Despicable Me 2

Despicable Me 2

Rating 6 out of 10


I was a big fan of the first Despicable Me movie.  It was one of my favorite types of animated movies.  Top tier animation and a story line that offers plenty of laughs for the kids and also entertaining to the adults that end up taking those kids.  Or adults like me that end up borrowing grandkids so I'm not in the theater by myself.  I thought the first one was very funny in many parts and touching in the end as the evil Gru realizes he does care for the three little girls.  Steve Carell is perfect to play the voice of Gru.

Flash forward a year or two and Gru is now a stay at home father to the three cute girls having given up on his life of crime and trying to make a living the honest way by making jams and jellies.  When another really bad guy steals a secret potion that will of course allow him to take over the world Gru is recruited to help the good guys figure out who did it.

With the original my least favorite part was the little yellow minions.  A little went a long ways.  Unfortunately in D2 their part is expanded a good bit.  While I found the movie entertaining enough D2's story and humor is much more aimed at the small children.  The kids in my theater laughed heartily at the fart jokes just as they should.  I looked at my watch more than once.

If you have small children this is a must see movie.  They will have a great time.  You won't be offended or overly bored.  You will though probably look forward to seeing the credits roll.

The Lone Ranger

The Lone Ranger

Rating 6.5 out of 10

I was a little iffy on seeing this movie.  I think it is a given that Johnny Depp is a talented actor.  Yet most of his movies I don't care for.  I will say after seeing the Lone Ranger he was all that kept it from being a well below average movie.  He was very good.

This is a different telling of an old story.  In this movie Tonto is the brains of the operation and Kemosabe is a liberal lawyer not wanting to touch a gun much less shoot a bad guy.  In this movie as so many others lately they feel the need to go back to the very beginning and explain everything from A to Z.  This Makes for a 2.5 hour movie that would have been better at 45 minutes less.

John Reid/Lone Ranger (Armie Hammer) is a younger city slicker lawyer moving to the wild west with  ideas of being a District Attorney and bringing law to the land.  His older brother is a local hero Texas Ranger known for bringing in the bad guys.  Tonto is on the same train as Reid with the most evil bad guy in the west Butch Cavendish (played by the great character actor William Fichtner)  with thoughts of avenging the murders of his tribe. Neither the Lone Ranger nor Tonto want to work together but they do as in the west there are bad guys every where including evil politicians.

The movie has plenty of action and thanks to Depp there are some funny moments.  The story doesn't really make much sense but if you are in these seats you are not there for a deep plot.  I think a good gauge on this movie is did you enjoy the Pirates of the Caribbean?  If the answer is yes then I think you will find your money well spent.  I was entertained and mostly felt my money was well spent.

The Heat

The Heat

Rating 5 out of 10

First my rant: Seeing this movie in Ft Myers, Florida at a Regal theater (I rarely go to Regal anymore) I got a free popcorn with my Regal card.  Had just eaten dinner and couldn't hold any popcorn.  While standing in line for a diet coke there was a younger pregnant woman in front of me.  I tapped her on the shoulder and asked if she were going to get popcorn.  She said she was so I gave her my free popcorn.  Her response I expected:  Wow, thank you good looking only slightly older man with gray in the beard.  That was so nice I think I'll name my unborn child after you.  Even if it's a girl!  OR maybe: Thank you.  What did I get? She says "Ok".  Then she turns around and goes up to get her free popcorn.  Oh well...

Now the movie-  I didn't really expect much from this movie.  One thing I will say about comedies like this I think it's important to see on a weekend with a full theater.  Something about seeing a moderately funny movie in a theater full of people that makes it seem funnier.  Unfortunately this was a week night with maybe 12-14 other people in the theater.

I think mostly Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy (very funny in tv's Mike and Molly) make a pretty good team.  Sadly they picked this unnecessarily crude foul mouthed poorly written movie to share their talents.  The script while funny at times seems like a made for tv movie that someone thought if they pumped enough F-bombs into it would make for a funny movie. In this movie the F-word is used 190 times.  No I didn't count.  I saw Sandra in an interview where she talked about it.  For me they didn't make the movie any funnier.

The plot of the movie, not that it matters goes like this.  FBI Agent Ashburn (Bullock) is a good agent in NYC except she is a little uptight and not liked.  She is hoping for that big promotion and her boss sends her to Boston to take down that big drug lord that would gurantee the raise. I guess they don't have a FBI office in Boston?  While working the case she crosses paths with the crude foul mouthed Boston cop Mullens (McCarthy) who treats everyone poorly and screams and cusses at her boss.

They hate each other then amazingly enough begin to like each other.  I know you didn't see that coming.  Sadly most of the jokes you see coming around the block.  Bullock and McCarthy are good and almost save the movie.  Almost.  If you can overlook the very unnecessary crude language and can sit thru a couple groan inducing jokes to get to the funny ones you will enjoy this movie.

I'd say wait to rent.

White House Down

White House Down 

Rating 3 out of 10

With most any film you see there is a bit of suspending of belief.  That is a given.  You believe that Superman can fly, the good guy can take three bullets and keep fighting when the bad guy gets one and it out for the count, Adam Sandler is still funny, ect.   With every movie there is level of belief needed to enjoy.  With White House Down you have to be able to suspend belief and common sense to epic levels.  I couldn't do it.

You have to believe a group of bad guys can smuggle into the White House bombs and guns by saying you are working on the Presidents movie theater.  You have to believe the White House is guarded no better than the local check cashing place.  You have to believe that every bad guy is an over the top bozo that over acts like crazy.  You get the point.  I could give much more but they would be considered spoilers.

The bad guys have come up with a plan to take over the White House and then the world.  To make sure the movie does well overseas and does not offend anyone these terrorists are home grown.  Six or seven terrorists are able to take control of the White House and kill every secret service agent that blindly runs into the open and can't shoot anything.  Lucky for President Sawyer (Jamie Foxx) and the free world our hero Cale (I can't act but I sure am pretty Channing Tatum) has stuck around for the White House tour with his cute 11 year old daughter after being told he does not have what it takes to be a Secret Service agent.  I'm guessing SS interviews are not held right there in the House, but maybe they are.

Cale is able to step in and kill terrorists and finds his way to the President while his daughter is held hostage in the oval office.  Rather than hard core action as one might hope this movie falls into prats that might make a Three Stooges movie.

I set the bar low with White House Down.  Hoped to be mildly entertained and knew it would be far fetched.  I was so insulted by the idiotic ending I wanted to throw popcorn at the screen.  Even my movie buddy Ted with the rose colored glasses couldn't come up with anything good to say about this movie.  Yet we heard ten year old boys behind us raving about it being the greatest movie ever as the credits rolled.  I'd say that's the age group they are going after.

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.