Inception

5/5

For the uninitiated, Inception tells the story of Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) a corporate spy. Cobb takes people hostage, enters their dreams and extracts valuable information from them. Presumably Cobb has been doing this for quite some time along with a team of a very specifically skilled players. As a result of some of the work he has done in the past he is no longer able to be with is family, against his choice. However, Cobb is given the opportunity to be reunited with his family by Saito (Ken Watanabe) if he is able to complete one final job, inception. Instead of stealing information, Cobb and his team must plant a thought in a business competitor's son's mind. So Cobb assembles a team made up of Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) the dream coordinator of sorts, Ariadne (Ellen Page) the dream architect who recreates the world of dream to convince the dreamer it's all real, Eames (Tom Hardy) a forger who can appear as other people within the dreamers reality and Yusuf (Dileep Rao) the chemist who provides the drugs to induce a coma like sleep to continue the dreamer's sleep. The man whose dreams set the stage for most of the movie is Robert Fischer, Jr. (Cillian Murphy)

The movie delivered on every level. The script, the direction, the casting, the cinematography, the special effects, the acting were all in perfect sync to help bring this mind blowing and mind numbing movie to life. This movie, as was discussed by the director Christopher Nolan, will require a second dose in order to completely absorb all the inner complexities of this film.

At it's core the story is one of redemption. The constant somersaults the plot continually throws you into while moving towards the end of the film is as exhilarating and delightful as your first rollercoaster ride. I have never before heard an entire theater respond in unison the way that our showing did. After we had all been white knuckle gripping our seats or loved ones we all threw up our hands and let out a "OH MY... WHAT THE???" It was not a twist ending, as we have become familiar with thanks to film makers like M. Night Shyamalan, but was an emotion laden final moment that left our parched pallets thirsting for more.

The special effects are top notch and never once cause the created reality to seem less than possible. Although this movie in another film maker's hands may have been a movie painted on a canvas of special effects, instead Nolan only used the special effects as an accent to a beautifully intricate story. They provide just the right amount of surreal and impossible trickery to remind you that for most of the movie you are in a person's dream, but never let you disconnect from the action or miss a single line. In a strange decision, during one of the later dreamscapes all of the characters are wearing nearly the same outfit, which made it difficult to distinguish good guys from bad guys or even good guys from other good guys.

The entire cast of this film help keep you grounded in humanity and simplicity of the truths presented in the otherwise extraordinary and complex plot. I have never thought much of Ellen Page, who plays Ariadne the youngest and newest member of their team, but maybe this character will help her expand her future role possibilities. She is an instrumental tool in giving insight into DiCaprio's character and drives a number of plot points forward with strength. Another actress may have given more depth to the character, but Page does more than I expected with the role. Leonardo DiCaprio draws us into a man struggling and unwilling to let go of his past. It continues to amaze me that an actor of DiCaprio's star power can continue to shed layers of himself and reveal something new. I nearly instantly lose sight of the fact that I am watching Leonardo DiCaprio, acting Super Star, and instead drawn into Cobb, complex anti-hero.

Pros:
Script. Direction. Cinematography. Musical Score. Special Effects. The movie.

Cons:
The end, but not really. Having to make time to go see it again. My dreams don't have rules and are never so grounded in reality... But this is after all a movie...

Bottom Line:
YOU MUST SEE THIS MOVIE!!! This is the first movie since The Matrix that has truly wowed me. Leonardo DiCaprio delivers yet another movie worthy of praise and continues to deliver performance after performance of memorable characters. It's a story that is complex enough, yet simple. It's wonderfully acted. It's beautifully shot. And is seamlessly filled out with special effects and music.

Hairy Plodder

3/5

Despite the sci-fi-fantasy appeal of the Harry Potter movies, which would normally draw me in, I had never watched any of the movies at the theater, until now. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince picks up where we left off in Order of the Phoenix. I think that it may be unproductive for many of you to actually have a synopsis, but I will layout the scene for the uninitiated. Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) is a specially chosen wizard who has been attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He has become very close friends with two of his classmates, Hermine (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint). He is regarded by both the staff and the student body as a talented wizard, even if he does manage to get tangled into tight spots with unusual frequency. Both because of his strong will and because of his natural talents he has also garnered some unsavory enemies. In the Half-Blood Price Harry has returned to Hogwarts for a 6th year; he attends a potions class where he attains a textbook that was once used by the self proclaimed Half-Blood Prince. This book helps win the favor of his potions teacher, Professor Slughorn (Jim Broadbent). Unfortunately for Harry trouble is brewing again and he must unravel the riddles laying before him to uncover who his new foes are and what they truly want... (And that's a really short description!)

Most of the Harry Potter movies could stand alone on their own, however the Half-Blood Prince does not have the story or strength to do so. Although it tells it's own story, it is mostly a set up for things to come in the final film (now films). This changes a lot of the film's "chemistry" when compared to the previous films. The most noticeable change is in the tone, which is much darker and more brooding. This story contains much more dialogue than the others, as well as more character development. While the previous films revolve around the central character, Harry, in most of the scenes he is accompanied by one of his close friends. In the Half-Blood Prince, Harry is usually going it alone or, if joined, he is with a professor.

Meanwhile, the supporting cast get much more screen time all to themselves to help continue to develop their characters. This is where the movie seems to drag. A large amount of time is spent lolly-gagging about with Ron and Hermine as they struggle to figure out their respective love interests. The investment in the characters does have it's rewards, but ultimately makes the movie feel too slow and too long. There was more of vested interest in the supporting cast than in any of the other films, but I am not entirely sure that all of the time spent around their stories was completely necessary or beneficial to the larger story arc(s). The time spent with them did provide valuable insight into their characters and the relationships they share, which was at times humorous and gave a softer touch to this otherwise darker movie.

One thing that felt very different to me was the performance given by Daniel Radcliff. Although I have very much enjoyed all of the previous movies, I always felt that he was just... I don't know... off. His facial expressions and some of his body language were often awkward or insincere. Most of these quirks were absent in this film, not to say that they didn't "pop" up from time to time, but the absence of these... forced expressions... seemed to help ground Harry and make him seem much more real.

Michael Gambon was on top of his game as he brought Professor Dumbledore to life once again. His role has always been linked to that of Harry, but is even more closely tied to the forward progress of Harry's story in this film. The screen time given to him is valuable and rewarding as he is the leading man in many of the more powerful scenes throughout the film. The performance he gave to his character was one of the greatest strengths of the Half-Blood Prince and brought my often wandering mind back into focus on the film.

Pros:
Great character development. Daniel Radcliff seems more honest and tangible this go around. Michael Gambon is wonderful and keeps the story captivating. The tone is much more sinister and helps to provide an excellent spring board for the final story (now stories), while at the same time having stronger comedic relief than the previous films.

Cons:
Very long and slow, primarily because of the large amount of time spent fixating over Ron and Hermine and their love lives. Not a very strong stand alone story.

Bottom Line:
If you haven't seen any of the previous movies, don't invest the time with this one until you do. If you have seen the others, I wouldn't fret too much if you didn't make it to the theaters (I felt like I was the only person laughing in the theater most of the movie). The pacing is similar to that of a very badly scratched CD, the music may be great, but there are some very big distractions and it's hard to continue to keep interest the whole time. I think when placed into the bigger picture this movie will hold more weight than it currently does, but as a standalone movie it suffers from too much to achieve greatness, despite some excellent performances from Michael Gambon and Jim Broadbent.

Truth and Lies

3.5/5

The Ugly Truth gives us plenty to sink our teeth into as we explore the world of men, women and relationships according to Mike (Gerard Butler), a small time cable show host. Introduced first to Abby (Katherine Heigl), a successful local television news producer, who has created a 10 fold list of requirements that a man must fulfill before she will even entertain the thought of a relationship. Obviously it goes without saying that this list has left her single and lonely. Finally a man (Eric Winter) who appears to measure up comes to her rescue. Thinking that he is the man she truly wants, but afraid that she may mess things up with her obsessive control issues and against her better judgment, she turns to Mike for guidance. Mike's advice seems to be helping to move things along quite well, however we realize that not all things may be as they seem...

The Ugly Truth at first seemed to be shaping up to be just another "awkward comedy". This made me a little nervous because although I love The Office and thought that I Love You, Man (read my review) was hilarious I wasn't sure that this movie could keep up. Though the movie had plenty of awkward moments, they were not what provided the most laughs. Shortly after Mike and Abby meet one another we move into stage 2 of the film; this part of the movie (which makes up the majority of the movie and laughs) reminded me a lot of Hitch, which I loved. Watching Abby force herself to do things she wouldn't normally do to keep her man while at the same time seeing the internal conflict build up was very well done and subtle enough that it didn't make me feel like the directors thought I was stupid.

Intentionally vulgar and bigger than life, Gerard Butler is a joy to watch. He keeps the movie together and moving forward. I didn't really know what to expect from the 300 star. His timing and delivery were surprisingly great, he definitely stepped up and took charge of this movie.

The supporting cast was wonderful. A comedy can easily fall flat with poor performances from the supporting cast. Georgia (Cheryl Hines) and Larry (John Michael Higgins) the anchors of Abby's show were especially delightful with all of their sidebar comments and facial expressions.

The Ugly Truth did, unfortunately, suffer from quite a number of forced and contrived scenes. One in the beginning when Abby calls into Mike's late night TV show seems like it was written as an after thought. Their interaction didn't reveal anything and wasn't used in any other part of the movie. There were several of these moments towards the end of the movie. I won't describe them because they reveal several plot points, but the scenes felt insincere.

Pros:
As with any great comedy, a wonderful supporting cast. Pulled from many different types of comedy, from the awkward to the goofy to the witty; a wonderful mix of different types of laughter.

Cons:
The language was strong, I expected it and it didn't throw me off, but it was still strong. However, unlike some movies with strong language where a lot of it doesn't seem truly conversational, it feels natural in The Ugly Truth. Some of the scenes felt slightly contrived.

Bottom Line:
A very funny movie that could go wrong in quite a number of directions, but manages to walk a very narrow line between too much and not enough. The cast is great and the script is intelligent while at the same time grounded. Even if Mike's relationship philosophy isn't entirely accurate or relevant it did provide some great moments and very funny lines.

Coming Soon

Because of the number of embedded trailers make sure you give time for them to load.

Some of these trailers are newer, some of them have been out for a little longer. All of them look like they have some amazing potential, so CHECK 'EM OUT!

District 9


The Book of Eli



Alice in Wonderland


Where the Wild Things Are

Critical Accuracy?

As many of you may know, I don't read the reviews of movies I intend to see and review. This has been, at times, a difficult challenge because I prefer to be informed before I go into a movie. That being said, I have found it interesting that nearly all of my reviews have fallen right in line with the "Tomatometer" from Rotten Tomatoes (which is my favorite resource for movie review information), in many cases my reviews have been within 5% points of the "Tomatometer".

My review of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was the first movie that not only did not line up with general consensus, but was nearly opposite of most reviews. The "Tomatometer" for Transformers was a 20%, my review was a 80%. This extremely different opinion of the movie led me to thinking... What would cause such a wide gap between my opinion and that of a large group of others? I came to the conclusion that people's expectations going into a movie have a profound impact on how they respond to the movie they watch.

To help me illustrate how my expectations led me to my conclusion, here are several questions I asked myself (though not until after I had actually written my review). Is Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen loaded with action? Yes. Does it have tons of giant robots fighting? Yes. Are the Transformers recreated with amazing detail and reality? Yes. Does the movie have some highly memorable lines? Yes. These answer's allude to a movie that has quite a number of positive strengths. However, when laid against a list of different questions such as... Is Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen a perfect movie? No. Are there numerous plot holes? Yes. Is the CGI perfect? No. Is the acting anything to be praised? No. ...the movie seems to come up lacking.

Whatever a person's review of a movie is, including mine, the readers must remember that a review is simply a person's opinion as compared to their expectations. I think this is why many off the radar movies score so highly with the critics... They aren't expecting anything great, so they aren't disappointed. The opposite is also true, when their expectations are high the movie is nearly certain to disappoint on some level (as I addressed in my review of X-Men: Origins).

People weren't entirely sure what to expect with the first Transformers movie and it scored a 57% on the "Tomatometer". People had very high expectations of the sequel and were ultimately disappointed with it. However, I thought that despite it's flaws it was a much more full and impressive movie than the first. The few complaints that I did have with the first were much less apparent or completely corrected in the sequel. Yet, despite these improvements the movie is being criticized as a "mindless, souless sequel" or as one reviewer said "more robotic nonsense". I'm not going to say that any of these reviewer's opinions are wrong, but I think that going into the movie expecting a script of Shakespearean proportions and acting of the same caliber is pure nonsense.

I think that Michael Bay achieved what he wanted to with the film; an action packed thrill ride with huge robots and randomly inserted comic relief. Yet, despite all of these negative reviews it has still scored huge in the box office (currently sitting at over $360 million), so what do all the negative reviews really mean? Apparently not much to all the people that have paid $10+ to see it...

This isn't the first time where I've been at extreme odds with reviewers... This whole situation actually reminds me of another couple of movies that suffered fatally from overly heightened expectations, any one remember the Matrix sequels... Don't worry, I won't get started on that debate... :)

AUTOBOTS, ROLLOUT!

4/5

I apologize that it took so long for me to actually finish this review. I saw the movie midnight opening night and have since seen it two more times...

Transofmers: Revenge of the Fallen slowly unfolds as Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf) is preparing to go off to college and moving past his days with the Transformers. However, before he leaves his house he discovers a shard of the cube that was destroyed in the first movie. Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen) has been hard at work partnering with a secret agency called NEST, which is being led on the ground by Major Lennox (Josh Duhamel). There mission is to find and destroy any Decepticons on planet Earth. The Decepticons know that there is still knowledge of the cube and that Sam has it. We follow Sam, Mikaela (Megan Fox), Agent Simmons (John Turturro) and Leo (Ramon Rodriguez) as they try to unlock the meaning of the knowledge imparted to Sam by the cube shard. Along the way we are teamed up with familiar faces as well as quite a few new ones.

One of the big complaints that I shared with many viewers of the first movie was the choreography and cinematography for the Transformer's fight scenes. Most of these scenes were filmed too closely and chaotically, which made it feel as though we were watching a bunch of scrap metal being smashed together. This complaint was fully remedied in Revenge of the Fallen. The many fight scenes are more well choreographed and also shot from a much wider perspective. This made them feel much more epic and helped show the massive nature of these alien robots.

Not all is well in this Transformers movie. Transformers, which finds it's roots in cartoons, should be a family friendly movie. I do understand that their target demographic is getting older and doesn't need the censorship that a younger audience should be given. However, I found myself being taken aback at the language in a number of scenes. Openly and unsurprisingly Hollywood is become more and more lax in their rating system. Though the language that I speak of isn't terribly strong, we must remember that this will be viewed by a large number of younger children who are quite impressionable by the characters they find inspiring or funny. The comic relief provided by "The Twins", Mudflap and Skids (voiced by Reno Wilson and Tom Kenny respectively), was at times filled with strong language. The "adult" content wasn't limited to the language either. There was some very strong sexual tension and not so subtle innuendo in a number of the earlier scenes. Both of these elements of the movie could have been approached in much different ways, especially considering the wide age range of the viewers. These two things did leave a slightly bad taste in my mouth.

I thought it was wonderful, however, that the Transformers moved in the direction of their origins by incorporating some (in my opinion) much needed smack talk during the fight scenes. This was a big part of the cartoons. Many of the characters would keep running their mouths as they were beating down or getting beat down. My personal favorite scene was one that had many of it's shots pulled into the trailers. Optimus Prime is fighting three separate Decepticons in a sparsely wooded area. The choreography and cinematography are near perfect and the dialogue is delightful. At one moment after felling his opponent Optimus Prime remarks, "Piece of tin." I found the addition of this smack talk to be delightful and moved the live action movies closer to the heart of the cartoons.

Pros:
Light hearted and full of action. Though the beginning is a bit slower in it's development once the action starts it doesn't give much room for breathing until the end of the movie. Although not an amazing script there are some wonderful lines delivered by some of the lead characters. One such line was quite powerful and moved me beyond the movie, "Fate rarely calls upon us at a moment of our choosing."

Cons:
Stronger than necessary language and sexual innuendo that was too strong for a movie with viewers of all ages. The movie left us almost exactly where we were when the first movie ended. Though this isn't a terrible thing, it just seems a bit lazy on the writers part. None of the Transformers, aside from two Autobots and two Decepticons, get much development or depth. If the Transformers are too be recognized as alien beings and not just robots they should have been treated with more respect as far as character development is concerned. Michael Bay has a strange affinity of circling the camera around his characters (go back and watch any of his previous films, he's done it in nearly all of them) this was not only pointless and done too many times, but in one scene I found my self reaching for a trash can. Lastly, although the CGI was very impressive the human/robot interactions were very poorly executed. I've seen many movies with much more convincing real/cgi interactions, they also had much smaller budgets.

Bottom Line:
EPIC! Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen doesn't fall victim to the all too common sequel short comings and delivers a funny, action packed powerhouse that will eat up all of it's summer competition. Michael Bay brings back two of the writers from the original Transformers and scores a movie that is bigger, badder and more explosive than the first. The action scenes are intense and satisfying. The CGI is even more impressive than the first and helps bring the Transformers to a level of intimate detail that truly blurs the line between fiction and reality, absolutely stunning. Unfortunately, the character's, both human and Transformer, get lost in the chaos of the action and feel more shallow than I would have liked.

Back to the Beginning, Sort of

1/5

Jack Black and Michael Cera join forces in their most recent film, Year One. Together Zed (Black) and Oh (Cera) leave their village and set off to create a new tribe. Quite soon after leaving their village they discover that it was raided shortly after their departure and Zed, who is in love with Maya (June Diane Raphael), decides to attempt to free her. Along their journey they cross paths with many familiar biblical faces. Finally landing them in a Roman controlled Sodom...

Year One desperately tries to be something that it largely isn't, funny. I have loved Jack Black and Michael Cera in the overwhelming majority of their movies. Yet, in Year One the script is so focused on trying to push it's political and sexual jokes down your throat that it just ends up tasting like throw up. The movie is thick with very strong sexual innuendo. Being a mildly conservative person, I thought that maybe I was just being unfair to the movie because of my discomfort. So I tried listening to the rest of the theaters responses to the "jokes". Theirs wasn't much different from mine, more squirmy discomfort than laughter.

There was also the very brazen mockery of the early Jewish church. It was bold and in your face. Though some of the lines that were delivered were funny (Abraham's sudden decision to "cut off the tips of our penis") they were often carried too far, and ended up falling short of being humorous.

Every once and a while Jack Black would deliver a great line that was given in true "Jack Black" fashion, but overall it didn't seem like he could really help save this uninspired script. The lead writer, also the director, Harold Ramis has delivered many excellent scripts that were turned into witty and intelligent movies, it's a shame that none of his previous talent was on display here.

Pros:
Jack Black and Michael Cera are both very enjoyable at times and can deliver some wonderful lines.

Cons:
Extreme sexual innuendo that was not only uncomfortable, but also not funny. Lacked any real story arc, practically a bunch of short films and failed one liners.

Bottom Line:
I think that if I were to watch this movie again I would enjoy it more the second time, but I'm not sure that I am willing to give it that second chance. Laden with overt sexual innuendo and early Jewish church mockery, this movie has the opportunity with talent and a good story idea, but fails to deliver anything other than some mild chuckles.