World War Z

World War Z

Rating 7.5 out of 10

If you have watched tv or movies lately you know the blood sucking vampires are on their way out and now what is cool and popular is zombies. World War Z follows along with that thread.  It is a movie made from a rather strange book.  For what it's worth the movie is much better than the book.  If you like zombie books or movies at all I'd highly recommend Day by Day Armageddon by JL Bourne.

In World War Z we see the boredom of a day of retired United Nations agent Gerry Lane (pretty boy Brad Pitt who does a good job here).  As he and the family drive through crowded downtown Philadelphia a heard of zombies attack with no notice.  This is not your fathers zombies or the pokey type that stroll along on the tv show the Walking Dead.  These are turbo charged zombies that can run like a deer and one of their bites will turn you into one of them in 12 seconds or less.  If you thought compound interest multiplied fast you should see these guys.  They never really explain how the zombie thing starts or why Gerry is now the worlds expert on how to fix the problem.  I guess the UN is in charge of zombies while the FBI gets vampires?  Not sure who is in charge of werewolves but I'll get back to you on that.

Once you stare into Pitts eyes all the question marks really don't matter.  He travels on a big airplane that barely takes off before being overrun with the speedy zombies.  His quest is to find out where/how the zombies started and come up with a way to stop them.  For a PG-13 movie it's a little rough, but this movie is not filled with the slimy gore you'd normally expect in these gory zombie movies.

Overall I found the movie entertaining and fun to watch.  If you are into these type movies at all I feel sure you'll feel your money was well spent.  Clearly when the zombies do attack you need to find your local UN employee and stay near him.

Man of Steel

Man of Steel

Rating 7 out of 10

Anyone that has seen my reviews knows I like superhero movies.  Superman is not an easy hero movie to make.  Everyone knows the story already and it's hard to put a new spin on it.  I would say for the most part Man of Steel does that.

The movie starts off at that doomed planet Krypton.  They explain how they mined the planet into extinction with only weeks before it explodes.  Superman's father Jor-El (played perfectly by Russell Crowe) is the voice of reason while the head of Defense the evil General Zod (with Michael Shannon giving one of the better bad guy performances) is a little crazy and tries a takeover on the leaders. The effects are as good as you would think they would be.  Dad puts Superbaby in a pod and shoots it for Earth just minutes before Krypton goes boom.

The cast if spot on.  Kevin Costner playing Clarks earthly father.  Diane Lane playing mom.  One of the few things I really didn't like about the early Superman movie was Margot Kidder playing Lois Lane.  With Man of Steel we get the major upgrade with the lovely Amy Adams.  Being an old timer myself Christopher Reeve will always be Superman yet I have to admit Henry Cavill fills the blue tights quite nicely.  He is built like a brick house and has the acting chops to handle the man of steel.

The crazy part is for me when the action starts the movie drops off.  The hard part about making a Superman movie is creating drama for him.  Nothing hurts him.  Shoot him with bullets, burn him with fire, blow him up and he wipes a little dust of the red cape and moves on.  Then you have several bad guys also from Krypton who can not be hurt either.  For me having Superman fight the bad guys knocking each other thru buildings and exploding gas tanks seems anticlimactic.  What's the point?  I'm probably the only one that is concerned with what is probably millions of people being killed in the big fights.  Note to self: if big spaceship full of bad guys hovers over my city don't stand around gawking at it.  Get out of town!

Still, overall I found it an entertaining movie.  Now that the ground has been laid Man of Steel II will probably be amazing.

Now You See Me

Now You See Me

Rating 6.5 out of 10

I have always like magicians.  Not in the way many do.  I like to try my best how to figure out how they do it.  Love a good showman.  With Now You See Me there is alot of entertaining show.  As with most magician shows you don't want to over think it (not easy for me) just sit back and enjoy the ride.

We get a good cast.  There are four premier magicians assembled with each having their own speciality.  The lead is Daniel (Jesse Eisenberg) who is your typical magician.  Merritt (Woody Harrelson) is more of the mind reader type.  Lovely Henley (Isla Fisher) puts on a big show and younger Jack (Dave Franco) specializes in card tricks.  When they pull of a series of impossible heists- breaking into a bank in Paris, France from Vegas- yet they give all the gains to the audience.

The FBI knows who is doing the heists they just can't prove it.  Head Agent Rhodes (played by the always good Mark Ruffalo) is out to break them.  Morgan Freeman plays Thaddeus Bradley who has made a living by outing magicians and telling their secrets.

This is a fun popcorn movie that will kill a couple hours.   I enjoyed it.

Epic

Epic

Rating 6 out of 10

I look forward to animated movies coming to town these days not just because I'm a fan of cartoons.  It means I get a date with my granddaughters.  So when Epic came along I got to take both my granddaughters to an early show and this time the wife tagged along to help with the herding of the cats. : >

This is a cute enough movie about a world of small people that live in the forest.  The cute and colorful group are the good guys that protect the forest and the ugly bad guys want to destroy it.  It all boils down to getting this magic plant to a certain place by a certain time where it can bloom in the moonlight.  A teenage girl (voiced by Amanda Seyfried) is in the forest at the wrong time she gets magically shrunk down to tiny size and joins in on the fight.

The movie is cute enough for adults or older kids.  My three and two year old granddaughters found it over their heads and did not hold their attention at all.  As soon as the popcorn ran out they were all over.

I saw the 2D version of this movie.  I know I'm spoiled but I found the animation to be average at best. Maybe the 3D version is better.  The story is entertaining. The class of celebrities doing the voices is first rate.  It's just not for little kids and seems to me that is who animated films should be aimed at?

Fast & Furious 6

Fast & Furious 6

Rating 7 out of 10

This is the type of Summer action movie we expect and most of us enjoy when the weather starts to warm up.  Do we expect a complicated plot or extremely well written dialog? Not even close.  With any of the Fast movies you expect fast cars, pretty scenery and good looking actors with hot bods.  That  is exactly what you get with Fast & Furious 6.  No more, no less.

We find our Furious group a few years after their last heist in Five that left them all very rich yet wanted men and women and unable to ever go back home.  Super Agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson- muscles so big they look like they they were blown up with an air compressor) is still chasing bad guys around the world now with his side kick Agent Riley (played by the butt kicking Gina Carano).  When Hobbs comes across the ultimate bad guy he realizes the only way he can take him down is with the help of Dominic Torreto (the also buff Vin Diesel) and his gang of fast driving outlaws.  Torreto is skeptical about helping out until he sees a recent picture of old flame Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) whom we buried a few Fast's ago.

That's about as complicated as the plot gets.  Lots of very fast cars and everyone is good looking.  Even the bad guys.  Lots of things go boom.  Really go boom.  The action is very over the top as you would expect.  So over the top it had me laughing out loud harder than most comedies.  Lots of good fight scenes.  One on a plane on the longest runway known to man.

This is good popcorn fun that won't win any awards.  Stick around after the movie and see what's up for Furious 7.   I enjoyed it.

Star Trek Into Darkness

Star Trek Into Darkness

Rating 8 out of 10

First I have to tell you about the problems I had before viewing this movie.  After rushing from Spin class with young son to meet my movie buddy Ted for the 7p showing of Star Trek only to find I mis-read the schedule and found the 7p show was 3D.  Ugh.  I don't like 3D.  Get into the theater and there are maybe a dozen people in the huge theater.  A group of high school boys come in the theater and where do they sit?  Right behind me!  Three hundred other seats open and they decide right behind me is the place to be.  Of course they kick my seat repeatedly.  Could life get any worse??? Well, yes.  A couple comes in just before the movie starts.  Forty seats open in the front row and where do they sit?  You got it.  Right in front of me! Yes I know.  #whitemansproblems!  : >

I enjoyed the first Star Trek movie back in 2009 and was looking forward to seeing this one.  I found it very much worth the wait.  The best way I can describe the movie is if you watch this trailer and think it is one you would like to see chances are very good you will come out of the theater happy.  For some (wives) the Star Trek isn't their cup of tea.  I feel there is enough action, comedy and relationships to keep you entertained.

The movie starts off with our crew on the USS Enterprise let again by the good looking Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) and the whole gang from the last movie.  The Enterprise is searching new worlds with the plan to help them.  The action starts from the first few minutes as Spock (born to play this part Zachary Quinto)  is being lowered into an about to explode volcano to save a planet.  The action is nearly non-stop from there.  There is a good bit of well placed humor that had me laughing out loud and nice to see the friendship that builds between the main characters.

When a really bad guy attacks Star Fleet Captain Kirk and crew are sent after him with orders to destroy him.  There are a few twists that I can't go into right now.  I'll just say I had a good time from start to finish.  Didn't care for the 3D glasses and can add there is absolutely nothing in this movie making it worth the extra bucks.  See the 2D version and save your money.

Good movie.

Iron Man 3

Iron Man 3

Rating 6 out of 10

I think the biggest mistake I made with the third installment of the Iron Man franchise was going into the theater hoping for Great and merely got good.  Probably didn't help that we went Saturday night to find the shows sold out.  Went back again for the 130p showing on Sunday to have it sold out too.  We sat around for two hours waiting for our show.  This movie better be great.

We find our hero Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr)  months after the big showdown in NYC with the Avengers having nightmares and suffering panic attacks from all the stress of killing aliens and throwing nukes into worm holes.  Stark is in a full blown relationship with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and adding to his stress he dreams of bad guys doing her harm.

When the ultra bad guy, the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) is setting off bombs all over and threatens the President Stark decides to call him out.  Not a great idea if you are worried about your girlfriend being hurt.

While this movie clearly packs a punch for me there was too much Tony Stark and not nearly enough Iron Man.  I wanted to see a super hero movie for adults and instead got one made for twelve year old boys.  Downey Jr always adds his bit of comedy to enhance his movies.  In 3 the movie about half way through turns hokey and for me took away any thoughts of things turning out poorly.  I can't say more without giving spoilers.  If you want to discuss these spoilers feel free to leave a message below or email me.

This is a decent movie that was a good enough way to blow a couple hours on a rainy day.  A movie you'll be looking to buy the DVD?  Not for me.