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.

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.