Category: 2012

Prometheus review

Director:
Ridley Scott
Cast:
Noomi Rapace
Michael Fassbender
Charlize Theron
Idris Elba
Logan Marshall-Green
Rated: R

This is the second film Michael Fassbender is in with a character who’s last name is Shaw, maybe the X-Men universe and the Aliens universe is connected…. Probably not.

“Prometheus” is actually the title of the ship that the characters we follow are traveling aboard. The main protagonist is Elizabeth Shaw (Rapace), a member of an archaeologist crew searching for the creators of humanity which they call the “Engineers.” The expedition is financed by a huge company and to make sure everything goes smoothly a representative from the company named Meredith Vickers (Theron) is also on the ship.

Eventually the Prometheus finds and lands on a planet where it is believed that the engineers could be. The ship lands next to a large organic seeming structure and the crew goes into investigate. This turns out to be a poor decision though as they quickly find that the structure is filled with deadly aliens and that the engineers themselves could be hostile.

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Madagascar: Europe’s Most Wanted review

Director:
Eric Darnell
Cast:
Ben Stiller
Chris Rock
David Schwimmer
Jada Pinkett Smith
Sacha Baron Cohen
Frances McDormand
Rated: PG

The epic conclusion to the Madagascar saga!

“Madagascar 3” follows our main characters from the past two movies, four New York Zoo animals who have by this film explored a lot of the world. In this film we find our characters in Europe preparing to return to New York City along with the genius penguins. However, they are spotted and an animal catcher named Captain Chantel DuBois (McDormand) goes after them stopping at nothing to find them.

Because of this, the animals have to go on the run and join a circus. The plan is to stay with the circus to get back to the United States yet as time goes on they become more involved with the other circus animals and have to decide whether to stay with it and help it out or not.

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Men in Black 3 review

Director:
Barry Sonnenfeld
Cast:
Will Smith
Tommy Lee Jones
Josh Brolin
Jemaine Clement
Rated: PG-13

Will Smith has battled aliens now four times and robots one time, he should be able to qualify to join the Jedi order soon.

“Men in Black 3” follows up with our main characters from the previous films, Agent J (Smith) and Agent K (Jones), as they continue their day to day work of protecting the citizens of Earth from aliens living on the blue and green planet. Trouble starts brewing, though, as an alien that K locked up back in the 60s named Borris the Animal (Clement) escapes from a prison on the moon and vows revenge.

To execute his vengeance, he goes back in time and kills K so it changes history. Not only does this have J wake up with out a partner at MIB, the super secret organization also realizes that an alien invasion begins on Earth and they have no way to stop it since K hadn’t been around to get a type of defense system since history changed. Because of this J has to travel back in time and work with a young K to stop Borris.

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What to Expect when you’re Expecting review

Director:
Kirk Jones
Cast:
Cameron Diaz
Jennifer Lopez
Elizabeth Banks
Chance Crawford
Brooklyn Decker
Ben Falcone
Anna Kendrick
Matthew Morrison
Rated: PG-13

I’m usually against the “Hollywood has run out of ideas argument,” knowing how many original independent films are out there, but then there is a weekend with one movie based on a board game and one based on a self help book.

“What to Expect When You’re Expecting” is an ensemble cast romcom in the vein of films like “New Year’s Eve,” however this deals with the issues of pregnancy. The film features many different and familiar faces including Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Lopez. Each couple in the movie faces their own issues and insecurities about pregnancy and throughout the film their stories cross paths with each others.

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Battleship review

Director:
Peter Berg
Cast:
Taylor Kitsch
Rihanna
Brooklyn Decker
Tadanobu Asano
Liam Neeson
Rated: PG-13

The film follows a character named Alex Hopper (Kitsch). In the beginning Hopper is mainly a screw up, getting in trouble with the law and not having any real direction. After one night of breaking into a store to impress a girl named Sam (Decker), his brother gets fed up and tells him to join the U.S. Navy.

The film suddenly cuts to an unspecified amount of time later where Alex is now a Lieutenant and has gotten together with Sam who happens to be the Pacific Admiral’s (Neeson) daughter. We catch up with Alex as he is participating in a Naval event with 13 other nations. As they begin an exercise they come across an alien craft that begins an attack on Earth. After Alex’s brother is killed he is advanced to captain and has to fight back against the alien threat.

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The Avengers review

Director:
Joss Whedon
Cast:
Robert Downey Jr.
Chris Evans
Mark Ruffalo
Chris Hemsworth
Scarlett Johansson
Jeremy Renner
Tom Hiddleston
Samuel L. Jackson
Rated: PG-13

They actually pulled it off.

“The Avengers” is Marvel’s grand film featuring all of the super heroes shown in its previous adaptations, including Tony Stark aka Iron Man (Downey Jr.), Steve Rodgers aka Captain America (Evans), Dr. Bruce Banner who transforms into the Hulk (Ruffalo) and the God of Thunder from another world, Thor (Hemsworth).

The film opens very quickly with Thor’s evil brother Loki arriving on Earth and taking a powerful object called the Tesseract from the world protection agency called SHIELD. Loki’s plan with the Tesseract is to open a portal to outer space and bring a powerful army to invade and conquer Earth. Because of this threat, Nick Fury (Jackson), the director of SHIELD calls upon Iron Man, Captain America, Bruce Banner, Thor and two super SHIELD spy agents Hawkeye (Renner) and Black Widow (Johansson) to battle against Loki (Hiddleston).

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The Pirates! Band of Misfits review

Director:
Peter Lord, Jeff Newitt
Cast:
Hugh Grant
Imelda Staunton
David Tennant
Salma Hayek
Rated: PG

Going the animated route is probably the only way Hugh Grant could ever play a pirate.

“The Pirates! Band of Misfits” follows the story of the character The Pirate Captain (Grant), a pirate who has been around for years yet has never reached the pinnacle of success for his field, the pirate of the year award. The year that the story takes place though, The Pirate Captain decides to try and get the award at any means necessary.

One day while out pillaging a ship he comes across Charles Darwin (Tennant). Darwin informs the captain that his parrot that usually sits on his shoulder is actually a rare bird and not a parrot at all, and that he should go to London to win the grand prize from the science exhibit that’s going on. However going to London is dangerous since Queen Victoria (Staunton) hates pirates with all of her being.

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Cabin in the Woods review

Director:
Drew Goddard
Cast:
Kristen Connoly
Chris Hemsworth
Anna Hutchison
Fran Kranz
Jesse Williams
Richard Jenkins
Bradley Whitford
Rated: R

To bad Chris Hemsworth didn’t have his Thor powers in this movie, then it would’ve been a real party.

“The Cabin in the Woods” looks from the trailers like it could be your average five teens get stuck in the middle of no where and get killed off one by one type film, however as soon as the film opens it is revealed that it is far different then that. The film actually sets up a world where the entire situation that the supposed protagonists are going through is staged by a large powerful agency with it’s own agenda.

Once the film establishes these two pieces we follow the characters at the cabin and how they are being watched and even manipulated by the agency into going through some classic horror movie tropes.

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American Pie: Reunion review

Director:
Jon Hurwitz & Hayden Schlossberg
Cast:
Jason Biggs
Alyson Hannigan
Chris Klein
Thomas Ian Nichols
Seann William Scott
Eddie Kaye Thomas
Eugene Levy
Rated: R

They should have just let the franchise die.

American Reunion is the fourth installment in the American Pie series (not including the horrible straight to DVD flicks) that reunites the entire cast of the original film. The movie picks up with the main character of the franchise, Jim Levenstein (Biggs), who is having a bit of trouble in marriage to Michelle (Hannigan).

At the same time he finds out about a reunion at his high school which all his friends will be attending. When he arrives there Jim and the whole gang come together and start getting into their antics which they have been in before in the previous installments. As the reunion goes on each of them discovers things about themselves and old relationships.

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Wrath of the Titans review

Director:
Jonathan Liebesman
Cast:
Sam Worthington
Liam Neeson
Ralph Fiennes
Edgar Ramirez
Rosamund Pike
Rated: PG-13

How does Sam Worthington keep getting more bland with each movie?

“Wrath of the Titans” is the follow-up to the 2010 film “Clash of the Titans.” In this installment, we find our protagonist Perseus (Worthington), the demigod son of Zeus (Neeson) trying to live a normal life as a fisherman. However Zeus informs Perseus that the Gods are losing their power and need to re seal the titans, especially Zeus’ father Chronos to stop the end of the world.

Perseus declines and Zeus tries to do it with just the help of Posiden and his other son Ares, however Ares teams up with Hades (Fiennes) and defeats Posiden and capture Zeus. Because of this, the only hope left for the world is Perseus, and he must team up with the Queen of Greece Andromeda (Pike) and Posiden’s demigod son Agenor (Ramirez).

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