What a fun movie! I wasn’t expecting too much from The World’s End, but it grabbed me from the start and never let go. Having lower expectations can help sometimes.

The World’s End can be seen as the third movie in the Pegg/Frost/Wright collaboration universe. Even though they don’t share characters or a trilogy plotline, they do share the same soul. They also share the same genre bending approach of story telling. While Shaun of the Dead clearly starts as a zombie movie, it’s the last act where the horror/gore really gets cranked up to meet marks for John Romero homages. Hot Fuzz less so, it starts with it’s feet in one lane and then shifts it’s weight over to insanity for it’s wild reveals and heroism. The World’s End is much like Hot Fuzz where you think you know what your watching and then they switch it up at the end of Act 1.

I like this much more than Hot Fuzz with it’s better characters, pacing and humor. Peter hasn’t done much with his life since high school, unlike his 4 other friends. They share a past as best friends, grow apart and come back together to indulge in Gary’s desire to “get the band back together” to relive their pub crawl attempt from 1990. At the 4th stop they find themselves smack dab in the middle of an alien assimilation plot. Sticking together, they do their best to get out of their home town in one piece.

I loved Simon Pegg as Gary King, a man who never grew up and clings to one night in his teenage years as the peak of his life. Nick Frost as Andy continues his streak as a brilliant foil for Pegg’s characters. Martin Freeman as Oliver, Paddy Considine as Steve and Eddie Marsan as Peter round out the stellar main cast. They convincingly play as old friends and each keep up with the quick and spastic wit that the movie is infused with. There’s a manic kind of direction and editing here that works really well (Edgar Wright is one of my favorite directors). Extensive and well done visual effects ratchet up the intensity and fun of the movie. Brilliant dialog with a really satisfying ending make this one of the bigger surprise movie treats for me. My favorite project that Simon Pegg has done so far.

After the terrible XMen Origins: Wolverine, a lot was on the line for The Wolverine. Origins followed the equally terrible XMen 3: The Last Stand which meant the entire franchise seemed to be teetering on the edge of being left behind for newer and greater Marvel characters. Thankfully, this solo run for Logan turned out to be a much more focused and enjoyable movie.

Wolverine shares a similar problem as Superman. He’s basically invincible as his bones are near unbreakable and his healing powers are so powerful. He can basically eat bullets and flesh wounds stitch themselves together in a matter of seconds. So what can you really threaten him with?

The Wolverine looks back to Logan’s past and shows that he has far more mental scars than physical ones. After the events of The Last Stand he isolates himself in the woods as avoiding people seems like the best course to take. He’s pulled back when a man named Yashida, who he helped survive a devastating event decades earlier asks to see him one last time. When Logan makes the trip to Japan, he’s told that he can be made mortal through the tech advances that Yashida’s company has made through extensive research. Logan passes on the offer but when Yashida dies that night, it triggers a power grab among the Yakuza and Yashida’s daughter, Mariko, whom he left his company to. Logan is trapped in the middle as his mutant powers are crippled by a mysterious woman named Viper while he tries to protect Mariko and unravel the mysteries that Yashida left behind.

It’s an interesting tale with real character development for Logan in gorgeous locals. The action scenes showcase their comic book roots with big one man vs an army fights, high speed train battles and epic final “boss” fights. There’s some cool fight choreography, the SFX are well done, but the final act is really tiring. It’s a predictable twist with execution that you will either love or hate and to me it was disappointing after such a strong first two acts. There are so many comic book movies now that it all kind of blurs together now. Hugh Jackman still gives us the best real world Logan we can probably hope to ever see, but I’m not sure if that’s good enough anymore. There’s a lot riding on this years XMen movie from Bryan Singer. Will people care for the next step in this universe with all the other Marvel movies coming down the pipe? The Wolverine is a competent movie and a step in the right direction, but if you skip it, you really aren’t missing anything.

A year has passed since the first Hobbit movie so it was time for Peter Jackson and company to bring us back to Middle Earth in The Desolation of Smaug.

With almost everyone in New Zealand on the crew, Peter Jackson has again crafted another gorgeous movie. A real treat to look at in nearly every sumptuous frame, Desolation brings us back to the world where Hobbits, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and a whole ecosystem of fantasy creatures live and breath. It’s another convincing visual achievement (stunning set design, costumes, make up and CG work), but as a story I couldn’t shake the feeling of apathy. It’s a big poke at Lord of the Rings to simply say that you spend 9 hours watching people walking to a mountain. Obviously there’s a lot more to it than that, but the feeling of just meandering around is hard to ignore.

Sitting in the theatre I kept trying to figure out what I was feeling as it was an odd mixture of boredom and excitement. I really enjoyed seeing the movie, but not actually watchingit. Events are just sort of strung along, dragging you with it. Characters come and go seemingly because the wind started blowing in a different direction. Gandolf is at one point in lock step with the Dwarves and Bilbo to get to Erebor to take back the Dwarven kingdom and then he suddenly says he has to leave them. “Stay on this path through the forest or your dead, I’m off to go talk to a dirty wizard about something I just thought of. I’ll catch up with you. Maybe.” This kind of weird separation happens a lot so whenever they cut to a character who was off doing his own thing, I kept thinking of the 60’s Batman logo spinning into frame with an announcer yelling “Meanwhile!”.

While this journey has action scenes throughout (the river sequence is fantastic) it did little to keep me from being blasé about everyone. You already know who makes it out of this story so it feels like it doesn’t matter if some creature is swinging a pointy object at them.

I find the whole idea of extending The Hobbit into a trilogy to be a mistake. Every book adaptation cleaves the narrative to make a tight movie and PJ puts this book in the rack to stretch it out to get another 2 1/2 hours that isn’t actually there? The character Tauriel was made for the movie, so everything she does wouldn’t be missed. It’s all padding. I’m saying that about a character I actually liked too! But that’s only because she’s played by Evangeline Lilly, who I have a goofy crush on so my opinion on her roles are completely biased (I’m the same way about her in Lost. People hated her character after awhile, but I never minded about whatever nonsense they had her do). The love triangle they made for her story arc was just weird and annoying in the end. For example, the Elves capture the Dwarves, lock them up and Tauriel strikes up a conversation with one of them. The two bond a little bit and she later says to another elf that she thinks he’s pretty cool and the elf responds, “Yeah? He’s still ugly! Elves rule!” What? He’s literally a shorter version of you! You are all humanoid beings that basically only have different expected life spans. Apparently everyone on Middle Earth is a champion level hater. It’s a really weird thing that stuck out to me, but I had to think about something while this flick oozed to its slam cut to black and credit roll.

This might be a good example of just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. That said, I do want to see the third movie to see the conclusion, but I’m in no hurry to see Desolation again any time soon.

Once a franchise on the decline until Fast 4 bounced back in 2009 and Fast 5 blew the doors off the box office in 2011, Fast and Furious 6 tries to keep the runaway train rolling at top speed. While a good entry into the series, it doesn’t reach the bar set by 5.

At the end of the 5th movie, the Dominic and Brian crew pulled off a huge heist that toppled a criminal ring in Rio and made the Robin Hoods in custom cars filthy rich. While they have the money, they don’t have the freedom as they are all wanted criminals. CIA agent Luke Hobbes returns with someone else to chase this time. Shaw is stealing equipment to make a scary military grade weapon/device and he must be stopped. Knowing Shaw’s skills, the only people he can think of to stop him is Dom & Brian. Hobbes offers them all full pardons and a link to their past that was long thought dead in return for their help.

So that starts the globe trotting, pulse pounding and wheel spinning race to save the world. While the series has always taken the laws of physics and ideas of plausibility with a grain of salt, Furious 6 pretty much throws it all to the wind to make some of the most over the top action scenes ever put on film. People walk away from horrific car crashes with barely a scratch, harrowing rescues defy logic and reasoning.

It’s all done in the name of fun. You just need to check your brain at the start and let the good times roll. Goofy, heroic dialog and speeches that are sure to make you groan. Car chases and fights that unfold more like a cartoon than real life scenario. An airplane runway that seemingly stretches across continents it’s so big. When you get to the 6th entry of driving cars around really fast, you really need to think outside the box to keep from showing the exact same action sequence.

The 5th movie felt more fresh and new than this one did. It had a lot of great ideas and some amazing action scenes that while over the top, felt more grounded. Also, the resurrection of a dead character made this movie feel like it was stretching a lot more to justify it’s existence.

Fast & Furious 6 keeps the good times coming at a break neck pace, just don’t look for anything serious to happen for these 2 hours of your life.

Jack Reacher is another solid entry into Tom Cruise’s action movie catalog. Part sniper, part military, part spy movie, Jack Reacher checks all the boxes for go to action movie requirements. Car chases, foot chases, gun and fist fights. A dash of mystery and investigation glues it all together.

The movie opens with a man named Charlie milling his own bullets. Not a good sign. We then see him set up shop in a parking garage and then shoot and kill 5 people, seemingly at random. On the surface it’s a cut and dry case. He runs to try and get away, the police quickly catch him and plenty of evidence is gathered that pins him as the sniper. After he’s beaten to near death while in police custody, he has one request. Find Jack Reacher.

Jack is a hell of guy, Highly regarded in his military service, he disappears into the wind, only surfacing when he wants to be found. Smart, athletic, and a hell of a fighter, Jack Reacher is more super hero than human being (he is played by Tom Cruise after all). It’s up to Jack and Charlie’s attorney, Helen to figure out what really happened. And figure it out they do! Jack can seemingly connect the dots out of thin air and can take a punch without missing a step.

While everything seems to unfold very conveniently for Jack, it doesn’t ruin the movie. It’s a very Hollywood affair. It looks really good, it’s well paced and fun to watch. It doesn’t try to break any ground, but does it’s best to be a good movie. I can’t see this ever becoming a franchise or even standing out in Tom Cruise’s career, but it makes for a great rental.

It was a long wait for this one to come out! Anchorman 2 continues the absurdity of the Ron Burgundy world. It’s now 1980 and after Ron is shown the door in favor of his wife getting the huge promotion on the nightly prime time news desk, Ron flips out and gets the band back together when given the chance to start GNN, the first 24 hour news channel.

The truth of how terrible news media has become is sandwiched between the weirdest and wackiest set ups a human being could think of. Anchorman 2 is all over the place with it’s jokes. With so much crazy going on (Chicken of the Cave, fighting sharks, blindness, douchbaggery in general) it’s often the more subtle lines that got the biggest laughs. While the four are all back (Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, David Koechner) and given their fair shake of laughs, Carrell’s Brick Tamland steals just about every scene he’s in. He totally commits to everything, something not everyone can do.

I do think that the movie is too long though. They made another news team fight scene that should have been cut. It goes on forever and was done much better in the first movie. A pointless retread that I’m sure Mike Myers wish he thought of.

Good times, a fun movie to see with a group of people.

15 years ago (!) Keanu Reeves did a movie called The Matrix. There he met and trained with Tiger Hu Chen and Yuen Woo-Ping for the fight choreography. Now Keanu has hooked up with these men to make his own martial arts movie, Man of Tai Chi. It turned out surprisingly well!

The plot doesn’t break any new ground for this genre, but it works and is told well. Chen is a student of Tai Chi and works as a delivery guy to make ends meet. He’s developed his own form of Tai Chi for combat that gets the attention of Donaka Mark, a wealthy business man that runs and underground fighting league. Donaka manipulates Chen behind his back to make him into a ruthless warrior out for blood, but when Chen figures it out, he fights to reclaim his honor and morality back.

With so many action pictures under his belt, Keanu has picked up an eye for filming fights and it shows. Tiger Hu is a hell of a talent and with chorography by Yuen Woo-Ping, there is some intense fights on show here. And there are a lotof them. While it is edited heavily, it’s easy enough to follow and not get lost in the shuffle (the fight with the strobe lights is a good idea, but I don’t think it showed well, my biggest complaint for the movie).

Keanu does his best to play the villain Donaka Mark with varying success. There’s a few times he gets really goofy, but he does portray a ruthless guy and a surprisingly daunting fighter at the age of 49. He might move like a golem, but his strikes pack a wallop.

A solid action flick, worth watching for when you are in the mood for some flying feet and fists.

Superman is a tough nut to crack. A being that is essentially invincible on Earth with amazing super powers is more god than human. It’s hard to root for a guy that seemingly has nothing to worry about. More than 70 years of comic books, 30 years of sporadic movies and a good 20 years of cartoons means there’s a ton of material on Superman. While a tough character to write for, there’s a lot to like about the ultimate boy scout. A true hero to humanity. Man of Steel is the most recent (and a reboot) of the Superman movie universe. After hearing a lot of mixed things about the movie, I’m happy to say that I loved it. It feels honest, grounded and true to the core of who Superman is supposed to be and represent.

Man of Steel is a very fitting title. The beginning of the movie starts with Superman’s birth and jumps around a bit from his adolescence and adult hood. I like how they handled his origin and arrival on Earth. While it’s something you’d think everyone would know by now, it’s interesting to watch and sets up General Zod perfectly for his role as the antagonist. The beginning shows us his luck of being raised by good people who show him the path to being good. And through his formative years, it seems like he can’t help but be good. He’s a natural defender.

But fear suppresses him. His foster father Jonathan Kent repeatedly tells him that the world isn’t ready to see what he can do, so he needs to stay off the radar. It’s a real and scary struggle for Clark and rightfully so in a world where many people are wary of others just from skin color that’s a different shade from their own. For awhile, Clark thinks he’s just different from everyone. Abnormally stronger, faster and with heightened senses than everyone else. So the time comes where Pa Kent shows him the space ship they found him in. That would make anyone wonder who they are and what the hell happened to him. Why is he here?

That’s the core of Man of Steel. Who is he in this world? What would motivate an alien being to become his adopted planet’s protector? Why would he do it with the threat of an entire planet afraid of him? It’d be just as easy to go the other way, either take off or break bad. That other half shows up to Earth as General Zod, who believes Kryptonians are the master race and damn anything that he sees beneath him.

I really liked the set up of the over arcing story. Clark finding out where he comes from and who he really is. Lois Lanes introduction and coming into his life. General Zod threating the planet to get Clark to come out and into the open. The fear of a crazy powerful being that’s been hidden on earth for decades (loved the scene with Superman turning himself in to the feds and he’s got handcuffs on that might as well be made of air and the discussion he has with General Swanwick. The last talk they have at the end of the movie is great too). The action scenes completely deliver as well. Way better than anything in Superman Returns (2006). Kryptonians fighting is a lot of fun to watch, the possibilities and level of destruction are near infinite.

It’s a great looking movie too. Some great special effects work that can look rather cartoonish, but I think that’s unavoidable considering the power these beings are throwing around. The strength and force they exert is something you’d never be able to see normally, so seeing someone hop huge distances and whipped around like a rag can look bizarre. I didn’t mind it though as it’s really high quality work and it’s a Superman movie so if I didn’t see crazy action, I’d be upset. Speaking of crazy action, I read a lot of viewer dismay over the destruction in this movie. Pretty much all of Metropolis gets leveled and they wanted to see Superman save every single person in sight. While that’s admirable, it doesn’t work that way. Read any of the most popular Superman books and animated shows and things simply get obliterated. He does save everyone he can in the movie and ultimately saves the entire planet, so I really don’t understand the gruff the movie got from that standpoint. Yes he’s fast, but he can’t be in two places at once. This fight is the first time Clark went all out with his powers and he’s up against beings who are just as strong and are all about planetary genocide. Was Superman supposed to fly around and catch everything that fell for an hour? Who wants to see that? Superman also kills someone which threw up a bunch of arms in disgust, but I think it was done right (for the most part). Given what’s happening, he doesn’t have much choice and is directly defending innocent people from a monster. The only fault I see is that while Superman shows remorse, it’s fleeting. A couple of seconds and it looks like he’s over it and we’re off to the next scene. My hope is that they refer to it in the next movie. It’s a decision that Superman has to live with and grow from now. This is his first outing, so I expect this hero not to do everything right on the first try. He has to figure out all of his potential for good on his own, there is no one like him now.

Finally, I loved the direction and the soundtrack. I only question the one redundant scene near the middle of the movie where Jor-El is telling Clark about his home and General Zod. It covers the exact ground that the intro does. With an 2 hour and 20 minute runtime, cutting out one of those scene (I think the intro would be easiest to cut as the speech with the visual aids in the ship covers everything faster) would only benefit the movie. Henry Cavill is a fantastic Superman and I completely loved Michael Shannon as General Zod. Fantastic villainous performance (love Antje Traue as Faora-Ul too). Great work from Russell Crowe as Jor-El; Kevin Costner and Diane Lane as the Kent’s are great too.

While there are a ton of rumors going around about the sequel that concern me (it could turn into an oversaturated mess like Spider-Man 3), I hope Zack Snyder and company can knock it out of the park again.

I liked Seven Psychopaths a lot more than I thought I was going to. It actually caught me by surprise in it’s creativity and execution. What I thought was going to be a straight forward “crossed the gangster” cat and mouse movie was much more than that.

Here’s the gist of it: Marty is a struggling screenwriter in LA whose friend, Billy, kidnaps dogs and returns them to their owner for the reward a few days later. One day Billy steals a dog that belongs to a lunatic gangster. Marty gets pulled into a world that he wanted no first hand experience in…but it turns out to be just the right inspiration for him.

The movie starts in a standard way. Billy is trying to come up with ideas for his movie script, ‘Seven Psychopaths’ and is having a really hard time going anywhere with it. He only has two characters and that’s about it. Now, here’s where it gets different. The movie you are watching, forms the script that Billy writes, which is the movie you just watched. The events you see happen turn into the inspiration that Billy uses for his script. You watch as Billy comes up with the ideas for his script as things unfold around him. He comes up with characters, gets advise and ideas from his friends and it all rolls in and over itself as you watch. It’s a really creative angle for a movie.

The topper is a great cast. Colin Farrell, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell and my absolute favorite, Christopher Walken. Hans is the best character Walken has done in quite sometime. Props to Martin McDonagh for coming up with a role that really shows off Walken’s great acting ability without making him a walking cartoon.

I think this movie was really overlooked when it came out, highly recommended. And watch In Bruges if you haven’t, which Martin McDonagh also wrote and directed. Side note: No animals get hurt in this movie. Just people.

Monsters Inc. is one of my favorite Pixar movies and 12 years later the studio released the prequel, Monsters University.

The story takes the stars Mike and Sulley back to their formative years. We see Mike first, a very young monster on a field trip to Monsteropolis. He witnesses the master scarers at work and is inspired to become one himself. He hits the books hard and gets into Monsters University years later. This is where Mike and Sulley first meet and they do not get along. They take very different angles at scaring and butt heads at every step because of it. Mike has the book smarts, but lacks that special something to be effectively scary. Sulley is the son of a master and rides on his family’s coat tales to the top. But one scary face a monster does not make! Once they are forced into a corner by the dean of the school, Mike and Sulley realize that they work together far better than apart.

So is the story of how Mike Wazowski and James P Sullivan became friends and broke scaring records as an unstoppable team. This is a great return to the Monsters world. New monsters are all over as well as monsters from the first (seeing what turned Randall is great). The voice acting is great and complimented perfectly with Pixar’s legendary animation. Mike’s story is a particularly rocky one as he faces adversity at every step. He’s told time and time again that he will never make it, but pushes ahead to prove everyone wrong. While he doesn’t reach his dream goals exactly as he saw it, his smarts and attitude get him farther than any of his doubters thought. Sulley climbs the same mountain, but from a different side. The great friendship we see in Monsters Inc is born believably and sincerely in Monsters University.

With the few average movies Pixar has put out in the past two years, Monsters University is a strong return to form. The Monsters world let’s the studio go wild with their creativity and it’s all on display here. A lot of fun to watch, check it out!

I’ll get right to it, The Bling Ring isn’t a good movie. It’s based on the true story of teenagers living in LA who break into celebrity homes and steal just about anything they can carry out. Dumb kids doing something dumb and they get caught only because of their greed and stupidity. How they did it was pretty smart (!) though. They’d read about who was leaving town for a few days online, Google their address and then look at Google Maps to find the easiest way to get into the property. Then, just look for an unlocked door or window. To be honest, it was probably a lot of fun to do. They got away with it for awhile and stole well over a million dollars of stuff.

And that’s it. A story better left as an article in a magazine, there’s not much worth watching here. You get your fame obsession, celebrity worship and materialism finger wagging. The acting is passable at best (Emma Watson’s worst work to date) and the direction showcases Sofia Coppala’s ability to point a camera at people talking. Skip it.