Box Office Movie Review

Ridley Scott’s incarnation of Robin Hood starring Russell Crowe is a prequel to the story we’re all familiar with – so it may not be the legendary story you’re expecting.

The film opens in 12th century France, where Crowe plays Robin Longstride, an archer in the army of King Richard. The King is on the last leg of the Crusades, “bankrupt and plundering his way back to England” (that’s right, not quite the version of King Richard we’re familiar with). We are introduced to Robin here, establishing that he is a moral man of honor and not afraid to fight.

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Let the summer begin! Iron Man 2, the sequel to 2008’s Marvel blockbuster (grossed over $570 million worldwide), is a sensational way to give the season a kick start. This follow-up has a lot on its plate, with Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark now outed globally as Iron Man and an array of new villains coming out of the woodwork to compete with him. It may not be in 3D but look for this 2nd visit to Marvel’s latest cash cow to top the original, not only for ratcheted up action, excitement and pure movie fun but also at the box office and beyond.
The new film picks up about six months after Tony Stark revealed his top secret Iron Man identity to the world. Now with incredible fame, the billionaire playboy/weapons inventor/superhero is trying to relaunch his late father’s (John Slattery) Stark Expo, an event that focuses on the humanitarian aspects of revolutionary technology. Unfortunately for him, the U.S. Government wants him to turn the Expo over to the military and has called him to a Senate hearing to try to force the issue.

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Animal Kingdom is the gritty and violent debut feature from talented writer/director David Michod.   Set in the dangerous Melbourne underworld, Animal Kingdom revolves around a young man thrust into a family of crime and the severe consequences that result.  Michod has crafted a near great yet slightly flawed film.
Michod's visual style is beautiful, a mixture of a young Danny Boyle with a bit of P.T. Anderson.  The images he and DP Adam Arkapaw create are both natural and gritty, yet thoughtfully composed and  assembled.   The film is a bit similar in nature to another strong entry this year, Daniel Barber's Harry Brown (starring Michael Caine).  Both films explore similar topics such as the cyclical nature of violence and the effects of violence on teens.  Both directors also create a dark, natural (and at times ultra-real) backdrop for the main characters to exist. Of the two, Barber's effort feels a bit tighter, the story a bit more focused.  But Animal Kingdom, which views the violent world from the perspective of the criminals (versus Harry Brown, which sees the world through the eyes of its vigilante good Samaritan protagonist), sets a slow and steady pace that really makes the audience realize the oppressiveness of living such a violent lifestyle and the extreme difficulties of finding a way out.

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The main theme of the film’s revenge. The film is set in an alternate history of the Second World War in which the entire top leadership of Nazi Germany, namely Hitler, Goering, Goebbels and Bormann attend a film premiere in Paris celebrating the exploits of a German sniper who had managed to kill 300 American soldiers in Italy. Most of the film’s duration is set in early June 1944, after the D-Day landings but before the liberation of Paris.
The film tracks the separate attempts to kill Hitler by two disparate forces, one being the “Basterds,” a motley crew of Jewish American soldiers out for revenge against the Nazis. The Basterds have a modus operandi whereby each man must cut off the scalp of a dead Nazi soldier, with orders to get 100 scalps each. The Basterds allow one German soldier to survive each incident to spread the news of the terror of their attacks. However, the Basterds carve a swastika into the forehead of that German. The other force concerns Shosanna (MéLanie Laurent, the exclusively survivor of a Jewish family killed by the Jew Hunter, who plots her own revenge on the Nazis. The Basterds and Shosanna remain unaware of each other throughout the film.
The film opens in 1941 with Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) of the Waffen-SS, proudly well-known as the “Jew Hunter,” interrogating Perrier LaPadite (Denis Menochet), a French dairy farmer, over rumours that he had been hiding a Jewish family. Landa manages to break down LaPadite and locates the hiding place of the Jews underneath the floorboards. He orders his soldiers to fire into the floorboards, killing all but the teenage Shosanna.

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Whoever said "mediocrity sells" is right, as The Twilight Saga: Eclipse is gearing up for its second week of release $200 million richer. It's amazing what cheesy dialogue and pouty characters can do for a movie. Bella, Edward and Jacob return for the third movie in the four-and-a-half-part series, and thankfully it's no New Moon: it actually has a plot, climax and purpose for existing.
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse starts off where the last one left off, with Bella (Kristen Stewart) head over heels for her vampire boy-toy Edward (Robert Pattison) but frustrated by the lack of Jacob (Taylor Lautner) in her life. Jacob finally does show up, but only to profess his undying love for Bella - oh, and that Victoria has returned to kill her. Victoria has retreated but is building a vampire army in Seattle to take down the Cullen family (and their werewolf neighbors) and get her revenge. The Volturi is also lurking nearby, threatening to take action on their own, but Bella has bigger concerns on her mind: Team Edward or Team Jacob. In one corner, you have a sparkly, cold-blooded, pale dead guy who likes to eat raw meat, and in the other, a tan, warm-blooded guy who can transform into a wolf. The choice seems logical to me, but blame Stephenie Meyer for giving Bella the ability to make all the wrong decisions all the time.

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The story revolves a young man, portrayed by Bow Wow, living in the projects who has to survive a three-day weekend after his opportunistic neighbors find out he's holding a winning lottery ticket worth $350 million.

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The Last Song has Miley Cyrus playing a rebellious and moody teenager who has a certifiably disturbing passion for sea turtles and who has been forced to spend the summer with her father. She is determined to hate it, even though he lives on a beach. Of course, her days brighten when she meets a rugged-but-rich dude who wants her as well, and the two engage in a rocky-but-meaningful relationship. There's some subplot about Miley Cyrus refusing to attend Julliard, and, since this is a Nicholas Sparks story, you know one of the main characters is going to die.

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A surprisingly witty satire of buddy-cop movies—not a parody, not The Naked Gun—this fourth pairing of Will Ferrell and co-writer/director Adam McKay ( Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and Step Brothers) punctures the testosterone bags of a zillion buddy and even lone-wolf cop movies, one or two of which have even featured co-star Mark Wahlberg.

The Other Guys is not the first movie to make sport of such tropes as the mid-movie heart-to-heart where one cop/adventurer/mercenary solemnly spills his backstory trauma to his partner—check out the minor gem Gunmen (1994), where Mario Van Peebles and Christopher Lambert do the solider-of-fortune version—but few have nailed the tone as well as this, with action, archetypes and plot twists all just accentuated enough to wink at you without doing a big, muggy nudge-nudge-wink-wink. Ferrell is a ruler when it comes to playing it straight, and he rules here.

The former “Saturday Night Live” standout plays NYPD Detective Allen Gamble, a button-down forensic accountant, the kind of cop who sniffs out who cooked the books. (I'm New York nitpicking here, but they don't go after scaffolding violations like Gamble does; that's the Department of Buildings.) His partner, Detective Terry Hoitz (Wahlberg), is a trigger-happy loose cannon with nothing to lose. It’s a classic setup, and they start having fun with it almost immediately when action-man Hoitz, fed up with his Prius-driving partner, explodes at Gamble with a macho rant about being a lion while Gamble's a tuna fish—and rather than meekly take it, Gamble responds with self-confident, loony logic that shuts Hoitz down.

The Other Guys is filled with such straight-faced diatribes and asides, and if it's not as dry-witted as "Barney Miller," it uses its bigger, broader canvas wonderfully well. Three words: golfers vs. helicopters. Yeah, I know how that sounds. And you know what? In the big-action context of the scene, it totally works.

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Wry, whimsical and action-packed are not three adjectives you usually find together. But with his zingy indie comic-book adaptation Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, director and co-writer Edgar Wright has pulled off a trifecta of Mixmaster delightfulness, following his zombie tragicomedy Shaun of the Dead and his Wicker Man-like buddy-cop-movie homage Hot Fuzz. Blending his tilted sensibility with that of Canadian writer-artist Bryan Lee O'Malley's manga-inflected, six-volume "Scott Pilgrim" digests proves a much savvier and astute choice than having, say, the science-fiction, high-adventure Fantastic Four movies be directed by the Barbershop guy.

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Have I mentioned recently how much I love Pixar? When you have a company creating film after film, and the worst thing that you can say about its weakest (Cars) is that it was “just good,” then you have a once in a lifetime company to be treasured -- and those who run it should be thanked endlessly for their work.

Some people raised an eyebrow when Toy Story 3 was announced. Was Pixar being strong-armed by Disney just to squeeze more money out of a brand consisting of two excellent movies? Were they running out of original ideas (snicker… RIGHT). Well now that it’s done, let’s be supremely thankful that Pixar veterans Lee Unkrich, John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton brought the now familiar gang back together for a final film.

Prior to the film there was a customary animated short, which I won’t describe in detail to not spoil the surprise other than to say that it was one of the most creative and cute animations I’ve seen from Pixar (and that’s saying a lot). Right up until the end, that is, where it closed with some unnecessary dialog that felt just a touch preachy. But let’s move on to the main event…

Toy Story 3 opens in a similar vein to the previous film, but this time Woody (Tom Hanks) is the hero of the imaginary adventure. We’re in the old west and he’s trying to save a train full of orphans that has been hijacked by the evil Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head. Right from the opening minutes the film will put a smile on your face and please you with surprises.

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In 1845 Canada, young James Howlett sees his father killed by groundskeeper Thomas Logan. The trauma activates the boy’s mutation: bone claws protrude from James’ hands, and he kills Logan. In his dying breath, Logan tells James that he is his real father. James flees with Logan’s abused son and James’ half-brother Victor Creed. The two survive for over a century as men in their prime, living out their violent urges together in the American Civil War and both World Wars. During the Vietnam War, Victor kills a superior after he stops a rape attempt, James defends his brother and the two are executed by firing squad, which they survive. Major William Stryker approaches the two and offers them membership in Team X, a group of mutants which includes marksman Agent Zero, mercenary Wade Wilson, teleporter John Wraith, invincibleFred Dukes and electricity-controlling Chris Bradley. The duo joins the team, but the group’s questionable actions cause James to leave.

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The commercials and trailers for Despicable Me had me hopeful and looking forward to this animated kids’ movie about an older villain trying to remain relevant as a younger bad guy grabs the spotlight. It has the voice talents of Steve Carell (as Gru, the older villain) and Jason Segel (Vector, the younger villain) – along with hundreds of funny little minions that look like yellow pencil erasers. Most everything I saw in the trailers and clips made me giggle (at least a little bit) – but as often happens, the problem is that most of the best comedy bits in the film are shown before you ever pay for your ticket and popcorn.

Gru is the CGI version of the sort of villain that would turn up in a vintage James Bond movie: Thick accent, grandiose plans and the elaborate headquarters and gadgets with which to hatch them. The problem is that there’s a new, young guy on the scene named Vector (previously just “Victor” – but a villain needs a cooler name than that I guess). Vector has been grabbing newspaper headlines and news broadcast attention, while Gru struggles to remain relevant and infamous. He concocts a plan to steal the moon, but needs a loan from the bank (which has a name that will definitely get a chuckle out of the grown-ups in attendance). Sadly, the bank looks upon him the same way the public does – as a has-been. Not the guy worth investing in when there’s a slick new guy in town.

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