The Amazing Spider-man review

Director:
Marc Webb
Cast:
Andrew Garfield
Emma Stone
Rhys Ifans
Dennis Leary
Martin Sheen
Sally Field
Rated: Rated: PG-13

A retelling, reboot, remake, recycled, it’s every “re” you can think of.

The film follows Peter Parker’s origin story beginning when he was a young boy, when his parents suddenly had to go away and leave him with his Uncle Ben and Aunt May. The story then picks up to where Peter is a teenager in high school, having to deal with the average everyday problems. That is until he sneaks into a science lab to uncover answers about his parents who used to work there and is bitten by a genetically enhanced spider.

After this he begins getting new powers like heightened speed and strength as well as the ability to walk on walls. Meanwhile, one of the scientists at the facility, Dr. Connors (Ifans), who worked with Peter’s father, is working on a way to replace his lost arm by DNA splicing with that of a lizard. At the same time, Peter’s uncle is shot and killed by a robber; this sets Peter off on a quest of revenge, getting a costume and everything to go after the criminal. The two plots of Dr. Connors and Peter who has become Spiderman eventually meet as the two become the most powerful things in New York City.

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Magic Mike review

Director:
Steven Soderbergh
Cast:
Matthew McConaughey
Channing Tatum
Alex Pettyfer
Cody Horn
Rated: R

Magic Mike follows the story of the title character. Mike, played by Channing Tatum, has been a stripper for a few years now, all to save up enough money to eventually start his own furniture business. To Mike, the lifestyle is just a means to get by, as he happens to work in other jobs, too, like construction. One day at his construction job he meets a young guy named Adam (Pettyfer).

Adam is for the most part, a screw-up, living on his sisters couch and not really able to hold his job. That is until Mike decides to help him out and convince the owner of the strip club Dallas (McConaughey) to hire him. At first things seem to be going well but as time goes on Adam starts getting into trouble, meanwhile Mike begins getting closer with Adam’s sister Brooke (Horn).

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Brave review

Director:
Mark Andrews
Cast:
Kelly Macdonald
Billy Connolly
Emma Thompson
Julie Walters
Rated: PG

Okay cool Pixar, now can we please get an “Incredibles 2?”

“Brave” is the latest film from the studio that has brought animated classics year after year. Their latest film follows the character Merida (Macdonald), a young princess living in a kingdom in Scotland. Merida is a free spirit and mainly enjoys practicing her archery skills in the vast outdoors surrounding the castle where she lives. Her mother Elinor (Thompson) however wants Merida to be more proper and formal, much to her dismay.

To make matters worse for Merida, she soon learns that she is going to have to marry a suitor to keep peace between the different kingdoms. This becomes the last straw for Merida as she becomes completely fed up with the direction her life is going and decides to try and find a way to change her fate.

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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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The Hangover 3 review

They should have just made the first film and been done with it.

“The Hangover Part 3” drops the format of the previous two films and this time puts the three main characters, Phil played by Bradley Cooper, Stu, played by Ed Helms and Alan, played by Zach Galifianakis, into something entirely different. Gone is the plot of a bachelor party taken way too far. Instead, this time around the screen writers created an action-comedy it seems. Alan, who is for the most part a child in a man’s body, is off his medication and the rest of the cast, including the fourth character in the group who gets very little screen time, Doug, played by Justin Bartha, wants to take him to a rehab center.

As the four begin a road trip to take Alan to rehab, they come under attack from a newcomer to the series named Marshall, played by John Goodman, who knows about the group’s affiliation with the international criminal Mr. Chow, played by Ken Jeong. Because Chow stole from Marshall, Marshall takes Doug and says he will kill him unless Stu, Phil and Alan can capture Mr. Chow, setting up another trade-off scenario similar to the end of the first film.

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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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