As a videogame to movie adaptation, Need for Speed is successful. But that videogame tie in also what holds the movie back from being really great. There’s a lot of try-hard to be cool dialog that can be hard to put up with and an overall goofy tone that takes away from the experience.

In my typical review framing, I’ll talk about what I liked the most. It’s a great looking and sounding movie. Kinetic and clean direction, eye catching cinematography with gorgeous cars and locations. I really appreciate and admire all of the practical car stunt driving with the added CG to sweeten things up a bit. The races and action scenes are a blast to watch.

They pulled a lot of visuals right from the game, the final race travels through many of the locations that you blast through in some of the videogames recent releases. The movie gets the feel of the games and runs with it. Which is also it’s biggest problem.

The movie is basically a revenge picture with all around good guy Tobey vs the colossal jerk Dino. The drama is all set up with Tobey being the underdog with his lovable (and talkative) friends surrounding him. They always rally around their friend to help him out. The driving in the Need for Speed games is really amped up stuff with cops, planes, helicopters, barricades and a pack of drivers in the most exotic cars on earth trying to run you off the road. They transfer all of that into the movie so airplanes and choppers constantly appear out of nowhere. The way drivers get messages and the GUI of the pause screen is almost directly lifted from the games into the movie too. It’s hard to take anything seriously…a lot like a Michael Bay movie.

There’s nothing truly bad about Need for Speed, it just goes through the motions. The plot is nothing special and the characters are nothing special. I think car nuts will really like the action scenes as those are done really well and what Need for Speed is for anyway. It’s one of those movies that you don’t seek out, but if you see it on HBO, you’ll check out because you have nothing better to do.

This marks the 2nd cinematic take on Stephen King’s novel, Carrie (1976, with a sequel in 1999 and a TV movie in 2002). With the brilliant Chloe Grace Moretz in the title role, this tale of telepathic revenge has a lot going for it (how cool is that poster? Great idea).

I’ve seen parts of the 1976 Carrie and have been meaning to read the book for ages (I’m well overdue to dipping my toes back into King’s waters) so I go into this knowing the basics and don’t know what was changed from the book. The most obvious is bringing the story closer to present day with cell phone use. Despite seeing iPhones and such in the hands of teenagers, the time period of the movie felt like it was taking place sometime in the 1990’s.

It’s a really straight forward movie. Carrie White is an outsider at her school because of her mother (home schooling, super religious). She doesn’t have any friends and does come off as bit weird (she does have telekinetic powers, but no one knows it and she’s just trying to understand them herself). But she is a good girl. She wants to belong and just be a normal kid. After a humiliating experience in the showers after gym class, Carrie is at her lowest. Sue, who was part of the mob mentality in the showers, regrets what she did and wants to make up for it. She decides she’s going to skip prom, asking her boyfriend to take Carrie instead. Show her a good time, make a positive memory from her high school days. Carrie’s mother is completely against it (to say the least) and tries to stop Carrie from going. In the infamous prom scene, Carrie is humiliated again by one of her classmates. She snaps, cleaning house in the process.

I think this is promoted as a horror movie (and Carrie does obliterate quite a few people), but I didn’t find this scary at all. It is really sad. Carrie is a girl who never got a fair shake at life. It’s easy to paint her mother, Margaret (Julianne Moore) as the villain, but her past is wrought with tragedy as well. The real problem is Chris. That girl is grade A lunatic. The movie ends on a total downer to boot.

I think the weakest part of the movie is that it feels a little thin. Small glimpses at character backgrounds and Chris is such a nutter it’s hard to believe she does what she does. They insinuate she’s a spoiled brat, but the murderous glee she shows is something else. Aside from that, it’s a well made movie. Chloe keeps knocking her roles out of the park, she’s such a great actress. Really believable, she’s a major asset to any movie she chooses to work on. It’s well shot (aside from one camera shot/edit during a fight with Carrie and her mother that I’m pretty sure makes no sense physically) and the special effects are really good. Lots of practical work mixed in with CG and the deaths in the final act are  creative and well done.

While I think they hit all the right marks…was this reboot necessary? Aside from adding social networking to the bullying angle, it’s really no different. I’d say it’s worth a watch if you are interested.

Much like Spider-Man swinging through NYC, this movie has a ton of peaks and valleys. The great moments are often followed by an odd scene of awkwardness, dullness, confusion and a sense that something is missing despite a long 2 hour and 20 minute run time.

I’ll start with what I like. Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker and Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy are nearly perfect. They have a real on screen chemistry and they both look and act their parts true to their comic book characters. Much of the visual work is really, really well done. I like Marc Webb’s direction and there are some beautiful shots from start to finish. I liked the overall tone of the movie that mixes hope, despair, fun and fear in equal measure. The plight of a hero and the darkness of the world that often surrounds him.  There’s some great character beats with Spider-Man (i.e. the small scenes with the kid) and the fight with Hobgoblin in the clock tower leads to arguably the biggest and heaviest moment of the movie franchise. That climax had some real weight to it and was done really well. A lot of people moaned about Rhino’s placement, but I like how it bookends the movie. He’s a goofy C level villain anyway so I think it’s rather fitting that he’s shown as more or less a speed bump.

Now the bits that weigh it down. Some really weird soundtrack choices. The chanting bit for Electro is bizarre and sounds really out of place. The villains suffer from Iron Man 2 syndrome, which mostly wasted potential. Their M.O.s are paper thin. Poorly thought out reasoning and all too brief usage. There’s not enough substance to them to make you care about them. They are far too simple and their turn to villainy is far too fast. It’s like a flick of a switch and “Here’s you antagonist!” While the movie looks great, some terrible CG work on Rhino at the end is real eyesore. The acting sometimes spins out of control (namely between Peter and Harry Osborn). I think the biggest problem is how disjointed the movie feels, like a lot was cut out and moved around. It seems like when everything was shot, a lot of heavy editing went down to wrangle all the plot points into a cohesive story. You have a few villains, a tumultuous relationship and family issues (of those living and dead) all being juggled around. All the pieces doesn’t fit together quite right. It also feels like this story is a linking piece, that something bigger and more important is going to happen next. It’s as if they want you to sit tight and hang on until they get to real point they want to make in the next movie.

Spider-Man 2 (2004) is still the best movie, this one feels like it got too wiggly to hold for the filmmakers at times. It does a lot right, but the faults are too many and great to ignore. Thankfully Amazing 2 is far better than the disaster that is Spider-Man 3. Hopefully no one (comic book or otherwise) will plunge to that depth ever again.

Marvel picks us up and blasts us off into space for Guardians of the Galaxy, a good time off of Earth no matter how you cut it. Guardians launches the Cosmic line of Marvel stories with a rag tag team of misfits who band together to save us all from the evil Ronan the Accuser.

I think the best way to describe the movie is Star Wars meets Firefly. Spaceships, aliens of all shapes, sizes and colors, blaster fights, outlaws and bounty hunters, fist fights, spaceship dog fights. It’s like the Wild Wild West out there. The lovable cast is held together by Star Lord, played by the rising star, Chris Pratt. He’s flanked by Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) and Rocket Raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper). Star Lord is the only human, Gamora and Drax boast some great alien prosthetics and Groot and Rocket are both complete CG characters (both exceptionally well done, they look and move great). They gel really well together and by the end I was left wanting to see what kind of trouble they get into next.

The movie doesn’t take itself seriously and it has a lot of heart. There’s a lot of jokes and playing around despite the looming threat of galactic annihilation from Ronan, who is hell bent on ultimate power when he turns on his master, Thanos. It’s a really fun and “bouncy” summer blockbuster that moves pretty fast, which I think is its greatest fault. Everyone is thrown together (and trusts each other) really fast and there’s a lot left unexplained. Star Lord is kidnapped from Earth in 1988 and we never know why. We’re told very little about everyone. Ronan is pretty generic, he’s just a bad guy with bad guy plans. It’s also very predictable, all the cliched pieces fall in place right on time (love interest side plot, team work saves the day, switcheroo move by the hero). With so much set up out of the way, I hope they feel like the pressure of launching a new franchise is off them to really get wild and weird with the next one. The movie looks and sounds great with a lush pallet, interesting back drops, quality character work and a soundtrack that matches.

More hooks for the next wave of Marvel movies have been laid and fans have a new team of heroes to cheer for. Marvel continues to ride the wave of success.

Two quick hits since I don’t have much to say about these gems:

300: Rise of an Empire– Eight years between sequels and not much has changed. The story takes place at the same time as 300 and gives insight into Xerxes ascension to power. The visual and audio presentation is the same, very stylized computer animation with copious amounts of slow motion and blood. If you liked the first movie and are down for some more, check it out. Otherwise you aren’t missing anything (except for a really awkward sex scene).

Under the Skin– I’ve heard a lot of good things about Under the Skin and…ugh. This should have been a short film. It runs a good hour too long and if the dead weight was cut out, I think it would leave a really great and interesting 45 minute short.. Scarlett Johansson plays an alien being that seduces men for…some purpose. There’s a lot of mystery about everything. It’s a good concept, it’s made really well (some striking visuals) and Johansson does some great work. The editing is what killed me. There has to be 30 minutes worth of footage of characters driving around. Pointless driving around. I’m leaving out the parts where Johansson talks to men on her quest, so she’s actually doing something. You spend a lot of time in a van in this movie. The rest is a waste of time. There are large chunks of this that I fast forwarded through to get to something interesting. I watched people drive and stand around quickly without missing anything important. There is a lot of “observation” in this movie. The pacing is just brutal, it’s an exercise in patience more than anything. Do not recommend.

2011 saw the release of The Raid: Redemption and it made action film fans stand up and take notice. Writer/Director/Editor Gareth Evans quickly became the man to watch. This year, he’s back with The Raid 2, what I would call a very successful sequel.

The original took place in a apartment building run by a powerful drug lord. Rama is in the SWAT team that goes in and is the only one who manages to fight his way out. The sequel stars Rama again, picking up right after the first movie ends. Gareth Evans expands the story, scope and thus the movies run time by having Rama go undercover to infiltrate a powerful mob ring to shake out widespread corruption.

There’s a lot of great characters through out, I think Iko Uwais as Rama is a phenomenal action star. I hope his career blows up world wide. He’s really likeable and just a complete bad ass. The Raid has some of the most intense and visually striking action put on film and The Raid 2 runs with that torch.

There are a ton of action scenes spread through out. The movie is about 2 hours and 20 minutes and I think close to half of that is action scenes. I won’t be able to justice in explaining the insanity and brilliance that is on display, so I’m just going to say you have to see it to believe it. It’s some of the most epic, no holds barred, choreographed and shot violence. Hammer Girl, Bat Guy and Sickle Man, all awesome, all amazing in their scenes. The car chase scene is stunning, it’s one of the best ever filmed. Gareth Evans keeps raising the bar so high it’s ridiculous.

I’ve rambled enough. Just like the first movie, action fans have to see this. That’s the easiest way of putting it. It’s not for the squeamish though, as it’s very violent and gory.

The Lego Movie is an amazing accomplishment. What could have been a terrible 90 minute long ad, is actually one of the best movies, animated or otherwise, of the year. It’s a great kids movie that also works on an adult level as well (I’m sure Pixar is proud of another team managing this).

Elliot is just an average Lego construction worker doing his thing every day. When he’s tapped as “The Special”, Elliot is thrust into a quest to stop the evil Lord Business from destroying the Lego world.

Elliot is an every man. He’s just a guy who plugs away in the boundaries of his life. When he’s told he has much greater capabilities, he has a hard time believing it. It’s a story of self confidence, taking control of your life and doing everything you can to succeed.

The characters and the voice over cast is outstanding. It’s a huge menagerie of TV and film stars all over the movie. The characters span many universes, which is a blast to see. Comic book characters, movie characters, original Lego set characters, they’re all in here. There’s a lot of funny lines (mostly from Batman, Superman and Green Lantern) which keeps things light, fun and always interesting.

And then there is the animation. Animal Logic has to at least get an Oscar nomination for their work. This movie looks mind boggling. It’s all CG but the genius’ behind this movie figured out how to make it look like real, stop motion animated Lego pieces. It’s so convincing, you think you are laying down on the floor on your stomach watching the biggest Lego play set ever assembled move on its own. Everything about it looks amazing. The lighting is perfect, the depth of field and camera movement is crazy. The backdrops and all of the “special effects” like explosions and water are all Lego based. This is one of the most striking animated movies ever made.

A real surprise and a real treat! Watch it!

Seven seasons and Californication on Showtime is over. The draw of David Duchovny on a show play a writer and good natured degenerate is what brought me in. Hank Moody is a great character and the show had more than a few great moments, but it ran as fast as it could on the same wheel for a few years too many. There’s only so many times Hank could burn bridges, get a new job and apologize to Karen.

The writers knew this and admitted it in the end. There was only one way the show could end. The last plot lines were wrapped up ( on a high note for almost everyone) and Hank and Karen not necessarily a couple, but together ’till the f’in wheels come off baby.

Her is the first time Spike Jonze has written and directed a movie and it’s a marvelous achievement from every angle. With an unusual genre to tackle (sci-fi, romance, drama), Her could have been a disaster of a movie but starting with an excellent script, it’s one of my favorite of the year so far.

Theodore is a introverted man who works for a letter writing company. While he dazzles with the written word for strangers, his real life romantic capabilities have hit an all time low. He’s in the middle of a divorce from his high school sweet heart and prefers to keep to himself and play videogames. When he buys the new computer operating system, “OS1” he ends up falling in love with the software that was designed to meet a users every need with cutting edge artificial intelligence.

Her takes place is the not to distant future where our everyday communication and working tech has become more ubiquitous and smarter. This future is one that is more than likely actually going to happen. The tech giants like Microsoft, Apple and Google are well on the way with learning and predictive tech that caters to our every need. Voice recognition and verbal communication with our devices is getting better every single year. “OS1” shows what could be the ultimate goal for these companies. The “brain” of the OS is always with you in this cool little computer that fits into your pocket. The logical evolution of our cell phones, it’s a phone, computer, planner…everything for every moment in your life. The “current” software is slightly more advanced version of Google Now and Siri. You keep your device in your pocket, an ear pieces lets you tell it what you want and let’s you hear responses. Tell it to read emails, dictate replies, make calls, get reminders etc. In a funny observation of today, people are completely engrossed by their devices unless the are eating together. People whip by each other on the street staring at a screen and talking to themselves with a earpiece jammed in. Half the time human interaction doesn’t exist. But, the next gen “OS1” has a complex artificial intelligence that learns about you. It’s constantly learning and gaining a personality of its own. It takes away the wall of human interaction with a machine and replaces it with a really human interaction for everything. It’s easy to see how and why Theodore falls in love with a being that isn’t human.

In other tech advances, computers are more or less just windows in a room with touch interfaces. Theodore plays video games on a holographic projection system in his apartment. In fact he lives in a smart apartment where the lights come on by themselves as he enters. It’s cool, beautiful, convincing and most importantly, believable.

Spike Jonez is known as a great director with a keen eye and Her keeps those compliments coming. It’s a sharp looking movie, carefully crafted with a warm color scheme. I’m super impressed by the writing as it tackles hard and new subjects about love and relationships with brains and grace. Dialog never sounded trite, stupid or condescending. Part of this success relies on Joaquin Phoenix who delivers a brilliant performance as Theodore.  He’s in just about ever single scene, often by himself with the voice of Scarlett Johansson as Samantha (the name OS1 gave herself when Theodore first installs the program). The whole time I watched I never thought I was watching Joaquin, but Theo (maybe it was the mustache).

I can’t say enough good things about Her. So much so that I can’t think of anything bad to say about it. I wasn’t sure how Jonze was going to finish this story, but he pulls it off with a great and thoughtful ending that solidifies it as a must see movie.

A reboot of the franchise that started in 1987, Robocop updates the Detroit police officer turned android/cyborg story for today’s world. The original, directed by Paul Verhoeven, is a sacred cow of 80’s dystopian action movies so there was a lot of raised eyebrows the moment the remake was announced. While mostly a good effort with good ideas to refresh an idea that is still very applicable (if not more so) today, Robocop ends up more like a half filled balloon than the zeppelin it could have been.

I’ll start with what I liked. A good cast is always important and there are some good people, namely Joel Kinnaman as Detective Alex Murphy, Gary Oldman as Dr. Dennett Norton and Michael Keaton as CEO of Omnicorp Raymond Sellars. The set up is done well. In the not too distant future, Omnicorp has a successful business overseas selling robot security enforcement but a bill banning such use for robots in the USA keeps them (and their profits) from expanding. Raymond Sellars comes up with a twist to their product line, a hybrid man and machine that will circumvent (and ultimately completely remove) the bill. He taps Dr. Norton (who makes highly advanced human prosthetic for Omnicorp) to head this Robocop project. They need a good candidate though. Meanwhile, out in the wilds of Detroit, Detective Alex Murphy sniffs out some internal corruption in his police department so a hit is put out on him to get him off the case. A car bomb all but kills him. 80% 3rd degree burns over his body, missing limbs, the works. Omicorp approaches Murphy’s wife with their proposition and she ultimately accepts. What follows is raises questions of ethics and power in media, medicine, security, privacy and corporations.

The special effects are mostly good, the original Robocop design is seen with some alterations before the suit is further modernized in black (partly due to focus testing, nice idea from the writers). There’s a wild and successful scene where Murphy is taken apart so he can see the reality of his situation, he is far more machine than man now. But he does have his brain and his memories, he’s still Alex but in a different body (with sweet fighting capabilities). The pull on Alex’s humanity is done well as he’s manipulated with technology to serve the corporations needs (in the name of profit) but the human part of him can never be held down for long. Robocop going “against protocol” is always the best.

Now for what I didn’t like. Michael K Williams as Murphy’s partner, Jack Lewis, was a waste of talent for the role he was given. Dr. Dennett Norton is shown as an ethical and good person, but is persuaded to go against his wishes far too easily and quickly multiple times. There’s a scene where Sellars is trying to sell someone on a lie and it’s the most transparent and obvious con that no one would ever believe it. I don’t understand why they had Michael Keaton deliver it like that and use it in the movie. It’s really jarring from the character and the actor. Finally, the action scenes are really weak. There’s four, each of which is very short and surprisingly dull given everything they had to work with. First is a basic restaurant shoot out, then a test sequence of Robocop that only gives us a taste of what he can do. Then, an assault on a bad guy HQ that is confusing to watch and the finale that is mostly ruined by poor CG. There’s no impact to any of these scenes, emotionally or viscerally. The action game is at meteoric heights today and Robocop fails to deliver each time it steps up. They toned down the gore greatly from the original to make it PG-13, but no amount of fake blood would have made this any better so that complaint is moot.

I like to treat reboots as a new entity. They should have their roots in the original, but do enough new (and well) to justify their existence. It needs to do more than retell the same story with a new paintbrush. A reboot doesn’t negate the original(s). If it turns out great, that is awesome. If it doesn’t, there is always the original to rewatch and recommend to others. I found this new Robocop to not be bad, but disappointing and can easily recommend the original over it.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is what you would call a feel good movie. Walter (Ben Stiller), is a day-dreamer who works for Life magazine in the photography department. When the magazine closes to go online only, it’s the last few weeks on the job for Walter and his remaining co-workers to put together the final issue. Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn) is one of the worlds best photographers and he has a long working history with Walter. He sends him a roll of his latest work for the magazine and thinks #25 is the one for the final cover. But it’s not with the other negatives and Walter has to find it.

Walter is a shy a guy who finds himself day dreaming about how he wants (or wishes) things would go for him. He has a crush on his co-worker Cheryl (Kristen Wigg) but can never work up the courage to ask her out (he even resorts to eHarmony in an effort to get to “talk” to her). These fantasies are often really elaborate and pull him entirely out of reality. When he takes on the task of finding the negative, it turns into a globe trotting adventure that changes his life. He comes out of his shell a more confident and positive person.

Ben Stiller directs and stars in Walter and I gotta say it’s some impressive stuff. The special effects are extensive and well done, the pacing of the movie nearly perfect. He balances both rolls as lead and director really well and the surrounding cast is really good. Sean Penn isn’t in much of the movie, but he does an exceptional job with his small, but important role.

Walter’s story is a good and complete one. We are introduced to who he is, get glimpses of who he was and thus how he became the Walter we first see. Sean inadvertently brings out a side of Walter’s life that he thought he could only imagine. Great movie for a long or rainy weekend, I recommend it.