'Transformers: Dark of the Moon' Review

'Transformers: Dark of the Moon', the third in the Transformers film series, again directed by Michael Bay and written by Ehren Kruger. Shia Labeouf returns as Sam Witwicky, Peter Cullen as the voice of Optimus Prime, and new love interest Rosie Huntington - Whiteley. The plot for the movie is basically the same as the first two. Autobots try to find Decepticons; U.S. government reveals that they've been keeping secrets about Transformers; Government realizes Autobots really are good guys and team up with them; Big epic battle with tons of nameless robots shooting and dieing. No really that's the story again this time around, just with not as much comedy as the second film had.

The characters in this movie are just as horrible and outrageous as before only this time they usually don't stay around for very long, but they still are a bit annoying. The replacement of Megan Fox's character is a bit annoying for me too since it didn't really fit, they just expect you to go with it, but in a movie that should be primarily about giant robots fighting, it shouldn't really matter who the love interest is, because it's not really needed. As with the second film there are A LOT of new Transformers that are never really introduced or given names, they're just there to take a small part in some of the action scenes. They also took out more Transformers this time around, most notably Skidz and Mudflap. I for one am really pissed that they did this, I didn't see anything wrong with them in 'Revenge of the Fallen' and they were actually the main thing I enjoyed about that movie, well minus seeing Optimus die of course. Some people may think it's a good thing to have them gone but all getting rid of them, without giving any explanation in the film, did was allow Bay to create even stupider Autobots to replace them. And yes there are much worse Autobots than Skidz and Mudflap.

Now onto what this movie is really about, the action. To put it lightly, it was great. It still feels very mindless and almost gives you a "who cares who wins" attitude when you don't know who the two Transformers fighting are but it's still very entertaining none the less. The movie still hasn't managed to get the pacing down yet, some scenes drag out for way too long, while others end in the blink of an eye and leave you asking for more. This really is a problem and it becomes very apparent the farther into the film you get. Still though the fights were some of the best in the series and the movie tries yet again to make you believe this is the badass Optimus that we all remember from the original cartoon and to a point, it succeeds. Though it also succeeds in moving Megatron down even farther into the " Am I supposed to take this guy serious?!" category of villains.

All in all though 'Transformers: Dark of the Moon' was a very entertaining and overall good movie. If you didn't like the first two films though, just stay away from this one, because it definitely won't make you fall in love with the series now. For the people who do love the other films in the series though, this is a film you definitely need to watch.

'Warrior' Trailer

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 Tom Hardy stars in this MMA drama about two brothers, both of whom are MMA fighters, who are both vying for the number one spot in the sport.

Pixar's 'Brave' Trailer

I'm a sucker for almost any Pixar film and this one looks to be no exception. Voice actors include Kelly Macdonald, Billy Connolly, Emma Thompson, and Craig Ferguson.

'Green Lantern' Review

This summer's newest blockbuster is here with 'Green Lantern', a comic book movie about a group of intergalactic "space cops" known as the Green Lantern Corp. who battle all forms of evil with their power rings. The movie primarily revolves around Hal Jordan, the first human to receive a power ring and join the ranks of the Corp, as he discovers his new powers fights with himself as to whether he truly deserves this power and responsibility. The movie stars Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard, and was directed by 'Casino Royale' director Martin Campbell.

The acting in this movie is very solid with performances that could've been excellent, I'm looking at you Sarsgaard, and stuck out above the rest, had the script been better. To put it simply, the writing here was just bad. The film's dialogue consist mostly of expository lines trying to explain everything while still leaving many questions and actions in the movie unanswered. There's also quite a few moments were someone or something conveniently shows up or happens. All these moments just seem lazy and make you ask why?

Another problem I had with this movie was the effects or lack of. This movie is very much like the 'Fantastic Four' movie in that there's really only one fight that takes place and it doesn't occur until the end of the film and then fails to deliver anything worth talking about. Every action scene also seems very rushed, making you want more. Normally that would be a great thing except they don't give you much more and at the end you're just disappointed. Something else that really bothered me was the lack of other Lanterns in the film. You do catch a few glimpses of other Lanterns but you never learn anything at all about any of them except for the names of a few of them and that two of them were good friends. You also don't every really get to see much of the Corps home base OA. I suppose this is a good thing since the effects there were horrible and pulled me right out of the film. It just felt like they were in front of a green screen or that you were just looking at a painting and not a place were all these creatures live and train.

I went into this movie really wanting to like it, but overall it wasn't very good. The plethora of bad writing and poor special effects make this movie hard to watch and not quite worth the price of a movie ticket. I do however recommend that everybody who is a Ryan Reynolds or Green Lantern fan check this out as a rental because I'm sure you'll get some enjoyment out of this film as I did.

'Super 8' Review

J.J. Abrams returns to the big screen with 'Super 8', a movie that he wrote and directed. The movie was also produced by Steven Spielberg, and I'm pretty sure he had a lot more to do with it than that. The film just has that Spielberg feel to it, although is still very much still an Abrams film at the same time. The movie stars newcomer Joel Courtney alongside Elle Fanning and Kyle Chandler. The film follows a group of teenagers in the fictional town Lillian, Ohio, as they are filming a movie on a Super 8mm film camera, when they see a train wreck that they suspect wasn't an accident. After which the town begins to be terrorized by what was on the train and is taken over by U.S. Air force troops.

The story here was very disappointing to say the least. It was almost the exact same story from 'Cloverfield'. The biggest difference here, well besides the elimination of the first person camera, is that this movie does feature the all knowing scientist character that 'Cloverfield' was missing. Don't worry though, Abrams doesn't stop at just ripping off his own movie, he also rips off 'District 9' by giving his alien the exact same motive and problem with humans that the ones from 'District 9' had, only he made his bigger. I guess bigger is better in Abrams eyes. Most of the movie just feels like a waste of time, it mostly revolves around these kids trying to make a movie about zombies while all this is going on and it just makes things kind of dull. I would however like to point out that the acting in this movie, and I'm referring to the kids here, was really good. Their characters weren't really developed all that much, you  do learn tidbits about a couple of them here and there but it wasn't really enough. Even still though, they were quite entertaining.

On the effects side of things, this movie is a pretty big success. Although there isn't really much action, there are only two or three action scenes in the movie, they all go above and beyond. The train wreck scene and the final scene of the movie both make this movie worth checking out. The effects on the alien were also really good but that was kind of over shadowed by the fact that it's just a generic big alien, nothing special at all. In fact it looked almost just like the Acklay, from 'Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones', if you gave him an extra pair of arms and made him a bit bulkier.

Overall this film wasn't all that great. It suffered from an extremely dull story, mixed with some very good acting, that had almost no point and just ended up being a generic monster movie with a sci-fi twist. The effects and action scenes were really great and definitely make this worth checking out as rental, just don't spend too much money on it and keep your expectations low.

'X-Men: First Class' Review

‘X-Men: First Class’ is the fifth movie in Fox’s X-Men franchise and is the start of what is said to be a new trilogy. The movie stars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Kevin Bacon, and is directed by Matthew Vaughn. The plot primarily revolves around the relationship between Professor X and Magneto before they were leading their respective groups, The X-Men and The Brotherhood of Mutants. The film also shows the origins of many other mutants including Mystique and Beast.

The first thing I want to touch on here is the story though. Now I myself am a pretty big comic book fan and as hard as it is, I am ignoring the comics here and just referring to the movie franchise. Now the franchise has only been around since 2000 and only five movies have been made but yet they can’t seem to keep any of the storylines straight here. About the only things that are consistent are the names and whose good and evil….oh wait they screwed that up here too. Over at Fox they can’t even decide which mutants are going to be good and evil from film to film or the ages of them in the films. With all these problems, which I’m not going to specifically mention here, it’s almost easier to just look at the film as a reboot of the series, but wait! You can’t view a film as a reboot when they’re referencing the earlier movies in the series every few scenes. So to say the least, the story here was pretty screwed up.

As for the acting in the movie, it was pretty good. Fassbender’s portrayal of Magneto was very entertaining. He did an excellent job of making you feel what he felt, be it good or bad. The only part where he dropped the ball was when he was actually being Magneto, he just didn’t seem evil enough. McAvoy had a very interesting take on Professor X, he was something of playboy, using his knowledge of mutants to hook up at bars and yet he was still the all knowing Professor X when the story called for it. The problem is that while you see all the characters in the movie grow and evolve, he just kind of stays the same. He simply switches between the two sides of himself whenever he sees fit and it didn’t really work. I did very much enjoy Bacon’s portrayal of Sebastian Shaw. He’s the kind of villain you can really get behind, one that you truly believe will destroy the world if he isn’t stopped. As for the rest of the cast, nobody had any huge parts, some didn’t even have speaking lines.

The action scenes in the movie were all very well done. The best usually featuring Magneto. The movie has a lot of very short fights sprinkled throughout and even a nice training montage that could’ve been made a classic with some “Gonna Fly Now” (Rocky Theme). It was also nice seeing another teleporter in the movie. That’s just one thing these movies really have down, how to make fights involving teleporters look awesome. This is especially apparent in the fight between Beast and Azazel, which was definitely a high point of the film.

All in all though, this was a pretty great movie and probably the best X-Men movie to date. The story is very jumbled if you follow the movie stories but as a stand alone movie, it was nothing short of entertaining and I definitely recommend going to see this one.