I thought the first Thor movie was average at best. Never read his books, never cared for the character. He’s in a similar boat as Superman; having god like powers makes it hard to be concerned about his or her well being. The Dark World is a significant improvement over the first, but still has its faults.

The best part for me is that a small part of the movie takes place on Earth. There’s much more of Asgard and a few of the other realms that Thor watches over. This makes for a much more visually interesting (and often beautiful) and unique movie with the wild colors, landscapes and technology. There’s a much better sense of where Thor comes from and how his culture operates. Also, since this happens after the events of The Avengers, there’s a solid jumping off point of change in Thor and Loki. Loki is locked up for his tyrannical run for Earth and Thor is busy settling things down from Loki’s actions.

The hook of the movie arrives when a great ancient power awakens that threatens all nine realms. After barely fending off the first attack by the Dark Elf Malekith, Thor and Loki must team up in order to stop him from destroying everything. It’s Loki’s chance for some kind of redemption, but can he really be trusted? This is easily the best and most thought out part of the movie. The story arc with the brothers and their parents works really well and gives great motivation and reason for the rest of the movie (and the cool ending).

They lucked out finding Tom Hiddleston to play Loki as he’s the perfect fit for such a role. He’s been great from the start, but now he really owns the character, it’ll be hard to imagine anyone else playing Loki (he pulls off that silly helmet somehow too). He’s got depth, his reasons for being the way he is and that all combines into being a great foil to his brother Thor. Chris Hemsworth continues to fill Thor’s boots well, I can’t think of anything negative to say about him.

I’m very take it or leave it on Natalie Portman as Jane Foster though. She’s just kind of there with her stupid red boots and it’s hard to believe she’s a scientist. Using a couple of big words in rapid succession and spinning a few dials on a machine doesn’t make you a scientist. This folds into my main problem with the movie: there’s a lot of convenient solutions at just the right time. There’s way too many moments of “just go with us on this one” from the writers. Characters get marooned in another realm only to walk into a cave and find the other end of a worm hole that they were playing with at the beginning of the movie. It brings them right where they need to be. Science is used as the solution for The Big Problem of the movie, but it’s theoretical science written on paper at best. Jane and Erik are doing some Einstein level mathamatics and engineering in a matter of minutes and it all works right out of the gate. Did I mention they are sticks? Sure we see them first used in The Avengers, but they quickly reverse engineer them for this new problem and then toss them around like outlet sale bocce balls. You can really just fling those things around in energy storms and god only knows what else and they work perfectly? Sure the results look cool and Thor gets some serious punching done, but come on. Even if it’s easy to sweep aside being in the Summer Blockbuster genre, it’s still dumb. Speaking of dumb, the jokes! They really tried making this movie funny with quick quips, but gad zooks are they bad. Most of them hit the dirt like a big mouth bass.

As far as comic book movies go, The Dark World is one of the better ones. They do a lot with a rather average character and that’s commendable (almost forgot to mention, the soundtrack is terrific). It moves the Marvel Universe in the right direction and they are making these movies better with each one so I can’t complain much.

The Wolf Of Wall Street is the fifth Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese team up. This time they bring us the true story of Jordan Belfort, a stock broker who was gladly swallowed up by the sins of greed and excessive living.

The Wolf is a story of unbridled debauchery, a ride that sucked in hundreds of people and came to an end only because of obnoxiously stepping over the lines of the law.

Jordan Belfort (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) was (or is, really) a self made man who kept his eye on the prize: making money. Once shown the way of selling nonsense at the first Wall Street firm he was hired at in his early twenties, it became a race of how much money he could make and spend for the next decade or so.

It’s almost cartoonish in nature the way it’s shown. In the beginning, Jordan is shown as a nice average guy. Young, innocent (naïve), polite and ambitious. But once he gets a taste of the high life, it’s a quick decent into madness. He starts his own company, pulling in some friends with questionable morals into the fold. Jordan was only 26 when he left reality behind. Taking advantage of people left and right, more sex and drugs than a person should be able to imagine let alone experience. The addiction, lies and deceit stack up until the tower can’t get any higher and collapses on everyone.

DiCaprio really loved this role, you can see him revel in the chance to play such a character. Jonah Hill as Jordan’s main partner in crime, Donnie Azoff is absolutely perfect. The way they play off of each other is on screen chemistry that can’t be made up, they just frolic hand in hand in every scene they do.

While money can’t buy happiness, it sure does by fun. The movie shows this rollercoaster ride at it’s core, giving you a seat at what it was like to live a life like this. The build up of the lift hill (entering the industry) and then the exhilaration of gravity taking over for the rest (the success and everything it let them do). These guys had a blast doing what they did. Are drugs bad? Sure, but the bad comes at the end of the awesome parts. Is the sex with everyone in sight bad? Yes! Just ignore the relationships it ruins. Is money bad? Only if you don’t have enough to buy your way out of a pickle! Besides, if I don’t pull it in by the truckload some other jerk will!

Jordan could talk to his sales force like an emperor, his subjects hanging on his every word. You sell these stocks, this IPO, we will live on top of the hill forever! Their work day basically became a party with no rules or restrictions. They ran wild like college kids until they made so much noise that it drew attention from the Feds. The drug addiction just moved in along with the money, using one to start the day and the others to regulate that feeling until sleep eventually won out. Buying the drugs was as normal as buying food. Once entrenched, none of them even thought about getting out.

Jordan even had a chance to get out under reasonable circumstances after he draws too much heat to shake. No jail time and some fines that were more or less be a slap on the wrist. He throws the deal out of the window for his astronomical pride and obsession with money. The draw of his lifestyle was too much for him to turn his back on. Turns out when the Feds have proof of you breaking a laundry list of laws and you tell them to jump off the highest cliff they can find, they really come after you.

At just under 3 hours long, the movie shows a lifestyle of hilarious excess that matches the likes of drug king pins. It really uses that R rating to the fullest. The good times lasted for years but were cyclical in nature, much like coming on and off a drug high. Actually, it’s exactly like that as you constantly see these guys running around gacked out of their gourds at one instance and then crashing hard only to rally and do it again. When a problem came up, find a loophole to bring it back to “normal”. A life where a problem was more or less a pot hole in the street paved with gold until the hubris of the seemingly invincible could protect them no longer. The punishment comes at the end, but it’s questionable how punishment it really was (Jordan did very little time when he ultimately cooperates).

The Wolf Of Wall Street is a hell of a time that rides fast on the shoulders of it’s fantastic cast. While it shows an attitude and system born of the 1980’s and played into the 1990’s, it still fits today. Financial inequality has never been higher and the corruption of Wall Street has only strengthened its bond with the banking industry. You don’t need to look at a Hollywood movie to reflect on the troubled times we live in. You just need to see what’s in the news everyday.

The greatest compliment and easiest assessment is that Winter Soldier is a much better movie than the first Captain America. A much more interesting plot and the feeling that everything isn’t going to be Okay just because Cap is around. There are serious, world changing events going on (for regular citizens and those sworn to protect them).

First and foremost, Chris Evans is much more comfortable wearing Captain America’s boots. Much like how Robert Downey Jr. is synonymous with Tony Stark, Evens is Steve Rogers. Well written dialog between characters (if rather blunt and in your face at times) develops a tangible bond between the good guys and makes their struggle seem more believable. I really like the idea of HYDRA having it’s tentacles wrapped around seemingly everything come to light and what it takes to really stop them. It parallels todays corruption and unease going on today, but frames it in comic book trappings.

HYDRA is evil and devious, going to crazy over the top feats to mold the world in a way they see fit. There’s some great action scenes from start to finish which range from infiltration missions, cat and mouse chases on foot and in vehicles, some surprisingly great hand to hand fighting (even if some of it is way too shaky and disorienting) topped off with screen filling explosions and destruction. Captain America’s super abilities let him do some really interesting and creative stuff action wise. With great speed and strength he’s got that cool superhuman “crash through stuff” navigation, he can take a serious beating and still get up which let’s him get away with more fantastic stuff (huge falls, general punishment) and his shield work is something no one else really does. There’s some really cool offensive and defensive weapon work in each fight he uses it in. Since he can’t shoot energy around and really doesn’t rely on guns much, they exploit his hand to hand strength to great affect (tip of the hat to the sound guys for really selling the hits). Plus, the characters supporting CA are really great too. Everyone else is just a human, but really good at what they do so they are able to smartly back him up. Captain America may be running point, but he wouldn’t be nearly as effective without the team he trusts.

I think I like The Winter Soldier so much because it’s a great division of Good vs Evil. The good guys are fun to be around and easy to root for. The bad guys are really bad and offer a real challenge to over come. The Winter Soldier is a great foil from Steve Roger’s past and an equal match in terms of strength and ability. The string pullers of HYDRA are real dirty suits and give a different level of challenge to over come (Black Widow really gets to shine and Nick Fury gets to be much more than a guy barking orders). I really appreciated seeing the regular people, the ones who are just cogs in the wheel of the machine stand up for themselves when evil shows it’s face. They didn’t need to be convinced or otherwise cajoled to put their foot down and try and stop awful things from happening right in front of them.

This is probably my favorite Marvel movie so far, even if it runs a bit long. They drop seeds to continue the universe all over the place and the entire cast gets to shine. This production team manage to successfully balance a lot of spinning plates, it’s some impressive stuff. There’s a few more comic book movies this year, let’s hope the quality is the same!

Awesome movie. The story of Captain Richard Phillips and his crew of the MV Maersk Alabama, a huge cargo ship that got hijacked by Somali pirates in 2009.

Tom Hanks plays Captain Phillips, so you know what kind of performance you can expect (the end is truly breathtaking stuff). He plays against Muse (new comer Barkhad Abdi who plays his part just as well as Hanks) who is the leader of the hijacking. The event plays through an intense few days and knowing too much will dull the sense of emergency and suspense on your first watch. It’s a well paced 2 hour experience that’ll leave you tingling.

With Paul Greengrass directing a movie on the ocean I was concerned Captain Phillips would be a free-for-all camera pitch and roll fest. He reeled it in though and comes through with what I think might be his best work to date.

Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters! Not the Perron family, they have a demon infestation (ghosts are apparently a different kind of annoyance). The Conjuring is the latest haunting (with a dash of possession) film that has scared the pants off of a whole lot of people (huge opening weekend, almost 140 million domestic total).

It seems like most of these movies are based on “true events” which is always a good hook to have in promotion. This one is from the files of Ed and Lorraine Warren who are authorities on contact from the other side. Through the late 60’s and into the 70’s they made dozens of trips to investigate paranormal activity (even a full blown possession before this case apparently). The Warren’s are contacted by the Perron family who have just moved into a farm house and there is some really shady stuff going on. As soon as the Warren’s enter the home, they know that this isn’t a hoax or the family hearing things that can be explained away. There is a evil presence that has attached itself to the Perron’s and won’t let go of them easily.

It’s an effective horror movie. The easiest comparison is to the Paranormal Activity franchise, but this isn’t a found footage movie. This follows the more tried and true cinema take and evens mimics the 70’s style film aesthetic to match the time period of the movie. The Conjuring relies on a lot of jump scares/orchestra hits, but there is a heavy sense of foreboding and dread as soon as the boarded up basement is found in the house. The cast is great, the story of the house is a neat one and the haunting set pieces work up well. Misdirection, stuff in the shadows, physical manifestations, right up to ‘drag em around by the hair’ and demonic possession.

Director James Wan has made his bones in the horror genre (Saw, Insidious) and I like his work here. Interesting shots and production design with solid FX work. He knows how to set a scene and follow through. But there’s so much competition in this genre now that they all step on each others toes. The ‘hair dragging’ bit has been done to death, it’s hard to show something new. While I did like the movie, you can’t ignore how it checks every box down the haunted house list which makes it feel redundant. Speaking of showing, The Conjuring avoids almost any gore. Some scratches, bruises, a bit of ‘evil vomit’ and a bite wound are the extent of it.

The end was a real cop out too. It seemed too easy and simple. The movie is a huge build up until the last 10 minutes and then it’s suddenly over. For a demonic entity with a real mission, it sure gave up without much of a fight. It was almost like it knew it was on 100th page of the script and it was time to wrap it up quick. An otherwise strong horror movie left me disappointed at the end. You don’t want that to be your audiences’ last feeling.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has been a really busy guy since leaving office, he’s in a few movies every year. They’ve been pretty good too! No real stinkers. Escape Plan with Sylvester Stallone continues that streak.

Sly plays Ray Breslin, a prison security expert who’s so good at his job that the feds hire him to break out of their highest security prisons across the country. If he can’t break out, no one can. After a job, Ray and his team get an offer (at double his standard rate) to break out of a brand new facility that is off the grid. So far off the grid that it’s existence isn’t acknowledged to any one. It was made to keep the world’s most undesirable people off the streets for good. After accepting the job, Ray is yanked away from society and quickly realizes that this isn’t a job. Someone wanted him out of the way.

Prison break movies are fun and you don’t see many of them these days. It’s a twist on the spy/action movie formula that always keeps you guessing. How someone gets in is the easy part, how they get out is the real question. The prison in Escape Plan is a doozy of a facility. It was built using Ray’s own notes so it pushes him farther and harder than any prison before it. It takes his knowledge and some new inside friends to come up with a plan that even has the smallest chance of working.

One of those friends is Rottmayer, played by Schwarzenegger. Being the ultimate 80’s action star team up that is really only teased in The Expendables franchise, the two quickly meet and team up (hmmm…). They work well together, it’s a lot of fun to see them co-star and they both get their time to shine in various action scenes. The set piece where Rottmayer gets his hands on a mounted automatic gun was clearly pulled out of the Arnold cinematic rulebook. It was probably the first scene that was written.

While the set up and execution work well enough, the obvious question always came up as things unfolded. Why was all the effort and expense put into this crazy prison when an assassination would be doing the same thing, but easier? The guys being thrown into this crazy prison are supposed to be really bad news, but you never hear why any of them are in there (it looks like there’s close to 200 inmates). It’s mentioned that people/groups pay this company a fortune to get and keep these prisoners, so why do that instead of a hit? Seems like a drive by or explosion would be the most permanent solution if you are going to pay millions to make someone disappear.

Despite that, Escape Plan is a fun, well made movie that’s great for a weekend rental.

Vin Diesel returns as Riddick in Riddick, the third movie in the series. The first, Pitch Black, remains the best one. This movie is more cute than anything, which is a weird thing to come away with from a sci-fi action movie with a notorious convict as it’s main protagonist.

Riddick has been left for dead (again) on a rather inhospitable planet. He MacGyvers it up, patching up his wounds and setting up a little home for himself. He even gets a space dog pet (it’s really cute as far as space animals go). Riddick gets to show off his good side. Everyone else just has a problem with doing whatever it takes to survive. Things go pretty well until he realizes that the natives will soon be making more trouble than he could handle. Finding an abandoned station, he sets off an emergency beacon to try and hitch a ride off planet. Two groups show up to claim the bounty on Riddick’s head, one dirty merc group and another with a more military background lead by a man who has ties to Riddick’s past.

The movie is more or less a survival tale. First against the environment, then people and then the environment again. Vin Diesel does what he loves, playing a bad ass in space! The movie hits all the marks of an VD action flick on a budget. It’s got copious amounts of decent CG that keeps on trucking. It’s just short of 2 hours, has some good action and sets up a sequel. If you’ve seen the other 2 movies, I say check this one out. It’s nothing special, but it isn’t half bad either. Does that sound too ambivalent?