Oblivion

Oblivion 

Rating 4 out of 10

After watching the trailer for this movie I thought visually it looked amazing yet I still had no real idea what the movie was about.   Sadly I felt nearly the same way after leaving the theater after watching it.

In the beginning of the movie Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) tells us in a voice over that in the year 2077 Earth was attacked by aliens from another planet intending on taking over after their planet has played out.  Earthlings fight back with everything we have (nukes) and win the battle but lose the war.  Earth is now a radiated wasteland.  All living humans have been moved to a huge death star looking space ship leaving Jack and his partner to do mop up duty protecting these big generator things that are sucking the last of earths resources before everyone goes to the death star to live our their days.

Jacks job is to keep the drones running that protect the generators from small pockets of the aliens still left on earth.  His memory has been erased for a reason not fully explained.  He keeps having flashbacks to a time before the war and tries to make sense of it.

I looked at my watch and realized an hour and forty five minutes into the movie I had absolutely no clue what was going on.  This movie could have been better hand they explained what was going on much earlier in the movie and played the plot from there.  I was more frustrated and confused.

Rent this one if you must.  It's pretty to look at.  Not much fun to watch.

G.I.Joe: Retaliation

G.I.Joe: Retaliation

Rating 6.5 out of 10

I'll admit my heart rate went up a bit when I watched the action packed trailer for the new GI Joe movie.  I was one of the few that enjoyed the first GI Joe movie while I would admit it was not very good.  Retaliation is most definitely better than the first one.  Not by a bunch, but it it better.

The movie doesn't really have so much a plot or storyline as a series of non-stop action sequences linked together with an attempt to make sense.  Some times it does.  Most of the time it doesn't.  The sad part is when Duane Johnson is flexing his Rock sized biceps you really don't care or even notice.

One of my big problems with the Transformer movies has been I never watched the cartoon or played with the toys.  Missed out on that phase of life.  So I can never tell who the good robots are or who the bad robots are.  Who do I root for?   There is a bit of that here when some of the secondary characters leave the screen.  Storm Shadow, Snake Eyes, Zartan, Jinx, Firefly?   Are they good or bad?  I kinda figured it out after a while but it took more effort than I wanted to put out.

The Rock does a good job as does the lovely Adrianne Palicki. Bruce Willis must owe the IRS money and is trying to get in as many movies as he can.  All the action scenes as they are were quite entertaining.  Overall I enjoyed the movie.  I wish I had quit thinking about it when I left the theater.

The Croods

The Croods

Rating 6 out of 10

Some of my favorite movies of the year are the ones where I get to take my granddaughter and share a bucket of popcorn, bag of twizzlers and some Reese's Pieces.  The movie is just an extra.  This time we went to see the very colorful if not always interesting The Croods.

The Croods are a stone age family with a very over protective dad (voiced perfectly by Nicolas Cage).  Everything is bad. Everything will kill you.   Can't hardly disagree with him when nearly every plant or animal wants to eat you.  The star of the show is the young athletic daughter Eep (Emma Stone) who is filled with curiosity.  She goes out when she is not supposed to and explores the area.  While out she meets hunky Guy (Ryan Reynolds) who tells them of the coming volcanos an need to get to higher ground.  When the family cave is destroyed the road trip begins.

The Croods is cute enough.  The colors and animation was pretty good in my 2D version.  The story is a little thin.  My attention wandered a bit in the middle of the movie as did my three year old date.  It wraps up with a cute and satisfying ending.  Overall it's not a movie you'll be rushing out to buy the DVD when it comes out but you'll be glad you saw it.

Olympus Has Fallen

Olympus Has Fallen

Rating 7.5 out of 10

When I saw the trailer for this movie I'll admit my heart rate rose a bit.  Gerard Butler was great in one of my favorite movies of all time (300) and I was glad to see him back in an all out action movie again. I am glad to say for the most part Olympus Has Fallen does not disappoint.  Many reviewers have called it a type of Die Hard in the White House.  I would mostly agree with that.  The good Die Hard movies, not like the last one.

Butler plays former Secret Service agent Mike Banning who is booted off the Presidential detail after a life changing event only to work a boring job with the US Treasury.  Eighteen months after his removal there is a well planned attack on the White House by North Korean terrorists.  They gain control of the President and kill a bunch of agents along the way.  Banning fights his way in and ends up being the last man standing when everything is sealed off.  It's up to Mike to save the President and the free world. No pressure.  Good thing he is ex-special forces.

When the action starts it's a high voltage ride.  This is a first rate cast with all-stars at every turn.  There are a few hard to swallow moments but overall this is a fun action movie.  I enjoyed it.

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

Rating 2 out of 10

You have a rough sell in a comedy movie about magicians when there is hardly any magic and the movie is just not funny.  With the poor reviews and lackluster trailers I went into the mostly empty theater with very low expectations and it still managed to fall far below.  In a year where we have seen plenty of duds this movie entrenches itself near the top of Royce's Worst Ten of 2013.  I truly hope I don't see ten movies worse than this one.

The movie starts with young Burt (Steve Carell) being beat up by the grade school bullies.  Wanting to be liked he turns to magic and befriends his nerdy neighbor Anton (Steve Buscemi).  They start working on their magic act.  Fast forward years later and they have a world famous act in Las Vegas together.  Ten years later the act has gone boring and stale, Burt is a pompous jerk and the friendship has gone.  A new street magician (Jim Carrey) that is supposed to be Criss Angel is taking over and Burt and Anton are out.

Some of the problems (there are too many to list) the script seems to have been written in an 8th grade boys locker room.  Most of the acting is so overdone it's painful to watch.  When Jim Carrey came on screen I swear my eyeballs hurt.  It is not funny from start to finish.  There was one guy in the back of the theater laughing so hard we were sure someone had a gun to his head forcing him to laugh.  I would have had them pull the trigger.

The lone bright spot in this movie was Olivia Wilde.  She plays Burt's assistant and aspiring magician who works to bring some humanity to the bunch.  The rest of the movie is a complete waste of film stock.

The Call

The Call

Rating 7 out of 10

This is a movie I really didn't want to see.  Wife and I do dinner and a movie with our friends once a month or so.  It was their time to pick the movie.  When I saw the trailer I thought it looked pretty stupid.  A whole movie on someone calling into 911?  I'm one of the few males on the planet that does not care for Halle Berry nor do I find her that attractive.   Yet I have to admit the movie was much better than I thought it would be.

Halle plays Jordan who has the tough job of an operator for the 911 call center at Los Angeles.  When Jordan takes a call from a young girl home alone having a bad guy breaking into her house.  When a possible mistake by Jordan plays a part in the bad outcome she takes it very hard.

Months later she is off the phones and has become a trainer when she ends up forced to take another abduction call  The girl is trapped in the trunk of a car with a cell phone that can not be traced.  Jordan comes up with some good ways to help them find the girl.  As a father of two girls my heart was breaking for this poor scared girl locked in the trunk.  The wife was chewing her fingernails off.

On the down side the last fifteen minutes are about as implausible as they could come up with.  The very ending made me say bad words toward the screen.  Still overall I thought it was an entertaining movie and worth the ticket price.

Oz the Great and Powerful

Oz the Great and Powerful

Rating 4 out of 10

I wasn't quite sure what to expect out of this movie.  I knew it was a prequel to the classic Wizard of Oz and from the trailers it looked to have some pretty cool graphics.  I didn't find Oz to be a bad movie.  It's just not a very good one either.

I will admit right off that I'm not a big fan of James Franco who plays our magician from Kansas named Oz.  Franco always to me seems like he needs a good scrubbing.  Greasy hair and a wanna-be beard like I had when I was sixteen.  Get him a toothbrush and some heavy duty toothpaste while you are at it.  I have to believe he was not the producers first choice here.

The movie begins in a small town fair with a second rate magician (Oz) more interested in charming the ladies and cheating the people than caring if he is very good.  While running from a jealous husband he gets in his ballon for a hasty get away only to be sucked into a oncoming tornado.  As everyone knows If you get sucked up by a tornado you end up in another land.  That's what happens to Oz.   He crash lands is a strange land full of colorful plants and strange creatures.  It seems a now murdered king had predicted the coming of the Wizard named Oz.  He is more interested in getting their gold than saving the kingdom.  Hard to tell who are the good guys without a play book.

The movie is clearly made for the 3D crowd.  I saw the 2D version.  Most of the filming seemed to be going from one 3D gimmick to another.  The storyline is very infantile for adults (I kept wishing I had a fast forward button) yet I am afraid it won't keep the attention of most kids.  The acting was okay even though some of the other actors seemed out of place too. I"m wondering if this had anything to do with the play Wicked as the acting seemed to be very over the top like you'd see in theater.   Overall I was mostly bored and wishing it would hurry up and end.