SPOILER REVIEW: The Amazing Spider-Man 2

It's a rare occasion that I do a spoiler review for a movie. Usually I like to avoid any chance of me spoiling a movie for someone else, so I just revert to talking to someone in person when I want to talk about the ending. In fact, I've only done two spoiler reviews on this blog -- one for last year's Iron Man 3 and one for this year's Noah. Right when The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ending, I knew that a spoiler review was going to happen because the majority of why I liked the movie so much was because of what happened in the end. And these were points that I couldn't just keep to myself. I needed to get them out in a blog post. I chose, however, to wait for a few more days to write this as to give everyone time to go see the movie if they want to. Now that this time has past, it's time to jump in and dissect this movie. Moving on to the next paragraph means that either you have already seen the movie and want to see what I thought about the ending or you simply don't care if the movie is spoiled for you. If it's the latter, you've officially been warned and thus the responsibility of the movie being spoiled is removed from my shoulders and given to you 100 percent.

One of the things that I have appreciated about The Amazing Spider-Man franchise is that it seems more true to the comics in my opinion. Sure, there's the argument that comics often have many different writers, stories, versions, etc., so is there really a set canon? Is it possible to be "more true" to the comics when often the comics aren't even true to themselves? It's a valid point and I'm not going to just skip over it, but generally speaking it seems that Sam Raimi with his Spider-Man trilogy grabbed a bunch of popular Spider-Man characters and did whatever the heck he wanted with it. Compared to the comics, it was very blended. Does that still give it a pass? Well, sure. If an adaption of something is done well, I can still enjoy it despite the changes made. While Spider-Man 3 crashed and burned in a disgustingly awful mess, the first two I still think are good movies. But when The Amazing Spider-Man came out it just enlightened my mind. It felt a lot more like the Spider-Man that I loved as a kid. And it's not that Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 suddenly became awful movies. They just became inferior, much like Edward Norton's version of the Hulk. I liked it. But when Mark Ruffalo took over, suddenly I forgot that Edward Norton's Hulk existed. It became inferior. Same here.

Point I'm trying to make with this? Now that I've fluffed this up enough, I feel it's safe to say. The Amazing Spider-Man went true to the generally accepted comic book version of Spider-Man. At least one of them. The one where Peter Parker dates Gwen Stacy before he dates Mary Jane. As goes the comics, in the midst of a duel between Spider-Man and Green Goblin, Gwen Stacy gets killed. This made me nervous. Why? Because The Amazing Spider-Man cast Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy. That movie made me fall in love with Emma Stone. And yet I knew that if they were going to stay true to this comic book, they were going to have to kill her. I did not want this to happen. But I knew it had to. And I was pretty certain that it was going to happen in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, especially when Mary Jane was cast in the movie. However, shortly after casting Mary Jane, they cut her out of the movie. This caused me to let my guard down. We have one more movie before Gwen gets killed, I thought. Or perhaps they have seen how popular Emma Stone's character has become that they have decided to just keep her. Hopefully?

Jumping into the movie, a lot of the movie is relationship drama between Peter and Gwen. Sometimes I hate it when a movie spends too much time with relationship drama. Thus was the case with Peter Parker and Mary Jane in the Sam Raimi trilogy. This time, though, I liked it. Why? Throughout the movie, Peter keeps getting haunted by Gwen's father. At the end of the first, her father's dying wish to Peter was for Peter to keep Gwen out of this. He struggled with this at the end of the movie, but decided to go ahead with it anyways. Some would've preferred this to be the end of the drama and for everything to be hunky-dory. To me this is unrealistic. If something like this happened in real life, it would be normal for things to be constantly going up and down. It was especially important here because we all knew that Gwen was supposed to be killed off. Thus the drama to me was interesting. Is Peter going to risk Gwen's life so he can be with her? Or is he going to cut ties with her for good in order to potentially save her life? Not knowing the end from the beginning, this may be a bit cliche and boring, but knowing the end makes this intense. As Gwen is going off to London, you are sad because they are splitting up but happy because it means she may survive for longer. But then Peter made the decision to stay with her and you jump for joy because they are together, but you freak out because you know this means she is in trouble. Thus all the romantic drama kept my undivided attention.

And now we move to the final battle. Electro. Peter has made the decision to stay with Gwen and follow her to London when suddenly all the power goes out. Electro has been freed by Harry Osborn (we'll get to him in a bit) and now Peter must stop him. But he doesn't know how. And this is where Gwen once again proves that she is the best superhero girlfriend ever. She is the one that helps Peter figure out a way to stop Electro. That is boss. Sure, Peter was the one who jumped in the Spider-Man outfit and defeated Electron, but Gwen was the brains behind the whole thing. And actually, at the end of the battle, Gwen's direct actions is what made Electro explode. She beat Electro. You don't get that very often. And that is why I love her. Quickly on Electro before I continue with more important things, is he the most important character in this movie? No. Could he have been completely cut out? Absolutely not. I loved his character arch. I loved Jaime Foxx' acting. I thought he was a really awesome villain, both in terms of how looked and how he fought. Him versus Spider-Man was fun to watch and the movie would've been empty without him because you know that Green Goblin is more of a teaser for future movies.

Moving on, up to this point I still was fully convinced that Gwen's time was not up. Her and Peter had just teamed up to beat Electro and I thought perhaps that's where they were going to end. Harry had messed himself up pretty badly, but I still felt he was going to come into play later. Then all of sudden he showed up in between both of them all decked out as Green Goblin. This is where I froze in terror. I was not ready for this to happen, but yet I knew it was going to happen. Gwen was going to die. Suddenly I shriveled up in my seat and the rest of the movie was like a horror movie for me.

But let's pause. I need to talk about Harry Osborn. We'll continue this in a bit.

The Harry Osborn in this is a very different Harry Osborn than the Sam Raimi Harry played by James Franco. He's a troubled Harry with a dark past. You can tell he's had this built up emotions from an awful relationship with his father Norman. To make matters worse, right before Norman dies of this terrible disease, he tells Harry that he has the same disease because it is hereditary. Throughout the movie you see matters go from bad to worse and he breaks when Spider-Man refuses to help him. Harry had believed Spider-Man's blood could cure him, but Peter didn't want to take that risk. To me it's a much more believable transformation to the Green Goblin than in the Sam Raimi films. Not only is it written well, but Dane DeHaan blew the performance out of the park. James Franco did a good job as the Green Goblin in those older films, but how it was written felt a bit forced. It hinged on Franco being butt-hurt that Spider-Man killed his dad. He didn't even allow an explanation. Then suddenly after a long time with a good past and good history, he's a villain. But only for like part of the third movie before he comes back again on Peter's side. It didn't work for me.

Now back to the point where Green Goblin shows up between Gwen and Peter. I loved his reaction. When James Franco learned that Peter was Spider-Man, he was blind-sided and didn't know what to do because he didn't want to hurt his best friend but he wanted his revenge on Spider-Man. This time around, the reaction was opposite. When Harry made the connection, he didn't feel remorse. All he felt was extreme hatred and betrayal. And he acted immediately by killing Gwen. I think that was very well written and not only made for an extremely tense ending, but it also sets up for a great rivalry in the next couple of films. I hear a lot of people complaining that he was "shoe-horned" into the movie just like Venom in Spider-Man 3. I don't understand this at all. They spent half the movie building up Harry's story line. And while there wasn't much face-to-face combat time between him and Peter, we all know that he as the villain is going to play a huge role in the next couple of films. Poor comparison.

Now to the death of Gwen. Like I mentioned, I knew this was going to happen in this movie, but then I talked myself out of it. I didn't even catch the build-up, so when Harry showed up it was a complete shock to me. I was planning on preparing myself emotionally and mentally for this time, but when it did happen suddenly, I wasn't prepared. Thus I feel I had a huge part of me ripped out with no warning. It was devastating. I feel I still am trying to recover from this. I fell in love with this girl when Spider-Man fell in love with her and now that she is gone, I feel just as broken up as he did. It was an emotional ending for me as Peter stood at Gwen's grave and listened to her speech again. When a movie pulls at all my emotional strings like this, it deserves a ton of credit. Yes, I liked Electro. Yes, I liked Harry's story. Yes, there were a lot of things in the movie that I loved. But all of that pales in comparison to Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy. A lot of people hated this movie and we call argue all the Spider-Man semantics in this movie all day long, but when push comes to shove, none of that matters. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone did so good and had such great chemistry that they could've single-handedly carried this movie on their shoulders and I would've still loved it. That's how well they did. And because of them alone and the emotional rollercoaster that I went on as she slipped through Peter's fingers and died is why I consider this the best Spider-Man movie yet. And I don't think the others are going to top it. Why? No Gwen.

This leads to my final point. I think the writers of this did the right thing. They made the perfect Spider-Man movie. But it's an odd paradox. Because they did it so well, I am nervous about the future of this franchise. Why? They have to replace the best superhero girlfriend in movie history. Mary Jane has to come into the picture now. Can they equal the perfect chemistry that Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone had? They are going to have to go about this very carefully. I'm also nervous that they might bring Shailene Woodley back. She was cast as Mary Jane before they cut Mary Jane out. Shailene Woodley is not Emma Stone. Shailene Woodley will never be Emma Stone. I don't believe that Shainele Woodley can pull off what this franchise needs Mary Jane to pull off to make me happy. Now Sony already has a third and a fourth movie on the schedule, so they have two movies to get this right. First, they need to cast someone besides Shailene Woodley. Second, they need that person to be the perfect Mary Jane -- someone who has equal chemistry with Andrew Garfield. Third, since they do have two movies to get it right, they need to avoid the romance in the third movie and just establish a friendship. I hope they can do it. But I am really nervous.

Oh yeah. Sinister Six. They are totally setting up for that. It's not even a secret anymore. Wondering why Rhino happened? Sinister Six. We have Green Goblin and the man who I think is Mysterio organizing it at the end of this. We have Doc Oc and Vulture suits shown. Rhino starts it out. Lizard will be back. Despite getting killed off, the actor for Norman Osborn signed on for two more movies. Maybe Electro gets brought back? Who knows. But this is happening. And I want to be excited. But none of it really matters if they get Mary Jane wrong. No pressure...

P.S.-
What's up with them showing a clip from X-Men: Days of Future Past in the credits? It was cool, but I'm confused. I've never seen a different movie franchise advertised in the end credits of a movie. I know they are both Marvel, but X-Men is Fox and Spider-Man is Sony. Are they teasing a potential cross-over between X-Men and Spider-Man? Is Sony and Fox actually working this out? And if this happens, does that mean Wolverine and Spider-Man can finally be a part of the Avengers? What's the deal? Thoughts to this would be greatly appreciated because I have no idea why that scene happened.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Review

As a teenager, I remember going to the original Sam Raimi Spider-Man movie back in 2002 and being really entertained. I grew up with Spider-Man and seeing him on the big screen was a real treat. Looking back, I still have a lot of respect for that movie because it, along with the X-Men movies, started this huge surge of superhero movies that has produced countless of awesome movies. Yes, I also liked Spider-Man 2. I thought it was the best of the original trilogy. Spider-Man 3, though, was a complete and utter mess. Looking back, I guess I can be grateful that it was so bad because that sparked Sony to scrap everything and start over instead of doing Spider-Man 4. Initially I was super worried about The Amazing Spider-Man because a reboot so early sounded like a bad idea. However, that movie was done so well that it made me completely forget that the Sam Raimi trilogy existed. No reason to go back and watch those movies again. THIS is Spider-Man. And I'm happy to report to you that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 continues the brilliance of this newer franchise. For reasons that I can't say here, I am splitting this review into two. This review is the non-spoiler version, so if you haven't seen the movie, feel free to read away.

The first thing that has jumped into people's minds when they have seen the trailer is the fact that there is three villains in this movie: Rhino, Electro and the Green Goblin. Red flags coming up all over the place? That's fair I suppose being that Spider-Man 3 is still fresh on people's minds. They had three villains and it was a complete disaster. However, my counter is that three villains CAN work. The problem with Spider-Man 3 wasn't the fact that there was three villains. The problem was that it was poorly written and poorly executed. On the other hand, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was beautifully written and perfectly executed. First off, I have to note that Rhino is a very small sub-plot. So yes, technically there are three villains, but really there is only two. And really, narrowing this down even more, this is just a movie about Harry Osborn and Peter Parker. Harry Osborn has inherited his father's company, but has the same disease that his father had and thus is trying to get Spider-Man's blood to fix his disease. Electro is essentially used as Harry Osborn's pawn. On Peter's side, in addition to struggling with what to do with his friend Harry Osborn, he has to deal with his relationship with Gwen. Yes, he's decided to go forward with the relationship, but his promise to Gwen's dying father in the last one is still haunting him.

The beauty of this movie is the same beauty of the first one, the fact that it is purely character driven. This is what sets this Amazing Spider-Man franchise apart from other recent superhero movies. Let's be honest, there are a lot of superhero movies where the main focus is the battle between the superhero and the villain. Yes, I like that because movies like that are pure entertainment and thus fun to watch. But having a superhero movie that is purely character driven is a good breath of fresh air. It's not about Spider-Man vs Electro or Spider-Man vs. Green Goblin. It's about Peter and Gwen. It's about Harry trying to stop himself from dying. It's about Max Dillon (Electro) trying to get some recognition. This style of movie, like always, requires top-notch performances from the leading cast and all of them deliver a home run. Andrew Garfield was born to be Spider-Man. I've grown up with Spider-Man and I can say that Garfield does it perfectly. Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy is the best superhero girlfriend in superhero movie history. I love her to pieces. In addition to that, our two villains played by Dane DeHaan and Jamie Foxx are also brilliant. My favorite performance from the Sam Raimi trilogy was James Franco's performance as Harry Osborn, so I was nervous about Harry Osborn coming back in this, but Dane DeHaan is so good in this role that it made me forget about James Franco. And honestly, I think his character is written better. Finally, you don't see Jamie Foxx in serious roles too often, but he pulls off a great Max Dillon/Electro. I love it when comedians can buckle down and do something completely serious and pull it off well.

I have a lot more to say about this movie, but talking about all that requires me to throw out spoilers. Normally I'd just say for you to come talk to me about the ending, but this instance is one of those rare ones where I need to get my thoughts out in a blog post. However, like I said earlier, this specific blog post is one that I deem spoiler-free, so I am going to end this right here. Once you have seen the movie and want to hear my thoughts on the ending then stay tuned for my spoiler review for this movie. So with this post, I will leave by saying that I thought The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was a beautifully written, beautifully executed and beautifully acted movie. I loved The Amazing Spider-Man as it was one of my favorite movies from 2012, but I think that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ups the ante and is thus a notch above the first. I give it a 9/10.

For my spoiler review of this movie, click here

Heaven is For Real Review

Religious movies are on a roll this year and quite honestly that makes me happy. It started in February when Son of God was released. Son of God was followed by surprise March hit God's Not Dead. Both of these movies are ending their run with over $50 million in the US box office. And now Heaven is For Real is up to bat and it's turning out to be the best of the three. By this time next week, it will have passed both of these other movies and that'll only be its third weekend. I guess we can kind of include The Saratov Approach into this conversation. It only made $2.15 million, but being that it was only supposed to be a small Utah release initially, that number is actually quite incredible. It hit a select number of nationwide theaters back in January and February of this year. Now in reviewing these religious movies, it's of note that I am an active Christian and so I will be scattering my personal beliefs into this review. If that bothers you then you don't have to read on, but I do this because my personal beliefs is part of what helps me gauge how I feel about these movies, so I do deem that necessary.

I want to start this review off by saying that I think that this story is absolutely incredible. It's based off a true story that centers around the experience of a four-year-old boy, but is really about his whole family, specifically his father Todd Burpo. Todd is the pastor of his church, but yet as pastor he goes through a huge trial of his faith. The movie starts by him as narrator asking a question. Is heaven merely a hope or is it as real as the earth we live on? That's paraphrased of course, but after introducing that question, the movie spends the whole time pondering on it and then answering it at the end. The answer to the question should come as no surprise since it is in the title, but the journey to get to that point is what matters. After suffering through a few physical trials of his own, one day Todd's four-year-old son Colton suffers a ruptured appendix and has to get rushed to the hospital where he almost dies. By a pure miracle sparked heavily by the prayers of the whole congregation, Colton makes it out alive. Shortly after, he starts telling his dad about an experience he had where he went to heaven. As the movie goes on, he reveals more and more of his story and his dad has to decide what to make of this story that his little boy is telling him. This becomes a huge trial for Todd as he has to look inside himself to figure out what he really believes.

Yes, this story is inspiring and it brings up a lot of religious points that can be discussed amongst fellow religious circles without being very preachy. However, I do have to be honest for a bit. The movie lacked the emotional firepower that I thought it was going to bring. Part of the problem was the pacing of the movie. For such an amazing story, it moved rather slow. It took a while to get into the main conflict of the movie, that of the boy's near-death experience and his subsequent trip to heaven, and instead just followed this family. I suppose it was just trying to set things up, but I felt the set-up was too long. Then after this conflict arose, the movie still felt really choppy. The emotional, religious experiences were spread out too much and we spent too much time focusing on things such as the family's finances and job situation. The other part of the problem is that I actually felt robbed by the trailer. "Well Adam that is your fault. You should stop watching and analyzing the trailers so much." Ok, yes that's true. But that's not going to happen. I love watching trailers and I use those trailers to both gauge my excitement and to determine what movies I'm going to see. That said, literally every emotional part of this movie was in the trailer. So while watching this movie, I went in cycles. There would be a time where I was bored because of the pacing issues. Then when it started to get good, I felt robbed because I had already seen what was going to happen. The trailer wasn't just a preview of the movie. The trailer was the movie with all the slow parts taken out. That frustrated me.

That aside, this definitely wasn't a loss. The acting was surprisingly good. I say that because these type of movies don't have the budget to get a bunch of prolific actors, so the focus becomes more on the message being presented with the acting skills coming second. But the acting was good and it does have several bigger names attached to it. Greg Kinnear and Kelly Reilly are the parents and both are excellent. Thomas Haden Church and Margo Martindale show up as congregation members. But the real star of the show was Connor Corum, who plays four-year-old Colton. I don't know how old Connor is in real life, but he can't be much older than five or six and he is totally adorable. It's hard to find good actors that young, so you can't criticize him at all for acting deficiencies because for his age he is amazing. It's like yelling at your one-year-old for not being able to walk well or your two-year-old for not being able to talk well. It's dumb.

No this movie isn't perfect, but when push comes to shove, this is a religious movie that is trying to gently share a very inspiring story and in that aspect it does it's job. It teaches about faith. It teaches about family. It teaches about God. Criticisms towards the actual story itself that have arisen? They're out there. My response is that haters will hate. After watching this movie, I do believe that the events actually happened to this boy. In a near death experience, I think Jesus can take the hand of a little child, give him a glimpse of heaven, and introduce him to family members that have passed on before his time. Totally believable. The things that the boy says in this movie are totally consistent with Christian theologies about Heaven and honestly I think a lot can be learned from little children about life, faith, God, and Heaven. So yes, this did inspire me. Have I read the book written by Todd Burpo that this movie is based off of? No. Do I want to after seeing this? Yes. Do I think that the book will probably be better? Of course. But this movie does deserve credit as a good film for religious audiences and so I will give Heaven is For Real an 8/10 and encourage you to simply avoid the trailer if at all possible if you have yet to see this movie.

PS- My favorite scene was at the very end. I want to talk about it, but I don't want to spoil anything. So if you've seen this movie, ask me about it in private.

Movie Preview: May 2014

2014 has started out surprisingly strong as the first third of the year has already produced eight movies that have (or will within a week or so) earned over $100 million in the US box office. In comparison, 2013 had four at this point, 2012 had six, 2011 had four, and 2010 had five. In fact, no other year in movie history has produced so many $100 million movies in the first third of the year. This once again shows that Hollywood is learning that a big hit can happen in any month of the year and thus Summer in Hollywood seems to be starting earlier and earlier each year. The official start of Summer for Hollywood, however, is May and this May is jammed packed with blockbusters, so the success of 2014 should continue. Last May holds the record for the highest grossing May with $1.14 billion. It also holds the record of most $100 million dollar movies in the month of May at seven. With no huge movie like Iron Man 3 or The Avengers, this month may not break the former record, but it has enough moderate to decently big movies scheduled that it would take several disappointments in order for it to not at least tie the latter. So without any further ado, let's jump in and analyze this month more closely.

May 2nd - 4th-

Every year since 2007, the first weekend of Summer in Hollywood has been kicked off by some sort of Marvel movie, whether it be Sony's Spider-Man, Fox's X-Men, or something from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This year The Amazing Spider-Man 2 will continue that trend. In general, the first weekend of May has been good to the Spider-Man franchise. Spider-Man and Spider-Man 3 also opened up on the first weekend of May and both opened over $100 million (Spider-Man got $114 million in 2002 while Spider-Man 3 got $151 million in 2007). The other two opened up in June and July respectively and both missed the $100 million mark. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 looks to continue this trend by cashing in on this lucrative weekend. Sony has made sure that no one forgets that a new Spider-Man movie is coming out. At the recent CinemaCon, Sony used all four of their movie poster spots on Spider-Man posters and showed 30 minutes of footage as well. In addition to that, it seems that there have been half a million different trailers that they have released in the last several months. With the origin story out of the way, Sony looks to up the ante as there will be three villains in the movie. And while this brings to light the disaster of Spider-Man 3, it's worth mentioning that multiple villains has worked out in movies before, so that idea alone shouldn't scare people off. Also, Rhino will only be in this movie for five minutes, so there's really only two villains. Sony has also made it clear that Electro is the main villain here, so Harry Osborn's Green Goblin looks to be more of a setup for a future movie.

May 9th - 11th-

The second weekend of May is a bit tricky as the movies here will be sandwiched between two huge blockbusters. There are three movies that open this weekend, though, and all three have the potential to provide good counter-programming to the May blockbusters, so if they fail, it won't be because they got eaten up by blockbusters. Spider-Man should actually win this weekend, but the biggest new release will be Neighbors. Seth Rogen's name is pretty big right now after last year's hit This is the End. That goodwill should carry Neighbors to a good numbers. Also, R-rated comedies have done well previous summers and this summer has several great options for that crowd. Advertising for Neighbors has essentially ensured that this will be the first big R-rated comedy of the summer.

The second movie of the weekend will take audiences back to the land of Oz via The Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return. Before you complain at a second attempt at Oz in two years, let me counter with two arguments. First off, there is a HUGE pool of material from Oz that has rarely been used. L Frank Baum wrote 14 Oz books himself and that has been followed by many more by various other authors. Second, this movie started production before last year's Oz the Great and Powerful, so it's not copying that movie's idea. It just took longer to get to the screen. It was initially titled Dorothy of Oz after the actual book in the Oz world that it is based off. Dorothy of Oz was written by L Frank Baum's great grandson Roger S Baum and is a story about what happens the day after Dorothy returns to Kansas. In fact, the initial tagline of the movie was "You've waited 70 years to figure out what happens the next day." They dropped that tagline and even changed the title to what it is now. The new title suggests confidence that this can be come a successful franchise. Yes, some have said that the movie looks bad based on the trailer, but it has a few things going for it. First off, the animation will allow them to use all the random Oz characters without having to spend a ton of money. Second, it brings the musical back to Wizard of Oz, something that Oz the Great and Powerful essentially left out. Third, there's not a whole lot of competition for family audiences. Rio 2's run is ending and How to Train Your Dragon 2 doesn't open until June. The distributor here is Clarius Entertainment and this is their first go at things, so a lack of a big name distributor will hurt, but Free Birds and The Nut Job have shown that decent numbers can happen without a major distributor. And Disney/Pixar lost the monopoly on animated movies a long time ago. Plenty of new animation companies have risen in previous years. Finally, the cast of the movie is quite prolific. It includes Lea Michelle, Kelsey Grammar, Dan Akroyd, Patrick Stewart, James Belushi, and Martin Short.

The final movie of the weekend is probably the biggest wild card of the weekend and that would be Moms' Night Out. The movie is a comedy, but it's only a PG-rated comedy, so it definitely won't conflict with the other comedy this weekend in Neighbors. If anything it will be competing more with Legends of Oz, but Oz is a slightly different audience as it's more of a parents and their younger kids type of audience. Moms' Night Out is about a group of moms that want a break. A moms' night out. But doing this requires their husbands to watch the kids and of course you know this means things will go bad as their husbands try to do this. It most noticeably stars Sarah Drew, Sean Astin, and Patricia Heaton. It's hard to imagine a large crowd of people storming out for this one, but you never know.

May 16th - 18th-

Another Godzilla movie? That was the reaction when this movie was announced. Then the trailer came out. Suddenly, everyone's tone was changed. ANOTHER GODZILLA MOVIE!!!!!!!!!! Yeah, that's about right. Talk about a marketing success. Suddenly no one cares that Godzilla has been done upteen times. After some footage from the movie was shown at CinemaCon, Adam Sandler got up and said, "Forget about Blended, how about that f---ing Godzilla?" It goes to show that in a day riddled with remakes, if you do your remake right, no one will complain. While some might call it this year's Pacific Rim, with advertising focusing more on disaster, tragedy, and panic while making Godzilla more of a surprise, a more accurate description would be calling it this year's World War Z. Cast-wise, this will be an Avengers: Age of Ultron preview as Godzilla stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen, both of whom were teased at the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier as "the twins," aka Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. The other big names in this movie are Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston and the recently Oscar-nominated Sally Hawkins.

Opening alongside Godzilla is the second sports drama of the year in Million Dollar Arm. Disney is super confident in this movie after initial testings were done. Also, reaction at CinemaCon was also very positive. Million Dollar Arm is a baseball movie where a certain sports agent uses an unconventional strategy of recruiting Cricket players to come play in the MLB. This brings to mind other sports movies like Moneyball and The Blind Side. It looks like reviews of Million Dollar Arm will also be in those movies' range. This is the type of movie that would get a lot of Oscar attention if it opened in the Fall. Unfortunately, the Academy usually forgets that movies come out before September, so that might hurt this movie's chances for awards. Baseball movies also have a short ceiling when this comes to the box office, but this should be a decent hit.

 May 23rd - 25th-

The next guaranteed blockbuster of the month comes with X-Men: Days of Future Past. All of the X-Men movies have made over $100 million in the US box office, but none of them have made it too far above that as the highest grossing X-Men movie is X-Men: The Last Stand at $234 million. In fact, the franchise has been losing a bit of steam as of late as the last two X-Men movies, X-Men: First Class and The Wolverine are the lowest grossing X-Men movies yet. Days of Future Past is set to break this trend and will actually be a huge disappointment if it doesn't become the highest grossing X-Men movie. This is because it is essentially the Avengers of the X-Men movies. As was teased at the end of The Wolverine, in this movie Wolverine is sent back in time to change the past so that mutants and humans can both be saved. Thus this unites the old cast of X-Men in the original trilogy with the new cast of X-Men in First Class. Thus we see a cast that includes Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Jennifer Lawrence, Peter Dinklage, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Nicholas Hoult, Ellen Page, and Anna Paquin amongst others. That's a rather impressive listing.

Opening with Days of Future Past is the Adam Sandler comedy Blended, the one that Sandler told people to forget about in favor of Godzilla. I'm sure he won't be too offended if people actually do see. And they will. Sure, Sandler has had some recent misses with Jack and Jill and That's My Boy, but Grown Ups 2 got him back on track last year as Sandler is usually a pretty consistent draw at the box office. Starting with The Waterboy in 1998, Sandler has led 14 movies that have earned over $100 million. Blended reunites him with Drew Barrymore, his 50 First Dates and The Wedding Singer co-star.

May 30th - June 1st-

Since their inception, Disney has always been good at finding new ways to earn a ton of money. Right now they are on a kick of doing live action versions of their old animated classics and that continues with Maleficent this weekend, which is a unique telling of Sleeping Beauty. This started with the huge 2010 hit Alice in Wonderland. Disney wasn't responsible for the two live action Snow White movies back in 2012, but I'm sure that helped spark their imagination. After Maleficent this year, next year will bring us live action versions of Cinderella and The Jungle Book, while 2016 will bring us Tarzan and Alice in Wonderland 2. Now in fairness, these aren't just re-tellings of the old Disney movies. Alice in Wonderland is a sequel. Maleficent is Sleeping Beauty told from the perspective of the villain. I'm sure the other movies will be done in a similar fashion. Speaking of the actual movie at hand, the character of Maleficent in this movie is played by Angelina Jolie and her name has been on the forefront of the advertising. Also in the movie is Elle Fanning playing Princess Aurora. Dakota's little sister has become fairly big as of late as she's gone from child actor in smaller roles to playing the attractive teenager in movies like Super 8 and We Bought a Zoo. This is essentially her first "grown-up" role as being born in 1998 in this day means you are 16 years old. I'd say a 16-year-old Disney Princess is a pretty grown-up role comparatively, so it'll be interesting to see how she does.

Last but not least is another R-rated comedy that the trailers have made look absolutely hilarious and that is A Million Ways to Die in the West. As stated earlier, R-rated comedies have made bank in recent summers and this one should be the second big R-rated comedy in May. This movie is helmed by Seth MacFarlane, who had a fantastic live action debut with Ted back in 2012. The raunchy teddy bear comedy made over $200 million in the US and even more overseas to give it a worldwide total of $549 million. A Million Ways probably isn't going to get that high, but Seth MacFarlane's stamp on it should make it a huge hit. Stars of the Western comedy include Seth MacFarlane himself as well as Amanda Seyfried, Liam Neeson, Chalize Theron, Neil Patrick Harris, Sarah Silverman, and Christopher Lloyd.

Brick Mansions Review

The last weekend of April isn't typically known for it's amazing movies. That's because the first weekend of May starts the summer season in Hollywood and movies usually try to avoid opening up in the shadow of whatever big blockbuster kicks things off. This year, the last weekend of April brought us two movies -- a chick flick and a dude flick. The Other Woman was our chick flick of the week. It stars Cameron Diaz, Leslie Mann, and Sports Illustrated's swimsuit darling Kate Upton. And you know Upton was brought in for her body, not her acting skills. The movie looked dumb to me. I instead chose to see the dude flick Brick Mansions. I didn't really expect much of it, but what did tip the scales in getting me to go see it was that this is the last movie that Paul Walker completed before he died. Yes, it was a dumb movie. But it was a dumb movie that entertained me the whole time. That's the purpose of dude flicks -- aka brainless action movies. If you are a chick, you may not understand why I like these movies, but I also don't understand chick flicks. They are the exact same movie done a million times over with no predictability. So I'd say we're on the same page here.

In reviewing Brick Mansions, I need to start with the most important part. Paul Walker. I learned to like the guy. Is he the best actor in the world? No. But I got used to him in the Fast and Furious movies and quite frankly, there are a lot worse actors out there. Does he give the performance of a lifetime in Brick Mansions? No. He's typical Paul Walker in this. If you hate his acting skills, than this is not a movie that will change your mind. You may feel like you're disrespecting the dead by making fun of him, but I think it's good to be real and not suddenly turn into his biggest fan because he died. That bothers me. But being real, I did like Paul Walker and his acting didn't bother me. Honestly, I like the role he plays in this movie. I think he did a good job. We'll get his official last movie next year with Fast and Furious 7, the one that he didn't finish and thus had to be postponed, but with this being his last completed movie, I think it's a good homage to him. If you are like me and you liked Paul Walker, I'd suggest you go see this movie. When the end credits rolled, the first thing that showed up was "In loving memory of Paul Walker" shown with a picture of him. That almost made me tear up. It's super sad that he lost his life at such a young age. I'll miss him.

Now about the movie itself? Brick Mansions is a remake of the 2004 French movie District B13. Now I'm usually one of the first people to complain when a movie is remade. That said, I didn't have a problem with this one being remade. First off, it's a French movie that no one outside of France had ever even heard of before Brick Mansions came out. Second, Luc Besson did both movies. It seems more plausible if you are remaking your own movie for a broader audience. Anywho, the movie takes place in Detroit. In the movie, there is a section of town called the Brick Mansions that's dominated by gangs. In that, the leader has a bomb that is going to go off in about 10 hours, so an undercover cop is sent in to stop that bomb from going off.

Is this the best plot ever? No. Does the movie have the best acting ever? No. Does this movie follow all the laws of physics? No. Are there are a lot of unrealistic things that happen. Of course. Does this movie suffer from what I have called "The Dark Knight Rises Syndrome" where in the end the timer on the bomb for some reason goes a lot slower than it should? Yes. But this is a movie where I went in and turned off my brain and just had fun with it. That doesn't always work for me, but in this instance it did. The plot was good enough. The acting was good enough. The action was a lot of fun. The movie resolved itself in a way that made me satisfied. And it was great to see Paul Walker one last time before Fast and Furious 7. Because of all this, I will reward Brick Mansions with a 7/10, which is a lot more generous than many have given it.

Draft Day Review

As a huge fan of the NFL, one of my favorite days of the year is the day of the NFL draft. There are many reasons for me loving it, and I won't get into those reasons here, but I follow the upcoming draft all year long. February through April is especially fun because once the season is officially over, the NFL is purely focused on the draft. We have the scouting combine, pro days, individual workouts, and talk about the draft practically every day on ESPN. When the draft itself hits, I will be glued to my TV pretty much the whole time. Or at least during the first round that is. When I heard that they were doing a movie about draft day, it immediately had my attention. But not in the best way. I can actually be quite picky with my sports movies and Draft Day was attempting to find success by creating a fictional sports movie. This was confusing because with so many dramatic, real-life situations during the draft, why not pick one of them? Because of this, I went into the movie with a lot of questions. However, all my concerns were put to rest as I found that I really enjoyed this movie.

So yes, this is a fictional story about the draft. The team coaches and managers that are mentioned in the movie are fictional. The players getting drafted are fictional. The recent histories of the teams mentioned are fictional. It's all pure fiction. So how does this work? It works because the intention of this movie isn't to tell a true story about something that happened on a specific draft day, like say the drama between who the Colts should pick -- Peyton Manning or Ryan Leaf. The intention of this movie is to portray the atmosphere and drama that happens on any given draft day. And that is something that they do rather well. As a fan of the draft, I see all the drama that happens on the outside, and I love it, but I never see what happens on the inside. But yet as I watch the events unfold, I know that there is a ton of drama that happens behind the scenes. There are so many options for teams that opinions are most likely split. Arguments on who to pick will definitely happen. Tempers will be heated. Players may not be happy when certain picks happen. The phones will be off the hook all day as other teams are calling and figuring out options of potential trades. But yet, these are aspects of the game that the fans never see. Draft Day makes the attempt to show this drama on screen. While I of course don't know everything that happens, I feel that Draft Day does a good job of representing this and because of that I really enjoyed watching the movie unfold.

Getting to the actual movie now, Kevin Costner plays the role of a Cleveland Browns GM. Sonny Weaver Jr. is his name. The Seahawks have the number one pick, but apparently they don't want it, so they try to talk the Browns to get them to trade. After much talking, Sonny bites and gives up three number one picks for the top pick in the draft. This causes all kinds of reaction. Owner Anthony Molina is happy with Sonny because he finally made a splash. Coach Penn, the new head coach is upset because that means the Browns will most likely take Bo Callahan (quarterback) with that pick and Coach Penn really likes their current quarterback Brian Drew and hates rookie quarterbacks. Brian Drew is obviously mad because he is getting replaced. He did great as the starter the previous season, but got hurt a few games in. However, he had been working his butt off during the offseason and is in the best shape of his life. The fans are really happy because they will get a new franchise quarterback. However, draft prospects Vontae Mack (linebacker) and Ray Jennings (runningback) are upset because both of them wanted to play with the Browns. Added to all this drama is the story lines between Sonny and his girlfriend and his mom. His girlfriend is also an executive for the Browns and has told Sonny she is pregnant. With all the stress he's going through, Sonny didn't react to that very well. His mom also wants to make him show respect for his recently passed father by spreading his ashes on the practice field.

The writing in this movie is beautiful. Despite all these people being fictional, I got myself invested in the drama of the draft like I would in an actual draft. I was honestly interested in what was going to happen between to draft prospects Bo Callahan, Vontae Mack, and Ray Jennings. The NFL completely supported this movie and thus actual team names, logos, and even ESPN analysts were a part of the movie, thus making it feel realistic. Added to that, the movie was loaded with great actors. Kevin Costner is back doing what he does best -- sports movies. Jennifer Garner plays his girlfriend, Dennis Leary plays Coach Penn, Frank Langella plays Owner Anthony Molina, and Tom Welling plays current quarterback Brian Drew. All of them are fantastic as the main players in this movie. But in addition, I want to point out two more actors. The first is the actor for Vontae Mack and that is Chadwick Boseman. If you don't know that name, write it down right now. He was great as Jackie Robinson in 42, he was great in this, and it looks like he will also be great as James Brown in Get on Up. Also of note, Arian Foster plays runningback prospect Ray Jennings. Why is this cool? First off Arian does a great job in his acting debut. Also, though, this was a cool Easter egg for sports fans. Arian Foster is the starting runningback for the Houston Texans in real life and one of the best in the business. He had a great college career, but due to a poor senior year, he went undrafted. Had teams been able to see the future, he would've been a first round pick for sure. And now he gets to go back and get that experience of being drafted. Kinda. I thought that was cool. Finally, I did enjoy seeing Chris Berman, Mel Kiper Jr., Jon Gruden, Deion Sanders, Mike Mayock, Roger Goodell, and Rich Eisen playing themselves in this movie and thus doing the things that they actually do in real life when draft time comes.

Overall, as a fan of the NFL draft, I was thoroughly entertained by the events in the movie. Are there some things that bothered me? Sure. The main thing is that the Browns traded for the number one pick and then started doing their research on the guy that was the "sure-fire number one pick." In reality, if an NFL team were to give up so much to trade for the top pick, they would've already done all their research. Later things that happen were also a bit far-fetched, but I won't spoil it. Those things are fairly minor, though, and didn't take away from my enjoyment of this movie. Will you like this movie if you are not a fan of sports or of the NFL draft? I have no idea. I tried to put myself in those shoes, but it didn't work. So sorry. If you need that opinion, you will have to go to someone else to get it. But this NFL draft fan is going to give Draft Day a 9/10.   

Transcendence Review

It's the directorial debut for Wally Pfister. Who you ask? Wally Pfister is essentially the protege of the great Christopher Nolan being that he's done the cinematography for nearly every single one of Nolan's movies. And now Pfister is taking his shot as the big man on campus with his directorial debut. How did he fare? Well, let me use an NFL coaching analogy. Many times when looking for a new head coach, a team will dive into the pool of offensive/defensive coordinators. This pool is full of coaches that are amazing at what they do. But not all of them work out as a head coach. Some people are more fit for a smaller role with a team. Such is the case with any business. Not everyone succeeds at being president or manager or owner. With this case, making a movie requires a lot of different parts. All of these require excellent talent. But just because a cinematographer is excellent at what he does and has been working for one of the best directors of day for a long time doesn't mean he'll succeed at being a director. Transcendence is a movie that had a lot of potential. It had an interesting premise and great acting, but when all is said and done, it fell really flat. I am putting all the blame for this one on Wally Pfister.

Like I said, Transcendence had a really interesting premise. Dr. Will Caster, played by Johnny Depp, is the lead researcher of an Artificial Intelligence team. His goal is to create a computer that will be smarter than man. He calls it Transcendence. After giving a presentation, he gets shot by someone from a group of anti-technology people. The bullet doesn't kill him, but it has radiation poisoning that gives Caster just a month to live. In a moment of panic, his wife experiments with this idea of transcendence right before he dies by downloading his mind onto a certain super computer. Bad idea? Maybe. But can you blame her? Anyways, this works. But does it? Suddenly Dr. Caster is back in computer-form. But is it really him? He claims his mind has been set free and with the concept of Transcendence, he starts a plan with the help of his emotionally-driven wife. A plan that is quite evil. But is it?

See, these types of movies really interest me. They ask questions. They make me think. The movie honestly had me captivated for much of it. The acting was great. Johnny Depp plays the lead and does great. And let me put in a quick plug. Many say that Depp plays the same character in every movie. I strongly oppose that. In fact, I'm half convinced that the people that say that and honestly believe it have only seen him play in the four Pirates of the Caribbean movies where he actually does, because Johnny Depp is actually really different in most of his movies. But moving, the movie had other great actors like Rebecca Hall, Paul Bettany, Cillian Murphy and Morgan Freeman. They were great. And the cinematography and visuals in the movie was brilliant.

So if the movie had a great premise, an interesting story, good acting and great visuals, what's the matter with it? Well, let me tell you. They tried to make this deep and thought-provoking. Wally Pfister being the protege of Nolan tried to make this the next Inception. It had a great start, but I feel that he had something so epic that he didn't know what to do with it when it came to ending the movie. I'm fairly positive if this was Nolan directing the movie, this would've been epic. But Pfister is not Nolan. And because Pfister didn't know how to end this movie in a Nolan-type way, it crashed and burned pretty hard. In an epic, thought-provoking movie, I often leave the theater with my mind blown. Lot's of times I have no idea what happened initially, but the more I think about it, the better it gets. Well, the opposite happened here. Transcendence asked a lot of questions. It tried to make you think. But it never really answered the questions. Sure this can sometimes work out. But this time it didn't. I didn't leave the theater with my mind blown. I left the theater confused. And the more I thought about it, the worse it got. Nothing really made much sense. Then you go back and think about the movie as a whole and you find a lot of plot holes and conveniences. And then you try to think about the motivations and messages behind the movie and it gets more confuzzled. Was it political? Was it religious? Why did this happen? What was the point?  Were they trying to create a fun movie? Were they trying to create a deep movie? And it just gets worse the more I think about, so I'm going to try to forget. We'll see how that works out.

Perhaps I should give Wally Pfister another shot. Perhaps it is unfair to immediately say that after this he should just give up directing and focus on his excellent work as a cinematographer. But those are the thoughts I have after watching this movie. This movie could've been epic if it was done by Christopher Nolan, but as is, the direction in this movie just was not good. In the end, the interesting premise, the good acting and the great visuals weren't enough overcompensate for the confused feeling that I got when the movie was over. It's a real shame, too, because this was one of the movies this year that was really looking forward to. It saddens me that I have to give Transcendence a 6/10. I hope Pfister learns from this and does better next time he tries, because I would love more movies in the mold of Christopher Nolan movies.