Tag: Thriller

Gone Girl review

Director:
David Fincher
Cast:
Ben Affleck
Rosemund Pike
Neil Patrick Harris
Tyler Perry
Carrie Coon
Kim Dickens
Rated: R

Ben Affleck plays Nick Dunne, a man who lives in the suburbs of St. Louis and is for the most part seems happy in his marriage to his wife Amy (Pike). After coming home from a visit to the bar he owns, though, he finds broken furniture and his wife missing.

Nick immediately calls law enforcement and officers and detectives, including lead investigator Rhonda Boney (Dickens), stop by the house to see what evidence they can find. The only problem, though, is that as a short time passes, both law enforcement and the media start seeing Nick as a potential suspect. And that is just the first of many twists.

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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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Non-Stop review

Director:
Jaume Collet-Serra
Cast:
Liam Neeson
Julianne Moore
Michelle Dockery
Rated: PG-13
Trailer

If Liam Neeson keeps making movies like this he will have a bigger action library than anyone in “The Expendables.”

“Non-Stop” follows the story of Bill Marks (Neeson), a United States Air Marshall who has a drinking problem. As he boards a flight that will go over the Atlantic Ocean, everything seems like “another day at the office,” that is until he starts receiving mysterious text messages from someone making threats.

As the flight reaches higher altitudes, the texts continue, and the culprit threatens to kill a passenger every 20 minutes. From that point on it’s up to Bill to try and stop the threat, however, as time goes on the suspect makes it seem like Bill himself is trying to hijack the plane.

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The Counselor review

Director:
Ridley Scott
Cast:
Michael Fassbender
Penelope Cruz
Cameron Diaz
Javier Bardem
Brad Pitt
Rated: R

Some aspects of “The Counselor,” like its cinematography, are as glamorous as the lifestyles portrayed in the movie, however, as a whole it is still a mess for the most part.

The story follows a man with no name. Not literally mind you, but Michael Fassbender is referred to as the Counselor through the entire film by everyone in the cast. The counselor is a lawyer who has some friends that can be considered the wrong crowd to be around.

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Prisoners review

Director:
Denis Villeneuve
Cast:
Hugh Jackman
Jake Gyllenhaal
Viola Davis
Terrence Howard
Paul Dano
Rated: R

Hugh Jackman didn’t need any claws to dish out some pain this time around.

“Prisoners” is a movie that takes the audience on a suspenseful and quite uncomfortable ride. Hugh Jackman plays Keller Dover, a midwestern, middle class father who has brought his family over to a friend’s house to celebrate Thanksgiving.

During the festivities, Keller and his friend Franklin’s (Howard) daughters go outside to play before dinner. However, they end up not coming back.

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The Conjuring review

Director:
James Wan
Cast:
Vera Farmiga
Patrick Wison
Lili Taylor
Ron Livingston
Rated: R

Finally some smart characters in a haunted house movie.

“The Conjuring” follows the Perron family, that includes Carolyn (Taylor) and Roger (Livingston) and their daughters. The family moves into a house out in the country and as time goes on they begin experiencing some strange phenomenon. Things start moving on their own and it appears that there is a spirit of some kind that haunts their new home.

Enter Ed (Wilson) and Lorraine (Farmiga) Warren, two specialists in the super natural who the Perrons seek for help. These two, who are actual specialists in real life and which this movie is based around, come to the house and begin their investigation.

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World War Z review

Director:
Marc Forster
Cast:
Brad Pitt
Mireille Enos
Daniella Kertesz
Rated: PG-13

Let me take you back to 2008. ATMR was just getting started and one story I posted on the site was about the book “World War Z” being adapted into a movie.

Nearly five years of development hell later and the movie has finally arrived in theaters.

“World War Z” follows the character Gerry (Pitt), a retired United Nations Investigator, who now takes up the role as stay at home dad. Everything seems peaceful enough, however, a drive through the city with the family becomes a horrifying experience as a fast spreading zombie virus starts moving through. Gerry contacts his friends at the U.N. and manages to escape the city with his family.

The reason that the U.N. allows his family to stay aboard a fleet of battleships which makes up humanity’s most functional command center, though, is because they need his skills that he used in his old job to put an end to the virus. For the sake of his family’s survival, Gerry agrees to go on a mission to discover how to fight back against the virus and the investigation takes him over multiple countries around the world.

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The Purge review

Director:
James DeMonaco
Cast:
Ethan Hawke
Lena Headey
Max Burkholder
Adelaide Kane
Edwin Hodge
Rhys Wakefield
Rated: R

“The Purge,” aka the hardcore version of “Home Alone.”

“The Purge” takes place in the year 2022. The United States has become a utopia, the economy is booming, crime is at an all time low, unemployment is at 1 percent and dogs and cats get along. This is all because for one 12 hour period every year, the government suspends all emergency services and allows all crime. This lets people to purge all of their hatred and get it out of their system.

The film follows the Sandins, a wealthy family of four with the dad named James (Hawke) who sells home protection services. On the night of the purge, the Sandins lock down their entire home while chaos is going on outside. Everything seems to be running smoothly until a man (Wakefield) running down the street comes along yelling for help. It turns out that he is a target for a group purgers who is trying to escape. The son in the Sandins named Charlie (Burkholder) feels bad for the guy and decides to let him in to the house.

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Oblivion review

Director:
Joseph Kosinski
Cast:
Tom Cruise
Morgan Freeman
Olga Kurylenko
Andrea Riseborough
Rated: PG-13

Tom Cruise’s latest blockbuster is about a simple guy named Jack. OK, there’s more too it.

Jack is a man working as part of a two person crew that is on Earth decades into the future.

The film informs that many years ago, the Earth came under attack and that while humanity ultimately prevailed, the population still had to leave the planet because of the war’s destruction. Jack works with his partner, Victoria (Riseborough), to repair drones and do mop up work as well as collect fuel for humanity’s new home.

One day, though, Jack finds a survivor named Julia (Kurylenko) from a space ship crash, this leads to questions of why a ship would crash land now. More mysteries rise when both Jack and Julia are captured by a group of other humans led by a man named Beech (Freeman) who informs Jack that the life he’s been living maybe something else entirely.

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Evil Dead review

“Evil Dead,” is the remake of the 1981 film “The Evil Dead,” that was originally directed by Sam Raimi. The film follows the characters Mia, played by Jane Levy, and David, played by Shiloh Fernandez, as well as three of their friends. The five go to a cabin in the middle of the woods to help Mia break a drug addiction. There, they discover an old book, which is the Book of the Dead from the original series, yet, is never referred to by its actual name here.

After one of the characters reads a few of the passages, an evil demon is released who possesses Mia, and the rest of the characters are put through a gruesome series of events.

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