Category: 2010

Director:
Oliver Stone
Cast:
Michael Douglas
Shia LaBeouf
Josh Brolin
Carey Mulligan
Eli Wallach
Frank Langella
Rated: PG-13

Money Never Sleeps is a great tagline for this film since it proves the statement to be true.

The film is a sequel to the 1987 picture that also starred Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko. However, the lead character of this film is played by Shia Lebouf. This time around, Lebouf plays Jake, a young man working at a bank in 2008 while at the same time building toward proposing to his girlfriend Winnie (Mulligan), who happens to be Gekko’s daughter.

Tensions start to rise all around Jake, though, as Gekko is released from prison, causing stress for Winnie. At the same time, Jake also has to deal with a volatile market.

Continue reading “REVIEW: ‘Wall Street Money Never Sleeps’”

Director:
Zack Snyder
Cast:
Jim Sturgess
Emily Barclay
Abbie Cornish
Essie Davis
Adrienne DeFaria
Joel Edgerton
Ryan Kwanten
Rated: PG

Owls fighting each other with swords? That could never work.

Except in this film, Legend of the Guardians, it does. The film starts in a lush forest with a family of owls. In the family are the parents and their three children, their youngest Eglantine (DeFaria), and their two sons of the same age, Soren a very adventurous owl who believes in ancient legends of a group of heroic owls called The Guardians, and Kludd (Kwanten), who is very temperamental.

Soren and Kludd’s time with their family is cut short, though, as the two are kidnapped by very powerful owls who are working for the evil Metalbeak (Edgerton) and his assistant Nyra played by Helen Mirren. They soon find out that many other owls are being kidnapped as well to be brainwashed and made into an army for Metalbeak so he can eliminate the Guardians.

Continue reading “REVIEW ‘Legend of the Guardians’”

Director:
Ben Affleck
Cast:
Ben Affleck
Rebecca Hall
Jon Hamm
Jeremy Renner
Blake Lively
Rated: R

Remember the Affleck who helped make Good Will Hunting, he is making a comeback.

The Town follows a group of four bank robbers led by Doug Macray (Affleck) who reside in Charleston Mass. Doug and his crew are very skilled in their profession and hardly have things go wrong. However, in their latest attempt at the beginning of the film, they are forced to take a hostage, a girl named Claire (Hall). They let her go and she goes to the cops and the FBI, but she doesn’t have much info since she was blindfolded.

This isn’t satisfying for the crew though as they believe she may actually remember something important and tell the authorities something that could put them in prison. Therefore Doug takes it upon himself to contact the girl and keep an eye on her. However, over this time he actually develops a relationship with her and starts to fall in love.

Continue reading “REVIEW: ‘The Town’”

Director:
Anthony Bell, Ben Gluck
Cast:
Justin Long
Hayden Panettiere
Dennis Hopper
Danny Glover
Viki Lewis
Chris Carmack
Larry Miller
Eric Price
Rated: PG

Here is a film that is basically all that is wrong with animated films for kids.

The film follows Humphrey (Long), a wolf who is an ‘omega,’ one of the lower level wolves. Humphrey’s good friend, though, who he also has his heart set on, Kate, is an ‘alpha’ and the daughter of the leader of the clan which unfortunately means that the two can’t be together because of the laws that the wolves have.

Another reason why it’s impossible for the two to be together is that Kate must marry the son of the leader of a rival wolf clan. The son is named Garth (Carmack), but before Kate and Garth can meet to get to know each other, Kate and Humphrey are tranquilized and taken to a different wild life preserve. So now the two must get back to their home and at the same time, Humphrey has to try to win Kate’s heart before they get back.

Continue reading “REVIEW: ‘Alpha and Omega’”

From the mind of M. Night… Sigh.

The film follows Detective Bowden (Messina) who is investigating a suicide in a skyscraper. Meanwhile, we also have five characters, all strangers, enter an elevator in the same building. It first just appears to be a simple ride up to the top, but the elevator is soon stopped.

At first the situation seems like just a simple technical glitch, yet as time goes on the workers begin to notice that there is nothing technically  wrong with the elevator and the problem may be supernatural, with the character Ramirez (Vargas) jumping straight to the conclusion of it being the Devil. Bowden at first denies this, but as time goes on and the people in the elevator start turning on each other, plus with no one being able to get to the people in the elevator, he starts to see it as more and more possible.

Continue reading “REVIEW: ‘Devil’”

Director:
Paul W.S. Anderson
Cast:
Milla Jovovich
Ali Larter
Kim Coates
Wentworth Miller
Shawn Roberts
Spencer Locke
Rated: R

The franchise keeps spinning on its downward spiral.

Once again Milla Jovovich returns as the character Alice, and in case you forgot what happened in the past three movies, Alice does the same narration she did in the previous two films. It starts off in Tokyo, with the evil Umbrella Corporation held up in a base underground.

However, it is soon invaded by Alice and her clones who now have super powers after experiments done in the previous film. This cliffhanger plot point of the third movie is immediately done away with, though, as Alice looses all of the clones in an explosion and her powers through some plot device.

Continue reading “REVIEW: ‘Resident Evil Afterlife’”

Director:
Nanette Burstein
Cast:
Drew Barrymore
Justin Long
Charlie Day
Jason Sudeikis
Christina Applegate
Rated: R

The film follows Garret, played by Justin Long, a man who can’t seem to stay in a committed relationship. Meanwhile, Erin, played by Drew Barrymore, is working at a summer internship at a New York City newspaper. After both our lead characters have a bad day they both decide to go out to the bar. After meeting by an arcade game the two hit it off and start a good relationship.

However, their relationship becomes strained as Erin has to return to San Francisco after her time at the internship is over. The two want to continue in their relationship, though, and decide to go long distance dating.Yet while it seemed easy at first, jobs and other events show them that being in love across the country is more difficult than they thought.

Continue reading “REVIEW: ‘Going the Distance’”

Director:
Anton Corbijn
Cast:
George Clooney
Violante Placido
Johan Leysen
Thekla Reuten
Paolo Bonacelli
Rated: R

Anyone going into this film expecting just an average spy film will be quite surprised with this film.

The movie follows the character Jack (Clooney), a man who appears to be a sort of spy or hit man. We start with him in an isolated cabin with his lover, Ingrid played by Irina Björklund. Things seem to be going fine until some assassins come out to kill Jack. Jack eliminates the assassins, but in the process, Irina is killed. After the event, Jack goes to Rome to meet his employer, Pavel (Leysen). Pavel informs him that the killings are in the media and he needs to go underground for a while in a small town, and while there finish a final job that doesn’t involve any deaths.

After arriving in the town, Jack meets with the client for the job he was given named Mathilde (Reuten). His task is to construct a powerful sniper rifle. Jack gets to work on the rifle, but still has time to explore the small town and make acquaintances with the priest, Father Benedetto (Bonacelli). Additionally, he begins a relationship with a prostitute named Clara (Placido). Yet he can’t get too comfortable, because he eventually finds out that the town isn’t as safe as he thought.

Continue reading “REVIEW: ‘The American’”

Director:
John Luessenhop
Cast:
Chris Brown
Hayden Christensen
Matt Dillon
Steve Harris
T.I.
Rated: PG-13

Takers follows a group of very highly trained robbers who have been doing their ‘job’ for years now and are nearly always succeed at what they do.

However, one of the team members, Ghost (T.I.) was in prison for a long time and is finally getting out. He meets the team after their latest heists and offers them an opportunity at a lot of cash. Meanwhile we have Matt Dillon’s character Jack Welles, a police officer who is hot on the team’s tail and is getting ready to catch them.

Despite being advertised as more of a heist film, there aren’t exactly many heists going on. Instead, “Takers” plays out like a ‘Fast and Furious’ robbery picture, a rather dull one at that. There is one robbery operation that is permitted in the film, but it is so over the top and ridiculous that it becomes laughable.

Continue reading “REVIEW: ‘Takers’”