[WATCH] Transformers: Age of Extinction 2014 Full Movie

Click To Watch Transformers: Age of Extinction 2014 Full Movie

[WATCH] Transformers: Age of Extinction 2014 Full Movie - There are some movies where it's best to shut your brain off to enjoy them. Michael Bay's Transformers: Age of Extinction is definitely one of them. A pseudo-reboot that features much of the same elements of the first Transformers trilogy but none of its established human characters, the fourth entry in this franchise is bloated with plotlines, characters, and action sequences that push its running time to 165 minutes of nonsensical madness.

The good news is you don’t have to have seen the first three films to help you make sense of Transformers: Age of Extinction. It really won't help much.

The basic things you need to know are re-established in the first act. Autobots are good, giant transforming alien robots. Decepticons are bad, giant transforming alien robots. But after their battle in Chicago laid waste to the metropolis, the U.S. government is ignoring this distinction, and hunting all Transformers down. When one scrappy but struggling inventor (Mark Wahlberg) stumbles across a battered and broken Optimus Prime, the government finder's fee is tempting. But Cade Yeager is our hero, and so will never betray his new extraterrestrial buddy – no matter what utter destruction it brings into his life.

I wish Bay had some incentive to cut down his Transformers movies, but as audiences have flocked to them even as they gotten longer and longer (144 minutes to 150 to 154 to 165), he has had no cause. Still, this is a very long film that feels very long. It jumps from the central story of Optimus Prime and crew versus all the human-hating Transformers, to Cade's domestic drama with his obnoxious teen daughter (Nicola Peltz), to Kelsey Grammer and Stanley Tucci's plot of Transformer hunting for homeland security, to a grander, undeveloped plot of Optimus Prime's mysterious origins. Like the Transformers themselves, the latest sequel is full of flashy moving parts, but much of it is for show without much function.

With so many characters, Bay struggles to create heroes we care about. Okay, Wahlberg's inventor is instantly likeable – in part because of the star's innate affability and in part because he is set up as a kind-hearted underdog who strives to help others even when he's desperately broke himself. But unfortunately, Cade's plotline is bogged down by his grating daughter and her snotty boyfriend (Jack Reynor), who are so useless and uninteresting that they could have easily been combined into one character or cut out completely. Daughter Tessa is lovely to look at – and Bay's leering camera often reminds you of this fact – but she does little more than lecture her father and scream for help. She's not a character; she's simply a motivation for Cade to leave his humble life behind and play hero. She also serves this function to her rally car racer boyfriend, whose main function in the plot is to shove in Cade's face that his daughter has grown up, and to engage in a tiresome pissing contest with him.

These two harbingers of boredom are ultimately what soured me on Transformers: Age of Extinction. The overstuffed plot I could handle, but spending so much time with these irritating lovers was more than I could take. Thankfully, there are bright spots in the cast. T.J. Miller gets some early laughs as Cade's surfer bro buddy and business partner, while Kelsey Grammer and Titus Welliver play convincingly grim government heavies. Chinese star Bingbing Li should help Transformers: Age of Extinction bring in the sought after China market, but she also offers a small but sharp turn that is slick and fun. The real standout is Stanley Tucci, who plays Transformers's version of Steve Jobs: a billionaire tech guru who in this world has the greatest reactions to Transformer-related mayhem. Tucci breathes humor and quirk into this fatuous summer movie, and makes its lengthy finale fun with his screams of terror, snide asides and wildly ill-timed flirtations.

The Transformers themselves get some added flare in the form of a new batch of Autobots. Bumblebee is back with no mention of his buddy Sam. Optimus Prime is bitter following an attempt on his life, but in fighting form that will have fans of the franchise cheering. New to the crew is Hound, a bearded, cigar-chomping, pot-bellied good ol' boy, voiced by John Goodman. Simply put, he's The Big Lebowski's Walter Sobchak – with PG-13 language – in robot form. There's also a clichéd British gangsta' Transformer, complete with metal trench coat, a samurai, and--as teased in the trailer--dinobots. And they all unite to clash with bad robots chaotically again and again and again.

The narrative loses major momentum when the human heroes squirm aboard a hovering villain spaceship. (I'd say that's in hour five or six). I'm sure there are some that will revel over every moment of Transformer fighting, but after a while it just wore on me. By the final hour, I was hoping every action sequence would be the last. It just began to become a blur of CG metal, crumbling buildings, and mounting human casualties. While I'm all for the occasional mindless action movie, Transformers: Age of Extinction wasn't fun for me. In the end, it just felt long, in no small part because Bay repeats himself in form and function over and over again.

You could make a drinking game out of camera moves (expertly executed) that swirl around the heroes from a low angle, of lustful shots of young Peltz naked legs, and of scenes shot at magic hour. But the biggest problem is that the stakes of Transformers: Age of Extinction feel irrelevant. Every movie it's the same thing. Optimus Prime tries to save humanity – even the jerks – from the big bad Transformers. He might win the battle, but the war rages on and on and on (no wonder some of mankind is beginning to think we won't be safe until both Autobots and Decepticons leave Earth for good). This repetition just begins to feel monotonous and the battles extraneous, which left me trying to find joy and excitement in this film wherever I could. Thank goodness for Tucci and it's truly laughable dialogue like, "I knew you had a conscious because you're an inventor like me!" Without them, Transformers: Age of Extinction would have left me with nothing to cling to. 

Click To Watch Transformers: Age of Extinction 2014 Full Movie

Read more »

[WATCH] 22 Jump Street 2014 Full Movie

Click To Watch 22 Jump Street 2014 Full Movie

[WATCH] 22 Jump Street 2014 Full Movie - There are dual sensibilities at war in the mildly diverting 22 Jump Street. The first, and most obviously prominent one, are the pressures of making a sequel. You can't zag where the first film zigged, lest you disappoint fans who assume they know what they're going to get. If gags worked the first time, they should re-appear, at least in a modified manner to produce an artificial sense of surprise. The whole gang should be back, and their chemistry should carry over. Don't mess with success.

The other sensibility is the satirical one from directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who openly acknowledge and mock that first sensibility each chance they get. Several running gags in the first film gently poked fun at the conventions of remaking a not-well-remembered television show into a big screen comedy, while also pushing the noted homoeroticism and gratuitous violence at the heart of most heavily-masculine action pictures. Here, their target is franchises themselves, as they lay waste to the expectations of a follow-up.

22 Jump Street film is bigger and it freely admits it, repetitive and boastful of the fact, and ultimately completely unnecessary. Lord and Miller have fun with that last insight, but it definitely feels like the act of two gentle mischief makers let loose on a Hollywood soundstage: any sort of incisive commentary gets buried by the necessity of formula.

In 21 Jump Street, the picture seemed to wrap with Schmidt and Jenko trading places. Schlumpy Schmidt (Jonah Hill) became the “popular” one, making friends and getting the girl, and studly Jenko (Channing Tatum) was lost at sea until developing a new range of nerdy interests to better define himself. The plot now takes this duo to college, to launch an undercover drug operation similar to the one that took them to high school in 21 Jump Street, and as a result, the dynamic is switched. Now Schmidt is the loner, ignored at parties and mocked for his lack of athletic prowess, and Jenko has returned to the top of the social food chain. Unfortunately, for this to happen, the growth shown by these characters in the first picture has been undone. Schmidt is still quick to shy from physical activity, and his relationship with Jenko is as needy as ever. Jenko, adorably dim but sweet and intuitive in the first film, now just seems like a standard-issue dummy.

The drug they are tracking is something called Why-Fy, and the investigation feels like it moves as slow as need be to allow for the characters and actors to play off each other, to the point where Jenko and Schmidt openly ignore obvious clues that would shorten the film considerably. Instead, Jenko falls into hetero-love with a fellow frat brother played by the sinister-looking Wyatt Russell (Kurt's son, all chin), and the two of them guilelessly compare pecs and drink all night, even though this guy definitely seems like a potential suspect. Schmidt, meanwhile, falls for a coed played by the gorgeous Amber Stevens, who otherwise doesn't have nearly as much to do as the first film's love interest, Brie Larson. Larson's cut-the-bullshit casualness provided a brief respite from the testosterone-heavy theatrics, but here Stevens takes a back seat to repeated sequences of Schmidt and Jenko having “couples fights” where they address their friendship through the use of oblivious but excessive double entendres. While there are some laughs that come from Jenko's sudden collegiate affection for gender studies, the film also stops short for an excessively ugly joke about how the first film's Mr. Walters (Rob Riggle) has coerced cellmate Eric (Dave Franco) into a sexually abusive relationship against his will.

You don't need to guess that Lord and Miller come from the world of animation, as many sequences feel like MAD Magazine brought to life. Miller and Lord lack the framing skills to make their absurdist jabs land, so these feel like botched opportunities: one joke invents the visual of an entire campus performing the “Walk Of Shame” but each time the lens stays fixed on Hill, neglecting the comic possibilities of a student body made up entirely of regretful hookups. Another moment finds a chase sequences slowed to allow for a “Yakety Sax”-soundalike playing over a building named after a “Benjamin Hill,” which feels more MacFarlane than Looney Tunes.

Instead, a significant amount of time is spent with characters improv-ing back-and-forth to diminished returns, to the point where entire chunks of this film feel stitched up with outtakes. Schmidt and Jenko end up at one slam poetry performance for very slim plot reasons-- a scene that ends with Hill performing a rhyme off the top of his head, a gag that only underscores the film's weirdly belligerent attitude towards art students.

The campus of the film never feels like the elaborate ecosystem of high school from part one, but maybe that's the point, in that it's a place much more difficult to navigate socially, allowing for added tension. It also allows for a few smart casting decisions, like the Lucas Bros., a comedy duo that play laid-back dorm twins Keith and Kenny Yang. And while it's something of a sausage fest, many scenes are stolen by a young comedienne named Jillian Belle, who plays Stevens' pushy roommate and who immediately calls the aged-looking Schmidt on being a narc. She has one late scene, maybe the best scene in the movie, that absolutely skewers Hollywood's conflicting views on sex and violence. Her character also has zero tolerance for Schmidt and Jenko's tomfoolery, and the way her character is introduced into scenes feels like its own record scratch, sarcastically mocking these boy cops who essentially are playing dress-up.

Along with a somewhat-brilliant closing credits gag that won't be spoiled here, but which actively mocks franchise-building, Belle's harsh dismissals feel as if somehow Lord and Miller know that they're wasting their considerable talents on a flimsy premise that has exhausted its own well of jokes.     

Click To Watch 22 Jump Street 2014 Full Movie

Read more »

[WATCH] How to Train Your Dragon 2 Full Movie

Click To Watch How to Train Your Dragon 2 Full Movie

[WATCH] How to Train Your Dragon 2 Full Movie - One great advantage that animated sequels have over live-action ones is simply the benefit of time. Studios will rush to put out follow-ups to their biggest action blockbusters, but the simple nature of computer-generated animation is that projects take years and years to make. Had 2010’s How To Train Your Dragon been made with cameras, film, and practical sets, we probably would have already seen at least one sequel by now. Instead, the medium allowed writer/director Dean DeBlois and the folks at Dreamworks Animation precious time to create a worthy sequel… and that’s exactly what they’ve done in How To Train Your Dragon 2.

Set a full five years after the events of the first film, the movie begins as the Viking town of Berk has managed to completely change its national pastime -- its residents no longer hunting dragons, but instead riding on their backs for sport. It’s a peace that not many have ever seen, and it has provided a terrific environment for Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) to mature in, flying with his dragon, Toothless, to places unknown in hopes of discovering and learning more about the fantastical world in which they live.

Growing up also means a growth in responsibilities, however, and while it’s not something that Hiccup wants, his father, Stoick (Gerard Butler), has told him that he will be the next chief. As much as this is to take in, though, the news couldn’t have come at a worse time: Drago Bludvist (Djimon Hounsou), a blood-thirsty, insane dragon hunter, has mysteriously reappeared with the intent of creating a dragon army to control the world; and an incredibly important person has returned to Hiccup’s life after decades of being presumed dead.

In addition to the time jump making it so that young fans of the first movie have aged almost exactly parallel to Hiccup, it also makes How To Train Your Dragon 2 shift and adapt to tell a different kind of story about growing up – and it accomplishes this in splendid fashion. The journey of self-discovery remains similar, though the sequel raises the stakes for its lead character by both continuing his independent growth while also giving him a better, truer understanding of where he actually comes from and how it has had a deep effect on him. While this is mixed in between fun action scenes and comically overdone “love at first sight” sequences (which are clearly done for the youngest members of the audience), it doesn’t take away from the film’s real emotional honesty, which comes through in an impressively powerful way for a family movie.

As visually impressive as the first film was for its time, How To Train Your Dragon 2 is a stunning example of just how much technology and computer-generated animation has progressed in a short four years. Not only is the setting regularly breathtaking, filling the Viking world with stunning, diverse landscapes of both green and ice, but the character design is something to behold, as well. Both the humans and dragons alike remain delightfully cartoonish, while also having been smartly physically developed and aged, allowing their evolved personalities shine through their outward appearance. (The strongest example, of course, being Hiccup, who is clearly no longer a child and is suited up in an armor packed with all kinds of cool gadgets and tools that best allow him to communicate with Toothless and any other dragons he might happen upon).

In the same vein, the sequel’s action sequences stack up against all of the rival action blockbusters that are hitting theaters this summer, featuring cinematography that would be practically impossible in the world of live action and capturing every fine detail along the way.

How To Train Your Dragon 2 has some structural problems that do lead into some pacing issues (the most notable trouble area coming between the falling action and denouement), and with such an extremely talented voice cast it’s not hard to wish that the supporting characters had a bit more presence and were fleshed out more, but these are relatively minor glitches within what is overall a very worthy follow-up. With How To Train Your Dragon 3 already in the works and scheduled to arrive in just two years, I hope we soon a fitting conclusion to what is already two-thirds of a fantastic trilogy.

Click To Watch How to Train Your Dragon 2 Full Movie

Read more »

[WATCH] Think Like a Man Too 2014 Full Movie

Click To Watch Think Like a Man Too 2014 Full Movie

[WATCH] Think Like a Man Too 2014 Full Movie - The singing alone would preclude me from ever seeing or enjoying this flick. I’m too far removed. It’s on me. Come get it in the comments section if need be. I get that there are probably some influences of this Frankie-Valli style music in the Justin Timberlake’s, Pharrell’s and Thicke’s of the current scene. They are more alike than dissimilar. And that might help win the day with anyone under fifty seeing this adaptation of the popular Broadway play. But I doubt the universal appeal will be there. This is by old people, for old people.

Clint Eastwood directs this story of some Jersey boys getting out of trouble and into the limelight, with all the trappings of fame that come along with it. After an insane run of directorial work by Eastwood with flicks like Mystic River (87%), Million Dollar Baby (91%), Invictus (76%) and Gran Torino (79%) to name a few, he’s seen a drop off recently with Hereafter (46%) and J. Edgar (43%). Are we surprised? Dude is old. Like 150 years old or something like that. I’m young, vibrant, and busy and I don’t have time to look it up. But can we really expect him to continue bringing the fastball? It stands to reason there would by a decline in the quality of his productions. That isn’t to say Jersey Boys will falter mind you. It just won’t live up to Eastwood’s run through the first decade of the 21st century.

A few early reviews are less than stellar. I’m not completely surprised. The trailer alone gave very little buy in to the story dancing around the edges of the biopic without giving any real sense of struggle or conflict. It appears pretty plain and tame. I doubt the source material will warrant anything close the gutter here, but I’d be shocked if it was certified fresh. I’ll put it around the middle, a little lower to coincide with Eastwood’s recent work. Nos go get the helium tank out to do your best Valli impressions.    

Click To Watch Think Like a Man Too 2014 Full Movie

Read more »

[WATCH] Maleficent 2014 Full Movie

Click To Watch Maleficent 2014 Full Movie

[WATCH] Maleficent 201 Full Movie - Maleficent has been declawed. The classic fairytale villainess with a cackling voice, ruby-red lips and that towering headdress has been given a revisionary story that aims to make her lovable. But instead, Maleficent takes the venom out of its fierce titular figure, and rewrites her story to make her pathetic.

Angelina Jolie stars as Maleficent in a live-action origin story that's meant to do for this evil fairy what Wicked did for The Wizard of Oz's Wicked Witch of the West. But where Wicked gave a backstory that made its witch richer in character and complexity, Maleficent's thinly drawn fantasy makes its villain less compelling by softening her story's sharpest edges and remolding her as a scorned woman on a desperate--and confounding--path of revenge.

In this version, Maleficent wasn't always bad. Once, she was just a young fairy with dark wings, big horns, and a blood-red lip (that looks jarring on the child made-up to play Jolie’s younger version). She lived in the Moor, a land inhabited by the fairies, a land where humans fear to tread. But one day, a young thief named Stefan sneaks onto the Moor and has a fateful meeting with this naïve fairy. Over the years, he continues to visit her, and Maleficent falls for him. (Voiceover insists he too fell for her, but I remain unconvinced.) But as an ambitious man, Stefan is offered an opportunity to claim the crown of the human kingdom; all he has to do is betray his long-time fairy friend. The rest is revised history.

There are bare bones of this film that could have been constructed and fleshed out into something fun and fascinating, but as it is Maleficent is a major misfire and laboriously dull. Its script glosses over key character development sections (like the evolution of Maleficent and Stefan's relationship, and her turn to evil) with a quick bit of voiceover, undercutting potential emotional resonance. At times, the dialogue is so on-the-nose that it feels like an early draft.

The script's biggest issue, though, is that its best moment occurs when it full-on steals dialogue from the 1959 Sleeping Beauty for Maleficent’s big “curse” scene. Finally, the character crackles with the kind of mesmerizing energy and sinister glee that made her such an icon to begin with. Sadly, Maleficent's army of screenwriters quickly opts to lessen the stakes of the fairy’s curse… which might make Maleficent easier to like, but also makes her wildly less interesting.

After her curse is placed, Maleficent doesn't lose track of little Aurora as she does in the animated version. She knows the girl is being raised by three "good" fairies--who in this version are creepy, bobble-headed CGI monstrosities that take their true inspiration from The Three Stooges. Maleficent is never far from Aurora, telling the cooing baby that she hates her and calling her "Beastie." Yes, in this version, Maleficent is reduced to the petulant stalker of an infant. It's pitiful and frustrating.

Jolie herself is a major disappointment because if ever a role called for a bit of camp, it's this. Instead, Jolie plays it painfully straight, offering us just three Maleficent modes. There's the curse-scene Maleficent, with her glamorous evil grins and sultry cackles that play so well in the trailers. Then, for the rest of the film, she's either stone-faced or screaming. This choice makes this once-fascinating figure feel flat. And the supporting cast does little to boost Maleficent's liveliness.

The script makes Stefan and Aurora so two-dimensional they barely make sense as characters. His motivations are religiously glossed over, and Aurora is "blessed" at her christening with being default-mode happy all the time. This gives the bright and bubbly Elle Fanning little to do, and as much as Sharlto Copley spins his wheels to give Stefan some traction, it goes nowhere. Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, and Lesley Manville offer a little color as the three good fairies, but their characters are painted--and referred to repeatedly--as idiots, which makes Stefan's decision to have them raise his daughter completely perplexing. The most compelling performance offered in Maleficent comes from Sam Riley, who plays Diaval, the evil fairy's wisecracking, shape-shifting sidekick. With rants about which animals he loathes to be, and an unmistakable presence, he actually reminds us what personality is in this fairy tale world so sloppily unfurled.

It's worth noting this tent pole release that redefines Disney mythos was entrusted to a first-time director. Robert Stromberg was the production designer for Disney hits like Oz The Great and Powerful and Alice In Wonderland. And as you might expect, he makes sure Maleficent's CGI creatures (aside from those hideous fairies) are textured and keenly designed. The Moor is filled with curious creatures, lovingly designed. Unfortunately, they serve little purpose in the story itself, and ultimately come off as elaborate set dressing.

There are picturesque moments in Maleficent, from its anti-heroine's introduction as a young sprite, to her first kiss with Stefan, to her final act of redemption. But Stromberg fails to develop the film's characters, so the movie's emotional moments have little to no impact. Action scenes likewise miss the mark, flying by in bursts and blurs. Ultimately, Maleficent does its inspiration a great disservice, stripping away her reputation as a villainess of dazzling power and style, and making her a wounded and petty ex-girlfriend who decides to unleash her heartbreak on a child. In the end, I regret seeing Maleficent, and to preserve my love of the original version--who was evil, but a great deal of fun to watch--I will actively work to forget this movie as fast as possible. 

Click To Watch Maleficent 2014 Full Movie

Read more »

[WATCH] Jersey Boys 2014 Full Movie

Click To Watch Jersey Boys 2014 Full Movie

[WATCH] Jersey Boys 2014 Full Movie - So you’re planning on checking out Clint Eastwood’s adaptation of Jersey Boys. And why wouldn’t you? The smash-hit musical has been a Broadway staple since 2005, touring theaters from London to Las Vegas and claiming four Tony Awards – including Best Musical – in 2006. Interest in Jersey Boys, particularly from the theater crowd, should be high. Do this instead. Stay home. Light a candle -- preferably a beige or dishwater-grey candle – and watch it slowly melt for several hours. Play Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons records in the background to set the mood. This experience will be far more exciting than actually suffering through Eastwood’s disappointingly flavorless and lackluster on-screen Jersey Boys pass.

Not that Eastwood has made a bad film. Rarely, over the course of his 50-plus years in the director’s chair, has Eastwood delivered an unquestionable bomb. But he has made a dull film, and that betrays the doo-wop energies and disgruntled behind-the-scenes dramas that helped make Jersey Boys such a beloved story for countless theater audiences.

The Jersey Boys, in question, are the members of The Four Seasons, whom Eastwood recreates using cinematic newcomers: lead singer Frankie Valli (John Lloyd Young); troubled guitarist Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza); dependable vocalist and bass player Nick Massi (Michael Lomenda); and gifted songwriter and pianist Bob Gaudio (Erich Bergen), whose late addition proved to be the final piece to the group’s successful puzzle. The Four Seasons topped the charts in the 1960s and ‘70s with ear-catching tunes like “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry” and “Walk Like a Man.” Jersey Boys charts their formative years, their meteoric rise, and the factors that brought most of the members back down to Earth.

Having seen both the Broadway show and this silver-screen adaptation, I have no clue who thought Eastwood was the right director to tell this story. Born and raised in Northern California, Eastwood has no natural connection to the thick-as-thieves Garden State neighborhoods that birthed Frankie Valli. As such, his requisite New Jersey flourishes fall under the category of broad, regional stereotypes that went out of fashion when The Sopranos ended. (What I wouldn’t give to see Marty Scorsese’s Jersey Boys.) As Eastwood also points out in a blink-and-you-missed-it visual gag, the star already was busy with his own acting career when The Four Seasons were making their mark – and while he might have been a fan of the Four Seasons’ songs, he doesn’t spend much time celebrating the impact of their music.

Casting John Lloyd Young makes complete sense on paper, as he took home the Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical for playing Valli on stage in 2006. The brilliant singer hits all of Valli’s impossible notes, but falters in smaller, dramatic scenes when he has to sell emotional moments with Valli’s wife, his daughter, or the feuding members of his band. As he does in the stage show, Tommy DeVito (and his various demons) becomes the focal point of Jersey Boys, and Piazza has enough of an edge to slice through Eastwood’s patented melodrama.

Do you know how musicals usually sizzle and pop, though? Jersey Boys never does. Never even attempts to. Eastwood’s color palette – conceived with longtime cinematographer Tom Stern (Gran Torino, Million Dollar Baby, Unforgiven) – displays that usual, washed out look the director favors. As is usually the case in an Eastwood movie, scenes linger on longer than necessary. The direction is competent, but has so little creativity that when Eastwood finally tries something out of the ordinary – a camera shot that scales the side of a skyscraper and gives us a peek inside various audition rooms – the irregularity briefly shook me out of the mundane coma Jersey Boys had lulled me into.

Eastwood, more than anything, isn’t interested in remaking Jersey Boys, the musical. His film plays the story of the Four Seasons on a far more straight and literal line than the stage show, and doesn’t build to theatrical transitions or show-stopping musical numbers. The only time Jersey Boys resembles a show that started in stage is in the end credits, when the cast reunites on a sound-stagey neighborhood “street” for an up-tempo montage of he musical’s hits. Yet even at the very end, Eastwood freezes his cast in awkward poses before fading to black, leaving them looking like curious wax figures waiting to melt. And we’ve come full circle.  

Click To Watch Jersey Boys 2014 Full Movie

Read more »

[WATCH] Edge of Tomorrow 2014 Full Movie

Click To Watch Edge of Tomorrow 2014 Full Movie

[WATCH] Edge of Tomorrow 2014 Full Movie - When I think of the Tom Cruise action hero, I think: unflappable, fearless, dashing. In Edge of Tomorrow, Cruise jettisons these traits from the film's first scene, and it makes for an action movie that is not only freshly enthralling, but also could usher in a new stage of his career.

Based on the novel All You Need Is Kill, Edge of Tomorrow plays out like an action-packed version of Groundhog Day. But instead of following a selfish weatherman who needs to learn to open himself up and love, we're following a cowardly soldier who has to unlock the key to defeating an alien invasion force that seems unstoppable. Cruise stars as Bill Cage, a military man who has never seen action and contributes solely as a TV personality who talks up the war effort to lure in new recruits. But when his commanding officer decides Cage should take his camera crew to the front lines of their next major battle, Cage's insubordination lands him in the infantry of an unwinnable battle. Cage is dead within minutes.

Remarkably, he wakes up--with a jolt, but as if the day had never happened. He's at the barracks, the day before the battle, back at one, as it were. He doesn't know why, but again and again he is thrown onto the beach, into the battle, and he dies. It's a scenario that would seem to be episodic, but the script crackles with humor and variations, making Cage's deaths and resurrections as funny as they are shocking. Before long, he discovers he's not the first to experience this repeating pattern, meeting literal poster girl/super soldier Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), the Angel of Verdun, The Full Metal Bitch, whose extraordinary combat skills won the day in an epic battle. Together, they team up to use Cage's time-traveling to overcome his Cassandra Complex and save all mankind.

It needs to be said off the top: Tom Cruise is flat-out phenomenal. In the action scenes, he doesn't miss a step, proving once more a believable and compelling action hero. But where the movie earns a great deal of its fun is from the early scenes where Cage is a coward willing to blackmail or even run away to avoid risking his life on the battlefield. It's strange seeing the smiling Cruise play such a chicken-shit, but he sells it. And it makes Cage's arc and plight all the more compelling. He's no hero, but under the circumstances, he must become one. Death is no escape.

Edge of Tomorrow reminds us what a total package Tom Cruise is. He's an extraordinary actor who has an easy comfort in the moment's quieter scenes, but delivers gravitas when needed. He's sensational in the movie's sprawling and spectacular action sequences--full to the brim with extraterrestrial monsters that look fearsome and unfamiliar. His star power shines with every smile and every frustrated death wail (of which there are many). But perhaps best of all, Tom Cruise is really, truly hilarious here.

It sounds gruesome to say that his deaths are played for laughs, but director Doug Liman and editor James Herbert deliver a sharp cut that jettisons us from the cruelty and bloodshed of the battlefield back to Cage's first day in training with a quickness and comedic timing that lands every time. A montage sequence of Cage training under Vrataski, getting injured, then getting shot to "try again" may sound unthinkably dark, but Cruise plays it with frustration instead of fear, making it one of the film's most entertaining sections. (My audience applauded and guffawed again and again.)

I was pleasantly surprised how funny Edge of Tomorrow is, but at its core it is a rousing sci-fi actioner with terrifying aliens, astounding action sequences, and a fascinating story of a world at war. Admittedly, it does pull a cheap shot in its final moments, but it's hard to care too much about this when the final results are so rewarding.

Of course, Cruise's isn't the only notable performance in Edge of Tomorrow. Emily Blunt is a force of nature as the ultimate soldier without mercy or pity. Her Vrataski is a badass that sci-fi fans will cling to as they have Ripley and Sarah Connor. But being as skilled an actress as she is, Blunt also laces in an intriguing emotional thread to her warrior women, without ever making Vrataski seem weak or less than. Also on board as a Kentucky-fried good 'ol boy Master Sergeant is Bill Paxton, who gnaws on every line with a giddy machismo. Brendan Gleeson brings a smirking authority to the role of Cage's commander, General Brigham. Noah Taylor pops in for a brief but bubbly stretch as a "mad" scientist, and even the supporting cast of soldiers bristles with personality and verve.

Edge of Tomorrow is magnificent. After a bit of a slow start, Liman launches us into a war that is gut-rattling in its violence and awe-inspiring in its execution, seamless special effects and action, action, action. Tied to a hero who is initially gutless, we can connect to Cage's fear. When Cruise shifts him into the kind of hero we demand of this megastar, we are hooked hard into this rip-roaring ride. The movie positively pulses with adrenaline, reflected in its powerful performances, clever cuts and its fluid yet exhilarating cinematography that weaves around heroes, explosions, and spiraling space monsters. Edge of Tomorrow will leave you breathless and grinning. Simply put, this is why we go to the movies. 

Click To Watch Edge of Tomorrow 2014 Full Movie

Read more »

[WATCH] The Fault In Our Stars Full Movie

Click To Watch The Fault In Our Stars Full Movie

[WATCH] The Fault In Our Stars Full Movie - When you're a teenager, the world seems chronically unfair, and any little drama can be blown up to feel like a life-or-death scenario. Both of these relatable elements of adolescence have become cliché in coming-of-age narratives, but the tender and tragic romance The Fault In Our Stars gives new weight to these themes through the story of two teenagers who find love while coping with cancer. And remarkably, it's more uplifting than depressing.

Based on the beloved novel by John Green, The Fault In Our Stars centers on sixteen-year-old Hazel Grace Lancaster (Shailene Woodley), who has earned her angst fair and square by suffering through terminal cancer since she was thirteen. Wrapped in sweatpants and self-induced isolation, she's worrying her loving parents (Laura Dern and Sam Trammell). So they push her to make friends via a cancer kids support group.

There, Hazel, who has given up on life, meets Augusts "Gus" Waters (Ansel Elgort), a cancer-survivor/basketball player with an indomitable spirit and an undeniably charming smile. The two instantly connect. And even as Hazel tries to push him away to spare him the heartbreak of her inevitable death, Gus is tireless in his devotion and love. No matter what happens.

This will be a love story that girls cling to and cry over for decades to come. It's got the works: a relatable every-girl wracked with insecurities and fears, a dreamy boy who's kind and endlessly charismatic; an enviable romance; a winsome and sometimes weepy soundtrack; and a finale guaranteed to make you pull out the tissues. Woodley is affable even in Hazel's sharp-tongues angst. Elgort is pretty-boy perfection, with just the right sprinkling of humor. The Fault In Our Stars didn't need to be especially good to pull in teen girls, it just needed to exist in a lull between YA releases. But remarkably--and thankfully--director Josh Boone didn't just strive to make a decent tearjerker. He made a movie that is buoyant with the bitter and the sweet, crafting a concoction that is devastating and exhilarating.

This is a film that was smartly built from the start. Adapting Green's adored story was Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, the scribes behind similarly sharp films like (500) Days of Summer and The Spectacular Now. These guys not only get how it feels to be a teen girl, but also have an extraordinary gift for balancing comedy and drama, plus a fantastic ear for dialogue. The Fault In Our Stars' script shines on its own. Then you bring in Boone's outstanding cast.

Woodley is predictably wonderful as Hazel. The actress who cut her teeth in The Secret Life of the American Teenager is an old hand at portraying teen turbulence and trauma. Whether grappling with her own mortality, her "first time," or how to say goodbye, Woodley pulls us through with Hazel, offering weighted looks and a breathy, sometimes broken narration. Hazel is our center to this world; Woodley grounds her with great care and (fittingly) grace. And her chemistry with Elgort is instantly electric.

Elgort proves he's much more than a pretty face, painting Gus as a young man of great bravado, but deep fears. While much of his performance is non-threatening flirtation and goofing around with his wisecracking bestie, Isaac (Nat Wolff, in a lively and neat performance), Elgort likewise nails Gus' dark moments with an unsettling stillness. In doing so, he makes the threads of The Fault In Our Stars even richer and more vibrant with emotion.

While parents are often shunted to the sides of teen stories, The Fault In Our Stars keeps Hazel's in the mix. And the movie is all the better for it, as Dern and Trammell radiate with love, edged with grief. Too frequently, teen girl stories have their heroines running from their mother's influence, or laughing them off as clowns. But Hazel and her mother are close, and it’s a bond that feels as real and important as her connection to Gus. Trammell is adorable as the well-meaning dad, but its Dern and Woodley's scenes together that really sing. There's a push-and-pull there that many will recognize. It's inherent in the parent-child relationship as you get older, and the dynamic of who takes care of who shifts back and forth. And here, that teeter-totter sensation builds momentum to a fantastic and bright confrontation that rings with the movie's dual tones of tragedy and hope.

I had hoped to enjoy The Fault In Our Stars, but I didn't expect it to hit me quite the way it did. Yes, I cried. But moreover, watching Hazel confront the finite nature of life, realizing how life owes and promises us nothing, so what joys we get should be reveled in while they can be--that hit me at my core. I left the theater feeling light, warm, and happy. It reminded me of the sensation I experienced seeing About Time, where the tragedies just made the victories all the more radiant. I went home buzzing with joy, and feeling deeply grateful for the victories--big and small--in my own life.

All in all, The Fault In Our Stars is a fantastic film. It offers a compelling story told with a great deal of wit, verve, and heart. Its ensemble--from the lovely Woodley to the ire-raising Willem Dafoe--gives its all, fleshing out this romance with zeal and tenderness. Its tone does zig from earnest drama to romantic comedy and back again, but Boone handles these turns with a keen awareness that makes them feel like an inherent part of Hazel's journey. My only complaint is that the final act drags a bit. But even with this flaw, The Fault In Our Stars is a love story that is funny yet heartbreaking, and ultimately wondrous.   

Click To Watch The Fault In Our Stars Full Movie

Read more »

[WATCH] Chef 2014 Full Movie

Click To Watch Chef 2014 Full Movie

[WATCH] Chef 2014 Full Movie - As a critic, it's impossible to watch Jon Favreau's Chef and not feel like he is speaking directly to you. I don't mean in some abstract manner. Chef puts critics on blast, as its plot pivots on the push-and-pull relationships of critics and creators. But it doesn't just lash out at critics. Chef also recognizes what critics and creative hold in common. It's a strange thing to feel called out and ultimately understood. But Favreau has always been a filmmaker with a generous spirit and depth. It's great to see him get back into a film that allows him to show it.

Written, directed and starring Jon Favreau, Chef feels like a thinly veiled biopic. Favreau plays Carl Casper, a chef who built his reputation making incredible food by his own rules. But its main plot picks up 10 years later. Carl no longer is the cutting-edge bad boy, but an executive chef responsible for the success of an expensive Los Angeles restaurant. He still yearns to tantalize his customers with thrilling new flavors, but his hands are tied by the restaurant's owner (Dustin Hoffman), who pays the bills but lacks vision.

Their conflict comes to a head when a food blogger (Oliver Platt) comes to review Carl's menu. Predictably, he writes a harsh (actually cruel) review that pushes Carl to lash out in a public confrontation that gets him fired, kills his prospects, and forces him to take it back to basics. So, with the help of his friends and family, he opens a food truck and reconnects to what inspired him to be a chef in the first place.

It’s a story that--aside from some flourishes like a precocious kid and a drool-inducing attention to food prep--closely mirrors Favreau's own. He broke onto the filmmaking scene in 1996 as the writer and star of the independent hit Swingers. From there he made a name as a director with such whimsical adventures as Elf, Zathura and Iron Man. But then came Iron Man 2 and Cowboys & Aliens, movies that were fun, but earned Favreau some critical sneers. With Chef, he gives critics his response, explaining through Carl's story that sometimes you are forced to do the best you can within the parameters of financiers demands. It's not that your passion has died. It's not that you don't care. And critics saying as much, well, that fucking hurts.

Favreau also shows how criticism benefits creators because it is the food blogger's scathing review that pushes Carl to take risks and rediscover his muse. Chef reminds us that in the end critics and creatives want the same thing: we both want great art, be it food or movies. And while I don't agree with the tone of the food blogger's review--which was peppered with personal attacks--I understood his motivation to write it. Because when you are a fan of an artist--be they a chef or a filmmaker--and they produce something that is profoundly disappointing, it feels like an insult. It can feel personal. Basically, it works both ways. And Favreau's understanding of that makes Chef surprisingly cathartic for both sides.

But maybe you don't care about metaphors or mirrors. Maybe you just want a movie that's fun and heartwarming. Well, Chef definitely succeeds on that front too. Its full of passion and spirit, and reminded me of Favreau's early days, when his films weren't bogged down by special effects and a dizzying roster of characters. Chef is light, jaunty and funny. Favreau grounds us with his big-hearted hero, and pulls us in tight with an excellent ensemble that boasts John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Scarlett Johansson, Sofia Vergara, Robert Downey Jr. and Emjay Anthony, the rare child actor who actually seems like a kid and not sickeningly saccharine screenplay concoction. This cast plays together with an easy familiarity that helps the film zing along as Carl bounces from bad luck to food truck to life lessons and love. It's a rousing story, and a totally charming cast of characters. What's not to like?

All in all, Chef is a stripped down comedy that manages to speak volumes about Favreau while delivery an entertaining ride for those just looking for a movie, not a message. It's a total joy to watch. But one tip: make dinner plans for after, because you will walk away ravenous.

Click To Watch Chef 2014 Full Movie

Read more »

[WATCH] X-Men: Days of Future Past Full Movie

Click To Watch X-Men: Days of Future Past Full Movie

[WATCH] X-Men: Days of Future Past Full Movie - X-Men: Days of Future Past pulls off the impossible. Truth be told, it pulls off several “impossibles.” By seamlessly adapting comic writer Chris Claremont’s cherished, 1980 story arc of the same name into a big-budget, movie-star-driven extravaganza, director Bryan Singer finally delivers on a long-standing promise to X-Men supporters to both honor this cherished, time-hopping narrative and bring the detested, awe-inspiring, mutant-hunting Sentinel robots to the big screen. It’s an X-Men story that’s nearly 14 years in the making. It’s the X-Men movie dedicated fans never thought they’d see. And now that it’s here, it’s the greatest X-Men movie we’ve seen to date, and a new standard-bearer for the massive potential of comic-book franchises far and wide.

Miles and miles of narrative foundation had to be laid out over the years before X-Men: Days of Future Past could even entertain the notion of existing, and that’s one component of the “impossibles” I was referring to earlier. For those who might not know, Singer’s mutant saga relies on time travel to tell a shockingly intimate story that bridges the original cast of the initial X-Men movies – many of whom haven’t been seen on screen in these roles since Brett Ratner’s 2006 sequel X-Men: The Last Stand -- to the younger counterparts introduced in Matthew Vaughn’s series reconfigure, X-Men: First Class. The lynchpin of this streamlined time twister is the series’ biggest star: Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, who is sent back in time by his long-time mentor and friend, Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), to possibly prevent a cataclysmic future.

X-Men: Days of Future Past isn’t a direct translation of Claremont’s revered, two-issue story arc. Details have been altered to make this more of an interpretation, one that borrows significant components from the comics but grows, organically, from the cinematic legacy created by the four previous X-Men movies and, yes, the standalone Wolverine films. While we were so busy heaping praise on Marvel President Kevin Feige and his crew for mapping out a massive Marvel Cinematic Universe, Fox was quietly shifting mutant pieces around a superhero chess board and realizing they had enough moves under their belt to pull off Days of Future Past. It’s remarkable how Days snaps seemingly disconnected pieces of the larger X-Men puzzle into place, justifying decisions made in previous movies and restoring temporary order to the series. Days of Future Past miraculously tidies up the once-disjointed history of the X-Men movies, simultaneously setting the series on an open road to countless future stories. (Look for a brief tease for X-Men: Apocalypse, due in theaters in 2016, in the end credits of this particular film.)

The masterstroke was the hiring of Bryan Singer to return to the film franchise he helped launch back in 2000 with the first X-Men movie. Though we don’t get to spend a lot of time in the bombed-out, post-apocalyptic future world Xavier, Magneto (Sir Ian McKellen) and the older X-Men are trying to restore, Singer opens Days of Future Past with thrilling mutant-on-Sentinel action sequences that remind us what a firm grasp he has on the power and motion of the Marvel mutant heroes. It’s a rush to see Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) grab Bishop (Omar Sy) so they can run through objects as they prepare to fight an army of lethal Sentinels. Iceman (Shawn Ashmore), Storm (Halle Berry) and Colossus (Daniel Cudmore) get to show off their skills. Newcomer Blink (Bingbing Fan) is a surprisingly exciting additon for the way she teleports X-Men around the battlefield. The future-set scenes give Days of Future Past a grim bookend, but they allow Singer and his cast to hit the ground running at a full sprint.

The movie rarely slows down, which is exhilarating for X-Men enthusiasts, but might be too much for casual fans seeking the next eye-popping thrills of the summer blockbuster season. With Wolverine as a guide, Days of Future Past rallies through a number of dizzying plot turns that are executed with hairpin precision, including: a prison break from a Pentagon cell; a violent confrontation at a Parisian peace summit; the creation of the Sentinels at the hands of human antagonist Dr. Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage); an offbeat explanation of the Kennedy assassination, followed by an attempt on the life of President Nixon (Mark Camacho), which won’t make it into any noted history books.

Parts of Days of Future Past can be reductively dismissed as one-note. Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) is treated as a significant threat to this on-screen universe, but her motivations are muddy, at best. The series also has yet to conjure a credibly complicated human villain, and Trask – despite some sinister flair by Dinklage – doesn’t reverse the trend. The human race, in general, has always been the main obstacle in the X-Men movies, and the blind fear we’re supposed to feel when confronted by those who are different continues to be the underlying theme that connects all of the action in Singer’s latest epic. The presence of outlying characters like young Bill Stryker (Josh Helman) feel like unnecessary reaches to previous chapters in the X-Men saga, and add little here.

That being said, James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender dominate Days of Future Past with immense portrayals of extremely complicated individuals. The men continue to probe the psychological tortures that come with playing younger versions of Professor Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr, aka Magneto. McAvoy’s Charles, in particular, stands at a crossroads between wanting to help his fellow mutants but feeling unable to betray the ones he once considered allies. The fact that the future of the X-Men series appears to be in the hands of these towering performers gives me tremendous hope, because they play through the inherently campy tones of the X-Men universe to find real pain and hurt in the missions of these mutant heroes.

The third leg of the Days of Future Past triangle is occupied by the largest star in Singer’s universe: Hugh Jackman. And there’s a totally different dynamic to Jackman when Wolverine is able to steal scenes as part of a larger mutant ensemble. That playful magic, which has been missing in the Wolverine solo films, is back in full force for Days. Jackman’s take on Wolverine – his seventh portrayal of the character – is forceful, funny, casual, arrogant and effortlessly cool. It’s a breathless reminder of all of the reasons we love Wolverine as a character, and it’s the best use of Wolvie in a movie… possibly ever (though I still love his tremendous debut in Singer’s wonderful 2000 X-Men film).

There’s plenty more to talk about in X-Men: Days of Future Past, but the rest of it should be experienced and enjoyed in the theater. Evan Peters’ Quicksilver, for example, is a fantastic addition to the ever-growing mutant stable and a terrific use of Singer’s mutant-friendly imagination. And the film’s coda nostalgically places a well-earned bow on the outcast-driven series. X-Men: Days of Future Past pays fitting tribute to the history of this impressive franchise. It plants more narrative seeds that could be cultivated by either Singer or other vested directors with an interest in Marvel’s mutants. And as it stands, it is the best, most complete and most entertaining X-Men movie we’ve ever seen. 

Click To Watch X-Men: Days of Future Past Full Movie

Read more »

[WATCH] Blended 2014 Full Movie

Click To Watch Blended 2014 Full Movie

[WATCH] Blended 2014 Full Movie - Adam Sandler has some racket going. The comedian’s paid millions to vacation in exotic resort locales under the guise of acting – Hawaii is a Sandler “hotspot,” hosting Just Go With It and 50 First Dates, as examples. Sandler, the executive producer, routinely casts Hollywood’s prettiest actresses as his leading ladies, from Salma Hayek (the Grown-Up films) and Kate Beckinsale (Click) to Katie Holmes (Jack & Jill) and Winona Ryder (Mr. Deeds). Few have called Sandler on this posh and pampered formula he has cooked up, so who can blame him for returning to this well time after time. If it ain’t broke – and box office receipts suggest it isn’t – there’s no need to fix.

Sandler dips his hand into multiple familiar wells for the charming and sweet romantic comedy Blended. Sure, there’s the forced trip to an egregiously luxurious resort – this time as part of a jungle safari in Africa. But Blended stretches even farther back into Sandler’s catalogue by pairing him once again with Drew Barrymore, his adorably off-kilter co-star from 50 First Dates and The Wedding Singer. So help me, it works. Blended is being marketed primarily on the chemistry shared between Barrymore and Sandler, and with good reason. Their interplay, their spark… the palpable on-screen appreciation they seem to have for each other wraps Blended in a welcomingly warm coat of sugar that helps the bulk of Sandler’s silliness go down.

Barrymore, in fact, has a strange – but welcome – effect on Sandler that his other equally beautiful co-stars can’t (or haven’t) mustered. She seems to tame Sandler’s idiocy with her own brand of hippie-dippie, peace-and-love acceptance. The absurd man-child humor and incessant body-fluid jokes that suffocate the potential in movies like That’s My Boy or Grown Ups is tempered under Barrymore’s watch. In its absence, Blended makes room for obvious but half-earnest parental commentary. There’s familial bonding instead of flatulence jokes. Dare I say, Blended is the closest thing Adam Sandler has made to a family-friendly film since Bedtime Stories (overlooking, of course, the animated Hotel Transylvania, which doesn’t fit in the Happy Madison oeuvre).

That’s because screenwriters Ivan Menchell and Clare Sera imagine Sandler and Barrymore as parents. We meet Jim (Sandler) and Lauren (Barrymore) on a disastrous blind date. They can’t get away from each other quick enough, but fate keeps pushing them into each others’ paths. Jim, we learn, is a widowed father trying to raise three girls, and his influence is turning them into androgynous tomboys. (Shake It Up cutie Bella Thorne is unrecognizable as Sandler’s eldest daughter, Hilary, until her eventual transformation from duckling into swan.) Lauren, of course, has two boys… both of whom are more mature than her irresponsible ex (Joel McHale, doing his best Joel McHale).

Blended would like to get these two on an African trip, and it shoehorns that part of the plot, but not before giving us enough time with each family to recognize and chuckle about the contemporary problems Jim and Lauren face. By the time Blended reaches the Dark Continent for the hook of its plot, we know enough about our leads to actually care whether they make a connection or not – and the undeniable chemistry between Sandler and Barrymore goes a long way toward selling the movie’s goal.

Let’s not get carried away now. Blended isn’t When Harry Met Sally, and director Frank Coraci hasn’t turned into Rob Reiner in the years since The Zookeeper or Here Comes the Boom. Blended still grabs cheap physical gags from Sandler’s bag of tricks. But they are undercut with sentimentality this time around, and shock-and-awe supporting roles that normally go to David Spade or Rob Schneider now sing in the hands of the undeniably talented Wendi McLendon-Covey or Terry Crews (who steals scene after scene as an amorous lounge singer at the African resort).

Blended won’t win awards. Thanks to the glut of superhero sagas, it likely won’t even win the box office weekend. But it will appeal to a proven audience who appreciate what Sandler and Barrymore do together, and might even surprise a few skeptics who dismissed the 47-year-old comedian as a viable leading man. Because after scraping the bottom of the barrel in multiple, immature Grown Ups movies, Sandler has grown up for Blended. Temporarily, at least.    

Click To Watch Blended 2014 Full Movie

Read more »

[WATCH] Godzilla 2014 Full Movie

Click To Watch Godzilla 2014 Full Movie

[WATCH] Godzilla 2014 Full Movie - When I first heard that Godzilla was getting an American reboot, my stomach rumbled with a dull sense of dread. The old Japanese Godzilla movies played a major part in my childhood. And after the misfire that was Roland Emmerich's goofy 1998 Godzilla, I wasn't especially hopeful Hollywood understood what made this monster so magnificent. But thankfully, director Gareth Edwards does. His Godzilla is the one America owes the world. It's expansive, epic, and spectacular.

The screenplay by Dave Callaham and Max Borenstein follows the teeny humans scurrying at the feet of this massive, ancient alpha predator who has risen from the darkest depths of the Earth. Bryan Cranston stars as Joe Brody, a scientist whose work at a Japanese nuclear plant clues him into a dangerous trend. It's not earthquakes that are shivering the ground beneath their feet. Yet he's repeatedly ignored, considered a broken, kooky old man by everyone -- even his soldier son, Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). But when a horrendous monster cracks free from its towering cocoon, Joe’s research proves pivotal in making sense of a world where ancient beasts make mankind into metaphorical insects.

Gareth Edwards owes Roland Emmerich a great debt. Not only did Emmerich's Godzilla provide some lessons that Edwards clearly took to heart (avoid New York, hokey dialogue and campy humor), but also he directed one of Godzilla's clearest influences. This rebooted Godzilla owes a lot of its structure to Emmerich's outstanding Independence Day. Like that action-adventure, Godzilla globetrots, following not just the monsters' paths of destruction but also the impact it is having on mankind. We leap from the Philippines to Japan, Hawaii to the West Coast of the United States. And all along the way, Edwards keeps us in contact with the Ford family, the research team led by Ken Watanabe and Sally Hawkins, the military troops led by David Strathairn, and occasionally touches down on little moments with background extras just to reinforce the thread of this being a battle that affects the entire human race.

It's a difficult thing to shift a movie's focus to so many different threads, but Edwards manages to do so without Godzilla ever feeling scattered. The titular monster is the center of this web of stories, and Edwards never lets us forget how they all connect. In the many monster fight scenes, he is careful to reveal Godzilla from human perspectives, as opposed to the old school, profile wide shot of two gargantuan beasts squaring off. Instead, we get shots from the ground showing Godzilla's massive foot, which could crush an airplane. Glimpses of him are snared through the windows of skyscrapers. And in one of the film's most thrilling sequences, we get a look at Godzilla's face through the perspective of the paratroopers launching down for a harrowing rescue mission.

These clever camera angles keep us rooted in the peril of the humans onscreen while always emphasizing the astonishing scale of these beasts. Adding to the film's incredible sense of tension, Edwards also carefully teases out the reveal of Godzilla. The spines of his back breach the ocean's surface in one of the film's nods to Jaws (along with its attention to including tender, character-building moments and having a hero named Brody). Then his foot. His torso. Finally his face.

The design of the monsters is at once familiar and fresh. The visual effects in the film are flat-out awesome, but the creation of Godzilla is literally breathtaking. I actually squealed with unadulterated delight as the movie monster I remember so fondly from my youth roared to life before me, bigger, brawnier and more badass than I'd ever seen him before. I felt like a kid again, and was radiant with excitement.

The visual effects are stupendous. But Edwards was also smart enough to select a really impeccable cast to breathe life into the film's emotional core. Everyone in the ensemble from Bryan Cranston to Juliette Binoche, Ken Watanabe, Sally Hawkins, David Strathairn, Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, breathe an incredible authenticity into the narrative and its characters. There are no hammy stereotypes here. Instead, this cast deftly creates people who ground this larger-than-life story in a way that demands your attention, and will rattle you to your core.

Godzilla is everything you want out of a summer movie. It's got a world and story so big that it demands to be seen on the biggest screen. It is anchored by performers who treat the narrative and genre with incredible respect. It has some of the best visual effects we're likely to see this year, and it is electrifyingly thrilling. All in all, Godzilla is the best disaster movie since Independence Day. 

Click To Watch Godzilla 2014 Full Movie

Read more »

[WATCH] Wolf Creek 2 (2013) Full Movie

Click To Watch Wolf Creek 2 (2013) Full Movie

[WATCH] Wolf Creek 2 (2013) Full Movie - Back in 2005, writer-director Greg Mclean cracked open the Australian outback as a place perfect for a predatory serial killer with an obsessive hatred of tourists. With Wolf Creek, he took some tendrils of true and tragic stories of missing persons, and spun a tale of torture and murder so twisted that is was impossible to shake. Now he's returned with Wolf Creek 2, a sequel that aims to expand on the malevolent mythos of the horror franchise's villain Mick Taylor, but offers little in the way of new thrills.

I still vividly remember moments of Wolf Creek, which I watched in a huddle of friends trembling together on a futon in its crude couch position. I also remember how the fear the film stirred in me followed me on the long walk back to my own home.

Set in Wolf Creek National Park, my friends and I suspected we were in for some brand of extraterrestrial terror because of some red herrings early on. Then we were introduced to the dynamic and terrible Mick Taylor, a mix of three Australian icons. He's got a dash of Crocodile Dundee's folksy charm--not to mention his first name. Add to that Steve "The Crocodile Hunter" Irwin's passionate distaste for imported feral pigs, but expand that to a hatred of foreign-born people as well. Then, add to that the M.O. of convicted serial killer Ivan Milat, who is believed to have murdered a string of backpacking tourists in the 1990s.

With a chilling mix of menace and playfulness, actor John Jarratt brings all these influences together to create a truly gruesome yet engaging villain. In Wolf Creek 2, Mick Taylor is once more on the hunt for "pigs," turning random tourists into squealing, bleeding masses of flesh. It's horrific, involving casual threats of rape, over-the-top revenge, dismemberment, and ultimately a grim tour through Mick's own personal house of horrors. Audiences that cheered over the Saw and Hostel franchises will have new reason to rejoice, but personally, Mick's latest adventure did nothing for me except make me feel sick.

Wolf Creek 2 is a deeply disturbing movie, mostly because it doesn't seem to know who it wants its audience to side with. Are we to root for Mick's prey to survive? Or are we to relish along with him in the torment he inflicts on others? I'm genuinely unsure. Initially I had thought we were being set up to think of Mick as a twisted folk hero, as his first scene is being hassled by some power-hungry cops who pulled him over without proper cause. They are jerks who humiliate him, and he's all smiles and apologies. But of course they won't get off that easy. Mick uses the tools from the first film--his truck, gun, and knife--to exact a nightmarish revenge. And this is just a bloody preview to the gore in store, he assures us with a smile and a hero's walk off into the sunset.

Repeatedly, Mick is treated to Western iconography, like some cowboy of the Outback with his gun, wide-brim hat, and even a horse! But the brutality Mick inflicts is too gruesome to enjoy him as the film's hero or even anti-hero. Unfortunately, we're offered little else.

His next targets are a pair of German backpackers, who get only the most perfunctory and clichéd character development before Mick's arrival makes them little more than scream soundboards. When an English tourist crosses their path, he gets ensnared in Mick's homicidal brand of nationalism, and seems to take over the role of the one we're meant to root for. But once again, his introduction is so rushed, it's hard to feel terribly attached to him. Mostly, all my empathy was purely based on the physical pain the characters were experiencing under Mick's attention, not for any emotional connection or sense of relating.

Because of this disconnect, I found Wolf Creek 2 dull despite all its ardent blood and shock tactics. The severed storyline that leaps from one victim to the next didn't help in pulling me in. But to Mclean's credit he finally digs into something richly horrible when Mick takes one of these poor visitors into the bowels of his secret lair. Before it spins out into a ghoulish and sprawling display of Mick's murderous depravity, Jarratt shares a scene with Ryan Corr that is gut-churningly tense and traumatizing. Mick offers this tourist a way out by means of a high stakes quiz. I'll explain nothing more specific, so as not to ruin the scene. But allow me to say: in this intimate and claustrophobic setting, Mick is at his most fascinating and frightening. I made me wish more of the movie had this kind of focus, rather than tedious chase scenes around the Outback.

Ultimately, Wolf Creek 2 doesn't hold a candle to the first film and so fails its most compelling character. Mick is a villain who is at once repulsive and riveting. I had been excited to see where else his story might go, but was frustrated to find that most of this journey is a retread, from the victims to the method of violence, to the dissatisfying tie-in to its "true events" inspiration. However, in the movie's third act, Mclean and Jarratt hit on something interesting and unnerving. I was never actually scared watching Wolf Creek 2, but at least its climax seriously freaked me out. 

Click To Watch Wolf Creek 2 (2013) Full Movie

Read more »

[WATCH] Million Dollar Arm (2014) Full Movie

Click To Watch Million Dollar Arm (2014) Full Movie

[WATCH] Million Dollar Arm (2014) Full Movie - The sports movie genre is heading in a very strange direction. While these films have classically been about the coaches and the players, the last few years have shown us an interesting shift, with films like Bennett Miller’s Moneyball and Ivan Reitman’s Draft Day instead putting the spotlight on the men in suits who view sports more from a business perspective than an athletic one. This trend continues in Craig Gillespie’s based-on-a-true story baseball drama Million Dollar Arm, and also proves that now is the time that we need to start actually getting back to the game.

Based on a script by Thomas McCarthy, the film begins centered on J.B. Bernstien (Jon Hamm), a sports agent who is forced to do everything in his power just to keep his head afloat. When he finds himself completely out of ideas to save his career, he gets sudden and strange inspiration to travel to India and try and convert a pair of cricket pitchers into Major League Baseball stars. Despite being given only a year to find and develop his discoveries (and told by every baseball professional he meets that what he’s doing is basically impossible), J.B. makes his way around the South Asian nation and finds Dinesh (Madhur Mittal) and Rinku (Suraj Sharma), two players who had never picked up a baseball in their lives and actually showed playoff potential.

Presented with the idea of turning this true story into a Hollywood movie, the filmmakers behind Million Dollar Arm undoubtedly started the process by choosing what set of eyes the audience would see the tale unfold through, and to put it bluntly, they chose wrong. While Hamm puts on a fine performance and the character actually gets to experience some solid emotional moments, ultimately the audience isn’t really given a reason to cheer for his efforts outside of the fact that he’s the lead character. In addition to being portrayed as being a little too well off for a guy who is supposedly struggling with his career (you should see the guy’s house), he really lacks fortitude and constantly needs the people around him to bring him back from the brink. This isn’t necessarily a bad trait for a person to have, but it doesn’t work as the personality driving the plot.

Adding insult to injury, Million Dollar Arm not only keeps all of its Indian characters strictly on the supporting level, but is also somewhat demeaning towards them. Traveling to India, J.B. experiences a great deal of culture shock that’s played up for comic effect (such as his experiences with a whole new level of traffic on the roads and doing business with bribes), but it’s all cloaked in a “Please get me out of here” feeling that radiates off the lead.

Conversely, when J.B., Dinesh and Rinku make their way back to Los Angeles, the newcomers are in awe of everything they see -- from big television to pizza to elevators. The movie seems to go out of its way to make its foreign characters seem silly or stupid despite the fact that they are the ones who are meant to possess the film’s most important talent.

This would be at least somewhat excusable if some time was taken to legitimately flesh out Dinesh and Rinku’s characters beyond their freakish ability to pitch and their inexperience with American culture. But Million Dollar Arm doesn’t deliver in that area either. The future baseball players are given only a few scenes each for explanation as to where they come from, and only a couple more actually feature just the two of them talking with each other about the experience and hardships that come with being a stranger in a strange land playing a strange game. This is unfortunately rather symptomatic in all of the supporting characters – including J.B’s love interest/guest house-renter played by Lake Bell, his conveniently Indian co-worker played by Aasif Mandvi, and the rough-edged baseball scout played by Alan Arkin – but the problems stick out more with Dinesh and Rinku simply because it’s their story that the film should really be telling.

Million Dollar Arm has some genuinely funny moments and features some legitimately gorgeous cinematography capturing the various Indian landscapes, but can never outrun the fact that its basic approach to its subject matter is flawed. Watching a sports game, I’m not thinking about all of the executives and agents selling players as products, but instead acknowledging the skill and athleticism that few people in the world possess. It’s become clear that Hollywood is in desperate need of a reminder of this. 

Click To Watch Million Dollar Arm (2014) Full Movie

Read more »

[WATCH] Stage Fright (2014) Full Movie

Click To Watch Stage Fright (2014)

  [WATCH] Stage Fright (2014) Full Movie - Perhaps the most reviled branch of horror is the horror musical. Sure, we can name some unquestionable successes in this offbeat genre, from Frank Oz's Little Shop of Horror or Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street to and the cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show. But these victories are few and far between, standing out amid a flock of forgettable and uninspired features that either failed to thrill with their music, their terror, or both. Into this problematic subgenre comes Stage Fright, a slasher flick set at a summer camp that caters to musical theater kids.

Stage Fright stars Allie MacDonald as ingénue Camilla Swanson, a timid singer haunted by her past. Since Camilla was a little girl, she has dreamed of following in the footsteps of her Broadway star mother Kylie Swanson (Minnie Driver). Not even her mother's horrific murder following the opening night performance of "The Haunting of the Opera" can deter Camilla's drive. So when the summer camp where she works decides to stage "The Haunting of the Opera," Camilla does anything it takes to land the lead, a role originated by her mom. But this revival also raises the bloodlust of a killer, who stalks the camp slaughtering any who believe the show must go on.

It's concept is imaginative, allowing writer-director Jerome Sable to poke fun at Glee-like theater geeks as well as slasher-horror conventions. Coming off its world premiere at the SXSW Film Festival, Stage Fright heads toward its theatrical debut with some impressive buzz. But does it deserve it? Yes and no.

I was pleasantly surprised by the film's first act. The setup of Kylie's debut and subsequent murder are done with a confidence, and a surprising amount of style considering the film's low budget. Better yet, Sable shows he won't shy away from gore just because there are showtunes in the mix.

Then we leap to 10 years later, where Camilla is grown, shy, and dying for her moment in the spotlight. The camp is introduced with a jaunty and irreverent musical number, where all the campers rejoice about coming to a place where they can be their weird selves without worry. It's sweet, silly and speaks to a feeling that many a theater kid will recognize. But in this number, we begin to see where Sable's ambition outpaced his ability.

While many of the lyrics are clever and cutting; the performers singing them are serviceable, but far from great. MacDonald sings a lot throughout the film, and regrettably, her charm doesn't extend to her singing voice, which is shrill. I had hoped Meat Loaf, who plays Camilla's guardian and owner of the camp, would bring his trademark pipes and bravado to the soundtrack. No one could accuse Meat Load of phoning it in as an actor here. He commits to this campy camp film with all he's got. But his singing in the film in no way compares to the glory days of Bat Out of Hell. And when we get to our heavy metal-singing serial killer, his shrieks undermined what could have been a truly scary villain. I get that it's a musical, but Sable should have taken a cue from the Halloween and Friday the 13th franchises. Slashers are scariest when they are silent.

Halfway through the film, I was wishing someone would give Sable a bigger budget to remake Stage Fright. He's got a great concept. The song numbers and set-ups are pretty solid, and the violence is brutal in a way that should appeal to horror lovers. But his cast lets him down, and the orchestration for the film often sounds amateurish. Had the music been better performed or bolder, Stage Fright's stumbles--including a third act that proves pat and predictable--could be more easily overlooked.

Stage Fright clearly suffers from a low-budget that hurt Sable's ability to bring his vision into better focus. Nonetheless, the film is sick, silly and entertaining. It's got a daring sense of humor and admirable earnestness. With allusions to Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Carrie, Mean Girls and Hellraiser, it's culled together from a strange snarl of inspirations. But even with its bumps and warts, it works. Best of all, Stage Fright has a playfulness in its mix of music, comedy, and horror that make it an inventive and worthwhile addition to this tricky subgenre. 

Click To Watch Stage Fright (2014)

Read more »

[WATCH] Neighbors Movie Full Movie

Click To Watch Neighbors Movie 

[WATCH] Neighbors Movie Full Movie - Neighbors is Animal House, but told through the perspective of Dean Wormer (John Vernon). It’s Old School, if that juvenile frat-guy comedy sympathized with Jeremy Piven’s hysterically oily and conniving Dean Pritchard. In other words, Neighbors cleverly presents the archetypal party-hungry college hooligans, but asks us to now side with the older, out-of-touch losers on the outside of the celebration, looking in.

And that’s exactly why the fresh, relatable comedy works as well as it does.

Nicholas Stoller also directs comedies that tend to avoid clear-cut “good guys” or “bad guys.” Kristen Bell’s bombshell wasn’t a bitch in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, so our allegiances often shifted between her and her sad-sack ex (played by Jason Segel). The longer The Five-Year Engagement stretched, the harder it was to know whose side to take in the marital squabbles between Segel and the beautiful Emily Blunt.

So even when the war escalates between the badly behaved members of the Delta Psi fraternity and the peace-seeking suburbanites of a once-quiet neighborhood, we rarely know which party’s most at fault. All we know for sure is the fact that the combat’s funny as hell.

Neighbors pulls off a bit of mature miscasting by asking Seth Rogen to play the “responsible” adult. He successfully sheds the slacker cape he usually adorns to play Mac, new dad and semi-hard worker who has sunk every penny he and his wife, Kelly (Rose Byrne), have into their new home. They’re setting up shop for their baby girl Stella (twins Elise and Zoey Vargas, giving the most adorable child performance I’ve seen on screen in decades), and are horrified when members of the Delta Si frat move in next door.

We feel their pain because Stoller takes the time to establish Kelly and Mac as a family – albeit one that’s still in its own infancy stages. The new couple don’t really want to full embrace the prospect of being parents (in an hilarious montage sequence, they think they can bring Stella to a rave, but tire themselves out wondering what to pack for baby’s night out on the town). Kelly and Mac, in a warped sense, see the frat as an opportunity to prove that they aren’t the square, old and invisible people they fear they are becoming. They can still hang with the new generation, swallowing mushrooms, passing bong hits, and crossing streams as you piss into a fountain.

Anyone who has tried to party for more than 48 hours straight knows that the lifestyle’s going to catch up, eventually, and sooner or later, a wedge is driven between Kelly, Mac and the boys of Delta Psi. That’s when Neighbors finds its wicked groove.

Do you know who is really funny in Nicholas Stoller’s Neighbors? Like, "steal the show" funny? Zac Efron. Oh, I can hear you bitching and moaning already. Save it. Efron uses every tool in his box to keep up with (and often ahead of) a fast-and-filthy talking Rogen as Neighbors works up a disgustingly funny lather. Stoller, in his editing room, cherrypicks some of the best ad libs from hysterical supporting cast members like Dave Franco, Ike Barinholtz, Jerrod Carmichael and Jason Mantzoukas – who gets the comedy’s best line as a doctor with horrible timing.

Neighbors goes beyond the easy Geeks vs. Greeks, and can’t be dismissed as a one-joke comedy. Stoller actually could trim the run-time of Neighbors, as the back-and-forth between the warring parties goes from inspired to childish and more than a bit exhausting (particularly in the explosive finale). But the film has multiple, huge laughs. It plays extremely well with a crowd, particularly one that can be plugged in to the movie’s anarchistic rivalry. But that works against it, in a sense. Neighbors is worth your time, but it’s also one of those relentlessly dirty comedies that you’ll watch on cable months after you belly laughed through it with your friends and wonder what, exactly, was so hysterical.

Click To Watch Neighbors Movie 

Read more »