Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think this movie is as bad as some of the critics are saying. I really enjoyed the racing in it, but unfortunately, that’s the best part of the movie. Having played several of the Need for Speed video games back in the day (what child of the 90’s didn’t?!), I couldn’t help but smile when the police started pulling out all the stops to take down the street racers. Sadly though, the characters are paper-thin, and the dialogue is groan worthy at times. There just wasn’t enough meat and potatoes to hold this movie together.

Aaron Paul is the one good actor in this crowd, and anyone that saw Breaking Bad knows his chops. For that show he is a 2-time Emmy winner and Golden Globe nominee (how he lost to Jon Voight is a mystery this world will never know). No idea why he picked this mess as his first leading role. But he is captivating in the movie, and hopefully this film doesn’t derail what should be a burgeoning career for him.

I never saw a single episode of Veronica Mars when it was airing back in the mid 2000’s. I admittedly watch a lot of movies, but don’t watch many tv shows. And Mars didn’t look like my cup of tea on the surface. The story of a high school girl going all P.I. on her classmates and neighborhood seemed a little campy for me. And I wasn’t the only one missing it; despite nearly universal critical acclaim (especially the first two seasons), it drew low ratings and was cancelled after its third season. However, almost immediately talk of a film started up, fueled by a rabid fan base. After a kickstarter campaign very quickly raised the funds, this film was made.

Veronica Mars the movie is getting very good reviews and is extremely highly rated on Rotten Tomatoes, IMDB, etc, but it is always hard to go on this alone when you are talking a fan-flick. Its loyal base could be (and probably are) artificially raising the ratings. However this is actually a very good movie. Having gone into it cold, not ever having seen a single episode of its show or really knowing much about it, I didn’t know what to expect. I was happily surprised. It isn’t going to win any awards or anything, and I don’t think it is necessarily a very memorable movie, but it is a funny and interesting film. Veronica’s witty quips to those she doesn’t care for, and even those she does, provide plenty of humorous dialogue, and the mystery who-done-it story has plenty of subtle surprises.

The movie is a little hokey at times, but the writers keep it moving, and Kristen Bell is a very likable Veronica Mars. It was most definitely made for its fans, as there seems to be a lot of “hey former classmate, what are you up to these days?” stuff going on throughout, but that never detracts from the pace of the film. I’m not quite sure it is enough to make me go back and watch the show on Netflix, but the movie is definitely worth a watch, even if you aren’t a die-hard fan.

I have to admit, this movie wasn’t initially on my list to go see. But some of the others I’m waiting for are taking their time to make it to my local theaters (gotta love those limited releases!), and I had a night free, so I went. Very glad I did.

When I first saw a trailer for this movie, I thought it was a little weird. Today’s kids, and even kids from 10-15 years ago, won’t even know who these characters are. Even I only vaguely remember them from re-runs of the Rocky and Bullwinkle show when I was very young. I didn’t think it would be easy for this movie to find an audience, and perhaps I was correct. It did $32 million last weekend, which is very good obviously, but lower than some of this studio’s past movies like How to Train Your Dragon. It will also face stiff competition next week up against the new Muppets movie. However, it is getting getting some great word-of-mouth (77% on Rotten Tomatoes, an “A” on Cinemascore), so maybe it will hold for awhile.

Having said all that, this is a great family film. It is cute, funny, and you even might learn a thing or two from the genius Mr. Peabody. The films puts a funny spin on history, such as the French Revolution starting over Marie Antoinette’s love of cakes (lavish aristocracy vs the poor, starving population), or the Greek officer warning Sherman to not visit Oedipus (“very awkward house around the holidays”). Even how Mona Lisa gave us that enigmatic smile. And you can’t help but chuckle at Mr. Peabody’s eye-rolling puns throughout.

This is a film for everyone. The kids in the theater were laughing at Sherman and his friend’s antics, and the adults were laughing at the dialogue that was a little over the young-ins heads. This movie does a fantastic job of blending it all together, and with a heart-warming story to boot.

I sort of liked the original 300. I say sort of because while I thought it was good when I saw it, looking back later, I couldn’t remember much about it. It all came back when I went and saw 300: Rise of an Empire, but unfortunately, I didn’t even leave the theater thinking this was a good one this time.

This movie really just felt like 300 on the high seas. Most of the battles take place ship-to-ship, but the style is all lifted straight from the original film. Perhaps the movie makers thought if the first movie did so well, why break the formula? While the first one seemed fresh at the time, this one just felt old. I was falling asleep in the theater during a battle scene, and if that can’t keep my attention, you can bet the “story” couldn’t either. It also felt very gimmicky. While I saw the movie in 2D, it was obviously made for 3D. There were a lot of scenes of blood spattering towards the viewer, and long sweeping sword strikes past the front of the screen. Personally, I enjoy 3D movies where you forget it is in 3D, where the makers immerse you in the film without beating you over the head with it.

In the end, this one is just for people that really loved the first one and hoped it was exactly 1 hour 42 minutes longer.

Saw Non-Stop last night, starring Liam Neeson. Though he is perhaps getting a little old to play the action hero, he is awfully good at it and Non-Stop is another successful stint for him.

Liam Neeson is an air marshal on a crowded, long Atlantic flight, when he receives a message that someone will be killed every 20 minutes. On the surface this just seems like another generic “good guy hunting down the bad guy before he kills a bunch of people” film, but there are some twists. Obviously it takes place in the sky on an airplane, which when you hear it seems gimmicky, but it works well. Also, the bad guy goes about his killings in unique ways. I don’t want to give anything anyway, but the movie does a great job of making you question every single passenger, as Liam himself has to. The trailers leading up to the movie suggested it could be one particular person, and I’m glad it ended up being someone else. I hate trailers that give away too much, and the ending was plenty surprising for me.

My friends joked that this was simply Taken 3, and it’s not (that film is going to be made next year!), but it does seem Liam has found a niche here with these kinds of roles. Though his action characters are a bit one dimensional, he has the voice and the mannerisms to make them very believable.

I was up for something different for this trip to the movies, and you can’t get much different than The Wind Rises. This is a Japanese animated film, written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, who has been called the Walt Disney of Japan for his long and celebrated career in anime and manga there. Several of his films have made it to the states over the years, though this is the first time I’ve seen one on the big screen.

The Wind Rises is a biography (though I’m not sure how accurate) of Jiro Horikoshi, designer of Japanese fighter planes used in World War II. It starts with his youth and continues through until his final design is hashed out and finally successful, after numerous failed attempts. In the movie he is portrayed as an optimistic engineer. He knows his design will be used for war, but several times makes jokes that it would be a better plane without the guns. He is simply trying to build the best plane he can, at a time when Japanese technology is decades behind their competition in other countries.

I enjoyed the film thoroughly. The artistry is superb, rich colors and beautiful scenes permeate throughout. You never forget it is a Japanese animated film, as there are a couple characters that are a little over-the-top in that style, but it is beautifully written. The American voice cast includes plenty of big names too, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and John Krasinski in the leads, supported by Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci, and Mandy Patinkin to name a few. If you’d like to sit back and see a kind of movie us westerners won’t normally get to see, this is well worth an evening.

If you take Russell Crowe’s Gladiator and put it under the shadow of a volcano, you have Pompeii, and a not-as-good version at that. Basically if you take all of the characters, make them more one-dimensional, you have this new movie. It even lifts one character right off the original (an African mentor-turned-friend to our reluctant gladiator). Having said all that, it’s not a terrible movie, though parts of you certainly make you roll your eyes.

The main character is played by Kit Harington, otherwise known as Jon Snow from the Game of Thrones series. If you’ve seen that show, you know this guy’s acting chops consist mostly of pained, longing stares with that almost always far-away look in his eyes. The Joaquin Phoenix role in Gladiator is played here by Keifer Sutherland. As much as I liked 24, he’s no Joaquin, who I consider one of the finest actors today. What keeps this movie together though is the historic blowing of Mount Vesuvius. Though the CGI isn’t as good as some other high budget films, and doesn’t look quite as real as it should at times, it is very exciting, especially in the end when everything goes to hell.

Like a lot of action films, if you just take this film light heartedly, it is fun. Younger audiences that only care about explosions and death duels should really enjoy it (my 16 year old son loved it!).

Endless Love is exactly what you expect. It is sometimes corny, sometimes hokey, and overall a pretty cheesy romance most likely geared towards teenage and young adult women. Even so, it mixes this formula well and is a great date movie for any couple wanting to feel cheesy love in the air together.

The only thing I knew about this movie going in was the leading actor was in “I am Number Four” which was sort of a cool sci-fi film from a couple years ago. Apparently it is a remake of a film made in the early 80’s, which in turn is based from book written in the late 70’s. It’s a very typical story of a girl that falls for a boy from the other side of the tracks, but he has a good heart and brings everyone together. The movie is told fairly well, though it does seem to slow down and veer off course in the end. If it was 20 minutes shorter it would have been much better, but I can understand why they wrote it the way they did. If you and your significant other are up for a lovey-dovey flick, there are far worse things to see.

This is a bad movie. No other way to say it. Bad story, bad dialogue, full of clichés, full of holes. It’s one thing to ask the audience to suspend belief a time or two in the interest of an action film, it’s quite another to ask them to follow along when nothing at all makes sense.

This is (I think) supposed to be a spy film, though even after seeing it, I’m not really sure the writer and director knew that. There is very little spying going on. And unlike some of the movies I’ve seen lately, such as I Frankenstein and Robocop, when the story failed, the action scenes could not carry this film. The one bright spot for me was the lead played by Kevin Costner, who, say what you like, still has the cool, debonair part down, even after all these years. But rather than stabilizing the film, it almost made it worse, as you are left wondering why he would he would waste his time with this farce. Granted, it has been awhile since he had the leading role, maybe he was finally offered one and jumped at the chance. I think he should have waited for something better. Pretty much anything would have been better.

I should have listened to my gut on this one. I didn’t especially have any desire to see this movie, but it was getting good reviews (currently 62/100 Metacritic, 77% Rotten Tomatoes) so I thought, what the hell. It ended up being exactly what I expected, and that’s not a good thing.

If you are a fan of Kevin Hart’s comedic style, this one is for you. Vulgar and crass, it gets you to laugh on shock value alone, but even that gets old 20-30 minutes in. This movie is basically 100 minutes of Kevin Hart standup, with an extremely generic romantic-comedy story carrying you through to the end. Boy meets girl, they fall in love, they go through a rough patch, they work it out in the end. I don’t think I’m giving anything away by saying that. The plot is so full of stereotypes and clichés that honestly it is hard to watch at times.

Kevin Hart is the man of the hour right now, having been in a run of box office hits. Even in his misses, he is often reviewed as the one shining moment, and even though I’m not a fan, I can appreciate his current run. I feel like if he wasn’t on such a high right now, this movie would not be getting the attention it is. But to each his own.