The Avengers movie is full of suspense and action. There was action throughout the movie and especially at the end, never letting the movie get dull. Along with that the graphics, were amazing. Everything in the movie looked like it was real and not CGI. This made the movie very enjoyable. The Avengers even had some comedy making this one very good movie.

Even without the great graphics the movie still would have been enjoyable because of its plot. The movie’s plot was good and added suspense. The movie’s storyline is about Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Hulk, Hawkeye, and Black Widow as they try to find Loki and stop him before he opens a portal to another world that allows the enemies armies to invade the earth, while they try to work together as a team.  It is a good plot with some twists throughout keeping your attention.

The acting was superb and all of the actors fit their parts perfectly, really bringing the movie to life. The actor who played Loki (Tom Hiddleston) really played him well. His character was completely believable, it really did seem like he was a self centered, power hungry, ego maniacal villain.  Robert Downey Jr., who played Iron Man, was as good as ever. He played Tony Stark’s snide personality perfectly with his habit of never taking anything seriously and his hilarious jokes. I also felt that the actor of Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) really portrayed the quiet yet very deadly character that is the Black Widow. Chris Evans, who played Captain America, did a good job also, reprising his role from Captain America:  The First Avenger.  He was always trying to be the best he could be and trying to keep the team together.  Newcomer Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) was also good, but he did not appear much throughout the movie.  Despite his short amount of screen time, he is the only completely new person in the movie and I do think he did a good job.

Overall I greatly enjoyed this movie and I would want to see it again.

Mass Effect 3 is a third person shooter/ RPG developed by Bioware and published by EA.  It is the thrilling conclusion to the Mass Effect trilogy and was released March 6, 2012.

Your primary objective in Mass Effect 3 is to stop the Reapers at all costs.  For people who haven’t played any of the games in the Mass Effect series, I will provide some brief information that you should know.  The Reapers are a massive army of giant, sentient “space ships” that reveal themselves every ten thousand years to harvest all forms of intelligent life.  These life forms include the main races of the Milky Way Galaxy: humans, asari, salarians, turians, krogan, and quarians.

As Earth and many other planets are being slowly overwhelmed by the Reapers, you take control of the veteran Alliance officer, Commander Shepard.  As Shepard, you fly across the galaxy in your ship, the SSV Normandy, trying to unite all the races of the Milky Way and acquire war assets to aide in the fight against the Reapers.

The setting of the Mass Effect series spans across the entire Milky Way Galaxy.  Over the course of the game you will be doing a lot of long distance space travel.  This is made possible by mass relays, which are basically giant rail guns used for covering massive distances in miniscule amounts of time.  Some of the locations that you visit are the post apocalyptic, krogan home world of Tuchanka; the militarized, turian moon Palaven; and the “capital” of the galaxy known as the Citadel.

Many improvements have been made since Mass Effect 2.  First off, the RPG aspect of the game has been upgraded.  In the second game, you would get points for leveling up that could be placed in your abilities.  All it did was power them up until the last upgrade where you could choose one of two options.  Now, there are many more options for customizing you and your squad mates’ powers.  Another big improvement is the ability to modify your weapons.  You can purchase an all around performance upgrade and you can also add attachments.  These attachments can include enhanced scopes, larger ammunition clips, and so many other enhancements to improve your firepower.

There are not many down sides to this game.  The only thing that I can really see wrong with it is that it feels shorter than the last game.  In Mass Effect 2, you had to do missions to recruit most of your crew.  Later in the game, you had missions you could finish to gain your squad mates’ complete loyalty.  In Mass Effect 3 your squad kind of forms as you progress through the missions.  This time, you don’t need to win their loyalty.  I can see why this would help though.  Instead of focusing on individuals, you are supposed to be focused on the big picture: the safety of the galaxy.

Mass Effect is known for its deep, enthralling single player experience.  With Mass Effect 3, Bioware decided to take a chance by adding online multiplayer.  This proved to be a success even though it messed with the formula of the game a bit.  The multiplayer, known as “Galaxy at War”, consists of four player co-op matches in which players must work together to survive waves of enemies.  While this new mode provides hours of fun, it also affects the single player.  When you get through the waves of enemies successfully, your galactic readiness increases for single the player.  This, rather obviously, is how ready the galaxy is to fight the Reapers.

All in all, Mass Effect 3 is a truly awe inspiring game.  In my honest opinion, it has already secured its position as game of the year.  It has the perfect balance between narrative and game play.  If you consider yourself a gamer, you need to buy this game.  Before buying it though, I would highly recommend playing through the first two games so that you understand the plot and get the complete Mass Effect experience.

I’m sure most people know the story of The Lorax from the picture book by Dr. Seuss. When the Once-ler (a mysterious faceless being) begins chopping down truffula trees to create his own, multipurpose product, the Lorax appears. The Lorax is a forest guardian who “speaks for the trees for the trees have no tongues.” Despite the Lorax’s best efforts, however, the Once-ler successfully destroys, pollutes, and sells, until the entire forest is gone.

At first I was a little skeptical about how a fairly short book could become a full length movie. I was pleasantly surprised; the movie was entertaining while still keeping the environmental message.

The movie essentially has two different viewpoints: the story of the Once-ler, and the story of Ted, a young boy who seeks out the Once-ler to impress a girl. Through the Once-lers narrative, and Ted’s own actions, the movie shows how important it is to protect the environment, and how much you lose when you destroy it.

Unlike the book, the movie Once-ler has a face and a back story. He comes from a family from which he is ostracized and his dreams are dismissed. He finally sets off to seek his own fortune which does not come easily. One can therefore understand where he’s coming from when he ignores the Lorax’s warnings and proceeds to increase his production of thneeds, causing massive damage to the forest and its inhabitants. Humanizing the Once-ler was a good strategy, because most people don’t set out with the sole purpose of destroying the world, they end up doing so because they don’t stop to think about the consequences of their actions.

Another part of the movie that rings true about our society is the bad guy: Mr. O’Hare, the tycoon making billions of dollars by selling people bottled air. He has discovered that the more polluted the air gets, the more bottled air he can sell, so he’s willing to use any means possible to stop Ted from reforming Thneedville. This mirrors the difficulties we face now, where oil and car companies fight against more sustainable options because they will lose profits.

The movie was peppered with unexpected songs that were quite good. In particular I liked the one called “How Bad Can I Be?” which plays during the Once-ler’s production boom.

I don’t have much criticism for the movie, but there are a few things. One is that there were a few points, such as when Ted was riding his moped, where you saw just the characters’ hands on the handlebars, and then the view ahead of him. While that might just be for a 3D effect, (as I realized afterwards,) it still screamed to me as a set up for a video game.

Overall, I really liked the movie. It brought the environmental message across while still being fun and accessible. It’s definitely a good movie to watch.

The Hunger Games takes place in a future North America that is in ruins. It is split into 12 separate Districts, each providing a different product (textiles, coal, etc.). Each year a boy and a girl, between the ages of twelve and eighteen, are selected from each District and forced to fight to the death in a manmade arena. The arena has traps and can be controlled by the Gamemakers, engineers who designed the arena. This is done as a reminder of a revolution that happened years ago. A person may enter their name in as many times as they want to receive a bigger ration of grain and oil. At sixteen years old, Katniss Everdeen’s name is being entered into the drawing five times, and her younger sister Prim, who has just turned twelve, will be entered for the first time. When Prim is chosen, Katniss volunteers for her as Tribute, as she may have a better chance surviving the arena than Prim. Katniss is skilled with a bow and arrow and can hunt very well, having to provide for her family since her father died.

The big question of the movie: will Katniss survive in the arena?

At first I thought that the movie was going to be horrible compared to the book, as has been the case for films like Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, Cirque du Freak, and the Spiderwick Chronicles. However, for the most part, both book and film were alike. There were obviously differences because you can’t put everything from a book into a movie, so I was disappointed by some of the small details, but they didn’t change any large obvious details.

I really liked the beginning dash of the contestants to the Cornucopia, where all the weapons are stashed in the arena. I feel that the scene captured the rushed emotion and craziness of being amongst children who will try to kill you. The fighting was awesome; it was very well paced and captured the frenzied instinct for survival.

If there was one thing I didn’t like it was the depiction of the Careers. The Careers, youths from Districts 1 and 2, have been trained their whole lives to fight and kill and then volunteer at age 18. In the film, they were way too cuddly with each other. They would drop hints that they liked each other when they really would want to kill each other! In one scene when they were sleeping, they had their arms wrapped around each other. They didn’t seem that focused on killing quickly, and they made a game out of the competition, though I guess that’s what the government wanted.

Regardless, I give the Hunger Games a 9.9 out of 10, only because it didn’t come out any sooner.

-Robby Filec, volunteer as Tribute from District Clarion.

In this novel, everyone has a fury. A fury is a manifestation of an element that allows the person with that type of fury to command that element. Everyone has a fury, except for Tavi. Tavi is an outcast because he does not have a fury.  He is thought of as a freak and looked down on.

Tavi’s life is already complicated, but it gets worse when he runs into a Marat scout, an enemy to his land, and nearly dies from the encounter. From there he needs to warn the his country men of the possible impending doom. But even as he gets help, things are getting worse, and soon everyone he knows could die.

 Furies of Calderon is an amazing and captivating book. I really liked it, and once I started reading it, I couldn’t put it down. It is full of twists that make it hard to predict what is going to happen, and it keeps your attention. The characters are intriguing, and you quickly become attached to them. The book is also funny, making you laugh throughout the book.

The book has multiple story lines that tell you what is happening throughout the realm from multiple points of view. I prefer books to have only one point of view, but this book worked really well with the multiple points.

Still, author Jim Butcher didn’t really explain that much about furies. So you don’t exactly know what they are. Other than that, I felt that I was a really good book that I enjoyed immensely.

Overall I really did enjoy the book. It was a great read, one that I would gladly read again. I cannot wait to read the second book in the series Academ’s Fury.

 A young reporter in London named Tintin buys a model of a famed ship known as the Unicorn.  He is interrupted by a man who tries to buy it back from him saying, “It’ll get him into a mess of trouble.” Tintin decides to do some research, leading him farther into the mystery of the Unicorn, Sir Francis’ family, and the greatest sunken treasure in the world. This unravels a fantastic adventure for the entire family.

The film itself is certainly amazing within the realms of CGI, creating almost shockingly realistic computer images. The company responsible was the same that did The Polar Express, which received harsh critiques for the visuals being too in-between realistic and non-realistic. The company has obviously improved since then, showing its newfound skill to create the fantastically detailed visuals in Tintin. Not a single hair seems out of place, the water looks great, and the characters look almost real enough to be live action actors. It’s almost surreal just how realistic this movie looks.

The balance of themes from adult to child are also done very well. There is no skipping on violence, but it’s slightly tongue in cheek.  Despite the pure number of people shooting MP40’s at Tintin, he never even gets near a bullet, only firing his gun a total of two times the entire film. Yet there is a lot of featured shooting and violence and obvious going on about Captain Hadock’s (Tintin’s companion) raging alcoholism. So even though the film is marketed towards children, it’s not as if it’s some little kid’s tale; there are some rather mature moments.

All and all the film is a fantastic blend of whimsical storytelling and cinematic moviemaking. Anyone who goes to see this film can have a great time for one reason or another, a fine film with amazing visuals, fun for the whole family.

This tale was set in the 1960s and it portrays the lives of rich white families and the black maids who work for them. There are three main characters: maids Minny Jackson (Octavia Spencer), Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis) and Miss Skeeter (Emma Stone), the daughter of a cotton plantation owner. Minny Jackson is a tempestuous and outspoken woman who is unafraid to stand up for herself or her beliefs. Her fiery personality often gets her into trouble with her employers and also provides much comic relief. Aibileen is a repressed woman who struggles daily with the grief of her dead son. She looks to fill that hole with the little girl she cares for: Mae Mobley. Miss Skeeter is a recent college graduate who is stuck between the old way of life and her progressive ideals. She sees the Jackson society as an opportunity to analyze that life and advance her writing career.

Miss Skeeter decides to write a book detailing the lives of the black maids in Jackson. Reluctantly, Aibileen and Minny agree to help. Eventually, many more maids join the experiment. Each person involved is concerned about the very real danger they face. None of them want to be subjected to hate crimes or be sent to prison, so they hide their identities.

Writing Miss Skeeter’s book is half the battle. The events that follow its publication are even more challenging.

As a book, The Help was nicely written. It was complex and had a plethora of multidimensional characters. At times, the book tended to ramble and not progress the plot. It also jumped inconsistently from one perspective to the next, which disrupted the flow of the story and caused confusion.

This story was presented much better as a movie than as a book. The plot was streamlined, which solved the inconsistencies and the confusion. The downside to making the plot more understandable was that many lovely scenes and details were cut or arranged in a different order.

In both the book and the movie, an important theme shines through. That theme is that every person is important and that every person has a story to tell. Aibileen sums up that theme perfectly with the saying, “You is kind. You is smart. You is important.”

This story is a wonderful example of how anyone is capable of realizing their true potential in the face of adversity. The strong women of Jackson, Mississippi can be an example for anyone who wishes to stand up for their beliefs and tell the world their story.

Albert Narracott, played by Jeremy Irvine, is a young adult living with his parents on a farm in Devon, England leading up to the First World War. Albert’s father Ted, played by Peter Mullan, much to his wife’s dismay, buys a young colt at an auction in town. He made this rash decision simply to spite his landlord who attempted to outbid him for the horse, which ended in him overpaying for a meaningless thoroughbred because the reason he went to the auction in the first place was to buy a plow horse. The Narracott family was now left with a mounting debt, a worthless plot of land, and a disobedient horse. Albert, upon seeing Joey, immediately agrees to train the horse, and the two quickly become friends. With Albert’s determination and Joey’s strength, the two overcome many difficulties but are eventually torn apart.

The family cannot overcome their mounting debt, so Ted is forced to sell the horse to the English army when World War I breaks out. Albert is heartbroken but is eventually old enough to leave home and enlist in the army. Though the two don’t come into contact throughout the war, they both deal with their own struggles and touch many lives throughout their separate journeys.

This film has a fantastic storyline throughout and ever disappoints. The journeys of both Albert and Joey kept me engaged for the two hour and twenty six minute running time. As Joey touched the lives of many, including a young French girl and a German horse named Topthorn, I couldn’t help but feeling like I was part of the storyline and traveling throughout the devastation in Europe. It is a rarity to find a story that captures the true essence of friendship and love, but War Horse accomplishes both with an unprecedented combination of overcoming hardships and living in the moment.  

Spielberg, known for his excellent filming locations in previous movies including “Saving Private Ryan” and the Indiana Jones series, spent 64 days traveling throughout England filming the movie. The scenery and location of all of the shots were fantastic. The Narracott home all the way to the battle scenes in war torn Europe; every shot was top notch and covered every angle.

The film had very few flaws, if any. Spielberg recaptures the magic of cinematography in this emotional triumph. War Horse is sure to capture the heart of the audience long before the credits roll.

That is, until Professor James Moriarty, played by Jared Harris, a man as devious, cunning, and smart as Holmes himself, happens to change that. The only difference between Holmes and Moriarty is that Moriarty no problem killing people to achieve what he wants. What that is, we don’t know, and what Holmes hopes to find out. Moriarty sends Watson and his beloved a wedding present, and soon after that the chase to stop Moriarty is on.

I liked this movie for a many reasons. The technology and weapons were more up to date than in the first one. There were a lot of weapons used in WWI used in this movie, like the German bolt action rifle, the Kar98k. Holmes also switches from a revolver to a Mauser 1896 machine pistol. He also has a car, not a modern one, but the kind that looks like it was put together like a kid. It was very cool to see how far cars have come, since some did look like that. Also, there was an apparatus that made oxygen, which Holmes’s brother had for some reason. They also show Holmes’s brother, Mycroft Holmes, played by Stephen Fry. He is a funny character and brings a new air to the movies. I mean, there shouldn’t be just one Holmes, should there?

The main thing I didn’t like about the movie was the action, well, I liked it, but was annoyed by parts of it. It was good when Holmes goes into the mode where he sees the fight, plans out what he’s going to do, and then does it. That’s the only good slow motion part. The other action was slow motion. When they are running in the forest, it’s all slow! It’s annoying because none of the action really surprises you, because you can see it before it happens. Honestly, it makes it even more unrealistic. It should have been regular speed and more of Watson fighting like the soldier he is. He didn’t once use his cane sword (at least, I don’t remember him, using it, and he used it all the time in the first). Secondly, the movie was pretty easy to second guess. I kind of saw the end coming. It wasn’t as complex as the first movie, which really had me going, because it was hard for me to piece it together.

The film was good, but the action was too slow. I recommend not making any plans or make plans for the movies, because you should see Sherlock Holmes 2. That is, unless you don’t like watching a movie with some romance, explosions, action, slow motion action, guns, weird objects, and witty sayings. Honestly, who doesn’t?

Infamous: Festival of Blood is the downloadable follow up to Sucker Punch’s open world game Infamous 2.  Festival of Blood was released on October 25, just in time for Halloween and is a PS3 exclusive (just like the other Infamous titles).

At the beginning of the game, Cole Macgrath is rushing through the catacombs of a cathedral.  He heard screaming, so he decided to help whoever was in trouble.  Various people were injured after being trapped behind debris blocking their way out.  One of the women that Cole tries to help though turns out to be a vampire, who thusly knocks him out.  When he comes to, he is on top of the shriveled corpse of Bloody Mary, a female vampire.  He is then restrained by a few other vampires as one of them opens a vein on his neck.  This allows blood to drip into Bloody Mary’s mouth, causing her to come back to life.  Since he was bitten, Cole is now a vampire.  He must defeat Bloody Mary by the next day or else she will gain complete control over him and then the other citizens of New Marais.

Similar to Infamous 2, Festival of Blood takes place in the southern Louisiana city of New Marais.  This time around though, we have a date (kind of).  In New Marais it is Pyre Night, a festival where hordes of people, drunk or not, roam the streets dressed as monsters.  The city is decorated accordingly too, with straw “monsters” burning at the stake.  One of the major differences regarding the setting is the fact that you only get to run around the first area from Infamous 2.  This means that you only have about a third of the original map to explore.  It’s okay though, since Festival of Blood is much shorter than its predecessor. 

In Festival of Blood, the upgrade system for powers has been majorly downsized.  Instead of unlocking powers by performing a specific stunt multiple times and then having to buy them with experience points, you are just given the upgrades directly.  Upgrades are obtained when you kill a certain number of vampires.  Also, since the game isn’t as large as Infamous 2, there are not as many upgrades and you cannot switch between them.

Even though there are fewer upgrades for Cole’s electrical abilities, he still gains new powers in Festival of Blood.  Being a vampire actually has some perks.  One of the vampire powers that Cole gains is called Shadow Swarm.  This power allows you to transform into a group of bats to fly long distance across New Marais.  Shadow Swarm basically makes Cole’s parkour skills and Static Thruster power irrelevant.  The only downside to the vampire powers is that to use them, you have to drink the blood of civilians. 

One of my favorite improvements in Infamous 2 was the melee.  Festival of Blood keeps the improved melee virtually the same.  There are only minor aesthetic differences this time around.  Near the beginning of the game Cole loses the Amp, which was a weapon that harnessed his electric powers into a deadly, brute force.  He replaces it with a metal cross he finds right after losing the Amp.  The cross can effectively conduct electricity and it has a spiked, wooden tip so that Cole can kill vampires by staking them through the heart.

One of the features that makes the Infamous series unique is its karma system.  In Festival of Blood, the karma system is left out.  At first, this seems wrong, since the karma system was what set the Infamous series apart from other games.  When you think about it though, Cole needs to drink the blood of civilians, so he would always be getting bad karma.  Even though it makes sense that they would leave it out, it still feels like Festival of Blood is missing something.

Overall, the game is pretty good.  While Festival of Blood doesn’t have the same variety of upgrades that Infamous 2 had, it adds completely new vampire powers that sort of fill the upgrade gap.  The melee is still great, but it’s lame how using an ultra combo doesn’t kill vampires.  You just can’t get as immersed into the game like how you could in Infamous 2.

If you played Infamous 2, you should definitely download Festival of Blood.  If you are a newcomer to the Infamous series though, you should play the first two games before getting into Cole’s latest adventure.