After Earth

A crash landing leaves teenager Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith) and his legendary father Cypher (Will Smith) stranded on Earth, 1,000 years after cataclysmic events forced humanity’s escape. With Cypher critically injured, Kitai must embark on a perilous journey to signal for help, facing uncharted terrain, evolved animal species that now rule the planet, and an unstoppable alien creature that escaped during the crash. Father and son must learn to work together and trust one another if they want any chance of returning home.

I don't really know how to review this movie.  I enjoyed it for what it is (a sci-fi survival of the fittest movie with dramatic family elements added in) while I was watching it.  It wasn't a great movie.  But it wasn't bad either.  I didn't really have any expectations for it.  Don't know if that made it more watchable.  I will make one major knock against it though - Jaden Smith is no Will Smith.

I would sort of recommend people checking this out.  Basically, it's just kind of one of those movies that is just there.

Fast & Furious 6

Since Dom (Diesel) and Brian's (Walker) Rio heist toppled a kingpin's empire and left their crew with $100 million, our heroes have scattered across the globe. But their inability to return home and living forever on the lam have left their lives incomplete. Meanwhile, Hobbs (Johnson) has been tracking an organization of lethally skilled mercenary drivers across 12 countries, whose mastermind (Evans) is aided by a ruthless second-in-command revealed to be the love Dom thought was dead, Letty (Rodriguez). The only way to stop the criminal outfit is to outmatch them at street level, so Hobbs asks Dom to assemble his elite team in London. Payment? Full pardons for all of them so they can return home and make their families whole again.

How the hell does a franchise fall completely off the tracks three movies in, rebound and get better and better like this?  I think I probably still liked Fast Five better but this movie was awesome and second best in the franchise.  The action was awesome.  The fights were awesome.  The humor (especially from Tyrese) was hysterical.  Vin Diesel and The Rock really are the greatest tag team of all time.  But the most mind blowing part of it all is that the writing and continuity of it all was awesome.  You are not supposed to be able to say that about mindless action popcorn flicks like this, but these guys even managed to tie in Tokyo Drift incredibly and make that pointless garbage entry matter and suddenly seem awesome like 6 years later.  And I will go on record as saying this franchise is pretty much the only one that I prefer to see in a crowded theater so that I can geek out along with everyone else with the constant adrenaline oohs and aahs the movie delivers.

I would absolutely recommend everyone check out this awesome roller coaster ride of a movie.  Brainless, action summer blockbusters are what made me love going to the movies in the first place.  This movie was awesome like that.

The Hangover Part III

The Hangover Part III is the third and final film in director Todd Phillips' record-shattering comedy franchise. This time, there's no wedding. No bachelor party. What could go wrong, right? But when the Wolfpack hits the road, all bets are off. 

This movie franchise has officially passed Transformers as the one that I would give anything for no sequels to be made.  This movie was pretty much awful.  They made Chow basically the main character. And Zach Galafanakis has gone from awkward/silly funny to just blatantly dumb not funny.  They didn't even have the wild night thing from the first two movies.  The few times I so much as giggled (since there really were no good laughs), it was at Bradley Cooper or Ed Helms who really didn't even seem to have major roles.  

I would not recommend anyone waste their time with this.  After the disappointment of the second one, my expectations were really low for this entry and it was still crappier than expected.  So sad because the first one is one of the funniest movies of all time and everything since has been garbage.

Epic

Epic is an action-adventure comedy that reveals a hidden world unlike any other. From the creators of "Ice Age" and "Rio," Epic tells the story of an ongoing battle deep in the forest between the forces of good and the forces of evil. When a teen age girl finds herself magically transported into this secret universe, she must band together with a rag-tag team of fun and whimsical characters in order to save their world…and ours.

This was a decent movie.  The animation was good.  The comedy provided by the slugs was good.  And the premise was good (although pretty much ripped off from a much better movie from a few years back called Arthur & The Invisibles).  But that's really it.  It was a good movie but not really much else to say about it.

I would somewhat recommend people checking this out.  For parents with younger kids, there really isn't much else out there.  Don't get too excited that this will be one of those equally as great for the parents animated movies.  It's watchable but ultimately just kind of there.

Black Rock

Three young women – Sarah (Kate Bosworth), Abby (Katie Aselton) and Lou (Lake Bell) – get together for a private campout at one of the iconic settings of their childhood, an empty island off the coast of Maine, to renew their bond of sisterhood. They quickly learn, though, that the island is anything but empty, when they encounter three recently-returned servicemen, who have come to the island to hunt. A misunderstanding quickly turns to tragedy, and the three women soon find themselves the targets of the hunt. What started as a simple getaway to recall old times is now a race for survival as three ordinary woman must find extraordinary strength in order to beat the odds against violence and the elements.

This movie had an incredibly simple premise.  It didn't waste too much time getting to the action.  And even the tension/drama was kept simple and seemed much more realistic because of that.  The movie was super short which made it even better.  I was very surprised how this movie managed to keep my attention the whole time.

I would recommend people checking this out.  It's not a must see (and didn't open wide anyway), but its worth checking out if you can find it online or when it's released on video.

Star Trek Into Darkness

In the wake of a shocking act of terror from within their own organization, the crew of The Enterprise is called back home to Earth. In defiance of regulations and with a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads his crew on a manhunt to capture an unstoppable force of destruction and bring those responsible to justice.  As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.

JJ Abrams is clearly a genius.  Never throughout my childhood did I think I would put these words in writing . . . . . Star Trek Into Darkness is bad a$$!!!  Seriously, I was never a fan of Star Trek.  I watched them because they were there.  I was and will always be all about Star Wars.  Yet - JJ Abrams comes along and puts out the amazing relaunch of Star Trek a couple years ago with a greatly cast group of non-big Hollywood names.   Then comes this amazing action movie with TONS of laughs sprinkled in due to the banter between the characters and I'm now officially hooked.  This was an awesome summer blockbuster movie.  The cast continued to be awesome in their roles from the original JJ Abrams entry.  And when you want to talk about breakout performances - the dude that plays the bad guy (I won't give away who he is but I will say I actually cheered out loud when it was revealed), Benedict Cumberbatch, was amazing every time he was on screen.  This guy is like Michael Fassbender was as he broke out a few years ago. 

I completely recommend people checking this movie out.  As of now - it is my favorite movie of the year.  Still can't get over that.  A Star Trek movie is my favorite move of the year so far.  If my teenage self could travel into the future - I would kick my elder self's a$$.

The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby follows Fitzgerald-like, would-be writer Nick Carraway as he leaves the Midwest and comes to New York City in the spring of 1922, an era of loosening morals, glittering jazz and bootleg kings. Chasing his own American Dream, Nick lands next door to a mysterious, party-giving millionaire, Jay Gatsby, and across the bay from his cousin, Daisy, and her philandering, blue-blooded husband, Tom Buchanan. It is thus that Nick is drawn into the captivating world of the super rich, their illusions, loves and deceits. As Nick bears witness, within and without the world he inhabits, he pens a tale of impossible love, incorruptible dreams and high-octane tragedy, and holds a mirror to our own modern times and struggles. 

This had all the usual Baz Luhrman quirks.  Visually it was amazing.  I've always been a big fan of how he films/edits his movies and this one was no different.  I'm not that big of a fan of the book nor did I remember too much of it so I can't really review it from that standpoint.  I really liked the telling of the story and DiCaprio was awesome as Gatsby.  He alternated so well between being totally confident at all times and then completely insecure around Daisy.  Although the pacing slowed down way too much about 3/4 of the way through with all the main characters kind of hashing things out in a hotel room, it picked up again after that and wrapped up greatly.

I would recommend people checking this out.  It's a little long and I don't remember the book enough to compare, but I enjoyed the movie a lot.

Aftershock

Chile has it all: gorgeous landscapes, smokin'- hot women, cool dudes, great wine, and the wildest parties. For a hapless American tourist, nicknamed Gringo (Eli Roth) by his two Chilean pals Ariel (Ariel Levy) and Pollo (Nicolás Martínez), the trip has been heaven on earth — except that he just can't hook up with the ladies. Gringo's luck seems to change when the group meets a trio of babes — Russian model Irina (Natasha Yarovenko), non-stop party girl Kylie (Lorenza Izzo) and her serious sister Monica (Andrea Osvárt) — who agree to accompany them on a trip to the coastal town of Valparaíso. The new friends are having the best of times whooping it up in a dance club, until a violent earthquake brings the entire city down around them. With this one-time paradise now a landscape of death and destruction that's seething with terror and panic, our unlucky heroes must run for their lives from looters, escaped convicts, and the inevitable aftershocks.

This was kind of like Eli Roth's other movies with total brutality once the chaos started post earthquake.  The group of friends suffered massively as they were taken out one by one via amputations, burning alive, rape, etc.  This movie was decent for what it was supposed to be after a truly brutal 35 minutes of "character development" before the earthquake.  Are we really supposed to care about any of them?

I would only recommend die hard Eli Roth fans taking the time to check this out.  It's pretty much a lame yet watchable B movie.

Peeples

Sparks fly in the Hamptons when "regular guy" Wade Walker (Craig Robinson) crashes the preppy Peeples family reunion to ask for their precious daughter Grace's (Kerry Washington) hand in marriage. Wade might be a fish out of water among this picture-perfect East Coast clan always trying to keep up appearances, but he's not about to let himself sink. Instead, in a wild weekend of fun, dysfunction and hilarious surprises, Wade is about to discover there's room for all kinds of Peeples in this family, no matter their differences. Writer and first-time director Tina Gordon Chism (writer of "Drumline") joins forces with Tyler Perry to present a laugh-out-loud look at the family ties that freak us out... but bind us together with love.

Hate to review this so bluntly, but this movie is literally a black version of Meet The Parents.  Same father/daughter stuff.  Same boyfriend/dad stuff.  Same family member hijinks.  I like Craig Robinson so the movie was somewhat entertaining.  There were some decent laughs here and there.  Would have been funnier if it wasn't a carbon copy of Meet The Parents.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend anyone rushing to see this.  There are much better movies out there.  You can just watch any of the Meet The Parents movies for free and wait for this one to show up on tv.

The Big Wedding

With an all-star cast led by Robert De Niro, Katherine Heigl, Diane Keaton, Amanda Seyfried, Topher Grace, with Susan Sarandon and Robin Williams, "The Big Wedding" is an uproarious romantic comedy about a charmingly modern family trying to survive a weekend wedding celebration that has the potential to become a full blown family fiasco. To the amusement of their adult children and friends, long divorced couple Don and Ellie Griffin (De Niro and Keaton) are once again forced to play the happy couple for the sake of their adopted son's wedding after his ultra conservative biological mother unexpectedly decides to fly halfway across the world to attend. With all of the wedding guests looking on, the Griffins are hilariously forced to confront their past, present and future - and hopefully avoid killing each other in the process.

This movie is just as formula as the ads made it seem.  All the actors played the same characters that they seem to in all of their movies.  Barely laughed throughout.  Honestly, I don't think I laughed at all.  The movie is pretty much just kind of there.

I wouldn't recommend anyone wasting their time with this.  The movie isn't awful but not really worth the time at all.  Watch the ad and you could have easily wrote the same review.

Trance

Fine art auctioneer Simon (McAvoy), in league with a gang led by underworld boss Franck (Cassel), plots the audacious theft of a masterpiece by Goya from a major public auction. When Simon double-crosses the gang during the robbery, Franck retaliates violently and knocks him unconscious.  In the aftermath of the heist, Simon sticks stubbornly - and perhaps shrewdly - to his claim that the violent trauma has left him with no memory of where he stashed the artwork.  Unable to coerce the painting's location from Simon, Franck and his associates reluctantly join forces with a charismatic hypnotherapist (Dawson) in a bid to get him to talk. But as they journey deeper into Simon's jumbled psyche the boundaries between reality and hypnotic suggestion begin to blur and the stakes rise faster and far more dangerously than any of the players could have anticipated. 

This was a very smart and edgy movie.  McAvoy, Cassel and Dawson all put forth great performances and kept you totally dialed in to where the story was going to go and unsure of who you could trust.  The tension throughout the movie and how it was intertwined with emotions of love, anger, betrayal, etc was very well done.

I would definitely recommend people checking this out.  It was a very entertaining watch.

Iron Man 3

Iron Man 3 pits brash-but-brilliant industrialist Tony Stark/Iron Man against an enemy whose reach knows no bounds. When Stark finds his personal world destroyed at his enemy's hands, he embarks on a harrowing quest to find those responsible. This journey, at every turn, will test his mettle. With his back against the wall, Stark is left to survive by his own devices, relying on his ingenuity and instincts to protect those closest to him. As he fights his way back, Stark discovers the answer to the question that has secretly haunted him: does the man make the suit or does the suit make the man?

This was a great movie for a third installment and a change of directors.  Honestly, I liked it a lot more than Iron Man 2.  The second one was a fun movie to watch but it was basically just a continuation of the story from the first one with a cooler villain.  There was a definite lack of story substance.  This movie had a lot more of that and built great off of The Avengers.  The continuity that Marvel has created where that timeline is a vital part of this movie and what Tony Stark is going through is awesome.  I also liked that they pretty much took him out of the suit for most of this movie.  All of the action was still great and there was plenty of Iron Man battle scenes, but it was a great change of pace to see him have to get through stuff without being able to use the suit.  As always, Robert Downey Jr's wit/delivery stole the show and this movie was downright hilarious at times.  His reaction to a sad boy that he meets in this movie might be one of the out of the blue funniest one liners ever.  There was one part of the movie that was equal parts impressive, disappointing and comical all at the same time.  I can't go too much into it without ruining it but it has to do with the villain Mandarin.  The only knock I can make against this movie would be the partial disappointment regarding that, but it was still very impressively done/marketed and provided some of the huge laughs in the movie. 

I would absolutely recommend everyone check this bad boy out.  It's another phenomenal entry in the Marvel universe.