats asking for a little too much. Either way, if you dig alien invasion movies then it won’t hurt to “Redbox” it and give this a view.
Haywire: Review
Directed by Steven Soderbergh, Haywire stars ex-MMA fighter Gina Carano as Mallory Kane, a contractor hired by the American Government for covert operations. Mallory and her team are hired for a simple, routine operation that suddenly goes wrong. She is setup and framed for the murder of a man they were supposed to be protecting. Now her main mission is to track down all the ones that wronged her and make them pay.
I’m going to start by saying Gina Carano is an amazing woman! She’s beautiful, tough as nails and she’s actually a decent actress for this being her first feature role. She’s making the transition to film perfectly and she makes it seem like shes been in action movies forever. I felt like I’ve seen the outline of this story a few times before though but Carano’s fight scenes in this movie are so intense and real that it more than makes up for it. It almost reminds me of the 90’s action flicks that were just straight to the point and in your face with the fight scenes. The other thing that kind of surprised me was all the all-star actors involved in this flick. From Michael Douglas, Ewan McGregor, Antonio Banderas, Michael Fassbender, Channing Tatum and Bill Paxton. They all pretty much played supporting roles to Carano and even with all that star power she kept right up with them (and also kicked most of their asses). There are already talks of a sequel and hopefully there’s more to be seen from Carano (maybe Expendables 3???)
