Act of Valor

I had been wanting to see this movie for a long time.  I was pumped about the trailer and knew this was exactly my kind of flick.  In case you haven't seen the trailer, it's one of the best I've ever seen.  Act of Valor stars active duty Navy SEALS.  This means they are not in the credits but they do all their own action sequences.  This makes the action scenes very authentic and about as close as most of us are going to get to military action.

Act of Valor is a film that follows Navy SEALS through a fictional mission after a CIA agent is kidnapped.  The attempt to rescue her leads to further plot points that expose a larger terrorist agenda.  The plot is very straight forward.  It does get confusing at points but the overall mission is clear.  The story is fun but a little too straightforward until the very end.

I'm not going to talk much about the acting in this movie because it's horrible.  I didn't expect anything different though because professional Navy SEALS are not actors.  I will say though even the professional actors were pretty terrible in this one.

If you want to see great military action and that's your thing, you'll love Act of Valor. If you expect great acting and drama then forget it.  This is a case of "it is what it is" don't expect it to be anything more.  I loved this one, but it also helped to read the book prior to seeing the movie.

Drive

I knew this movie was about a professional stunt man who did some work on the side for some extra cash as a "driver" for criminals.  I hadn't seen any trailers of it and was pretty unsure of what to expect thematically.  I was hoping for movie filled with cool car chases.  I should have done my homework.

Drive is basically a combination of Casino and The Transporter.  The story takes you through the life of "Driver", (he doesn't have a name) played by Ryan Gosling, as he becomes more and more connected with the criminal underworld.  The character doesn't say much at all and is almost emotionless except some of the action scenes.  This is one of the huge downfalls of the movie.  It feels almost robotic going through the story because they don't make you care about "Driver."

The star is Gosling but other significant roles are played by Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks, and Ron Pearlman.  All are good actors but Gosling is ridiculous.  I don't think it's his fault (more likely the writers) but with nothing to say I don't really know how to judge his acting skills in this movie.  I think Pearlman and Cranston did a nice job in this one.

I would highly recommend you skip this one.  As much as I thought this might be a cool car chase movie, it isn't that.  Tons of violence, gore, and unnecessary brutality to this film.  I didn't enjoy it at all and don't think you will either.

Real Steel

I know, I was surprised I saw this movie too.  Real Steel is a movie about boxing robots.  Does that really sound interesting?  No.  But when you look a little bit deeper it's really more about the personal relationships of the people and then some cool boxing action with the robots.  I was quite surprised.

Real Steel is about a former boxer who is going around the country, sometime in the future, trying to win bets on whether his boxing robot will win fights.  He's deep in debt with no where to go when his ex-girlfriend dies and leaves their son to him.  The relationship between him and his son is really what this movie is about.  It's a good storyline and honestly it's pretty intense at points of the movie.  While the storyline is predictable, that's not always a bad thing.

The one major problem with this movie was the acting.  Hugh Jackman plays the star of the movie and he is very good, no problem there.  The issue lies in the supporting cast.  The son is played by Dakota Goyo and while yes, he's a kid, he's not very good.  Also, Jackman's girlfriend is played by Evangeline Lilly and she is terrible.  I wasn't impressed by Lilly in Lost and I most certainly am not in this movie.  Fortunately the real stars are Jackman and his robot.

Real Steel is a fun and dramatic movie that you will just enjoy.  It won't win any awards but you will enjoy checking it out.  I would particularly recommend this one if you enjoy boxing.  They use real boxing strategies in the film and it's quite fun to see that.

The Ides of March

The Ides of March is a political film about the inner workings of a presidential campaign.  Specifically, it follows George Clooney's character, Governor Mike Morris, around a few states as he campaigns for the Democratic nomination in a presidential primary.  I am a professional lobbyist so I have a familiar background to help understand this movie.  That said, this movie was still a bit of an enigma.

The story of this film attempts to get into the deep dark inner workings of a political campaign.  The deals made between politicians, the dirt that surfaces during a campaign, and the fact that everyone would basically kill the other in order to win.  This is of course where the movie gets its name.  The Ides of March is appropriately titled because in this movie everyone stabs each other in the back!

This movie stars George Clooney, Ryan Gosling, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, and Evan Rachel Wood.  All of the actors are really superb.  I'm a big fan of Philip Seymour Hoffman and think he is basically fantastic in everything.  I would say the only weak link in this movie is Marisa Tomei. She plays a reporter trying to dig up dirt on anyone and everything.  She just doesn't fit.

The movie is good but, there is a big too much "Hollywood" drama that wouldn't normally take place on the campaign trail for this to be completely realistic.  That said, I think the overall atmosphere is pretty accurate and this movie does a nice job of telling that story.  In the end though, it just isn't that interesting of a story unless you're a political wonk.

The Double

 
So I kept seeing this movie on my Netflix instant play list.  It was clearly a spy movie that I was interested in but I couldn't imagine it being any good because it stars Richard Gere.  He hasn't been in a decent action movie since he did The Jackal back in 1997.  So needless to say I was interested but very skeptical.

The Double is about a serial killer who may have also been a KGB spy at one point.  Gere's character, Paul Shepardson, is assigned to find and take down the KGB spy.  He does this with help from a young FBI agent named Ben Geary (Topher Grace).  The story takes you through their meticulous tracking of the killer and shows you how they evaluate each piece of evidence.  One criticism I did have is that the main twist of the movie came way too soon and with far too little drama attached to it.  It made the twist seem less important than it really was.

The Double stars Gere and Topher Grace.  Also in the cast is Martin Sheen and Odette Annable.  The acting in The Double was really pretty terrible.  I think Gere is a much worse actor than he was ten or fifteen years ago.  Topher Grace was good in That 70's Show but otherwise isn't very impressive.  I hate to say it but Martin Sheen is really washed up.  Not a good cast for this one.

The Double wasn't a bad movie at all.  It had some quality twists and turns it just wasn't a well made movie and as I previously stated the acting was pretty terrible.  If you've got some time to kill and feel like doing an Instant Play Netflix movie then go for it.  Please don't get this one in the mail or RedBox, it's not worth your time or money.

Hugo

I have to admit I went in with pretty high expectations.  Everything I had heard about this movie was positive.  I share this with you because my expectation was that this was going to be a pretty darn good movie.

Hugo is about a boy named Hugo Cabret who loses his father and is then forced to live and work in a train station.  The movie basically follows Hugo on different adventures to put an automoton robot back together that he and his father had been working on.  During this adventure he meets some friends that help him become more than just an orphan.   The film takes place in Paris.

The movie basically stars a bunch of no names.  The stars are Asa Butterfield as Hugo and Chloe Grace Moretz who plays Hugo's friend Isabelle.  Ben Kingsley and Sacha Baron Cohen also play significant roles in this film.  All of the actors do a very nice job and carry off their individual roles well.

Hugo wasn't a bad movie at all but the story was very slow.  While it was kind of a fun and interesting plot it was weak because of the poor pacing.  It's been very popular but I wouldn't really recommend this one to anyone.  My wife fell asleep with this one it's so slow!

The Whistleblower

The Whistleblower is about a divorced police officer who needs some extra cash and decides that taking a job with the United Nations is the best way to make some.  Once she gets there she finds extreme human abuses taking place that she cannot stand for.  Specifically the movie deals with human trafficking and the effect it has on the women and the community as a whole.  The Whistleblower is based on a true story.

The movie takes you to post-war Bosnia and it's efforts to recover.  The story to this film kept you involved with each new development that took place.  Characters were pretty good.  The one place where I would say the story struggled was at some of the dramatic sequences I just didn't care enough. 

The movie stars Rachel Weisz as our police officer turned UN official.  Vanessa Redgrave, Monica Bellucci and David Strathairn (Bourne Ultimatum) also play major roles in the film.  Weisz stands out as again doing a fantastic job in this keenly dramatic role.  The others are very good, particularly Strathairn. Benedict Cumberbatch, of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, also has a small role in this film.

I enjoyed The Whistleblower quite a bit.  It was a very dramatic film with not much of a happy ending though, which is always a turn off to me.  I would probably say this one is worth checking out.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

First let me inform you that I have seen all of the other "Pirates" movies.  I liked the first two but thought the third, At Worlds End, was absolutely atrocious.  It was way too long and had way too much nonsensical narrative that was impossible to follow.  I was very skeptical about seeing this one because my most recent experience but, I had some small hope that this would be better.

On Stranger Tides is the fourth in the "Pirates" series starring Johnny Depp.  As usual the story follows Captain Jack Sparrow on his adventure to find some kind of treasure, this time it's the Fountain of Youth.  On his quest he meets up with quite a few new pals and some old faces as well.  The journey is confusing, again, and while sometimes fun still gets very slow and stale in parts.  The pacing of the last two "Pirates" films has been very poor.

On Stranger Tides is also missing two of the main cast members from the previous films, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley, who were smart enough to bail on the series.  Penelope Cruz steps in as the female lead and they use some old characters including Barbosa (Geoffrey Rush) and Gibbs (Kevin McNally) in larger roles.  Depp does most of the action work and provides most of the comedy as well.  Depp does a pretty good job but the supporting cast is really pretty weak.  I'm not a fan of Penelope Cruz's acting skills.

I will give On Stranger Tides this, it's better than At Worlds End.  I didn't really enjoy it though.  I guess it was ok, if you really like these films but I'm not enough of a fan to ignore the confusing story and poor acting.  Better luck next time!  Yep, I think they'll make another, Disney could always use more $$$.