Category: 2014

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles review

Director:
Jonathan Liebesman
Cast:
Johnny Knoxville
Alan Ritchson
Noel Fisher
Jeremy Howard
Tony Shalhoub
Megan Fox
Will Arnett
William Fichtner
Rated: PG-13

Yo dudes this is no cartoon. Well, the turtles are animated, so technically it sort of is a cartoon.

The 2014 “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” is a retelling of the comic book/cartoon series phenomenon of the late 80s and early 90s. The movie follows the character April O’Neil (Fox), a young TV reporter just starting her career, who is trying to break a story on a secretive group of criminals called the Foot Clan.

On one of her assignments she comes across four mutant turtles who have been trained in the art of being a ninja. As the plot thickens, April finds out that she has a connection to the turtles from her youth and also to the mysterious Foot Clan.

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The Hundred-Foot Journey review

Director:
Lasse Hallstrom
Cast:
Helen Mirren
Om Puri
Manish Dayal
Charlotte Le Bon
Rated: PG

Helen Mirren plays Madame Mallory in “The Hundred Foot Journey,” a strong willed woman who runs one of the finest restaurants in France. Her establishment gets some unexpected competition, though, when a family from India opens up their own restaurant right across the street.

The point of pride for the family restaurant is Hassan (Dayal), an aspiring chef who wants to learn the very best about cooking fancy cuisine. While doing so, he meets another young chef who works in Mallory’s kitchen named Marguerite (Le Bon). The two start a friendship and also a rivalry. Meanwhile, Hassan’s father played by Om Puri goes into direct competition with Mallory to see which restaurant can be the best in the small French village.

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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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