The original Night at the Museum was a fun movie to watch, so I gave this movie a chance.   In this one Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) has moved on to be more like the oxiclean guy, making useless inventions and making tons of money.  He no longer works at the museum and when he comes by to visit he sees that they are moving out a lot of the exhibits for storage at the Smithsonian.

The movie is Larry Daley going to the Smithsonian to rescue his friends and get them back to where they should be.  It is the same old movie as the first with a twist that Larry is not a guard anymore so he has to sneak in.  He meets some new friends, like General Custer and Amelia Earhart who help him out to find and rescue his friends from an evil Egyptian pharaoh and his gang of bad guys from history.

The movie is fun, but it seems all to familiar.  Feels a little lengthy when you’re watching but I left feeling good about the movie in the end.  This is definitely a rent.

Rating:  

Submit this

Hide Sites

Ok, I will start off by saying that I am a huge fan of the Terminator story line.  I have seen all the movies, so far, and even watched Sarah Connor Chronicles.  See? Devoted.

I had very high hopes for this movie, which may be why I didn’t care for it all that much.  It had good intentions but it could have been a lot better.  Christian Bale played a good John Connor but he couldn’t save the movie.  I don’t think they thought the movie through, I think they just wanted to get something out.

This movie is set in the future, after Judgment Day but before John Connor sent back his father to protect his mother in the past.  If you can think of this as linear then this would be a prequel.  The movie focuses on Marcus Wright, a guy who signed his body over to Cyberdyne for an important project they are working on right before he is executed for whatever it was that he did.  Next time you see him he is in the future covered in mud and yelling like a mad man.  They don’t tell you much about this guy.

The movie seems poorly written and I was not impressed.  I think Rise of the Machines was a better movie, and that is saying something.

I would rent this movie.  You get nothing from seeing it in theatres and unless you really like the Terminator storyline, you could just skip it.

Rating:  

Submit this

Hide Sites

Terminator Salvation is the attempt of director McG to breathe some new life into an old franchise.  He seemed poised for success (despite a moniker such as his), signing Christian Bale as John Connor and shooting with a script polished by not only Paul Haggis, but Johnathan Nolan as well.  Nolan and Bale were two of the main ingredients in blowing up the latest Batman installments.  So I was very disappointed that it just didn’t quite hit the mark.

The fourth movie in the series opens in 2018, with Judgment Day in the past and SkyNet working to finish extermination of the humans (I’m left with the burning question of what the machines will have to do once they do win the war).  John Connor is grown, a leader in the resistance, married to Kate, and with a baby on the way. Marcus Wright is a product of CyberDyne, a machine with human organs, a melding of the two sides that the machines believe will finally give them the edge. Each man finds that Kyle Reese has become their top priority and both set out to do everything they can to protect him.

If you’ve seen any of the other movies in this franchise, you’ll understand that my synopsis is highly oversimplified.  The ideas of time travel are far too complicated to include in such a short review. I will say that I enjoyed the story, that of John Connor ensuring the safety of the teenager that will one day become his father, but I hoped that there would be more story to  it.  The film relies heavily on battle scenes and visual effects and the more interesting events and ideas of the timeline remain unexplored and unexplained.  It’s not a bad movie, but definitely not a great one.

Rating:  

Submit this

Hide Sites

I have to start this with a mea culpa.  I just don’t know anything about the X-Men.  I’ve never read the comics, and though I’ve seen the movies, I still only have the vaguest idea of the overall story line. The universe is a bit of a mystery to me.  And this newest episode doesn’t do a lot to help those who may not be in the loop.  The film purports to be the backstory of Wolverine, how he came  to be, the path he followed.

Hugh Jackman returns as Logan and teams up with Liev Schreiber as Victor Creed. They stick together through time, fighting side by side in each of the nation’s wars, protecting each other until Victor’s blood lust becomes too much for Logan.  He bows out of the military team of mutants of which they were both a part and goes to live a quiet life with his girlfriend, Kayla. He is happy unti Victor arrives and murders Kayla, leading Logan on a path of revenge that will cause him to become Wolverine.

I thought the film was fine, but I didn’t understand a lot. There were characters included in the story that didn’t make sense to me, an X-Men novice. And I thought there would be more explanation about Wolverine’s early life. It was unsatisfying to me that so much time that could have been used to give me more information was used to show yet another useless and misplaced fight scene. I think that the time in this movie could have been used more wisely. And no matter what, I do not forgive the horrible CGI Patrick Stewart cameo.

Rating:  

Submit this

Hide Sites

This movie was better than I expected. It did not have as much action as the first movie but it made up for it with more puzzles and twists.

This movie picks up after the Davinci Code, Robert Langdon is called in to help with the kidnapping of four Pope hopefuls. The kidnapper has threatened to kill one cardinal per hour, up until midnight where the kidnapper would detonate a crazy “bomb” that some crazy scientists came up with. Antimatter they called it. Sounded like the red stuff from the new Star Trek movie to me.

So Langdon swoops in, solves some riddles, and saves the day? See the movie to find out. I am sure it will be no surprise, EXCEPT, who is behind it all? I don’t know, but you can find out. I would wait until it is available to rent or on Netflix before you go all Sherlock though. No benefit to seeing it in theaters.

Rating:  

Submit this

Hide Sites

I am not a Star Trek fan but this movie cannot be missed. The movie looks great and has very few dull moments, and when they are kind of dull they make up for with witty humor. This movie includes time travel but they don’t focus on it so much that you get confused. Everything seems to make sense and you don’t waste your time thinking “wait, that can’t be right.”

The movie starts in the past showing before Kirk was born, then skips to when is pre-teen. Then they show some young Spock. Then, BLAM! They are grown. You don’t learn much about the characters except what you need to know. You see how Kirk and Spock end up on the Enterprise, and how Kirk becomes captain. You also find out how Spock and Kirk become friends. Like I said, I am not a Star Trek fan so what I saw in this movie is all I know.

The main bad guys in this film are Romulans, which looked like all the characters of the Latino gang from the Samuel L. Jackson movie 187. I am too afraid to get into what the movie is about because the way they present it is one of the reasons the movie is so good. You will have to see it to find out.

This movie is worth seeing on the big screen, I think you would be missing out if you saw it on your wimpy 50″ television.

Rating:  

Submit this

Hide Sites