The Other Woman

The Other Woman

Rating 3 out of 10

How bad does a movie that has a large portion of it's nearly two hours with Kate Upton in a skimpy swimsuit yet still is dreadfully boring?  Watch The Other Woman and you will soon see. There were some people laughing at times during this movie. Mostly it was dead silence.  I"m not a big fan of Leslie Mann, but here she was like scratching on a chalkboard in her overacting.

In case you have not seen the movie trailer it starts off with a leggy blonde lawyer (Cameron Diaz) falling deeply in love with a Mr. Wonderful named Mark (Nikolaj Coster from the far better Game of Thrones tv show).  Mark literally charms the pants off her.  When she makes a surprise visit to his home she finds his unsuspecting wife (Leslie).  Instead of getting mad she wants to be best friend with her husbands woman on the side.  There are many stale gags that die on the floor.  When the women follow the cheater to the beach they find him with yet another woman (Upton).

They all three become best friends and decide to get even via some half baked proving he is stealing money from his company plan.  Nothing makes much sense. The only part of this movie that made me happy was the credits when the movie was over.  : >

This is a don't even bother to rent type of movie.

3 Days to Kill

3 Days to Kill

Rating 6 out of 10

Some people can't stand Kevin Costner.  Like detest him and every movie he is in.  I don't get it.  I am a fan.  I think that even when he is in a bad movie he almost always is good.  This is one of those movies.  He takes a movie that otherwise would have gone straight to dvd and makes it a mildly entertaining movie.

Costner plays a long time C.I.A. spy/hitman.  He is the best of the best.  He can take out a room of bad guys without breaking a sweat.   Nothing can stop him.  Well, nothing except a brain tumor that has drifted to his lungs and given him a few months to live.  He wants to walk away and spend what time he has with his estranged teenage daughter and lovely ex-wife.

As luck would have it amazingly the C.I.A has one last job for him to do.  That almost never happens! : >   Not only will they let him walk away but the sexy handler (Amber Heard) has a new experimental drug that could cure is tumors.

Much of the movie is the hokey/sweet efforts he goes to reconnect with is daughter.  Not many surprises. Lots of action and shooting.  Pretty much paint by the numbers but I was mildly entertained.  I would classify this as a decent rental when it comes out.

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.