5. The Karate Kid
Release Date: June 11, 2010

Reason to see: This is the remake of the very popular 1980’s version. I am not that confident that it will be better than the one in 1980’s, but The Karate Kid is definitely worth watching to see how it stacks up against the original. It is similar to the original, but also different because it takes place in China and the main character is named Dre (not Daniel). Jackie Chan plays the karate master Mr. Han, and it is always worthwhile to watch Jackie Chan in karate movies.

4. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Release Date: June 30, 2010

Reason to see: I am not a big fan of the Twilight series, but I know a lot of people are and that’s why it is included in the top 5 movies to see. This is arguably the most popular series around and it is all about vampires. This is the third movie in the series and should be a hit in the box office. Kristen Stewart, Rob Patterson, and Taylor Lautner will return to play Bella, Edward, and Jacob.

3. Grown-ups
Release Date: June 25, 2010

Reason to see: This cast is loaded with stars, so it has the potential to be very successful. Adam Sandler, Salma Hayek, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider and Kevin James are all featured in this movie about five friends who are reunited after the death of their high school basketball coach. This is obviously a comedy with stars like James, Rock, Schneider, and Sandler, but it looks like a hit-or-miss movie.

2. The A-Team
Release Date: June 11, 2010

Reason to see: This has the potential to be the best action-thriller of the summer. Liam Neeson leads a group of war veterans who are trying to convince the military that they were framed for a crime. This movie is based on an action-adventure television series in the 1980’s. This show had a similar plot to the movie, except the veterans fought in Vietnam, not Iraq. This should be a hit with fans of all ages.

1. The Other Guys
Release Date: August 6, 2010

Reason to see: Will Ferrell stars in what is supposed to be the best comedy of the summer. Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg are two cops who want to be the top cops in the city, though it doesn’t go the way they planned. This movie is supposed to be more on the terms of Anchorman rather than Land of The Lost for Will Ferrell. This should be the one movie that everyone should see this summer.

If you have not seen the trailer, it starts with a truck driving onto train tracks and suddenly the train comes and hits it. A giant explosion happens and the train quickly derails and flips over. The as the camera slowly pans over to the wreckage you hear an almost alien sounding scream as the camera quickly turns to black. The movie is reported to take place in 1979, when Super 8 video cameras where commonly used.

The movie is the first collaboration between Steven Spielberg and JJ Abrams. It is supposedly a modern take on classic alien abduction films. Since Spielberg was at the helm of many of those movies I bet he will be able to give great ideas towards the movie.

The movie has been announced recently but the viral marketing has already started.  The first website www.scariestthingieversaw.com which features an old computers codes and data. The website has many surprises but only a few have been found. I encourage everyone to navigate the page and try to find out more. I am pretty sure there will be many ore viral pages up soon but it takes the fans to find them.

Although this movie is still secretive and there is not a lot known, I have very high hopes for it. I can not wait to discover more secrets and hope everyone online will help uncover the truth about this film.

Unlike its predecessors, Scott took a different approach and hoped to reinvent the legend in some ways, telling the story of how Robin Longstride, played by Russell Crowe, became the infamous Robin Hood we all know today.

The story begins with Longstride as a common archer under Richard the Lionheart during the Third Crusades. When Lionheart dies in battle, Longstride attempts to return to England along with three other soldiers. During the return home, the four stumble upon an ambush, and Longstride is soon tasked with returning a dead soldier’s sword to his father. Longstride and his gang head to the village of Nottingham, where the sword is to be returned. Upon arriving, Longstride is asked to impersonate the dead knight in order to keep the town from being seized by the English throne.

Meanwhile, back in England, newly enthroned King John is showing no mercy, demanding heavy taxation of English citizens. Sir Godfrey, a British Knight, is tasked with forcibly collecting revenue for the King.

I’m not going to spoil the entire plot, but it turns out that Godfrey has his own agenda and conflict ensues. Longstride is soon pitted up against Godfrey, which brings the movie to the closing segments.

While I really wanted to love Robin Hood, I just couldn’t help but find it any better than average. It was a decent movie, and entertaining, however it wasn’t even close to the next “Gladiator.” 

The acting in Robin Hood is solid, but average. Despite a few lapses in Crowe’s accent, he plays a solid character. Not an Oscar Award winning character, but a believable one none-the-less. Cate Blanchett, who plays Lady Marion, delivers a solid performance as well. The acting as a whole however failed to evoke the emotional response that those riveting acting performances do.

 The plot had potential, but left way to many ends open for me to truly feel satisfied at the end of the two and a half hours. Many small aspects of the plot are brought to attention, but then never brought to closure. It was frustrating to really want to know what’s going on, but it never to be thoroughly explained.

The action in Robin Hood comes in bursts. The opening and closing are action packed and exciting, but much of the middle is spent showing farm life in Nottingham, and can become boring at points. That being said, the ending battle, despite the French showing up in WWII landing ships, was a highlight of the movie.

Scott took a gamble when he decided to reinvent the classic legend. For most of the movie, Robin Longstride feels like entirely different character than Robin of the Hood. I cam into the movie with open eyes, but I don’t feel that Scott did the character justice. Yes, the idea was to show the prequel to the classic legend, but the development of the character in my mind wasn’t smooth, and that provided for a rough transition between the start and end of the movie.

Despite my complaints, Robin Hood was an entertaining way to spend my Friday Night. It is a long movie, but for the most part captured my attention, and kept my interest throughout. All the elements in the movie are solid, but they don’t combine to make an amazing movie. It’s an average movie, and I recommend you wait till DVD for Robin Hood. If you want action, your money would be better spent on Iron Man 2.

What was so great about the first movie was that it was the first really good super hero movie in a long time and that made the experience special for everyone. The main problem with Iron Man 2 is that it too heavily relies on the people’s love for the last movie.

Don’t get me wrong, I really liked Iron Man 2. I just think Favreau may have relied too heavily on borrowed excitement. At points it just felt like an extension of the first movie that had been cut for length.

The most common complaint I’ve come across is that the movie is being described as “a really expensive trailer for the Avengers movie.” This issue is actually based in some fact because, at the core of it, that’s exactly what this movie acts as. But, if this is just a movie trailer, then I want to see more entertaining trailers like this.

And that’s exactly what this movie is: entertaining. It doesn’t reinvent anything; nothing in this movie pushes the bar of cinematic technology. It is just an extremely enjoyable way to spend two hours and ten bucks.

The movie goes just as you would expect: the chemistry between Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow is as believable and humorous as ever. The action is as explosive and intense. And the humor is relatively unchanged, which isn’t a bad thing.

The first Iron Man was your typical origins story; the second installment is the more about dealing with the decisions from the first film. Tony Stark (Downey Jr.) is dying, and the device that is keeping him alive is also killing him. He can’t find a solution and time is running out fast.

An egotistical narcissist like Stark confronting his own morality is interesting to see and Downey Jr. pulls it off spectacularly. Every one of the A-List cast plays a believable, funny, and cool character.

The only other complaint I can think of is that the “villain”, who is Whiplash, a relatively unknown villain in the Marvel universe, doesn’t get nearly enough “evil-guy-face-time”. The person who takes that role is Stark’s business rival Justin Hammer. Hammer is played extremely well by Sam Rockwell in the sense that, by the end of the movie, you really hate his guts. The only problem with that is that Whiplash, played by Mickey Rourke, is a much more interesting character who deserved a little more fleshing out.

While Iron Man 2 doesn’t pack as much punch as the first one, it is a still a really good movie and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys this sort of thing and is looking for a fun movie to go see on a Friday night.

 A movie shouldn’t be defined as a big budget blockbuster and automatically be called good. What matters is the story that is behind the effects. I don’t know about anyone else, but when I watch a movie I don’t want to feel my pulse for 90 minutes. I want to be transported outside of my body and escape the troubles of this world.

 This is something that many movie makers neglect nowadays. They think that big explosions and gratuitous violence can take the place of story. Now, if a movie has all of this and still has a story that makes you care, that’s all good and dandy. However, I’d rather watch the original Halloween, rather than the Halloween remakes any day.

This is another problem with movies today. Horror is now classified as blood and guts. It seems movie makers would rather recycle story just so they can up the body count, and increase the sexuality.

 For example, consider the new A Nightmare on Elm Street remake. While this movie is clearly scary, the moments of fear come from scary music, pop out moments, and gore. Why would I want to spend 20 bucks to see that when I can so easily pop the original in my DVD player and watch it instead? There is no reason to be scared when the plot has been discussed for over 25 years.

The original Nightmare was one of the best horror movies ever made. Who could forget those creepy little girls singing “one, two Freddy’s coming for you”?  Who could forget when one of the victims is discovered torn to shreds? Yes, this may be gory moment, but we don’t see the flesh being torn.  All we see is the signature claws that caused such damage.

 Movies today don’t have the same amazement that they once held. Laziness, remakes, and unoriginality ruin what once was.

The Tagline for the series, “He doesn’t fly, he doesn’t have super powers, but he can still kick your ass,” sums the movie up pretty well. He just goes out into the city three times a week and on alternating Sundays to fight crime. The story is well paced and it translates well to the big-screen.
The movie opens and shows us just how bad Dave’s life is. He gets beaten up and robbed and is not very popular with the girls in his school. Then it dawns on him, why can’t he become a super hero? He gets his costume, a brightly-colored scuba suit, and hits the streets.

The story has many twists and turns and manages to keep the viewer interested throughout. Being a big comic fan myself, I may have been biased, but I saw several non comic fans who truly loved this movie. It has love, blood, and humor all rolled into one story. This helps it translate easily into a movie made for true comic fans, but also simple movie goers.

From a comic fans perspective, I noticed several key changes from the comic and the big screen. The Big Daddy character is changed from his original look into a more batman-like figure. His back-story also gets a big revamp, which isn’t bad. They also changed several other characters like Katie and Red Mist. The changes don’t take away from the movie and only alter small aspects that aren’t noticeable. I did think that the changes to Red Mist were entertaining and that the finale of the movie was made much better overall.

I recommend this movie to anyone who has any interest in comic books or that culture at all. But I would also recommend it to everyday movie fans because it’s interesting. Coming out of the theatre you’ll want to come back again because it is an awesome film. I give it 10 out of 10 stars based on its action and story alone.

DiCaprio plays the lead role as Teddy Daniels, a U.S. Marshall sent to the isolated island acts as an asylum for the criminally insane. The purpose for his visit is to investigate an escaped inmate who was sent to the island after murdering her three children.

The other inmates, doctors and men who run the island are of very little help to Daniels, as they provide him with very little information on the escape of the woman.  After the island experiences a devastating hurricane, many inmates escape, communication with the main land is cut off and the ferry on which Daniels arrived is gone.

A typical Scorsese movie, Shutter Island is filled with many creepy, disturbing moments where DiCaprio has dreams and flashbacks to when he was serving in the U.S. army during World War II and his squad entered a Nazi concentration camp. He also has many dreams of his late wife speaking to him. The music in the movie is very scary and sets the mood perfectly.

It would be a crime of me to reveal too much of the plot, because this movie has an incredible twist to it, and the movie is best seen without any prior knowledge of what happens. If I were to reveal some of the important parts of the movie, your viewing experience would be ruined.

Shutter Island is a movie I would definitely recommend watching.

Robert Downey Jr. plays Sherlock Holmes, and his version of the character is more hard-hitting than Holmes as he is portrayed in the TV series or books. Holmes frequently gets in boxing matches and, like the books, is always falling into trouble. Downey is good at portraying the rough and tumble side of Holmes and is surprisingly good at showing his crime solving side.

Dr. Watson (Jude Law) is the faithful side-kick like always. He continually follows Holmes to help him solve cases, even risking his relationship with his future wife to get Holmes out of trouble.

In this movie, the gang is after Lord Blackwood who performs weird human sacrifice rituals. Watson and Holmes save the day and Blackwood is executed- or so they believe. Watson declares him dead, but soon rumors swirl around that Blackwood is back from the dead. Holmes and Watson need to find Blackwood and stop the string of murders that Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) and his gang are carrying out.

Sherlock Holmes is long (more than two hours), but is worth it for the most part. The movie drags on a little bit during the middle, but is highly entertaining as a whole. Both Holmes and Watson are well played, especially Watson, who is very faithful, but at the same time skeptical about Holmes latest little schemes.

I give Sherlock Holmes 3 stars out of 4. The action and acting are both great, but in order to receive four stars the entire movie has to be thrilling. The movie was not great throughout, but overall I really liked it. The plot with Lord Blackwood was very interesting and the twists with Holmes boxing were also very fun and original. The film is rated PG-13, but I think it is good for the entire family to see because there is just some violence and action.  The public’s response to this movie was great: it has grossed 300 million dollars as of January 14. All this means is that Sherlock Holmes is back and as good as ever.

8/10

Thirty years after an apocalyptic event, Eli (Washington) is on a mission to the west coast line. He travels by foot and carries around a book along with normal survival supplies. He has incredible fighting and survival skills and shows them numerous times in the movie through fight scenes and hunting.

Looking for a source of water he arrives in a town which is run by Carnegie (Oldman). Carnegie has been on a search for one specific book since the apocalypse, and when he learns Eli might have the book he’s looking for he tries to use force to take it. While in the town Eli meets Solara (Kunis) while hes at a bar refilling his water. She is also the daughter of Carnegie’s blind wife Claudia (Beals). After refusing to give Carnegie the book he gets into a gunfight with his henchmen and leaves the city. Solara follows him with the hope of accompanying him on his journey.

Along with some interesting secrets about Eli and his mission and some twists along the way “The Book of Eli” is a good movie with an interesting concept. The action is great, from massive fist fights turning into knife fights to gun fights. Moments that would be in slow motion in most movies are shown in real time which gives the fight scene an authentic feel and is a good alternative to most action movies

Another good part about “The Book of Eli” is the cast. Denzel Washington does a great job as Eli, and Gary Oldman plays a very convincing villain with some good motives but one giant bad motive. But Mila Kunis was the best addition to the cast. She does a great job in the movie and works really well with Washington. She was definitely the right role for the film, as the character seemed like it was written for her specifically. The movie is a little bit religious, with Eli being extremely religious and teaching Solara about religion, but its not overly religious.

The ending is interesting and really brings the whole movie together, as the movie is a different look at a post-apocalyptic world, and not like the usual films or video games with the same basis. There were some parts of the story that could have been explained more, along with some parts that seemed useless and shouldn’t have been included. It’s probably a little bit too religious based for some people and some might not appreciate the real time action sequences. All in all “The Book of Eli” is an enjoyable movie, even if you’re just in it for the action.

7/10

Not only does Avatar do this, it creates a whole planet, a unique, breathing planet that for two hours and thirty minuets, you can live in and get connected to. The story breaks down into a very stereotypical tale of, stop me if you’ve heard this one before, a soldier who is sent to spend time with the opposite faction, and after some time in their midst, he decides he likes them better and helps them destroy the much stronger opponents.

While the story doesn’t bring anything new to the table, every other aspect of the movie does. The action, while rather late in the movie, is tense, exciting, and epic. The characters are all well developed and easy to get attached to. But the best feature to the movie is the planet itself.

Named Pandora by the humans, the planet itself is easily the best aspect of the movie. Acting almost as a character at points. Pandora feels alive, vibrant, and most of all, dangerous. The art directors of the film did a painstaking job in order to make Pandora feel like it could actually be a real planet. It seems to be like a mix of a coral reef and a deep jungle. While most of the creatures on Pandora are very interesting, a very small amount border on the ridiculous and will leave you chuckling in your seats.

The movie takes a good long time to get going, but when it does, it really gets going. The last quarter of the movie is full throttle, no holds-back action. Kind of makes you wish the whole movie was like that, but seeing as the setting is totally new, the movie does need a little extra time getting us acquainted with it.

The biggest hype that Avatar is getting is clearly the new CGI technology and the use of the REAL-D. Avatar was shot similarly to 300 in that there is not a scene from the movie that wasn’t shot with some sort of green screen, let alone the full body suits for the motion capture. And all of the years and money that went into making this movie paid off, it looks fantastic. The movie is nothing if not utterly beautiful. And although I did not get the chance to see the movie in 3D, I have heard nothing but good things from people who did.

It’s taken director James Cameron ten years to make this movie, and after seeing it, I say it was worth the wait. Very few things are done wrong in this movie. And while the story doesn’t bring much to the table in the way of innovation, almost every other aspect in the movie does. This is the type of movie that is best seen in theaters at least once before it comes out of DVD. I highly recommend this film to anyone who enjoys a wonderful cinematic experience.