Matthew Liedke on Film

Director:
Todd Phillips
Cast:
Robert Downey Jr.
Zach Galifianakis
Michelle Monaghan
Jamie Foxx
Rated: R

Be prepared, I may mention “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” a bit in this review.

Robert Downey Jr. plays Peter Highman, a straight laced business man who is trying to get back to his home in California. He arrives at the airport and he meets the character Ethan Tremblay (Galifinakis), a person who is kind, but extremely clumsy, bringing a bit of destruction with him. Both Peter and Ethan end up on the same plane and after some wild antics they are thrown off the and Peter is put on the no fly list and is left without his money or passport.

After leaving the airport, Ethan comes by with a rental car and offers Peter a ride since he’s going to California too. Peter accepts since he has no other option. However, Highman’s nerves begin to be pushed to the limits as he finds Ethan to be completely stupid at every single level.

Continue reading “REVIEW: ‘Due Date’”

Director:
Tom McGrath
Cast:
Will Ferrell
Brad Pitt
Tina Fey
Jonah Hill
David Cross
Rated: PG

Megamind is the latest film from the Dreamworks Animation Studio which has had a busy year with How to Train Your Dragon, Shrek 4, and now this. Megamind (Ferrell) follows the title character who is an alien from a planet that was destroyed. Now living on Earth, he plans to conquer it after growing up in a prison. At the same time, another alien from a nearby planet that was destroyed also lives on Earth and has become its protector, his name is Metro Man (Pitt). Their battles continue on until finally Megamind does what even he thought was impossible, to eliminate Metroman.

After this, Megamind feels everything is going his way after getting rid of his enemy, but he soon learns that it’s no fun being a villain without an adversary. So, he decides to make a new hero, Titan, from the local news cameraman played by Jonah Hill. At the same time, Megamind takes the appearance as a Metroman researcher and starts a relationship in his disguise with the ‘Louis Lane’ character of the film Roxanne Ritchi (Fey). Things start to get out of hand though when Titan doesn’t make for the best hero.

Continue reading “REVIEW: ‘Megamind’”

Director:
Clint Eastwood
Cast:
Matt Damon
Cécile De France
Bryce Dallas Howard
Frankie McLaren
George McLaren
Rated: R

Eastwood’s latest film starts off exciting, but becomes dull very fast.

The film follows the story of three different people, all of whom have dealt with death in one way or another. Damon’s character George is a man who used to be a big time psychic who is now just trying to live an ordinary life because of the grief he had to deal with in his job.

The next character is Marie Lelay played by Cecile De France, a French woman, who after having a near death experience in a tidal wave sets out to write a book about how seeing visions while entering death is scientifically backed up. And then we have the third story, it follows a young boy named Marcus who lost his brother Jason (Both the McLaren twins switched places with each other in these roles.)

Continue reading “REVIEW: ‘Hereafter’”

Director:
Robert Schwentke
Cast:
Bruce Willis
Morgan Freeman
Helen Mirren
John Malkovich
Rated: R

If I have to hear the line “we’re getting the band back together” one more time I’ll go crazy.

In this film, Bruce Willis plays Frank Moses, a retired CIA agent who is living life day-to-day. The only thing that gives him something different in his life is calling a receptionist named Sarah Ross (Mary-Louise Parker) and starts getting friendly with her. It isn’t long though before a special ops team tries to kill Frank. This sets Frank off to first pick up Sarah since the CIA is tracking her, too.

After doing this Frank goes to his old friends, no pun intended, to warn them about being in danger also. The team he forms includes Joe (Freeman), Marvin (Malkovich), and Victoria (Mirren). As they work together to find out why they are being targeted, they are followed by Agent Cooper (Karl Urban).

Continue reading “REVIEW: ‘RED’”

Director:
David Fincher
Cast:
Jesse Eisenberg
Rooney Mara
Andrew Garfield
Justin Timberlake
Rated: PG-13

The film begins in 2003 at Harvard University. After an argument, Mark Zuckerberg’s (Eisenberg) girlfriend Erica (Mara) breaks up with him. Zuckerberg, a genius in website making decides to do some online escapades to vent. After writing negatively about Erica on his blog, he creates a site called FaceSmash with the help of his friend Eduardo (Garfield). The site compares the beauty of women from Harvard and eventually ends up crashing Harvard’s internet by having so many people visit the site.

This leads to two wealthy Harvard brothers, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, contacting Mark to build a Harvard communication site called CollegeU. Mark agrees, but takes the idea to another level. Instead of creating CollegeU, Mark, with the help of Eduardo, creates a site called ‘thefacebook.’ This begin to spin out of control though as the creator of Napster, Sean Parker (Timberlake) contacts Mark and begins to move in as an adviser which begins to push Eduardo to the side.

Continue reading “REVIEW: ‘The Social Network’”

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’”