movie review

Non-Stop (2014)

nonstop

Non-Stop (2014)

Director:

James Collet-Serra

Starring:

Liam Neeson

Julianne Moore

Scoot McNairy

Plot:

An air marshal springs into action during a transatlantic flight after receiving a series of text messages that put his fellow passengers at risk unless the airline transfers $150 million into an off-shore account.

Review:

I guess I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel with Red Box lately. The movie started out slow even though someone died fairly quickly. Maybe I just wasn’t in the right mind set? I don’t know.

I had been told there was a twist ending so I was waiting for it but it never came. Or if that was the twist it was hinted at too hard and wasn’t a surprise. I was actually really disappointed by the ending. Didn’t like any of the characters, even though I love Liam Neeson and Julianne Moore.

Just very underwhelmed by the whole thing and a bomb blew up on a plane. Sad.

2/5

3 Days to Kill (2014)

3 days to kill

3 Days to Kill (2014)

Director:

McG

Starring:

Kevin Costner

Hailee Steinfield

Connie Nielsen

Plot:

A dying CIA agent trying to reconnect with his estranged daughter is offered an experimental drug that could save his life in exchange for one last assignment.

Review:

I hate scarves on men. It makes them look like douche bags. That’s just my personal opinion, though.

Not a very good spy. He talks too much about his daughter, it’s like he’s asking for her to get kidnapped. Dude have you not seen Taken?

The movie tries to be funny with Ethan, Kevin Costner, trying to spend more time with his daughter while also trying to find some dude and kill him. It just ends up being said and pathetic. It’s an action movie that’s trying to be funny, but it’s too serious to be able to pull it off.

The “albino” wasn’t scary, and he was supposed to be. The women in the film were the only good part. He doesn’t kill the bad guy with the dirty bomb because he told his wife he’d quit. Seriously?

2/5

The Expendables 3 (2014)

Expendables 3

The Expendables 3 (2014)

Director:

Patrick Hughes

Starring:

Sylvester Stallone

Jason Statham

Jet Li

Harrison Ford

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Mel Gibson

Wesley Snipes

Dolph Lundgren

Randy Couture

Terry Crews

Kelsey Grammer

Antonio Banderas

Plot:

Barney augments his team with new blood for a personal battle: to take down Conrad Stonebanks, the Expendables co-founder and notorious arms trader who is hell bent on wiping out Barney and every single one of his associates.

Review:

It sucks that this movie got leaked, but then it sucks that they screwed over their fans and made the movie PG-13. I don’t expect much of a story from an Expendables movie but I do expect lots of blood, action, and violence. When the best part of the movie is the dialog you know that something is wrong.

The best parts were Kelsey Grammer, Wesley Snipes, Harrison Ford, and Antonio Banderas. The kids might not have even been in the movie, though if they weren’t we wouldn’t have the awesome scenes with Grammer. I wasn’t expecting much from Banderas but he was crazy and not what I had anticipated. I expected more from Snipes, but apart from the beginning, he was barely in the movie.

Evidently the original cut was four hours long but obviously it couldn’t be that long so they cut a bunch. At least I hope that’s what it was, because there were a lot of parts where it was just what the hell? They had a dude for half an hour just jumping up an elevator shaft. They’d just cut to him randomly.

There are a lot of people in the Expendables movies but unlike the Avengers movies they have a hard time finding a good balance with characters. That’s actually something I wish they had done with these, have build up. One movie shows off how much of a badass this character is and then another movies does the same with another and then they team up to kick even more ass. But that hasn’t been done so I should just get over it.

I really liked the first two Expendables movies, they were on the cusp of being awesome and with each one they just fell a little short. They suffered from too many quick cuts, poor editing, and bad CG. This one had that times a hundred. My hope is that they cut a lot to get a PG-13 rating and that when the extended cut comes out on Blu-ray I get a better movie.

3/5

Despicable Me (2010)

despicable me

Despicable Me (2010)

Director:

Pierre Coffin

Chris Renaud

Starring:

Steve Carell

Jason Segal

Russell Brand

Plot:

When a criminal mastermind uses a trio of orphan girls as pawns for a grand scheme, he finds their love is profoundly changing him for the better.

Review:

I’m not sure why but I didn’t like this one as much as the second. I should have. Part of why I liked the second one was how adorable Gru was with the kids and there was certainly this, but it just didn’t get me like it does in the sequel.

My daughter liked this one better. Well, she paid attention more with this one. She’s still little though so movies aren’t really her thing.

I wonder why they picked those names for the girls? Very old lady names, I wonder if that was on purpose?

Still really cute movie and evidently I can look forward to more in the future.

4/5

Author’s Anonymous (2014)

Authors-Anonymous-movie-01

Author’s Anonymous (2014)

Director:

Ellie Kanner

Starring:

Kaley Cuoco

Teri Polo

Tricia Helfer

Plot:

When a dysfunctional group of unpublished writers accept Hannah into their fold, the last thing they expect is her overnight success. Can these lovable misfits achieve their artistic dreams and avoid killing one another in the process?

Review:

Wow so maybe I just took this movie the wrong way because I call myself an author. The movie was incredibly insulting and did not do a good job of depicting authors. At least the authors I know. I thought I’d give that as a disclaimer so people can keep that in mind when reading my review.

Anyway, it was very predictable. I called the blond sleeping with the punk kid at the opening. For the most part the movie was just a steady stream of insult to people who want to be published writers. The fact that the whole group imploded because one of them got success is really sad. It didn’t make matters any better that she slept her way to success.

It was supposed to be a documentary, they addressed the cameras often enough, but there were lots of shots that couldn’t be done with that approach. Inconsistent.

Just overall a real disappointment.

1/5