THE WEDDING RINGER

(2015) 101 Minutes, Rated R

Mike's Review: This movie was a riot. I laughed just about all the way through. This is the first movie I really liked Kevin Hart in.  He was way better in this movie than he was in Ride Along.

Also in this movie was Josh Gad.  I have liked him as an actor ever since I saw him for the first time in 21.  I also like the part he played in The Internship and for you trivia types he is also the voice of Olaf from the movie Frozen.

Overall I think the two made a good pair for this movie.  The story was good, the characters were pretty good and the humor was awesome.  It would be interesting to see if they try to do a sequel to this one, because its not doing to bad on the money side, it has almost made triple what it cost to make it and studios tend to like that.

Best Scene:  There were a ton of funny scenes, Grandmother catching on fire, attempted kidnapping, and the bachelor party to name a few.

Mike's Rating: Worth the price of the ticket..

Bean's Review: Fairly good light-hearted comedy.  Josh Gad’s character, Doug, is in need of a best man and groomsmen for his upcoming nuptials to Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting’s character, Gretchen.  The pairing of these two characters is reminiscent of the Big Bang Theory’s pairing of Penny and Leonard.

  

Kevin Hart’s character, Jimmy, has a business that provides best man services, amongst other benefits, to prospective grooms.  Interesting concept and perhaps a worthwhile business pursuit.

Doug hires Jimmy and the resulting storyline has some laughable bits, as well as more serious, introspective bits.

Best scene:  When Gretchen’s grandmother, played by Cloris Leachman, who is a hoot, catches on fire

Bean’s rating:  DVD

PROJECT ALMANAC

(2014) 106 Minutes, Rated PG-13

A.C.’s Review:  Originally supposed to premiere last year under the name WELCOME TO YESTERDAY this movie was held back until this year as it was feared to get lost in the intense competition from movies last spring. Dropping it here in February doesn’t seem to have helped in terms of box office numbers especially with AMERICAN SNIPER dominating the theaters.

Anyway a cast of unknowns whose character names I can’t recall  discover the plans for a time travel machine hidden away by the brainy protagonists late father. The kid along with his equally nerdy two best friends, his sister and a classmate that is his budding romantic interest manage to put the thing together and get it to work.

Instead of using it for big picture things like stopping 9/11 the gang indulges in bettering their lives by going back to cheat on exams, win money in a lottery and rock on at Lollapalooza with back stage VIP passes they bought on the internet long after the concert was over.

Thing go wrong at Lollapalooza when the hero inadvertently squashes his budding romance with Jesse (okay I remembered one name!) and breaks the groups self-imposed rule of never time jumping alone to go back and fix his screw up. It works…he cements his relationship with Jesse but ripple effects began causing mayhem that culminates in their actions contributing to a plane crash killing nearly 100 people. The hero must find a way to set things right though it may cost him Jesse’s love.

All in all who doesn’t like a good time travel movie? This one was fairly well done and competent. It takes a little too long to build the machine but once they do the movie takes off.

With any luck the “found footage” genre is on its last gasp. This movie would have been a lot better as just a regular movie and scrapping the found footage idea. For instance it is ludicrous to believe that when the hero is on the run from the law he would actually keep filming as he is fleeing!

Best Scene: The final jump back in time the hero must make to restore the timeline.

A.C.’s Rating: MATINEE

On a side note…anyone looking for a really good time travel movie go rent THE FINAL COUNTDOWN from 1980. The USS Nimitz is swept into a temporal storm and transported back in the days before Pearl Harbor. Just a great movie…only flaw was it copped out at the end. I really wanted to see 1980 level technology decimate the Japanese fleet before they could carry out their sneak attack.

THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SPONGE OUT OF WATER

(2015) 93 Minutes, Rated PG

Mike's Review: This movie was to me, nothing more than a long episode of the SpongeBob Squarepants cartoon on TV.  They did have about 20 minutes of new CGI FX's for when SpongeBob and crew were on land, that was cool to watch, but overall it was just like any other SpongeBob Squarepants TV cartoon.

My 5 year old daughter really enjoyed this one.  There was a scene where you see part of Patrick's hiney that she thought was a riot. 

Best Scene:  There were a couple of funny scenes.  My daughter thought the "out of water" version of Sandy was funny

Mike's Rating: Matinee. 

AMERICAN SNIPER

(2014) 132 Minutes, Rated R

Bean's Review: An extremely well done adaptation of an extremely tragic story.  Chris Kyle, a US Navy Seal, played brilliantly by Bradley Cooper, is a hero killed by another veteran.

Bradley Cooper steps right into the shoes of Chris Kyle.  As I have only seen Cooper in comedies (i.e. Hang-Over), I would never have thought he would be able to accomplish this portrayal.

Clint Eastwood does a fantastic job of directing and adapting the story to a movie.

Best scene: when Kyle shoots and kills the al-Qaeda sniper, Mustafa

Bean’s rating:  Definitely worth full price ticket, however, due to the sadness of the story, I would have preferred watching it at home.

THE BOY NEXT DOOR

(2015) 91 Minutes, Rated R

A.C.’s Review:  Probably the millionth take on FATAL ATTRACTION but in this case we have a high school literature teacher played by Jennifer Lopez having a one night stand with a 19 year old student that lives next door to her. Unfortunately for her the guy is also a card carrying psycho and doesn’t take it well when  JLO tries to reconcile with her estranged cheating husband.

A lot in this movie as already been seen before but that’s okay. JLO is easy on the eyes and it was pretty much entertaining.

Best Scene:

A.C.’s Rating: 

BLACKHAT

(2015) 133 Minutes, Rated R

A.C.’s Review:  This latest offering from director Michael Mann (MIAMI VICE) dives into the world of cyber terrorism…not for political reasons but as a grandiose scheme by bad guys to make a ton of money by using their hacking skills to…well…it’s all very convoluted so you’d have to see it rather than me trying to explain.

Chris Hemsworth-THOR himself plays a hacker recruited out of prison by the FBI but mostly by a Chinese military officer who handles cybercrimes and just happens to be an old college chum of Hemsworth when the man was studying in the US. Hemsworth is the only one with the skills enough to try and locate the cyberterrorists. If he succeeds he will have his sentence commuted.

His team consists of the military officer, the FBI contact (Viola Davis), his US Marshall watchdog and of course his love interest…the sister of his Chinese pal.

Twists and turns prevail and not everyone lives until the final reel. The movie got some bad reviews but I didn’t think it was all that bad. Not memorable really but there are worse ways to spend your money (THE GAMBLER).

Best Scene: Several pivotal characters bite the dust in a surprise attack by the bad guys with their rocket launcher and machine guns.

A.C.’s Rating: DVD

SELMA

(2014) 128 Minutes, Rated PG-13

A.C.’s Review:  I went to see this on MLK day appropriately enough. The movie focus on Martin Luther King trying to organize a march from Selma to the Alabama capitol in protest of blatant voting rights violation against blacks in the state. When he’s not battling racists MLK is often visiting Lyndon Baines Johnson at the White House trying to get the reluctant President to get busy on Civil Rights legislation.

The movie was okay but it may not get the awards that it was shooting for by releasing on Christmas to qualify for the awards season. There was nothing that stood out  about it other than the mind boggling casting of Tom Wilkinson as LBJ and Dylan Baker as J. Edgar Hoover. These guys look NOTHING like the real men and there is nothing the least bit in Wilkinson’s performance to suggest LBJ is a Texan. Complete miscasting. Also Oprah one of the producers shows up in the proceedings to dust off her SAG card.

Best Scene: The montage of people’s reaction across the nation when they see the brutality of the racists trying to prevent the Freedom Marches.

A.C.’s Rating:  DVD

UNBROKEN

(2014) 137 Minutes, Rated PG

A.C.’s Review:  Sooner or later actors like to get into the director’s chair. With the movie UNBROKEN Angelina Jolie throws her hat in the directing ring. The movie details the real life story of Louis Zamperini…son of Italian immigrants and all around juvenile delinquent. Encouraged by his older brother who sees Louis has a knack for running, the young man soon leaves his behaving badly days behind him to be an Olympic champion in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

The majority of the movie however details how the man literally could not be broken. First he survives for 47 mind numbing days on a rubber raft with two other crewmen when their bomber has to ditch in the Pacific during World War II. Then after rescue he is continually brutalized by a sadistic commandant at a POW camp in Japan. This guys willpower and knack for survival is off any known scale. If it had been me I probably would have died in the raft like one of his compatriots did before I even made it to the Japanese prison.

Jolie does a fine job and for me the highlight of the movie was actually the first half hour detailing a harrowing combat mission. It’s the first movie I’ve even seen that actually makes you feel like you were miles high in the sky inside a bomber and how dangerous it was when Zeros are making a run at you. Plus seeing the formation of Allied bombers in the air was more majestic than any laser guided smart bomb we use today to take out the bad guys. Great special effects were used here.

The movie only fails in  that only at one point in the movie do we ever truly seem to know what Louis is thinking while all this is happening to him. Way to internalized. That flaw aside it was a good movie.

Best Scene: The ariel combat in the beginning of the movie.

A.C.’s Rating:  Matinee

TAKEN 3

(2014) 109 Minutes, Rated PG-13

Mike's Review: With the first Taken movie they really had something and it did so well it surprised everyone. Then they put together a decent sequel, but it wasn't as good as the first, but was still fun to watch.  Now with Taken 3 they were really scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas.  First they have a different actor from the first Taken movie in the "bad guy" husband role and then they kill off Famke Janssen just to get a story line that would warrant Liam Neeson going on a spree of kicking butts and taking names.  They either should have left this line of movies at two, or found a better plot before trying to milk more money out of a trilogy that was never supposed to be a trilogy. Its sad to say but this string of sequels has finally played out for me.  The first Taken is still the best.   

Best Scene:  The fight scenes are pretty good.

Mike's Rating: Matinee. 

Bean's Review: Action packed and entertaining enough, but not as good as the first or second movies.  As I have written before, if you are making a sequel, it should be as good as the first movie or better.  If not, why bother?  

As Liam Neeson’s character is accused of murdering his ex-wife and Forest Whitaker’s character is the LAPD’s Inspector,  I did enjoy the “cat and mouse” interplay between Liam Neeson’s character and Forest Whitaker’s character.  

In trying to track down Neeson’s character, the police “bug” Maggie Grace’s character.  The scene in the ladies room with Neeson, Grace and then the police was intriguing.

However, it was fairly evident that Famke Janssen’s husband was involved in her death.  As an aside, it seems that Janssen’s character’s die in movies (i.e. X-Men).

Best scene: The car chases and pushing Neeson’s character over the cliff

Bean’s rating: DVD