Category: Reviews

We Bought a Zoo review

Director:
Cameron Crowe
Cast:
Matt Damon
Scarlett Johansson
Thomas Haden Church
Colin Ford
Elle Fanning
Rated: PG

Out of all the investments a person can make…

We Bought a Zoo follows the true story of Benjamin Mee (Damon), a man who is trying to cope with the loss of his wife and still trying to raise his kids right. He finds this difficult to do though since every place in the town he lives in reminds him of his wife. To deal with this he decides to take a leap of faith and buy a new house which happens to be a zoo.

Benjamin and his two kids soon learn that the zoo is in bad shape. Most of the facilities are not up to regulation standards and the zoo has a chance of being shut down. So Benjamin decides to make the best of the situation and roll up his sleeves and work together with the head zoo keeper Kelly (Johansson) to keep the place open, during this time, he also has to reconnect with his son.

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Young Adult review

Director:
Jason Reitman
Cast:
Charlize Theron
Patton Oswalt
Patrick Wilson
Rated: R

For the record, I’ve never called Minneapolis the “MinnyApple.”

Young Adult is the latest film from “Up in the Air” director Jason Reitman. The movie follows Mavis Gary (Theron), a book writer living in Minneapolis who has had most of her success from writing teen novels. However she is unhappy with her life and has become a heavy drinker.

Upon being updated on an old high school romance, Mavis decides to go back to her small home town and try to reconnect with her old boyfriend even though he is married. During her time there she meets up with some of the other people from the town and learns what other people have done with their lives.

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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo review

Director:
David Fincher
Cast:
Daniel Craig
Rooney Mara
Christopher Plummer
Stellan Skarsgard
Rated: R

James Bond was able to relax a little, working on a case without a super villain and all.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the American adaption of a popular book series. The film follows the character Mikael (Craig), a disgraced journalist who was accused and found guilty of writing false accusations against a wealthy CEO type. Because his investigative reporting skills are not in high demand in the news business, he is then hired by an old rich man who would like Mikael to research and find new evidence on a cold case that holds many secrets for the wealthy family.

Meanwhile, a poor yet brilliant woman named Lisbeth (Mara) who helped the CEO with his case against Mikael eventually starts to help Mikael on the case. Together the two begin to find clues and more and more mysteries begin to unravel about what really happened behind the scenes with the wealthy family.

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War Horse review

Director:
Steven Spielberg
Cast:
Jeremy Irvine
Tom Hiddleston
Celine Buckens
David Kross
Rated: PG-13

It’s like the horse version of Forest Gump.

War Horse tells the story of a horse (surprise surprise) named Joey. The horse is bought by a poor farmer and raised into a powerful creature by the farmer’s son Albert. As World War I starts, horses begin to be bought and Joey is sold among them. After this Joey goes into different battles and places around Europe during the course of the conflict.

Along his way he is met and taken care of by soldiers and civilians of all nationalities and many who come across the horse are impressed and become attached to it. Eventually, Albert joins the war as well and sets out to see if he can be reunited with his horse from home.

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Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked review

Director:
Mike Mitchell
Cast:
Jason Lee
David Cross
Jenny Slate
Rated: G

This movie really started to chip away at my brain after a while. Sorry, that was worse then the title.

The third installment in the epic trilogy of chipmunk films is about the six rodents taking a vacation on a Carnival Cruise (Which is HEAVILY advertised by the way) and it going horribly wrong. Alvin, being the little jerk that he is decides that he wants to go hang-gliding and drags all of his brothers and the chipettes off the ship and out into the ocean where they become shipwrecked on an island. Except in this case they become chipwrecked since they’re chipmunks, so funny right?

The rest of the film is them exploring the island and meeting up with a crazed woman named Zoe (Slate) who talks to balls that she’s drawn faces onto, darn the references were only 11 years too late. During this time, Simon gets hit on the head and causes him to become a different, braver personality, which in turn causes Alvin to become the responsible one, what a twist. Meanwhile the film also follows Ian (Cross) and Dave (Lee) who are searching for the missing animals.

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Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol review

Director:
Brad Bird
Cast:
Tom Cruise
Paula Patton
Simon Pegg
Jeremy Renner
Rated: PG-13

The latest installment of the “Mission Impossible” franchise once again follows the agents of IMF. In the film, Ethan Hunt (Cruise) is called upon by the IMF to stop Russia’s nuclear arsenal from falling into the wrong hands. However the villain Ethan and his team are hunting frames them for a disaster causing the IMF to be disbanded.

That’s not entirely true, though, as the Secretary of Defense informs Ethan that he and his team can go into “ghost protocol” and still go on their mission to stop nuclear war. The team then get’s together, joined by some new members, and travels the world tracking down the villain to the Middle East where they must infiltrate a couple different high security places.

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Carnage review

Director:
Roman Polanski
Cast:
John C. Reilly
Jodie Foster
Kate Winslet
Christoph Waltz
Rated: R

No wonder the kids who fought each other did what they did with the parents that they have.

“Carnage” opens with two young boys getting into a fight and one of them ends up getting hit in the mouth. Because of the scuffle, the parents of both boys decide to meet. On one side is Michael (Reilly) and Penelope (Foster), and on the other is Alan (Waltz) and Nancy (Winslet).

The two couples are civil with each other at first however as time goes on they begin to have disagreements and arguments and it goes from couple against couple to just a full on free for all with everybody taking shots at each other making the whole situation into a giant trainwreck.

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Martha Marcy May Marlene review

Director:
Sean Durkin
Cast:
Elizabeth Olsen
Sarah Paulson
John Hawkes
Hugh Dancy
Rated: R

Wait a minute, you’re telling me that not only do the Olsen twins have a sister, but that she actually has acting talent?

Martha Marcy May Marlene follows a young woman who has just run away from what seemed to be her home. We immediately find out though that she was actually running away from a dangerous cult that she had been a part of for an extended period of time. Martha (Olsen), after getting away from the cult led by Patrick (Hawkes), calls her sister Lucy (Paulson) to pick her up and take her home.

After getting to Lucy’s house Martha starts trying to live a normal life again with her sister and her sister’s husband Ted (Dancy), however she finds it difficult to do so. Memories of what had gone on during her days being in the cult continue to cut deep into her head and leaves her in a paranoid state for the rest of the film as she continues to wonder if the cult will eventually find her.

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The Descendants review

Director:
Alexander Payne
Cast:
George Clooney
Shailene Woodley
Amara Miller
Nick Krause
Rated: R

The Descendants follows the character Matt King (Clooney), a man who is a descendant of very wealthy Hawaiian land owners. Matt now holds in his hands the sole responsibility of whether to sell the remaining land he owns or not. However, he is under pressure due to the family feuding about which way to go. To make things worse, Matt’s wife Elizabeth was in a boating accident and is left in a coma, he is then informed that Elizabeth’s condition will not improve and that she will pass away within the week.

Because of this Matt and his daughter Scottie (Miller) decide to pick up his oldest child Alexandra (Woodley) and bring her back home. Once they get back home Alexandra has a sour attitude and eventually Matt finds out why. The reason is that Alexandra was angry with her mother since Elizabeth was cheating on Matt. This sets the family on a search to find the man that Elizabeth was having an affair with.

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Hugo review

Director:
Martin Scorsese
Cast:
Ben Kingsley
Sacha Baron Cohen
Asa Butterfield
Chloe Grace Moretz
Rated: PG

I’ll have to get my flame shields ready for this one.

Martin Scorsese’s latest pic Hugo is based on the novel “The Invention of Hugo Cabret.” The film follows a young boy by the name of Hugo (Butterfield), who after his parents dying is forced to work for his uncle in the main train station of Paris. After his uncle leaves Hugo continues working on the clocks and is left isolated. The one thing he has is a small robotic like machine that him and his father (played by Jude Law) were working on together.

Things change though as the shop keeper (Kingsley) of a small toy store in the station discovers Hugo and takes his notebook. When trying to get it back he meets the store keeper’s God-Daughter Isabelle (Moretz). Together the two of them begin to find out more about the robot and start to see a connection with the shop keeper and the machine.

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