The Three Musketeers (2011)

RATING:*** (3 stars)

The hot-headed young D'Artagnan along with three former legendary but now down on their luck Musketeers must unite and defeat a beautiful double agent and her villainous employer from seizing the French throne and engulfing Europe in war.

Despite what you're hearing from a lot of critics out there, The Three Musketeers is actually an enjoyable movie. The twist this time around is that we are taking the characters we are familiar with and adding a touch of steampunk to the world--most notably in the form of airships.

Expect to see a number of familiar faces as some amazingly well choreographed action scenes, but don't go in expecting a textbook adaptation of Dumas' original story and don't expect a story that will make the short list at the Oscars in February. This film is a fun ride that will entertain you--whether you catch it in theaters or wait for it to hit DVD is a purely personal choice on this one.

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The Thing (2011)

RATING:**** (4 stars)

At a research site in Antarctica, a team of scientists are elated at the finding of both an alien craft and a specimen frozen in the ice... until it wakes up and they realize that one of them may be the creature in disguise.

If the title didn't already give it away, the plot should indicate a strong similarity to John Carpenter's The Thing (1982)--and rightly so as this film is being billed as the prequel to the 1982 classic. I can also proudly say that if you enjoyed John Carpenter's adaptation of the short story "Who Goes There?", then you'll love this prequel as well.

Similar to what I would call the best horror films out there, more emphasis is put on suspense than on actual violence. Which isn't to say that you won't see the alien in about a half dozen different shapes and forms as it lays waste to Norwegians and Americans in equal measure, but you have to give props to Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.
for a great job of directing and for the amazing sound crew. Not much for recognizeable faces among the actors, with the notable exception of Joel Edgerton who was most recently in Warrior. Fellow cinephiles should also recognize Mary Elizabeth Winstead from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World last year. Both give solid performances, but nothing you'll hear tale of at the Academy Awards.

All-in-all you're looking at a great film that remains true to the spirit of its predecessor and one that shouldn't disappoint.

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The Help

RATING:***** (5 stars)

Jackson, Mississippi circa 1961. A young woman returns home from college with aspirations to be a journalist and a writer to realize just how bad the lives are for the black women in the segregated south who take care of white families.

For lack of a more succinct way to put it, The Help is the emotional Oscar-contender for late summer. At varying parts you will be smiling, laughing, and even crying. While Emma Stone and Bryce Howard are convincing, be on the lookout in a few months to see Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer on nomination lists for their simply amazing performances.

In a summer lineup of action, comic books, and sequels, The Help is a drama that we've been yearning for, and the fact that it's centered around a time and place that many of us can relate to (even for those of us not actually alive yet) just makes it all the more powerful. If you need a little more reason to see it in theatres before it hits video, rest assured that this is one of those movies that once it hits DVD will be rented out for weeks on end. So stop reading and go see it!

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Horrible Bosses

RATING:*** (3 stars)

Reaching a turning point in their lives, three friends decide they need to kill their bosses if they are going to be happy.

What should have been a funny and raucous popcorn comedy flick this last week turns out to be a kind of funny popcorn movie that just... seems... to... keep... going. Seriously, I checked my watch at least a half dozen times during this film, eacy time with the same thought, "How much longer do they need to wrap this up?"

With a dynamite cast that is more than capable of grabbing laughter and running with it, Horrible Bosses fails on an epic scale due to its pacing. The runtime claims the film is only 100 minutes--which seems conservative considering that this film really should have been much closer to that 75 minute mark. The slapstick comedy is there, but the story itself seems to plod along so often that you begin to wonder how long they plan to milk particular scenes before moving on.

All-in-all nothing fancy here, and if you can handle the slow pace of the film it makes a solid matinee to catch for some laughs and to escape from the summer heat.

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Green Lantern

RATING:**** (4 stars)

When test pilot Hal Jordan is granted a mystical ring, he is given the honor of being a member of an intergalactic peacekeeping organization--but he is not sure if he is up to the task.

Green Lantern is one of the few movies that you can say with reliable certainty could not have been made even a decade sooner because the technology simply wasn't there. For those unfamiliar with the character, his powers are fairly unique and all-encompassing: he can fly (#1) and he can create LITERALLY ANYTHING HE CAN IMAGINE if he concentrates hard enough (#2). So as you can imagine, there is a fair bit of CGI in this film because without it the movie would be an animated picture instead.

If you look around, you have probably heard a fair number of bad or so-so reviews for this film already, and here is my assumption as far as why that is: over-hype. Yes, Green Lantern is a big-budget comic book movie; that does not make it the Iron Man of 2011. What we do have, however, is a very solid action movie that is very much worth the money to go and see in theaters where you can take full advantage of all that CGI. Whether you spend the extra cash for 3D is your option--it is available in 2D as well.

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Super 8

RATING:***** (5 stars)

In the summer of 1979, a group of young boys filming an amateur movie witness a train crash that might not have been an accident after all, and might also explain some of the strange disappearances and phenomena happening in their small Ohio town.

The latest to come from the imagination of producer/director/writer J.J. Abrams is a must-see thriller for the summer of 2011. Taking strong cues from Steven Spielberg, prepare to be thrown back to a strikingly good portrayal of late-1970's middle America... and then watch the mystery unfold.

The relatively unknown cast (the only face I recognized among the major roles was Kyle Chandler) gives a surprisingly good performance, but the real beauty of the film is in the depth of the characters and the sets themselves. Super 8 is not a film that is going to have you on the edge of your seat the whole time or that will have you overcome with emotion--but you will be involved the whole time and you'll love every second of it.

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X-Men: First Class

RATING:**** (4 stars)

In the early 1960s, Charles Xavier forms a group of people with wondrous genetic mutations that give them amazing powers. Among them is his closest friend, Erik Lensherr...

Hopefully if you are a serious X-Men fan, you have thrown classic canon to the wind by now with the X-Men films. That being said, X-Men: First Class is a rather good film easily on par with the first X-Men movie that hit theaters just over a decade ago. Expect some well-done special effects, but you can also plan to expect very little in terms of character depth from anybody in this film with the exception of our three main mutants.

Professor X (James McAvoy), Magneto (Michael Fassbender), and Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) are the focus of the story here--at least, they are the only characters who we get to see any kind of growth from and get even a vague idea of what makes them tick. First Class is really the origin story for the two leading men, and don't be at all surprised when you see Fassbender powerfully commanding the screen more often than not--look to see him in more roles henceforth.

Long story short, if you can happily (or blissfully) ignore some of the standard X-Men canon, you are in for a real treat of a film with X-Men: First Class.

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The Hangover Part II

RATING:**** (4 stars)

Shortly after their adventure in Las Vegas, Phil, Stu, Alan, and Doug jet to Thailand for Stu's wedding. Despite precautions, mayhem ensues when they wake up the next morning and try to piece their night back together.

If you are looking for something wildly different from the first outing with the "Wolfpack", you won't find it here. What we get is actually not that different from a number of TV shows actually--something that is very formulaic but still enjoyable. In fact, you might even be able to match up the timeline between The Hangover and The Hangover Part II and find events happening at a similar time (the blackout, the twist, eureka moment), but it really should not detract from your enjoyment of the film as a whole.

Perhaps what the film does a great job is showing off many of the locations for the film. It also does a great job of *not* re-using much material from the first film. Plan on some serious laughs with the same kind of adult humor you got the first time around, and prepare for another set of memes to creep into pop culture for the rest of the year.

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Priest

RATING:*** (3 stars)

A priest disobeys an edict from the church and goes out to hunt down the vampires who kidnapped his niece.

Priest is actually a pretty solid post-apocalyptic science fiction thriller, despite the lack of love from critics across the country. Paul Bettany and Karl Urban are the big players in this one, and both do a respectable job in their roles--Bettany as a man who has seen more and sacrificed more than most, and Urban as a confident, almost snarky villain. You might recognize a face or two among the rest of the cast (like Stephen Moyer of True Blood fame), but generally there are going to be a lot of faces you won't recognize.

Which isn't to say that this film is all blah. On the contrary, the soundtrack is quite good and the storyline is something between a comic book action plot and more conventional science-fiction fair. Despite the lack of anything thoroughly amazing, Priest offers an entertaining 90 minutes of good, old-fashioned popcorn cinema.

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Thor

RATING:*** (3 stars)

When the mighty Thor is cast out from Asgard and sent to live among humans on Earth, he turns into one of humanity's most valuable defenders.

Starring Chris Hemsworth in the title role, Thor sets up another of Marvel's heroes with an origin story before giving us The Avengers in 2012. The Norse god of thunder's story is fairly straight-forward, with both timeline and character development alternating between light and extremely quick--which keeps his story as a single film instead of two.

Visually there is nothing not to love about the film. From the costumes to the backdrops to the action scenes themselves, you can tell the crew had fun working on the film and poured some love into the details. If the screenplay was as good that would have been nice too, but the love interest between Thor and Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) just seems too forced, and that is probably the fault of the pacing of the film more than anything else.

Because of the visual elements alone I would suggest catching Thor in theaters (if you don't mind the 3D surcharge), but otherwise there is nothing here that cannot wait until it hits DVD.

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Your Highness

RATING:** (2 stars)

When Prince Fabious's bride-to-be is kidnapped, he embarks on a quest to save her... joined by his lazy brother Prince Thadeous.

Danny McBride stars in what could have been a funny spoof on the fantasy genre, similar to what Blazing Saddles was for westerns. Instead the film quickly turns to little more than poor attempts at sexual humor... and stays there for the entirety of the film.

This is one of those films where I can't find anything particularly nice to say about the film, but I recognize that there is a minority of people who enjoy this kind of humor. For everyone else, I recommend this movie if you want fantasy/comedy or this movie for fantasy/action... and just about anything else currently showing if you want something recent.

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Source Code

RATING:*** (3 stars)

An action thriller centered on a soldier who wakes up in the body of an unknown man and discovers he's part of a mission to find the bomber of a Chicago commuter train.

The increase in the number of films dealing with alternate realities and and other fun science-fiction concepts could be analyzed, but for the purpose of our review here I'll just say that it has given us some great films and some not so great films. Source Code is a really solid film that moves quickly and keeps the plot twists to a minimum, preferring instead to focus on a straightforward story and a moral question.

Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Capt. Colter Stevens, a soldier who is being sent into the last eight minutes of a dead man's life in order to learn who was the bomber on a commuter train and hopefully prevent a second attack. The supporting cast does a fantastic job, and to be quite frank the entire film is rather well done--the pacing is strong (only 93 minutes long), no *real* surprises to be had, and the only big question isn't asked until just before the credits roll.

If there is anything negative to be said about Source Code, it is that there isn't anything absolutely amazing about it. It is a great movie and thoroughly enjoyable, but it also doesn't do anything to stand out from the plethora of great movies. If you don't see it in theaters, add this to your list of movies to rent as soon as it comes out.

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Sucker Punch

RATING:* (1 stars)

A young girl is institutionalized by her wicked stepfather. Retreating to an alternative reality as a coping strategy, she envisions a plan which will help her escape from the facility.

That synopsis is the most succinct and understandable way of describing Sucker Punch. From beginning to end, the whole narrative is extremely choppy and difficult to follow. If you want a better mental image, imagine taking Inception mixing it with Shutter Island, and toss in the play-within-a-play scene from Shakespeare's Hamlet--it's that convoluted. One would also thing that considering how sparse most of the dialogue is that it would have more weight to it, but alas most of the lines that are supposed to contain wisdom for our characters (Baby Doll, Sweet Pea, Rocket, Amber, Blondie) are nothing more than recycled clichés that we have heard before.

I wish there was more positive things to say about this film aside from the visual effects, which are rather well done. For those who are fans of the genre, it is really not unlike many traditional Japanese anime except for live-action, which makes some of the over-the-top action scenes jump off the screen that much more. Alas, that is the only redeeming thing in this whole film, so if you're dead-set to see it... wait until it hits DVD--which will likely be very soon.

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The Lincoln Lawyer

RATING:*** (3 stars)

A defense lawyer takes on a high-profile client only to learn that this new client is responsible for an innocent man being convicted of murder.

The exciting thing about The Lincoln Lawyer is that while that little blurb might seem to give away the movie, the devil is really in the details. Matthew McConaughey plays Mickey, an attorney who quite literally conducts business from the back of his Lincoln town car when he is not actually in the courtroom. The film is a very straight-forward drama/thriller, although exciting both in casting (lots of familiar faces like William H. Macy) and in that not all of the twists and turns are predictable.

I also have to give credit to both the director and to McConaughey for the focus throughout the film on the main characters eyes--or more appropriately, the emotion therein. Innumerable shots showing a full range of human emotion, and many of those shots are nothing more than close-ups on eyeballs, sometimes with signs of being tired, others with sweat, others with joy. Well done.

All-in-all, The Lincoln Lawyer is a good movie, but not necessarily one that you'll be itching to see in theaters. A solid rental that you won't want to miss, however.

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Rango

RATING:***** (5 stars)

Rango is a simple, pet chameleon who stumbles into a lawless Wild West-style town in the desert in need of a new sheriff.

There are a few things you can count on with Rango: beautiful animation, laughs aplenty, and a story (and soundtrack) chock full of satirical homages to spagetti Westerns of Hollywood-gone-by. From beginning to end, those above the age of 21 will be all smiles--particularly if you have seen ANY Western-style movie. Ever.

I put the age disclaimer there for a few different reasons. Firstly, there is a good amount of language in the film, the kind that you maybe didn't always hear in the older Westerns because it was implied instead. Rango does carry a PG rating because most kids won't notice it, but an attentive parent will--so just keep that in mind. I also put the age disclaimer there because the younger generation may very well laugh but likely will not catch many of the tongue-in-cheek references (like making a joke about a black sheriff to somebody who has not seen Blazing Saddles).

Honestly, I have nothing critical to say about the film. I thought it was fantastic and most certainly worth watching in theaters. If you can't scrounge up the $8 to see it there, make sure you watch it with friends for a memorable crowd experience.

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Drive Angry 3D

RATING:*** (3 stars)

When an evil cult kills his only daughter and his infant granddaughter, a man escapes from Hell to bring them to justice.

By all rights, I was expecting very little from Drive Angry. As you can see from the trailer below, it looks like very classic B-movie action fare... and ended up as a riotous good time for everyone in the sparsely populated theater. Now you will get plenty of action--perhaps not as much as some other films, but certainly enough to satisfy most people. Where Drive Angry, I think, really shines is when you couple that action with the dry and sometimes dark comedy wrapped around it.

Perhaps not so surprisingly, the effects in the film are rather well done. Visual effects one comes to expect since less than a certain standard just doesn't fly for audiences these days, but the sound effects were given extra "pop" and really help the adrenaline of the film as a whole. The plot is fairly loose and doesn't get very deep, but that's really just what this kind of film needs--light on drama, heavy on action, and with enough comedy to prove that it might not be taking itself seriously.

May or may not be worth your theater money (there is no 2D option for this one), but a solid rental that I would highly recommend.

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Unknown

RATING:*** (3 stars)

After his cab goes plunging into the freezing waters of Berlin, a man awakes in the hospital four days later to learn that no one--not even his wife--has been looking for him. Upon going to his wife, he is presented with the possibility that he is not who he thinks he is.

Unknown is an exciting thriller that is going to keep you guessing, and for those who loved Taken (2008), this is in the same vein of thriller films--albeit with less action and more suspense. Liam Neeson stars as our leading man, Dr. Martin Harris, who loses his identity after a crash and fights to prove who he is through almost the entire two hours. The supporting cast of January Jones, Diane Kruger, and Aidan Quinn are great casting choices and they help really make this film work by never allowing you to quite believe you have it figured out.

There a plenty of good things to say about Unknown, from the great casting to the well-established pace of the film, even to one of the best choreographed chase scenes of the last few years; in the end, however, it suffers just as almost all thrillers do in that your desire to watch it multiple times is very low. For many people (myself included), the only time you will watch Unknown is once in the theater--and you will certainly enjoy it. But you probably won't have a desire to watch it again because so much of this movie revolves around the twist that is spoiled once you see it, really destroying its replay value. That being said, you will really love this movie the first (and perhaps only) time that you'll see it.

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The Mechanic

RATING:*** (3 stars)

An elite hit man takes on an apprentice and teaches him everything he knows, but the young learner also has a connection to one of his former victims.

Jason Statham stars as Arthur in this straight-ahead action movie, with Donald Sutherland, Ben Foster, and Tony Goldwyn in supporting roles. Really nothing notable to speak of in this film. There is lots of action and some particularly great scenes when "missions" are being executed, but there are no twists that you won't see coming from a mile away. There is even a nice few laughs to be had throughout. Depending on your personal tastes, it may or may not be worth seeing in the theater, but a great popcorn flick for when you can watch it at home.

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The Dilemma

RATING:*** (3 stars)

When Ronny catches the wife of his best friend and business partner cheating, he struggles with finding a way to tell his friend while they struggle to focus on an important business venture.

Almost everything about The Dilemma is pretty straightforward, two couples that are best friends dealing with stress and generally humorous circumstances. Nothing particularly exceptional or unfortunate about this film, but there are a couple things I want to point out.

First, the characters themselves--particularly Ronny (Vince Vaughn) and Nick (Kevin James)--come off as very real. They seem to have just the perfect ratio of flaws-to-charm that makes them relateable without being tragic characters in and of themselves. Secondly, perhaps the best parts of the movie are the beginning and the end where we are watching these characters try to work out their business deal with Chrysler. Whereas the actual meat of the film dealing with the infidelity seems to drag and is a rollercoaster of laughter and blah, the relatively unimportant scenes dealing with the sidestory of this business deal are incredibly well done and almost makes for a better story.

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