Matthew Liedke

Get on Up review

Director:
Tate Taylor
Cast:
Chadwick Boseman
Nelsan Ellis
Dan Aykroyd
Viola Davis
Octavia Spencer
Rated: PG-13

The harsh upbringing and rise to stardom is explored in “Get on Up,” which chronicles the life and music of singer James Brown. The movie shows his life as a child growing up in Georgia, how he became a singer and his eventual decline.

The film also shows some of the hardships he had in his own family life.

“Get on Up” breaks away from a traditional format of story-telling, as the film goes back and forth between different stages of Brown’s life. This helps the movie to an extent, since it is at least an attempt to break away from the normal biopic style.

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Guardians of the Galaxy review

Director:
James Gunn
Cast:
Chris Pratt
Zoe Saldana
Dave Bautista
Vin Diesel
Bradley Cooper
Lee Pace
Rated: PG-13

The best character of 2014 might just be a raccoon.

“Guardians of the Galaxy” is Marvel Studios’ latest cinematic venture. However, this time around the audience is introduced to a whole new universe with a different set of characters from what people have come to expect in a Marvel film.

The movie follows Peter Quill (Pratt), or as he likes to call himself, Starlord. Quill is an intergalactic thief who steals an orb from what looks like ancient ruins. This puts him on a wanted list of a few dangerous people, including Gamora (Saldana), who works for the villainous Ronan, and a raccoon named Rocket (Cooper) who is being helped by a walking tree creature titled Groot (Diesel).

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REVIEW: ‘Lucy’

Director:
Luc Besson
Cast:
Scarlett Johansson
Morgan Freeman
Amr Waked
Min-sik Choi
Rated: R

Director Luc Besson’s latest film “Lucy” follows the title character played by Scarlett Johansson. A young woman who is living in Taiwan, Lucy’s life takes a turn for the worst when her boyfriend gets her caught up in the world of drug trafficking.

Lucy soon becomes a drug mule, having a package of drugs placed inside of her. The package soon breaks and the drug enters her system, which results in her brain capacity increasing. Through the rest of the movie Lucy’s brain capacity continues to rise nearer to 100%, and she has to figure out what to do with the knowledge she gains and take revenge on the drug gang.

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Hercules review

Director:
Brett Ratner
Cast:
Dwayne Johnson
Ian McShane
John Hurt
Rufus Sewell
Ingrid Bolso Berdal
Rated: PG-13

Brett Ratner already screwed up a good premise to an X-Men movie, so it shouldn’t come as any surprise he can’t pull off something like “Hercules.”

In this new telling of Greek mythology, the titular hero, played by Dwayne Johnson, is a mercenary, fighting bandits and pirates for gold. It’s alluded to he may be the son of Zeus, however, this movie tries to ground itself in a more realistic setting. Therefor, we get a Hercules that is a bit more human.

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The Purge: Anarchy review

Director:
James DeMonaco
Cast:
Frank Grillo
Carmen Ejogo
Zach Gilford
Zoe Soul
Rated: R

A sequel to last year’s film “The Purge,” “Anarchy” follows a new cast of characters and once again takes place on the night where, in the United States, all crime including murder is deemed legal. In this movie, the story follows a man simply known as Sergeant (Grillo), who seems to be on a quest for nothing but revenge on one person.

However, upon his travels he meets four people in need of help. Sergeant decides to assist them and has to lead them through the city on the most dangerous night in America.

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Sex Tape review

Director:
Jake Kasdan
Cast:
Cameron Diaz
Jason Segel
Rob Corddry
Ellie Kemper
Rob Lowe
Rated: R

Annie (Diaz) and Jay (Segel) are a married couple who seem to have lost the spark in their marriage. Now that they have kids, careers and other responsibilities, their sex lives have suffered. To get back to the type of relationship they had in college, Annie comes up with an idea. However, the morning after, the couple finds that the sex tape they made the night before was uploaded to a cloud network that is connected to multiple iPads. Because of this, the couple go on a search and destroy mission to eliminate all copies of the video.

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Begin Again review

Director:
John Carney
Cast:
Mark Ruffalo
Hailee Steinfeld
Keira Knightley
Adam Levine
Rated: R

Mark Ruffalo plays a music producer down on his luck in “Begin Again” while Keira Knightley plays a musician who is going through a bad breakup. One night the two meet by chance and decide to try working together to produce an album. Through the collaboration, the two begin to remember what they enjoy about music and it allows them to find out how to move forward in their personal lives.

I was a bit worried in the first few minutes of “Begin Again,” since it looked like Ruffalo was going to play a stereotypical down on his luck type of guy who drinks too much. While his character certainly falls into some tropes, though, Ruffalo really sells an honesty in the character and his supporting cast helps raise the bar.

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Planes: Fire and Rescue review

Director:
Roberts Gannaway
Cast:
Dane Cook
Ed Harris
Julie Bowen
Curtis Armstrong
Rated: PG

World Champion plane racer Dusty Crophopper (Cook) is living the perfect life.

He’s winning every match up and has everything he could want. Problems come around, though, when a key engine failure results in Dusty not being able to race anymore. Making matters worse, he soon learns that his hometown needs another firefighter to help protect the city. Dusty decides to become a firefighting plane and goes to train at a forest park under the tutelage of legendary helicopter Blade Ranger (Harris).

The movie “Cars” followed a young hot shot who had a lot of talent but had to learn some life lessons and new tricks from an old mentor if he wanted to be great. The first “Planes” followed a young hot shot who had a lot of talent but had to learn some life lessons and new tricks from an old mentor if he wanted to be great.

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Dawn of the Planet of the Apes review

Director:
Matt Reeves
Cast:
Andy Serkis
Jason Clarke
Gary Oldman
Keri Russell
Toby Kebbell
Rated: PG-13

“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” is the sequel to the 2011 reboot film which followed the birth and childhood of the character Ceasar (Serkis), and how he rose to be a revolutionary leader for his simian species. “Dawn” starts off 10 years after the first film ended. Since Caesar and the apes escaped, a virus produced at a lab has spread across the entire world and has wiped out most of the human race. Meanwhile, the apes, led by Caesar, have established their own thriving community where they live in peace.

Tensions rise, though, as a group of humans from a colony in the remains of San Francisco step upon the Ape civilization to find a power source and an accidental death occurs. Just as the situation reaches a near boiling point, though, Caesar is able to communicate with the humans to calm things down and eventually, the humans get to do their work. Old hatreds start to rise up, though, and peace may not be a long term solution.

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Tammy review

Director:
Ben Falcone
Cast:
Melissa McCarthy
Susan Surandon
Kathy Bates
Mark Duplass
Rated: R

I would say that Melissa McCarthy was typecast in this movie, but I won’t since she co-wrote the thing.

“Tammy” follows the life of the title character, played by McCarthy, who is experiencing one of the worst days one could have. First, she loses her job for being late to work, and that is followed by a discovery that her husband is cheating on her. After those disasters, she decides to leave town to clear her head. She doesn’t make the trip alone, though, as her grandma Pearl (Surandon) decides to tag along.

From there the two go off on a few wild adventures where they meet up with old and new friends and Tammy makes a pit stop to rob a fast food restaurant.

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