Need for Speed

Need for Speed

Rating 4 out of 10

I had a roofers holiday (rain day) and felt like a movie.  Need for Speed was the only one with a start time that worked.   This is one of the first movies made by Aaron Paul in attempt to capitalize on his hot Breaking Bad fame.  He is clearly the big name in the movie with a list of B actors and sadly showing how far Michael Keaton has fallen.

Aaron Paul plays Tobey Marshall, a natural born race car driver that has taken over his fathers garage after he passes away and specializes in very expensive muscle cars.  Even with the very high dollar clientele the banker is on the doorsteps ready to repo.  The fine acting in the movie is the evil banker who is played by my friend Frank Brennan who is just like that evil heartless banker in real life (not really).  Several things happen where Tobey goes to jail after his best friend dies.  When he gets out the only way (of course) he can avenge his friends death is to win a secret race thru the curvy California roads with and against multi million dollar cars.  How else would one do it?

The teenage Royce would have LOVED this movie.  Lots of fast cars, hot babes and action like nobodies business.  Plot that makes not a nickels worth of sense?  Teenage Royce could not care less. Lets watch this movie again!  Middle aged Royce sees it a little differently.  Middle aged Royce wonders about all those poor people in the cars wrecked with idiot Tobey drives down the wrong side of the road at 100+ mph and am not amazed when a three million dollar Mustang jumps across three lanes of traffic at 15ft, lands in the dirt without a scratch.

This is a mostly harmless go fast sports car movie that if you can park enough neurons at the door you could enjoy it.  Enough neurons that you think Dukes of Hazard was a documentary.  It could be done...

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Rating 8 out of 10

When the first Captain America came out in 2011 I went in with low expectations.  It didn't look like it was going to be very good.  I was pleasantly surprised as the movie was much better than I thought it would be.   This time expectations were higher with this version and once again I was pleasantly surprised.  The Winter Soldier is great.   The action in the first ten minutes of the movie is first rate.

This movie begins not long after the Avengers have saved NYC and the world.  Captain America or Steve Rogers (the hunky Chris Evans) is still working with S.H.I.E.L.D and it's leader Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson).  A big reason this movie is better than the last is Captain America has joined forces with the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) who besides being very hot knows how to kick butt and has some of the best lines of the movie.

When an assassination attempt on Nick Fury happens Rogers uncovers a group of bad guys has infiltrated not only the government but the deepest parts of S.H.I.E.L.D.  Of course their plan is to take over the world and kill millions.  What bad guy does not want this?  It's up to Captain America and Black Widow to save the world and they don't know who they can trust.  They find a friend in Falcon (Anthony Mackie).  An ex-special forces man that has these cool strap on wings that enable him to fly like a bird.

The action is first rate here. If you like super hero movies your money will be well spent here.   I enjoyed this very much and would pay to see it again.  Also thought it was cool that S.H.I.E.L.D uses a Macbook Pro like the one I 'm typing on to run their organization!

Sabatoge

Sabotage

Rating 4 out of 10

Not that long ago Arnold Schwarzenegger was king of the movies.  Put him in your movie and you had a box office smash.  Even his bad movies made money.  Studios would spend millions just to pitch him scripts hoping he would be in their movie.  Then he took some time off to run California.  Since his return to movies it mostly shows he should have stayed in politics.

In Sabotage we have Arnie leading a corrupt group of DEA agents.  The group besides mega star Sam Worthington (Avatar) we have a who's who of cable tv stars.  Josh Holloway ( Lost and current show Intelligence), Joe Maganiello (True Blood), Mireille Enos ( The Killing), Max Martini ( Army Wives and pretty much every army show on tv) and then throw in Terrence Howard.  Make a movie with a bunch of bad guy drug dealer thugs and high body counts. It's even filmed in Atlanta! How could Arnie be in Atlanta and I not hear about it?  What else would you need?

Oh yeah, a story that makes a nickels worth of sense.  This is almost all nonsense.  As I said this is a corrupt task force.  In the beginning we see them stealing $10 million from a drug kingpin on a raid.  The problem (besides the kingpin knowing they ripped him off) is somehow the FBI knew how much money was there and knows how much is missing.  Even worse when they go to pick up the money they stole it's gone.   Six months later when the FBI gives up trying to prosecute them people in the task force start being murdered.  The local Atlanta police detective joins in to try to figure out who is doing the deeds.

The action is mildly entertaining and acting is good.  The rest is a waste of time.

Divergent

Divergent 

Rating 6 out of 10

Divergent is the latest in a string of trilogy books that are a big hit following the Twilight and Hunger Games series.   I read the first two series and watched the movies and mostly enjoyed them.  I  mildly liked the first Divergent book although not nearly as much as my brother inlaw or others have.  I was looking forward to seeing the movie yet nervous with all the very bad reviews.  I thought the movie was better than the reviews but much more watered down and blah that it needed to be.  In this case I think people that have not read the books will enjoy the PG-13 movie more.  

With Divergent we are somewhere way in the future.  The powers that be have sectioned society into six groups, Honesty, Selfless, intelligence, Peaceful and Warriors.  Then if you don't fit in any of those you are basically cast into the homeless and looked down upon.  When you become of age you are given a mental test that helps you decide which group you will enter.  Once entering that group it's sink or swim.  If you don't make it you are cast out into the homeless group and looked down upon.  Most after taking the test only qualify to go into one group.

Our star Tris (Shailene Woodley) takes the test and qualifies for three different groups.  You would think this is a good thing except it throws a red flag to the people in power (Kate Winslet) as it means you are less likely to conform to society and think for yourself!  The name for this is Divergent.

Tris joins the Warrior group and with help of others tries to hide her Divergency.  She finds the boot camp to qualify is far more difficult and brutal than she expected.  Most of the movie (and the book) are devoted to the boot camp and difficulties she has.  In my opinion too much time is spent in both the book and movie on this.  I was frustrated that many parts (important parts in my opinion) from the book were needless left out of the movie.  I understand the need to tame things for an important PG-13 rating yet Hunger Games did it with still being able to show how rough it was.

I was entertained but not impressed.  My movie buddy Ted gave it a 7.5 but he likes all movies more than I do.

Muppets Most Wanted

Muppets Most Wanted

Rating 5 out of 10

I had another date with my lovely granddaughter that I always look forward to.  We were trying to decide between the Muppets and Mr Peabody.  Movie times made the decision for us.  I have been a Muppets fan for many years.  The kid in me always liked that type of humor.

In this movie we find there is another frog in a frozen Russian prison that is very evil and except for a mole on his right cheek looks just like Kermit.  When he breaks out of the prison he, with the help of his Number Two Dominic (Ricky Gervais) swaps places with Kermit.  He uses the Muppets with a world wide come back tour to mask their big robberies.  Kermit is thrown into the frozen brink run by the show tunes loving Nadya (Tina Fey).

This movie begins with the ending of last Muppets movie in 2011 with them realizing because the cameras are sticking around that the studio has given them a sequel and they need to come up with a story line.  They really should have tried a little harder.  The movie has some of the cute laughs you would normally get with a Muppets movie.  The plot really seems like it was written on the back of a cocktail napkin after a night of drinking.  It is void of the songs the kids like or many of the big names they usually pepper the movie with.

I was mildly entertained.  My granddaughter as soon as the Junior Mints ran out began to ask if it was almost over.

300: Rise of an Empire

300: Rise of an Empire

Rating 7.5 out of 10

I am a fan of the first 300 movie.  Big fan.  It probably is my favorite movie of all time.  So I went to into Rise of an Empire with the bar set very high although I realized there was no way it would be as good.  Empire was not as good as the original yet I was highly entertained.

Rise of the Empire is a prequel and a sequel of the original where King Leonidas took his well muscled group of super soldiers against thousands of evil Persian invaders.  This whole storyline is VERY loosely based on the true events in Greece history.  If you get a chance to see the show on the History Channel about this subject I highly recommend it.

On to this movie.  While Leonidas is battling with his 300 in history there was also a big battle going on at sea led by Themistokles (Sullivan Stapleton) that was equally impressive with very few ships battling a thousand Persian ships full of soldiers.  This is more their story than the rise of revenge that happens afterwards.

Visually this is an incredible movie.  Not for everyone.  If you don't like violence save your money.  There are non-stop battle scenes and blood by the tanker.  The baddest person in the movie is probably a woman.  Artemisia (Eva Green) is a Greece native that was wronged by her countrymen and saved then raised by Persians.  She has a grudge and intends on inflicting misery on her old country.  Eva does a good job of being over the top badness while still somehow being sexy.  Lena Headey returns as Leonidas widow and Rodrigo Santoro is also back as the seven foot god king Xerxes.

The story tends to bounce around more than I would have liked.  The movie they tried to explain the history part the more the story becomes muddled.  This movie won't win any awards.  It's just 100% testosterone from A to Z.  Lots of battling in amazing backgrounds.  You know who the good guy is and who is bad.

While it's not for everyone I enjoyed it.  If you liked the first 300 movie you will most likely enjoy this one.  Just not as much.

The Lego Movie

The Lego Movie

Rating 7 out of 10

I had a date with my lovely granddaughter.  I always look forward to these.  Besides getting to spend some time with her I also get to see kids movies that I would normally feel strange in with my older movie buddies.  I have heard good things about the Lego Movie and have to say I am very surprised that it has been the number one movie for three weeks (not much competition) grossing nearly $200 million.

I enjoyed this movie.  The writing is witty.  It keeps the kids interested and has enough humor for adults that I found myself laughing and following along.  The animation was good and was very creative.  I wouldn't call it "the greatest film ever in the history of cinema" as some reviewers on www.rottentomatoes.com have.  I did enjoy it.

The movie has a good message for kids.  Emmet (Chris Pratt) is and ordinary Joe.  Nothing special about him as far as even he can tell.  He is drafted into a league of special people to overthrow the evil man determined to spread super glue all over the Lego's and freeze them permanently.   He is mistakenly thought to be the leader they need to put it all together.

There are some good characters.  Many voices you will recognize like Morgan Freeman and Liam Neeson.  Some creative ways to make a ninety minute Lego commercial entertaining.  I'm good with that.  Kids need more Lego's and fewer video games these day (said the old grandpa).

Not the greatest movie ever made, but entertaining and a great way to spend some time with a cute three year old granddaughter.