OK, so the plot goes something like this. Jason Bateman, playing the character Jason, is an obsessive everything must be perfect kind of guy. He and his wife decide they need to go on a couple’s retreat to save their marriage, the only problem is the cost is too high unless they bring along all their friends. So Vaughn, Favreau, and Love must go as well to help Bateman pay to “save his marriage.” They wind up in couple’s island and this is where the fun begins. The couples were expecting 2 weeks of fun in the sun and jetskiing but instead are stuck participating in therapy and couples exploration.

Many of the funny parts are already featured in the previews, but its still a pretty good film, especially since I love the pairing of Vaughn and Favreau. Favreau plays a completely different character from who he played in Swingers and Made. Vaughn is pretty much the same funny over the top character he’s made famous.

Pros: Favreau showing his ability to play a different kind of character.
Cons: A lot of the funny stuff is in the previews
Verdict: 7/10 – Matinee or date film

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Believe it or not this movie will make you jump, even though its a comedy. Zombies do pop up unexpectedly and the sound attached is enough to make anyone jump. The lines are well written and the actors play well off one another. Considering it’s basically a buddy comedy about killing zombies its much better than one would expect. I did get slightly bored at one point, but thankfully the action once again picked up and I got back into the movie. It also has the teenage love story thing going on as well.

This is one of those gotta go see comedies. It’s not going to win any awards or anything like that but I do love comedies, I do love action, and I love seeing zombies get killed. This film has all three.

Pros: Action, comedy, zombies
Cons: Got bored at one point
Verdict: 7.5 / 10 Go see it

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Surrogates stars Bruce Willis, James Cronwell, and Ving Rhames. It’s PG 13. It’s 88 minutes long. So here’s the plot in a nutshell. Bruce Willis plays an FBI agent who uses his surrogate to do everything. James Cromwell is the inventor of the surrogate program, which was originally invented for people with disabilities to be able to walk around like normal people. The only problem is his idea gets turned into something for everyone to use to “be safe.” Ving Rhames is the leader of the anti surrogate movement, in which he tells people they need to feel things and be real human beings or else they’re already dead. So, thanks to surrogates no one ever dies. It’s something like 2 years no one dies thanks to surrogates. Then the movie starts. There’s a weapon (which you’ve seen in the preview so I’m not spoiling anything) that can destroy both the surrogate and the “operator” aka the person sitting in a chair all pale and frail controlling the robot and not really experiencing life. The funny part is every operator looks like crap because they never leave their house. The surrogates are “perfect” meaning big muscles, no scars, perfect hair, perfect teeth, and everything else Tyler Durden is against. So Willis has to investigate how these people are being killed by this weapon and how to stop it. He gets caught in the cross fire and he loses his surrogate. Now he’s a human in a surrogate world. Stuff happens, stuff blows up, and Bruce Willis saves the day, much like he always does in his Die Hard films.

That’s pretty much the movie without really giving away any spoilers. Willis’ character is interesting as he doesn’t like using a surrogate yet he uses one all the time.

Overall it’s a good action film and it makes you wonder about our future as the human race as we will probably be moving toward something like this very soon, especially if the soccer mom’s continue to run the world to protect us from ourselves.

Pros: Bruce Willis, action flick
Cons: It’s one of those Bruce Willis against everyone movies, where everyone is a bad guy.

Verdict: 7.5 out of 10 – Worth seeing

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Chapter two introduces us to “The Basterds”. Brad Pitt plays Lt. Aldo Raine, or known to the Nazi’s as Aldo the Apache. Raine starts off his introduction with the rest of the Basterds lined up with Raine going over the details of their mission at hand. Their mission pretty much consists of them going into Nazi occupied France to kill Nazi’s with extreme prejudice. Raine runs his Basterds as if they are an Apache army that hunt their enemies down, assassinate and them scalp their corpses. With remaining any remaining captured Nazi’s, Raine sets the prisoners down and explains that he wants information from them, and if they refuse they unleash “the bear Jew” (Eli Roth) to bash their brains in with a baseball bat. Brutal shit. The remainder of the film consists of a German actress (Diane Kruger) helping the Basterds unfold a plan to kill Hitler and his top men during a premiere of a German film that is being run at the theater of the Jew woman that escapes from the beginning.

“Inglourious Basterds” plays out like any Tarantino film. There is a lot of dialogue, but it truly brings the film together much like his dialogue from “Pulp Fiction”. It does run slow at times, but then makes up for it with realistic gunfights. The action scenes are very realistic and well staged, but are graphic at times. There are a lot of subtitles in this film, but as much as I hate subtitles it is nice to see a WWII film that doesn’t have Nazi’s speaking English. One brilliant thing about the film is when the Nazi’s do switch from French or German to English; Tarantino incorporates it into the storyline. Hitler is somewhat comedically portrayed, and the ending may not be historically accurate, but audiences will embrace the change with the idea that “we wish this is how the war really was ended”. Brad Pitt plays a total badass to the teeth. Christoph Waltz will be remembered as one of the meanest Nazi antagonist since Ralph Fiennes in “Schindlers List” and the Nazi with glasses in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. Eli Roth and Dianne Kruger provide a solid supporting cast that add flavor to the film. “Inglourious Basterds” is 2 hours and 33 minutes long, and my only complaint was it can be slow to watch at times. Along with other WWII mission films like “The Dirty Dozen”, “Kelly’s Heroes”, and “Saving Private Ryan”, “Inglourious Basterds” is a breath of fresh air from a decade of forgettable war films centered on the last Great War.

9.5/10    A must see

OK, so the premise is pretty easy to follow. Aliens landed in South Africa in the eighties. Their ship was stuck so we sent some choppers up, grabbed the aliens, and threw them into a shanty town known as District 9. Basically think the kinds of camps we usually set up when we want to quarantine a certain group of people, like the Japanese during WW2, or what the Nazi’s did during WW2.

The film is shot in a similar style to Cloverfield, Quarantine, or Blair Witch in which it appears as though a camera guy is following them around filming a documentary. The entire film is about Wikus Van De Merwe, who just so happens to be married to the daughter of the guy who runs MNU. MNU is the organization that is “helping” the aliens. The film starts off with Wikus and crew going to District 9 to give all the aliens eviction notices because they are going to be moved to an even worse shanty town than the one they are currently living in.

Some stuff happens and well now we have ourselves an action film. I really don’t want to give anything away as its actually a good movie.

I’ll be honest with you, I had no idea what was going to happen throughout the movie. Unlike an M. Night movie where you can usually guess the plot twist in the first 30 seconds (for example seeing Bruce Willis get shot in the first 30 seconds of the 6th Sense then knowing the kid sees dead people, um yeah, saw that coming) this movie gave me some twists and turns. I didn’t expect most of what was going to happen.

All I’ll really say is District 9 is a bad place to live. You have crime, a bunch of African warlords trying to run crime throughout the district, some old African beliefs in voodoo and such, and a big army with interest in alien weaponry who like to shoot anything that moves.

Pros: Very good film, action, suspense, easy to get into
Cons: No real big name people, I don’t really like Africa, sad tale
Verdict: 8 out of 10. Go see it.

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Lets face facts though, we are not talking about “The Godfather” here. These films are strictly effect driven and were made for pure entertainment. Looking at it for what it is, this is the perfect summer sequel. There is way more action, everything is bigger and badder than its predecessor, and Shia Labeouf isn’t the only force to be reconned with in this film. His co-star actress Megan Fox was a fresh face in the first one, but now since she has been established she is right up there with her leading man. No one can deny that the robots are the real stars of the films, but Fox’s presence is definitly greater in this sequel, and I think no one will complain about that.

All of the surviving robots from the first film are back for round two, as well as new autobots and a lot more new decepticons. The Fallen is the main antagonist in this one, although we see more of his pawns fight until the end when he shows up. The premise has changed but is still very much the same as the first one. “Revenge of the Fallen” actually focuses less on the premise and more on the action. Sam and Micheala go through some dramatic changes this time around as Sam heads off to college while leaving Micheala behind. Some comic relief is added with the presence of Sam’s college roommate, but this fails to crack more than just a smile. A lot of the characters from the first film are absent, but that’s ok because they’re just replaced by robots. Sam’s parents are back as well as John Turturro’s character, so thankfully the comic relief do not rest on the shoulders of the roommates character.

Overall, “Revenge of the Fallen” is an entertaining film. I wouldn’t say it is better than the first, but it didn’t make me wish that they should have left it well enough alone. The premise is not as easy to follow as was the first film. It does get somewhat confusing at times. The action is much better and greater, but at times I did find myself getting confused about which was an autobot and which one is a decepticon. The roommate character also was worn thin about after 10 minutes of being onscreen. With a running time of 148 minutes, I did not feel it dragged on at all. It definitly is the hit summer movie to see, and I hope they keep the ball rolling for the 3rd time around.

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20. Star Wars: Episode III-Revenge of the Sith (2005)

19. Crash (2004)

18. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glourious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)

17. The Fast and the Furious (2001)

16. The 40-Year Old Virgin (2005)

15. Star Trek (2009)

14. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003)

13. X-Men (2000)

12. My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)

11. Casino Royale (2006)

10. Finding Nemo (2003)

9. 28-Days Later (2003)

8. Transformers (2007)

7. Gladiator (2000)

6. Spider-Man (2002)

5. Harry Potter and The Sorcerers Stone (2001)

4. The Departed (2006)

3. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

2. Shrek (2001)

1. The Dark Knight (2008)

The film starts out great lots of action and such then starts to drag out a little bit. The other guy who writes reviews here thought it could have gone longer but was somewhat unrealistic. He liked it a bit more than I did. Depp and Bale are both great with their characters but it just dragged a little too long for me.

Rating: 7/10

This is a pretty good comedy. The premise is simple, Doug (played by Justin Bartha) is getting married so his friends take him to Vegas for a bachelor party. And what a bachelor party it is. The 4 drive to Vegas, have a few drinks and prepare for a night they will never forget. Fade to black. Phil, Stu, and Alan (played by the actors mentioned above in order) wake up in their hotel room trying to remember what had happened the night before. They start looking for their friend Doug who is nowhere to be found. So the trio start trying to remember what happened throughout the night, and well now we have the movie.

Think “Dude where’s my car” with the car being replaced by Doug. Actually that wouldn’t have been a bad name for the movie either “Dude where’s Doug?” So they venture through Vegas, meet police, Heather Graham, a baby, Mike Tyson, and a variety of other strange characters along the way while trying to find Doug. This movie has everything you would hope for in Vegas, gambling, shot gun weddings, booze, drugs, and other random debauchery.

The trio do well together and do keep you laughing through a good portion of the film. And stick around when the credits start rolling as that is some funny stuff as well.

Pros: Good comedy
Cons: Sometimes Galifianakis isn’t very funny
Verdict: 8 out of 10 go see this

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Just like any good Hollywood franchise they have figured out how to turn the original Star Trek storyline into a new ongoing series that they can sell millions of tickets to. You’ll understand what I mean by that after you go and see the film. Now what i was hoping for was a non stop action thrill ride, what I got was something completely different.

Being that they gave this away in the previews I guess I can reveal it here as well. Jim Kirk, the character that the guy from the Priceline commercials made famous, wants to join star fleet because his father died after being a captain for 13 minutes. In the original series this was different, but that’s why my comment above makes sense, parallel universes and such. So Kirk, Spock, and gang are going after this bad guy who likes blowing up planets and such with his giant drill. The guy who played Harold in the movie Harold and Kumar is also in this film as is the guy from Sean of the Dead (yes I do know their names, I just like saying where they’re from…see above what I called Shatner.) There is a lot of plot to this film and not as much action as I was led to believe from the previews.

The base of Star Fleet is in San Francisco, CA for some reason (I live in SF now which is why I keep mentioning it) and the bad guy with the drill wants to destroy Earth, meaning he wants to destroy SF and then the rest of earth.

Essentially what we have here is a lot of comedy and some action, which is completely different from what I was hoping for from the previews. Thankfully I paid matinee price for it.

Pros: Good acting, some decent fight scenes, you don’t have to be a trekkie to like it
Cons: No where near as much action as I was hoping for
Verdict: 7 / 10 – Matinee

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