Two nights in a row, a movie started with a lot of promise and really fizzled out before the end. The Giver is based on a popular young-adult book, which I haven’t ready but I know is supposed to be very good. The movie however was a bit of a mess. It started well, though a little familiar, with a typical dystopian future society where emotions are subdued to keep the populace in check. In fact, all memories of the past (before the current regime) have been erased, with only a single person charged with all previous knowledge so he can act as an adviser to the government. This person, known as the Receiver of Memories (and played by Jeff Bridges) is the only person who knows what war, famine, and crime are, but is also the only person aware of love and joy. Every generation the Receiver passes his knowledge onto the next person, and so on.

The new Receiver is picked, a young man named Jonas, and as his eyes are opened to all that society is missing, he refuses to not pass this along to his friends and family. If it sounds like a great premise, it really is, but the film loses steam by the end. What seems like a central plot element is never fully explained, including the importance of a baby that Jonas refuses to let go. The movie does make want to read the book, because it has to be better that this jumbled puzzle.

Since his stint as James Bond ended, Pierce Brosnan has seemed to do an awful lot of dramas and romantic “comedies” so I was excited to see his return to a spy-thriller. And The November Man started out well. For the first half of the film, it is full of action, double agents, and a real wonder of who is on who’s side and what mastermind is behind it all. Unfortunately the film really falls apart in the end, by which point you’ve all ready deduced the real “surprises.”

Brosnan plays a retired CIA agent who is pulled in to get info from one of his former colleagues. When that person ends up dead at the hands of the CIA themselves, Brosnan is left to wonder who is giving the orders, and ends up in an international hunt for the one person who may have the answers. When he finds her, he spends the rest of the movie trying to keep her alive long enough to get the truth from her.

Parts of this movie really rubbed me the wrong way. You spend much of the movie rooting for Brosnan as you think he was roped into this game, but then when he starts doing despicable things you are left wondering who you should be behind as a viewer. Not to mention some of the main characters change allegiance so many times, that by the end I was more confused than in the beginning. A very bad ending ruined what started out as a lot of promise. The only highlight was (parts of) Brosnan’s performance. Even at his age, he can still play the action movie star well.

I’ve said before, I have a soft spot for based-on-a-true-story movies. I should have said ones that were done well. Unfortunately When the Game Stands Tall is not one of these. This film is about a high school football team, De La Salle in California, that lost their first game in 2004 after an unprecedented 151 game winning streak spanning 12 years. More than the streak and the subsequent loss, the movie is about the bond of the team and their coach, and what is important in life.

There are some nice points in the film. The penultimate game is pretty thrilling, and the final scenes do try to tug at the heart, but the directing is pretty poor, and the acting throughout subpar overall. The editing also seemed very disjointed to me, scenes ended and began very abruptly especially in the first half of the film, and the sorry soundtrack had a made for tv-like feel. This can be an ok watch-once kind of film, and with the faith element attached to it, I can see it being popular among a certain audience, but for most it will be a very lackluster and borderline boring movie.

What If is charming movie with a very underrated cast. The main guy, Wallace, is played by Daniel Radcliffe, who since his Harry Potter days has made it point of tackling serious roles on stage and screen, and he is fantastic in this movie. He plays a somewhat jaded character, recently dropped out of med school and unable to get over a breakup. At a friend’s party he meets Chantry, played by the adorable Zoe Kazan. If you missed last year’s The Pretty One (and most people did, very small release), you should check that one out too.

The two hit if off immediately, the problem is Chantry has a longtime and serious boyfriend. The movie would make it easy if he was a jerk, or mean spirited, but he is non of these things. He loves his girlfriend, treats her well, and is supportive in all things. She is thus torn between her safety net and this new guy that is more alike to her than anyone. Wallace on the other hand doesn’t want to break up her relationship, knowing that she could resent him for it later, and walks the fine line of being a friend while wanting more.

The movie is full of funny and witty dialogue, and the chemistry between Wallace and Chantry is felt through the screen. My only knock against it is the very ending of the film, which doesn’t fit in well with everything that came before it in the movie, and in my opinion if it had ended 5 minutes earlier it would have been much better. Still, the movie as a whole is well worth a date night.

This is a very fresh (and refreshing) movie. The Hundred Foot Journey tells the story of an immigrant Indian family planted in rural France. They have a cooking background, and so open an authentic Indian cuisine restaurant, which happens to be across the street (100 feet) from an upscale French restaurant, owned and run by Helen Mirren’s character. They butt heads, even while the genius young Indian chef, portrayed wonderfully by Manish Dayal, starts experimenting with adding his traditional Indian spices to French cuisine. This of course infuriates his bullheaded father, and vexes the French traditionalist as well (“Why mess with a recipe that hasn’t changed in 200 years?”).

This is a captivating film. It is about change, and acceptance, and of course love, all mixed just right. There is a touch of cheese in the end, but by that point it is the ending you wanted anyway, so as a viewer you just go along with it.

I’m not a big Woody Allen fan. There, I’ve said it. In some movie circles, admitting that can be a sin. For me, many of his films are decent when you see them the first time, but ultimately forgettable (I haven’t seen last year’s acclaimed Blue Jasmine, it is sitting on my DVR at the moment). Having said all that, Magic in the Moonlight is about what I expected.

This was my second Colin Firth movie of the day, had rented The Railway Man and watched that earlier this morning (a much better film – look it up). In Magic in the Moonlight, Firth plays a magician in the late 20’s, who has a talent for debunking fake telepaths and psychics. He is a pragmatic man, and doesn’t believe in (real) magic, an afterlife, or God for that matter. When his longtime friend comes to him with the story of a new, young American psychic duping a rich family in southern France, Firth agrees to go do his thing. Upon meeting this girl, played by the spunky and charming Emma Stone, he is unable to unmask her and starts to doubt his own lifelong beliefs.

Sometimes you have a cute little idea, but you don’t do anything with that idea. I feel like this movie was a little idea that Allen had, and he had nothing else going on so he decided to turn it into a film. It’s not a terrible movie, and Firth and Stone are both excellent actors as we know, but there just isn’t enough here to make anything special.

Been looking forward to this one for a long time, but just now had a chance to fit it in the movie-watching schedule. It was definitely worth the wait. Get on Up tells the (mostly accurate, from what I can tell) story of James Brown, from his more-than-humble beginnings through most of his life. Full of his spectacular, genre-defining music and featuring superb acting by Chadwick Boseman as Mr. Brown, this one has appeal for just about everyone.

Unfortunately I never saw James Brown perform (though later I did hear some great stories from Jeff Watkins, sax player in his band for the last 10 or so years before Brown’s death). But everyone is familiar with his music, which is featured obviously throughout this movie. Brown came from basically nothing, and made himself into a legend through talent and hard work. Boseman plays the larger-than-life entertainer, and to perfection. He has his mannerisms, speech, and moves down perfect, at times you can glance at it sideways and you think it really is the man himself in front of the camera, and he should be a strong contender for an Oscar this year.

The movie does have to cut down an entire life into about 2 1/2 hours, so things are omitted or glossed over (little to nothing is mentioned of Brown’s legal troubles over the years), but it does do a fair depiction of the person, with both his triumphs and shortcomings. This is a great film for just about everyone, and make sure to come ready to tap your foot along with the groove.

Despite the rough word of mouth and even rougher reviews, I saw the newest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles last night. One of my favorite cartoons as a kid, I watched it constantly in the late 80’s, and enjoyed the first film (and even its 2 sequels! hey I was young..) in the early 90’s. There were elements in the newest movie that brought back a twinge or two of nostalgia, especially Michelangelo’s quips spattered throughout, but as everyone has been saying, the film doesn’t do the franchise justice.

I’m sure young kids will love this movie, but for adults it’s pretty lackluster. The plot is thin at best, and the development nearly nonexistant. Megan Fox cast as April O’Neil is laughable, and the great Shredder is little more than a trumped up henchman in a bionic suite. Splinter has no history in Japan, instead self-teaching his amazing ninja skills from a book that fell in the sewer. I don’t mind when a reboot changes elements here and there, but they are messing with my childhood here! Even the mighty Foot Clan seems like nothing more than gang of thugs recently sprung up to terrorize Manhattan.

There are high flying action scenes, but not much else to recommend. You don’t feel the bond between the turtles that you do in the original films, you don’t feel the intense global evil of the Foot Clan and its far-reaching power, you don’t feel the sense of righting wrongs and saving people from the band of 4. All I felt was the passing of 101 minutes.

Good thing I was in the mood for mindless destruction when I saw this movie, because that’s all there is to it! Into the Storm looks like a newer version of Twister, featuring gigantic tornadoes unlike anything the world has ever seen. Being made over 15 years after Twister, the computer aided graphics have been taken up a notch, but it is a very similar premise. Unfortunately the characters are so one sided, each with their own clear unchanging demeanor, and the story so flimsy, that when there is a break in the storm, you just sit back and wait impatiently for another tornado to pop up. The movie is at its best when they aren’t trying to formulate a plot, when it is just the tornados wreaking havoc, and the filmmaker knew it as this happens again and again with few breathers in the latter half of the film. There are some eye catching moments for sure, but when the clouds part and the sun comes out at the end, you are long ready for this storm to be over.

A Most Wanted Man is going to go down as Philip Seymour Hoffman’s final non-Hunger Games film, and the leadup seemed great. It is a spy thriller, based on the book by John le Carre, a great novelist who’s had several books adapted to the big screen, including the awesome Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy. This newest film is heavy on the spying, and while it has some light tension, it is severely lacking in the thrills department.

In all honesty, the espionage in the film is probably most similar to how real spying in today’s world takes place. As moviegoers we are used to the high octane exploits of 007 and Jason Bourne, but in real life I’m sure it more resembles a quiet cat-and-mouse match of wits on the world’s chessboard. This movie has all of that, with the head of Germany’s secret CIA-like group, played by Hoffman, twisting people in subtle ways to get what he wants. There are no big gun fights, no explosions, and the film is overall very quiet and dialogue driven. When his government (and others, including the USA) are putting pressure on his group to nab some terrorist (any terrorist, just to put something in the papers), Hoffman keeps urging caution and patience while he works his way up the food chain to try to get someone truly important to the cell’s organization. The ending is surprising, but too little too late for me. Some of the acting was good, but it was full of American actors giving hard-to-believe fake German accents, which personally always gives me a dose of disbelief from the get-go. Hoffman gave some great performances in great movies over the years, unfortunately this is a great performance in a sub-par film.