It’s been four years since J.J. Abrams revitalized the Star Trek movie franchise and with each passing summer, expectations for the next voyage “where no man has gone before” have ratcheted up higher and higher. Add to it the extreme secrecy surrounding certain plot elements and character identities and you’ve got a movie that I entered with pretty much the same feeling as I did the first revitalized Trek a few years ago — equal parts anticipation and apprehension.
Iron Man 3 is one of the darkest superhero movies I’ve ever watched. Not dark in appearance or gritty as in the recent slate of Batman movies by Christopher Nolan. No, this movie addresses the darkness of the human spirit, as presented by its two main characters, our protagonist (Tony Stark) and our antagonist (The Mandarin).
Anyone worried about a post-Avengers letdown can breathe a little easier – at least as far as Iron Man 3 is concerned. The beginning of Marvel’s phase two of its movie empire begins a high note with the best-in-the-series entry, Iron Man 3.
Oblivion is set in a near future where Earth has been invaded by an alien race known as the Scavengers (or Scavs), who have unleashed devastation by destroying Earth’s moon. Those humans who survive the ensuing earthquakes and tidal waves, caused by the Moon’s destruction, fight back by moving into space stations and using nuclear weapons on the alien invaders.
While the summer movie season doesn’t officially kick off for a few more weeks, if you’re looking for a popcorn spectacular to tide you over until Tony Stark and Captain Kirk return, try Oblivion.
If you’re planning to see the Evil Dead reboot, take my advice and don’t spring for the extra large tub of popcorn and extra large soda. Odds are you won’t get to finish either one. One is that the movie clocks in at a mere ninety minutes and the other is that by the time you get to the equivalent of the second reel, odds are you may not feel much like eating any more.
While Pixar is still the gold standard for computer animated films, Dreamworks Animation has slowly but assuredly been closing the gap with offerings like Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon. And while their latest offering The Croods isn’t quite as much fun as How To Train Your Dragon, it’s still a solid, entertaining, fun animated movie that the the kids will adore and that adults won’t feel like their being forced to sit through.
I was vaguely intrigued when I saw the preview for Warm Bodies, a movie that appeared (by the preview) to be about zombies. The preview was kinda funny but I had a bit of guarded skepticism. Was it a spoof, like Not Another Stupid Movie With Teenagers? Or was it a romance?
Les Misérables is the movie I was dreading to see and for two separate reasons. First, I was afraid that it wouldn’t live up to my experiences when seeing the stage play. I know the soundtrack (from the 10th Anniversary concert at the Royal Albert Hall) inside and out, memorized every voice and ever nuance in the performances. I was afraid the movie wouldn’t equal such grandeur.
Years ago before the original Lord of the Rings trilogy hit theaters, I took part in an on-line discussion course for the original source material. In the course of that discussion, one participant she was going to weep for every tiny plot point, side tangent and character that was cut from J.R.R. Tolkien’s original source material.
I know that some people thought it would be too much, that taking what was a single novel into a trilogy. Luckily Peter Jackson, along with Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens and Guillermo Del Toro have drawn from really great sources, namely The Silmarillion, The Lord Of The Rings and its appendices. What they have crafted is a very enjoyable movie that does honor the spirit of the book.
Going into this film I found myself somewhat unaware of what to expect. While I have seen the occasional Hitchcock film, I am by no means an expert on his catalog of film and TV episodes. What I did end up seeing was quite the pleasant surprise.
For thirty years, Ralph has been the adversary in the classic hit video-game Fix It Felix. Lonely and in search of a friend, Ralph is told by his fellow game inhabitants and several other classic video game villains that he’ll never be more than the bad guy. Determined to me more than his programming, Ralph leaves the game in search of a gold medal that he believes will win him the friendship and respect of his fellow game inhabitants.
Reviewed by Michael Hickerson (Slice of SciFi Editor) Genre fans have pinned a lot of hope of Looper, an action thriller with a clever sci-fi twist. The good news is the movie not only meets but it exceeds those expectations. Sixty years in the future, humanity invents time travel and them immediately outlaws its use. [...]
Coming out of Hotel Transylvania, my wife turned to me and said, “You’re going to give it a good review, right?”
She really liked it. The kids we saw it with at the preview screening really liked it.
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