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.

Trailer