World War Z Review

Good cast, interesting story, and exhilarating effects fuel this effective zombie-flick far superior than any other zombie movie of the last decade.

There have been so many zombie movies in the past 40 years. George Romero directed the original Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead and started this zombie genre, and those two films were undeniably the best of this genre. Since then, we were given good Zombie movies such as 28 Days Later, Shaun of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead (2004), and that's about it. The Zombie movie franchise is filled more of abominable films than good ones. The last real good zombie film was 9 years ago and that was the Dawn of the Dead remake. Since then, we were given horrible films like the Day of the Dead remake, The Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave, and Diary of the Dead to name a few. So hearing a zombie movie was being made starring Brad Pitt and having a budget of almost $200,000,000, I was extremely excited. World War Z does not disappoint. The biggest negative thing in this movie was the neglect to go along with the source material. The World War Z book was absolutely phenomenal, yet the movie's plot was nothing like the book. That being said, the plot was still interesting enough to keep my attention. The movie starts off as most zombie movies do, it shows retired UN employee Gerry Lane and his family living in ignorant bliss until the zombie poop hits the fan, so to speak. The outbreak scene in the film is probably one of my favorite I've ever seen. I can really 

compare it to the outbreak scene of the Dawn of the Dead remake in that it starts off nice and friendly, then the environment slowly becomes more ominous, and then the intensity begins- and once it begins, it does not stop. Once the family is safe, the real plot kicks in. Gerry Lane now has to travel the world to try to find a cure to this zombie epidemic. The greatest thing about this film is the scope and scale. In even great zombie movies like the original Night and Dawn, the tone is very closed-in and claustrophobic. The plot of zombie films usually center around a group of survivors trying to find shelter and wait this thing out. The great thing about this movie is that the tone seems more expanded which makes it more exciting. It makes it a lot less scary, but makes it seem a lot more exhilarating. The special effects in this movie is another great thing in this film. Watching the trailers, I got worried that World War Z was going to seem like a Michael Bay zombie movie. The effects didn't seem that realistic in the trailers, and it seemed extremely unnecessary to the plot. Luckily, the effects in the movie seemed more improved than it did in the trailers. There is scene in the movie in which zombies attempt to  get over a tall wall by climbing on top of each other aggressively. In the trailers, it seemed incredibly fake. However, in the 

actual movie it seemed a lot better than it did in the trailers, it was actually pretty horrifying. Overall, World War Z had pretty good effects, good pacing, Brad Pitt did a solid job as a concerned father in the zombie apocalypse, and the tone was unlike any other zombie movie- making World War Z one of the best zombie movies of the last decade. 
Overall Rating- B+

Fast and Furious 6 Review

Let's be honest, Fast and Furious 6 will not win an Oscar any time soon. It is just a good time with great stunts, and fast cars.

In this action-packed sixth installment in the Fast and Furious franchise, Vin Diesel and Paul Walker reprise their roles as Dominic Toretto and Brian O'Connor on the run from the police. Dwyane "The Rock" Johnson reprises his role as well as Hobbs, a police officer who ends up helping the two fugitives at the end of fifth installment. In this installment, Hobbs recruits Dom, Brian, and the rest of their team from Fast Five. Together, the team of fast-driving thieves have to take down another team who are committing crimes and starting vehicular warfare. Fast and Furious 6, or Furious 6, never really takes itself too seriously and benefits from that. The first three Fast and Furious films were atrocious, but once director Justin Lin and screenplay-writer Chris Morgan grab the franchise by it's front bumper and make it into more of a heist movie in oppose to just a street racing movie, the quality improved miraculously.

The cast of actors from Fast 5 all come back for this installment and were all very entertaining to watch. You can feel a decent chemistry between all of the actors. The action and stunts in this movie were spectacular. Some big stunts may be a little bit far-fetched, but you can come to expect that from a Fast and Furious movie. There are some great practical and special effects in this film. The budget is high and you can tell the money is spent well. The biggest downside to this film was the ending fight sequence. As I said before, Furious 6 has a lot far-fetched features, and most of them can accept and let go. However, there is one scene that is so ridiculous, it is hard to ignore. 

The scene involves the main protagonists getting on a plane that bad guys are on and trying to fight them and retrieve one of their own. The first few minutes of the fight scene are incredible. You get to see The Rock and Vin Diesel fight on the same team, there are some really good effects. Then the scene continues for a little longer, then longer, then longer, then longer. Then you can't help but ask, how long is this runway?! The scene literally goes on for a near 30 minutes with the plane going hundreds of miles per hour. Besides that and an unrealistic scene in which a character jumps from a fast moving car and catches another character who was thrown from a fast moving car and catches that character, the stunts are pretty decent. Overall, there are some ridiculous moments that may be hard to look past, but once you can understand that this is mindless fun, you can come to enjoy this film from what it is, a fun popcorn flick. Final Rating- B

Iron Man 3 Review (Spoilers)

Iron Man is back and it's bigger, louder, and more expensive than ever; but definitely not better than ever. 

Robert Downey Jr. reprises his role as millionaire Tony Stark/Iron Man. The film takes place after the events that occurred in The Avengers. We see a very distraught and vulnerable Tony Stark, a condition we've never really seen him in when he is not trapped in a cave. All of the original cast is back for Iron Man's third installment. Gwyneth Paltrow reprises her role as Pepper Potts, Don Cheadle reprises his role as War Machine, and even Jon Favreau is back as Happy Hogan, despite Marvel firing Jon after the failure of the second installment. 

Which leads me to my first point about this movie. It is very different compared to the first two. Tony is still more wise-cracking and ridiculous than ever, but the tone of the film is undeniably different from the first two. Iron Man 3 feels much darker, and a lot more serious. Shane Black, writer of the Lethal Weapon movies and director of the Robert Downey Jr. film Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, directs and co-writes this film and you can tell there is a change in management. Jon Favreau did an incredible job directing the first Iron Man but really dropped the ball with the ridiculous, pointless sequel. At first I was glad that they were bringing in some new blood. I thought that was a good decision to give the franchise the boost it needed to prevent mediocrity. Unfortunately, I was very, VERY wrong. A few days before I saw Iron Man 3, I read an interview Shane did for some magazine. In the interview, he stated that wanted to make this Iron Man more realistic and relatable to today's society. When I first read that I thought to myself "Oh, that's actually really cool. They are going to make the Iron Man franchise a little bit more like the Dark Knight series by making it more realistic." Then I went into the movie and about an hour in, I knew what he really meant. (and this is were the spoilers begin). I enjoy Ben Kingsley. He is a great actor and I was really excited to see him in a superhero movie playing what seemed to be a great villain. Only one small little thing, he isn't even a villian! Half way through the movie, we find out the the Mandarin, a bad guy who seemed so great and mysterious and awesome, was just an actor paid by Guy Pearce's character, who was actually the Mandarin. 

First off, that is an incredibly ridiculous twist. The Mandarin is an iconic Iron Man villain, and to make his whole character just some cover for a bigger (and may I add, idiotic) conspiracy is just abismal and really messes with the source material. I get what Mr. Black was trying to do, he was trying to convey that in today's society the real bad guys are the men behind a curtain pulling strings or something like that. Now, I might not be so infuriated at this twist if Guy Pearce's character was at all interesting, but he wasn't interesting! He was just your average, cliched villain whose motives and reasoning were cartoonish and ridiculous. And he breathes fire! It seemed like after that reveal, the whole movie went down hill. One of the biggest sub-plots of this movie is that Tony accidentally flies to some town far away from his home with a broken Iron Man suit. It was really great to see Tony have to use his brains to try to fix the suit and see that vulnerability. Personally, that whole middle part was easily the most entertaining things in the movie. Yet, at the obligatory and gratuitous fight scene ending, it turns out that Tony Stark actually has a big compartment in the ground of his home not filled with one Iron Man suit, not 2, not even 3, but 100 Iron Men! First off, that completely negates my favorite moment of the whole movie. He didn't even need to fix that one broken down suit because he had 100 back home! It just didn't seem right to me, and really kept me distracted while watching that pointless fight scene ending. Overall, the first half of Iron Man 3 is good, really good, but once the Mandarin twist kicks in, the quality cascades. The ending felt rushed, the characters didn't really seem that interesting, but Tony Stark is his comedic self and that is usually fun to watch. The action scenes are impressive, the story shows a vulnerable side to Tony that we haven't seen in a while. It was a decent installment, nowhere near is good as the first one, but much better than number two. Overall Rating- B

The Way Way Back Review

Charming, heartfelt, thoughtful and a whole lot of nostalgic fun. 

"The Way Way Back", written and directed by now Oscar Winners Jim Rash and Nat Faxon, centers around shy, 14 year-old Duncan and his trip to his mother's boyfriend's summer house. In order to escape the annoying environment he was forced into, and to escape from Trent, his mother's rude sleaze-bag boyfriend, Duncan rides his bike to a near-by water park, which is where our story begins. Duncan quickly is accepted into a group of water park employees and makes friends that accept him for who he is, making him reclaim his confidence. There have been plenty of coming-of-age stories in Hollywood, some of which are very well made. However, The Way Way Back is easily the best one I've ever seen. Rash and Faxon write a fun, witty, smooth script filled with great joy and nostalgia that everyone, young or old, can enjoy. The acting performances in this movie were all superb. Liam James stars as shy, awkward Duncan and delivers a good, subtle performance. 

The rest of the cast deliver terrific performances. The cast includes Allison Janney, Toni Collette, Maya Rudolph, AnnaSophia Robb, Amanda Peet, and Rob Corddry. However, the two best performances in the film were easily Steve Carell and Sam Rockwell. Sam Rockwell stars in this movie as Owen, the main water park employee who befriends Duncan. Sam Rockwell is a great actor and truly shines as wise-cracking, fast-talking Owen. The character of Owen clearly has a lot of layers, making his character one of the most interesting characters to watch this whole year. The other performance that really stood out was that of Steve Carell. 

"The Office" star plays the abusive, jerk boyfriend of Duncan's mother and does it remarkably. Steve Carell is extremely well known for playing fun-loving, nice, clueless characters. The character of Trent couldn't be further from that kind of character. Originally, I was worried about such a likable actor playing the lead antagonist. I was worried that I couldn't feel a tremendous hate for a guy that would remind me of Michael Scott. I am very glad to say I was wrong. Steve Carell really makes me hate the character of Trent with a passion. He did a great job playing a total jerk. 

Overall, The Way Way Back is a thoughtful, fun movie that kids can relate to, and adults can relate to and feel an incredible since of nostalgia towards. It brilliantly mixes intense drama, hilarious comedy, and heart-wrenching sorrow. The actors do an incredible job conveying their roles and the writers did an amazing job constructing this heart-warming screenplay that everyone will love. Final Rating- A-

Much Ado About Nothing

Joss Whedon can pull off Vampires, Space Cowboys, Avengers, and now, Shakespeare.

Shakespeare and Joss Whedon are quite simply a match made in Heaven. In this modern retelling of Shakespeare classic tale about two lovers, Beatrice and Benedict, who are tricked into falling in love with one another. Whedon once again casts the actors from his previous projects, making the tone of the film extremely fun and friendly. Alexis Denisof and Amy Acker star as the two main lovers in this delightful comedy. Both actors previously played love interests in Joss Whedon's popular vampire series Angel and the two reunite again, making Whedonverse fans nearly squeal in delight. The rest of the cast is full of Whedonverse alumni, from Sean Mayer and Nathan Fillion of Firefly, Fran Kranz and Reed Diamond of Dollhouse, and Clark Gregg from The Avengers. The performances in this film are all superb. Amy and Alexis are very convincing as enemies slowly falling in love with one another. The comedy, as well as the drama, in this film is astounding. Whedon is very well known for his snappy, witty dialogue and physical comedy, making him the perfect director of this film. 
The biggest complaint most people have when it comes to Shakespeare films is that they're too hard to follow. In Joss Whedon's Much Ado, the story is incredibly easy to follow. The story is so fun and well-constructed it is impossible not to fall head-over-heels after each scene. The characters are extremely likable and the filming and cinematography is awe-inspiring. Perhaps the greatest thing about this film is the actual filming of it. Joss Whedon filmed this movie when he had a two-week break from the Avengers. To think that such an amazing and incredible Shakespeare movie could be filmed in such a short period is astounding, and really demonstrates the skills of Whedon. Overall, Much Ado about Nothing is one of the funniest and best constructed comedies I've seen in a while. Joss Whedon once again proves that he can tackle any genre and make a masterpiece. Final Rating- B+

The Great Gatsby Review

Dazzling effects and performances make this Great Gatsby adaptation the best one we've got and probably the best one we will ever get.
The Great Gatsby just may be the finest piece of American literature created. The movies that were made based off of the Great Gatsby, on the other hand, are a different story. In 1974, Jack Clayton directed an adaptation of The Great Gatsby staring Robert Redford, and in 2000, director Robert Markowitz directed a TV movie Gatsby film. In both cases, the movies were less than satisfactory. Now, in 2013, Baz Luhrmann directs his adaptation of one of the best books ever made. Compared to the previous Gatsby films, Baz Luhrman's version is easily the best.

Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Jay Gatsby, the millionaire with a million secrets. In one of his best roles to date, DiCaprio makes the audience avidly cheer for Gatsby to win the girl of his dreams. The themes of this movie are represented beautifully in this film. The first half of this movie moves very fast and with great hyperactivity, but once Baz Luhrmann slows down and focuses on the great, rich characters that Scott Fitzgerald created, the film transcends far beyond any other adaptation. These are the moments in which the actors show what they are truly capable of, and Baz proves that he can film a scene of people standing in a room talking that is more breathtaking and intense than anything CGI can make happen. 

The romance in this film is extremely powerful. The chemistry between the two leads, played beautifully by DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan, is undeniable and infectious. Carey Mulligan plays a wonderful version of the ditsy blonde Daisy. The two are undeniably great actors, and you can almost physically feel the love and yearning between the two lovers. 

 The rest of this talented cast also did an incredible job. Joel Edgerton really brings to life the rich, sleazy character of Tom Buchanan to the big screen. Tobey Maguire was the one casting choice that I was not initially thrilled about. I know he is a solid actor but I didn't think he could pull off such a complicated character as Nick Caraway. I was pleasantly surprised, however, by how well he pulled it off. You can practically feel the relationship between Nick and Gatsby grow as time goes on. Overall, The Great Gatsby is filled with really great actors on the top of their game. The visuals in this film, although over the top at times, really added to the scope of the film and made you really appreciate the smaller scenes of the film. In the end, it is not a perfect movie, but it is definitely the best Gatsby film ever made and very likely the best one that will ever be made. Final Rating- B+

Pacific Rim Review

Pacific Rim: The Thinking man's Transformers.

It is big, loud, shiny, and one of the most fun film experiences I've ever had. Director Guillermo Del Toro directs this action-packed robot extravaganza that is why IMAX should exist. PACIFIC RIM. Going into this movie, I was deeply worried it would just be like Transformers. I saw big robots fighting other things and that's just where my mind went. About 5 minutes into this movie is when I discovered I was dead wrong. Comparing Pacific Rim to Transformers is like comparing Star Wars: Episode IV to Wing Commanders just because there is fighting in space. They are not the same thing! Pacific Rim's story is actually pretty interesting. These huge monsters called Kaijus (literally translated into "strange creature") are coming up from a portal at the bottom of the Pacific River. Humanity doesn't know how to deal with these monsters because more and more come out every week, so the world unites together to create a new program to make these huge robots and save the day! After seeing Man of Steel, I was worried that the action sequences were going to be drawn out and gratuitous, thankfully I was incorrect. Pacific Rim delivers some of the most remarkable action sequences to date.  The only down-side to this movie would be the script. Let's just say, the script was no Usual Suspects. There were definitely some real cringe-worthy moments and lines throughout out the movie. The acting, for the most part, was good. The only performance I didn't care for was from Charlie Hunnum. Some of the scenes he was in made me cringe and prey that Idris Elba's character would just cut him off already. Which brings me to my next point- Idris Elba. Elba is, once again, a total rock star. As a fan of the Wire and a fan of good performances, Elba didn't disappoint.

The action, acting, story, characters, everything ran real smoothly. When you're mind wasn't being blown by the action, your heart was being invested in these characters. Some may say that Pacific Rim rips off movies like Transformers, War of the Worlds, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Battleship, even Godzilla. Well, to those people I say this. Pacific Rim is not original, it's not a new, profound idea, it is a solid movie that is like a lot of other movies in plot, but is far superior in quality. Final Rating- A-

Man of Steel Review

Superman is back and more depressing to watch than ever... (seriously, what a buzz kill.)

It has been 7 years now since America has endured the utter poop storm that was "Superman Returns". Since then, a shockingly long list of comic book superheros have appeared on the big screen. From genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist Tony Stark, to  brooding, vigilante Bruce Wayne. However, Since "Returns", no director dared to adapt the iconic Superman again into a major motion picture...until now. Zack Snyder, the mind behind visual treats such as "300" and "Watchmen", comes this dark, more realistic Superman- which is where the problem begins. Before I start this review, I just want to say I did not like Man of Steel. I like Christopher Nolan, and I enjoy Zack Snyder- for the most part. And I was real enthused with making Superman darker and more realistic. I thought this, until I actually saw the movie. What a stupid freaking idea! I get what they were trying to do here, DC saw the success of the Dark Knight trilogy and the utter flops of films such as Green Lantern and came up with the idea that if a superhero is conflicted and spends most of the movie battling his inner demons, then that would make the movie better. Man of Steel proves that this is not always the case. Batman CAN be dark and realistic, Superman CAN NOT for one simple reason, he is not realistic! He is an alien from the planet Krypton who flies around in a cape and tights fighting for freedom and the American way. I.E., not realistic. It all just felt depressing. Superman is suppose to be a great symbol of hope, not some depressed alien with identity issues. The only real salvation in this movie were the action sequences, which were mind-blowing, then amazing, then a bit much, then almost monotonous.

As a long time Superman fan, I was glad to see my favorite superhero kicking butt and really fighting. We never really got to see Superman fight to his full capability. Superman movies were either made in a time where Hollywood hasn't developed that kind of technology, or when we did have that technology Superman would mope around all of the time and fly an island into space. It was great to see Superman fighting villains with great special effects. That being said, less could have been more in this case. You don't need to have a great action sequence, followed by another action sequence, and once again followed by another crazy action sequence. It just seemed like over-kill and it began entering the lowest point in movie-making history, Michael Bay territory! Yuck, I got chills from just writing that. After the fifth action sequence or so, you begin to get bored and wish Superman would just mope around some more. The other thing that kept this movie from my top superhero movies were the characters. Henry Cavill as Superman and Michael Shannon as General Zod were both excellent choices. They were both interesting characters to watch. It was everyone else that was the problem. This cast was undoubtedly the best cast I've ever seen assembled for a superhero movie. Amy Adams, Russell Crowe, Laurence Fishburne, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane- the casting was great. It was the writing for the characters that was less than satisfactory. David Goyer wrote a solid script for Batman Begins back in 2005 and hasn't written another good screenplay since. Overall, all of the characters felt incredibly one-dimensional, the plot holes were endless, and the dialogue seemed extremely lazy. Final Rating- C