San Andreas

After the infamous San Andreas Fault finally gives, triggering a magnitude 9 earthquake in California, a search and rescue helicopter pilot (Johnson) and his estranged wife make their way together from Los Angeles to San Francisco to save their only daughter. But their treacherous journey north is only the beginning, and when they think the worst may be over…it’s just getting started.

This movie is exactly what you would expect it to be.   Lots of crazy effects.  Lots of unnecessary was-was family drama to fill out the breaks in the devastation.  But it's of course much easier to deal with because they put The Rock in there.  There really isn't much else to say about it.

If you like disaster flicks like this, this movie will not disappoint.  There is plenty of chaos from all different angles and is enjoyable on that level.  You should check it out.  If this isn't your cup of tea - you should obviously pass.

Aloha

A celebrated military contractor (Bradley Cooper) returns to the site of his greatest career triumphs – the US Space program in Honolulu, Hawaii – and reconnects with a long-ago love (Rachel McAdams) while unexpectedly falling for the hard-charging Air Force watchdog (Emma Stone) assigned to him. In play is a complex satellite system being launched by an enigmatic billionaire with suspicious intentions (Bill Murray).

I have always been a huge fan of Cameron Crowe.  He does such a great job with relationships in all of his movies.  He is able to develop characters so quick and well and create attachments to them for the audience.  This movie was no different and had an amazing cast.  Emma a Stone is awesome as always and there is a scene between Bradley Cooper and John Krasinski that was priceless.  The only thing that took away from this movie was that there was too much of the Hawaiian politics going on.  I get that it was an important part of the story but it was so far secondary to the relationships in the movie that it took away from the good stuff of the movie.

I still enjoyed the movie very much.  I would definitely recommend any fans of Cameron Crowe's previous efforts checking this out.  The cast really is worth the price of admission alone.

Tomorrowland

From Disney comes two-time Oscar winner Brad Bird's riveting, mystery adventure Tomorrowland, starring George Clooney. Bound by a shared destiny, former boy-genius Frank (Clooney), jaded by disillusionment, and Casey (Britt Robertson), a bright, optimistic teen bursting with scientific curiosity, embark on a danger-filled mission to unearth the secrets of an enigmatic place somewhere in time and space known only as Tomorrowland. What they must do there changes the world--and them--forever.

The reason I fell in love with going to the movies was because I loved getting caught up in what was going on onscreen and being transported to a different world or going for an amazing ride.  Sure there are plenty of movies that you can go to an incredibly enjoy nowadays but they are all adaptions of well known material, sequels or rehashings.  It's so rare that anything that feels original comes along anymore.  It's even rarer that a studio will commit to a movie so much that they don't give you the whole movie in the trailer.  I went into this movie not really knowing what it was about.  I was afraid that they didn't show you a lot because the movie wouldn't be that good, but I was beyond pleasantly surprised.  This movie was awesome.  The storytelling, the score, the action, the chemistry between the actors, all of it. 

I give this movie the stamp of must see.  I am shocked at how much I loved this movie and really wish that Hollywood would have the creativity to make more old school movies like this.  

Poltergeist

Legendary filmmaker Sam Raimi and director Gil Kenan contemporize the classic tale about a family whose suburban home is haunted by evil forces. When the terrifying apparitions escalate their attacks and hold the youngest daughter captive, the family must come together to rescue her before she disappears forever.

Holy disappointment.  I thought that this movie was going to be creepy as hell.  Especially the damn clown and tree parts that made me lose massive amounts of sleep when I was younger.  However, this was another shining example of how the crazy abilities of special effects that exist today do not necessarily translate into making movies scarier.  The simpler way of showing things way back when made the original scary as hell.  Like lose sleep kind of scary.  This one had zero effect on me like that.  

I wouldn't really recommend people rushing to check this out.  It's very disappointing.  It's very rushed.  And it's all about the effects instead of the slow build of fear and then the real scares.

Mad Max: Fury Road

Haunted by his turbulent past, Mad Max believes the best way to survive is to wander alone. Nevertheless, he becomes swept up with a group fleeing across the Wasteland in a War Rig driven by an elite Imperator, Furiosa. They are escaping a Citadel tyrannized by the Immortan Joe, from whom something irreplaceable has been taken. Enraged, the Warlord marshals all his gangs and pursues the rebels ruthlessly in the high-octane Road War that follows.

Wow!  Just plain wow!  This movie was nuts.  Like straight up adrenaline on the screen.  I think there was maybe a total of ten minutes out of the two hours where the movie wasn't amped up and going 100mph.  The action was insane.  The casting was perfect.  I love Tom Hardy more and more every movie he does.  This movie was done so well that you feel like you are there in that world.  I had that same feeling from when I used to play GTA III after watching this where leaving the theater I was ready to drive like they were.  

I absolutely loved this movie and recommend everyone check it out.  It is super violent but is one hell of an awesome ride and excellent filmmaking for the kind of movie it was.

Pitch Perfect 2

The Barden Bellas are back in Pitch Perfect 2, the follow-up to summer 2012’s smash hit. The comedy will be helmed by Elizabeth Banks, co-star and producer of "Pitch Perfect," and produced by Paul Brooks, Max Handelman and Banks. Writer Kay Cannon returns to the team to pen the next chapter.

Pitch Perfect is probably one of my favorite movies ever.  To say that my expectations for this were sky high would be an understatement.  And while there was no way this could have been better than the original, this movie was a great sequel to it.  They took what made the first movie funny and gave you more of it.  They continued to mock themselves.  The random one liners were still hilarious.  And how can you ever go wrong with more Fat Amy?  

I would absolutely recommend people checking this out.  It's a great sequel with tons of laughs.  I think I liked the music better in the first but they still delivered greatly in this one.

Ex Machina

Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson), a programmer at an internet-search giant, wins a competition to spend a week at the private mountain estate of the company's brilliant and reclusive CEO, Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac). Upon his arrival, Caleb learns that Nathan has chosen him to be the human component in a Turing Test—charging him with evaluating the capabilities, and ultimately the consciousness, of Nathan’s latest experiment in artificial intelligence. That experiment is Ava (Alicia Vikander), a breathtaking A.I. whose emotional intelligence proves more sophisticated––and more deceptive––than the two men could have imagined.

This movie was very well done from an artistic filmmaking perspective.  There was a great build towards the climax and Oscar Issac continues to shine as an actor.  This was exactly what psychological sci-fi should be.  The only knock is that it definitely dragged at points and hurt the overall momentum.

I would recommend people check this out.  It's absolutely not a mainstream movie, but it is a good watch for those able to appreciate these kinds of movies.

Hot Pursuit

Cooper (Reese Witherspoon) is a second generation police officer who is known as a bit of a screw-up, but when a federal witness and his wife Daniella (Sofia Vergara) need to be moved into witness protection, she’s called upon to guard Daniella as they go on the run from a crime boss and corrupt cops.

This movie was pretty disappointing.  The trailer looked really funny and I thought that this would be a good pairing for a comedy.  Unfortunately, it just kind of missed its mark.  There were a couple of laughs here and there but without the hook to get you fully into the movie there were not nearly as many as I had hoped for.  

I would very lukewarmly recommend this movie to people.  It's not the worst thing I've seen but it's not nearly as good as I expected it to be.  It ends up being a somewhat decent watch with some scattered laughs.

Avengers: Age Of Ultron

Avengers: Age of Ultron is the epic follow-up to the biggest Super Hero movie of all time. When Tony Stark tries to jumpstart a dormant peacekeeping program, things go awry and Earth's Mightiest Heroes, including Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye, are put to the ultimate test as the fate of the planet hangs in the balance. As the villainous Ultron emerges, it is up to The Avengers to stop him from enacting his terrible plans, and soon uneasy alliances and unexpected action pave the way for an epic and unique global adventure. 

I went into this movie worried that this would be like the Transformers sequels with a ton of crap thrown on the screen with little to no substance.  Thankfully I was wrong.  The movie was very entertaining.  Good but not too much action.  Great banter between the characters.  Good character development of the ones that don't have their stand alone franchises.  And lots and lots of fun.  I would only make two knocks against this one.  First, a lot of the story was super rushed.  As great as Ultron was, it was like you blinked and there he was hating the world.  Second, there was some major lacking of continuity from Iron Man 3 to this movie.  Tony Stark went from being done with being Iron Man and destroying all his robots to being with the Avengers and having newly developed robots.

Regardless of those two knocks, I would absolutely recommend people checking this out.  It is a great  summer popcorn movie.  I would have it somewhere in the 4-6 range if ranking all the Marvel movies since Iron Man.