Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

Ethan and team take on their most impossible mission yet, eradicating the Syndicate – an International rogue organization as highly skilled as they are, committed to destroying the IMF.

See how simple that synopsis was?  It's just another Mission Impossible movie.  What more do you need to know?  Quick and tight paced story.  Awesome action.  Crazy stunts.  And lots of bantering laughs throughout amongst the agent/friends.  

If you like the other Mission Impossible movies, this one absolutely does not disappoint.  At times I find Tom Cruise to be annoying but I think he is really at his best in these movies.

Vacation

The next generation of Griswolds is at it again—and on the road for another ill-fated adventure. Following in his father’s footsteps and hoping for some much-needed family bonding, a grown-up Rusty Griswold (Ed Helms) surprises his wife, Debbie (Christina Applegate), and their two sons with a cross-country trip back to America’s “favorite family fun park,” Walley World.

I have a massive emotional attachment to the original Vacation films.  Basically, my dad is Clark Griswold.  Those movies are considered classics in my family and are quoted on a regular basis.  When I heard that they were passing the torch to son Rusty Griswold, I was nervous about it just being a lame and half assed attempt to reboot.  Happily, I was wrong.  This movie was pretty damn funny and had great family messages through all the gross visuals and some pretty crude dialogue.  

I would definitely recommend people checking this out.  It's a bit raunchy at times but pretty funny and a worthy entry in the Vacation series.

Southpaw

Southpaw tells the riveting story of Billy "The Great" Hope, reigning Junior Middleweight Boxing Champion of the World (Jake Gyllenhaal). Billy Hope seemingly has it all with an impressive career, a beautiful and loving wife (Rachel McAdams), an adorable daughter (Oona Laurence) and a lavish lifestyle. When tragedy strikes and his lifelong manager and friend (Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson) leaves him behind, Hope hits rock bottom and turns to an unlikely savior at a run-down local gym: Tick Willis (Forest Whitaker), a retired fighter and trainer to the city's toughest amateur boxers. With his future riding on Tick's guidance and tenacity, Billy enters the hardest battle of his life as he struggles with redemption and to win back the trust of those he loves.

This movie was well acted and you can see how much Gyllenhaal put in to this role with how jacked he got.  It definitely hooks you that you care about the characters and their paths.  But it all honesty the movie is incredibly formula in every way and basically a big mashup of all other boxer movies that came before it.  

I would somewhat recommend people checking this movie out.  It is a good watch but is pretty formula and repetitive.

Pixels

When aliens misinterpret video-feeds of classic arcade games as a declaration of war against them, they attack the Earth, using the games as models for their various assaults. President Will Cooper (Kevin James) has to call on his childhood best friend, ’80s video game champion Sam Brenner (Sandler), now a home theater installer, to lead a team of old-school arcaders (Josh Gad, Peter Dinklage) to defeat the aliens and save the planet.

This movie was literally an extension of the trailer.  They gave away the whole story and most of the small laughs that were there.  And since the trailer looked ridiculously stupid with very little laughs . . . . . Need I say more?  The only slightly good thing about this movie was Josh Gad.  The rest was pretty much doodykins.

I would definitely not recommend people wasting their time on this.  It was not a good movie and there were way too few laughs.

Trainwreck

Schumer also wrote the script which is inspired from some of her real-life experiences as she plays a commitment-averse woman trying to get past her self-sabotaging ways.

This movie has been heavily advertised as Amy Schumer's big breakout and an absolutely hysterical movie.  Both of those things are mostly true.  Schumer's has definitely been this year's biggest breakout star and this movie is only going to help.  And the movie is very funny.  I wouldn't say it's funny from start to finish but there are a lot of laughs from Amy Schumer's dialogue based mostly on her stand up and the quirky as hell side characters.  What has not received enough credit or hype is how all around great the movie is.  As much as you laugh, Schumer is allowed to actually act and the scenes where she is not going for laughs feel very real and genuine.  She knocks the concept of someone using humor as a self defense mechanism out of the park and deserves as much credit for that as she does for the actual humor.

I would definitely recommend people checking this out.  It is pretty raunchy dialogue wise at times but was still a very enjoyable watch and a surprisingly touching movie.

Ant-Man

 Armed with the astonishing ability to shrink in scale but increase in strength, master thief Scott Lang must embrace his inner hero and help his mentor, Dr. Hank Pym, protect the secret behind his spectacular Ant-Man suit from a new generation of towering threats. Against seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Pym and Lang must plan and pull off a heist that will save the world. 

I doubted that they could pull off Thor and they did.  I never thought that The Avengers would meet the hyped level of expectations and they actually blew them out of the water.  I thought for sure that Guardians Of The Galaxy would be the first non-great flop for Marvel.  Nope.  Biggest movie of last year.  So I have decided that they can do no wrong.  Even if it is a movie about a man that can shrink down to the size of an ant and lead ant armies on missions?  Yes - Marvel can even make that awesome.  This movie was another great entry into Marvel's ever expanding universe.  The cast was great - especially Paul Rudd who is going to be solid gold playing off of some of the other superheroes moving forward.  This movie had great story material, built up the characters and developed chemistry well, there was plenty of entertaining action and there were plenty of laughs throughout.  

I would absolutely recommend people checking this out.  It's entertaining across the board and fits perfectly into their continued story telling on such a massive scale.

Magic Mike XXL

Picking up the story three years after Mike bowed out of the stripper life at the top of his game, Magic Mike XXL finds the remaining Kings of Tampa likewise ready to throw in the towel. But they want to do it their way: burning down the house in one last blow-out performance in Myrtle Beach, and with legendary headliner Magic Mike sharing the spotlight with them. On the road to their final show, with whistle stops in Jacksonville and Savannah to renew old acquaintances and make new friends, Mike and the guys learn some new moves and shake off the past in surprising ways.

The movie showed up online so I gave it a shot.  In all honesty, the first movie was not that bad and was pretty damn funny for the first half before becoming overly serious and stupid in the second half.  Thought this would be more of the same.  Made it 30 minutes in without laughing at all.  Seemed very forced and wasn't going to waste any more time on it.

I wouldn't recommend anyone bothering to see this.  If you are a girl and couldn't wait to see this, you probably already did.  The movie seemed like it was only going to get worse when I pulled the plug.

The Gallows

Twenty years after an accident caused the death of the lead actor during a high school play, students at the same small town school resurrect the failed stage production in a misguided attempt to honor the anniversary of the tragedy—but ultimately find out that some things are better left alone.

These hand held camera movies are pretty much a dime a dozen since Paranormal Activity started the whole craze years back.  For the most part they are pretty crappy and never have a good payoff.  This one was one of the rare exceptions.  I'm not saying that it was great or anything, but there was plenty of tension built and lots of jump type scares.  There was definitely too much looking at the floor while people were running but the story build, the tension and the ending payoff were definitely better than average.

I would sort of recommend people checking this out.  Again - it wasn't great,  But it wasn't bad like most of them are either.

Self/Less

In this provocative psychological science fiction thriller, an extremely wealthy man (Ben Kingsley) dying from cancer undergoes a radical medical procedure that transfers his consciousness into the body of a healthy young man (Ryan Reynolds). But all is not as it seems when he starts to uncover the mystery of the body’s origin and the organization that will kill to protect its cause.

I was worried going in to this one that it would be one of those high concept ideas of a movie that would fall flat in the end.  Happily, I was wrong.  The movie wasted no time with an unnecessary story build up and got right to the procedure that you are already familiar with from the trailer.  The movie did a nice build with some good twists and turns and played out very well without the letdown that I was afraid of.  

I would recommend people checking this movie out.  It's not a must see or anything but it is a pretty good watch.

Dope

in Dope, Malcolm (Shameik Moore) is carefully surviving life in a tough neighborhood in Los Angeles while juggling college applications, academic interviews, and the SAT. A chance invitation to an underground party leads him into an adventure that could allow him to go from being a geek, to being dope, to ultimately being himself.

This movie was entertaining in so many ways.  First - it was funny as hell watching the kid in truly awkward situations and working his way through them.  Second - the soundtrack was AWESOME!!!  Seriously.  I felt like I was back in high school/college the whole time watching this movie.  Third (and probably most important), was that it showed how someone can really rise above a situation with smarts regardless of the cards that they are dealt or where they are in society more or less.

I would definitely recommend people checking this out.  It really was a surprisingly enjoyable movie on many levels.

Max

A precision-trained military dog, Max serves on the frontlines in Afghanistan alongside his handler, U.S. Marine Kyle Wincott. But when things go terribly wrong on maneuvers, Kyle is mortally wounded and Max, traumatized by the loss of his best friend, is unable to remain in service.  Shipped stateside, the only human he seems willing to connect with is Kyle’s teenage brother, Justin, so Max is adopted by Kyle’s family, essentially saving his life. But Justin has issues of his own, such as living up to his father’s expectations for him; he isn’t interested in taking responsibility for his brother’s troubled dog. However, Max may be Justin’s only chance to discover what really happened to his brother that day on the front, and with the help of a tough-talking young teen, Carmen, who has a way with dogs, Justin begins to appreciate his canine companion. Justin’s growing trust in Max helps the four-legged veteran revert back to his heroic self, and as the pair race against time to unravel the mystery, they find more excitement—and danger—than they bargained for. But they each might also find an unlikely new best friend…in each other.

I was terrified to see this movie because I thought for sure it would be traumatizing on a Marley & Me level.   I'm going to go ahead and spoil this - it's not!   Thank the lord!!!  This was just a really great family film.  And to say that this would be any pet lover's ideal movie is an understatement.

I would definitely recommend people with kids see this.  Not the little, little ones but the ones old enough to learn from the morals and family dynamics shown in it.

Minions

The story of Minions begins at the dawn of time. Starting as single-celled yellow organisms, "Minions" evolve through the ages, perpetually serving the most despicable of masters. Continuously unsuccessful at keeping these masters--from T. rex to Napoleon--the Minions find themselves without someone to serve and fall into a deep depression. But one Minion named Kevin has a plan, and he--alongside teenage rebel Stuart and lovable little Bob--ventures out into the world to find a new evil boss for his brethren to follow. The trio embarks upon a thrilling journey that ultimately leads them to their next potential master, Scarlet Overkill (Sandra Bullock), the world's first-ever female super-villain. They travel from frigid Antarctica to 1960s New York City, ending in mod London, where they must face their biggest challenge to date: saving all of Minionkind... from annihilation.

For the record - I'm a huge fan of the Minions so there really was no way that I could find this movie as anything but great.  They kept it super short and sure you pretty much see most of the movie just by watching the various trailers and marketing for the movie, but who cares.  They are cute, a completely original and non-Disney created entity (a real rarity when you think about it) and are funny as hell.  They don't even speak English yet are totally understood and entertaining.  And the very end of the movie was probably the best part of the whole thing.  

I couldn't possibly recommend this movie more.  This is very entertaining and funny for kids and adults and they are not remotely close to being tired or played out.  And I for one hopes that they never are.

Terminator Genisys

When John Connor (Jason Clarke), leader of the human resistance, sends Sgt. Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back to 1984 to protect Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke) and safeguard the future, an unexpected turn of events creates a fractured timeline. Now, Sgt. Reese finds himself in a new and unfamiliar version of the past, where he is faced with unlikely allies, including the Guardian (Arnold Schwarzenegger), dangerous new enemies, and an unexpected new mission: To reset the future…

This movie started out awesome.  It was in the future post Judgement Day, the robot stuff was cool, it was when the first terminator and Reese travelled back in time and they actually recreated the same scenes from the first one.  But then it fell off the rails.  Sarah Conner was there waiting for Reese.  Huh?  And an older version of the original terminator was there waiting for the other one.  Huh?  Wait, that terminator was there because one was sent back in time during Sarah's childhood to protect her (shown via flashback) and has been with her all along and she calls him Pops.  WHAT THE F . . . .!?!?!?!  Then they spent a ton of time talking about how time travel effected all of this.  Any time that you have to explain your story so much via dialogue you have failed.  This is supposed to be a Terminator movie not a lame ass version of Interstellar.  The acting from everyone was so atrocious that it made Arnold Oscar worthy but the running joke was that he was too old.  Again . . . . WHAT!?!  And I'm not even going to touch on their big twist and how simply the nonsensical thing could be prevented.

I would not recommend anyone bothering with this.  Unless you want to angrily rant about it like me.  It's a waste of time and a huge disappointment.