Should I really give Nicholas Cage another chance (Sorcerers Apprentice)?

So I am pretty sure when the Sorcerers Apprentice came out it happened to be the same weekend as the second greatest movie of all time: Inception. Perhaps the movie was a diamond in the rough that was overlooked but after watching it for myself I couldn't really decide if i liked it or not. Jay Baruchel was the main character and minus a couple lame jokes I think his performance was acceptable. As far as Mr. Cage, I think if the world wasn't so sick of him this would have been a half decent performance, but its just hard to listen to his weird voice and imagine a sorcerer when you have seen him as Ghostrider. All in all the movie was filled with enough humor and action to keep adults entertained but clean enough to be appropriate for the younglings. I would like to make a shout out to Teresa Palmer who is the love interest in the movie. I'm glad this movie has a hottie playing the role of the hottie even though she is way out of Jay's league. One thing that really annoyed me was that they played the same One Republic song every time the movie was romantic.

Overall rating: 6.5

Why it isn't a 10? The movie often had jokes that couldn't get a smile out of me. While some of the acting added to the movie others took away from it.

Megamind was a Mega Good Time

The wife and i went and hit up the matinée today and after we made it through the previews that seemed like they took forever Megamind finally started. From the opening scene this was throughly entertaining. I was a bit worried about hearing Will Ferrell's voice throughout the whole movie just because sometimes he seems to be annoying instead of funny but I thought he did great. I think the thing I liked most about this was how well it was written. There was humor for both the older kids (us) and the younger kids (the 9 year olds that were laughing so loud it was kind of annoying.) Another brilliant Dreamworks movie but that's nothing new. Tom McGarth, the writer of this movie as well as the Madagascar movies, did a superb job with the script and since I haven't seen any of his other movies, this makes me want to see them. I give this movie 4 out of 5 fingers which means go see the freakin thing!

Throw Back Thursday: A Few Good Men

I have never seen this movie before, but have always heard the famous "YOU CANT HANDLE THE TRUTH!" I have to admit... this was a great movie! Yes it's old and the clothes / hairstyles make you cringe, but if you can look past that to the plot and story of the movie... it will change your life!! Ok, not really... but the movie was absolutely amazing! It had some great actors and they played their parts extremely well! Jack Nicholson back in the day was the man and this movie proves that point once again. On a scale of 1 to 50 with 10 being the highest, I give this movie a 9!! Go out and rent / download / whatever so you can experience this movie!

The Crazies - About as Scary as a Siamese Twin

Actually, a little less scary than that. Siamese twins kinda freak me out. This movie did not freak me out. Watching most of the shows on TLC is scarier than this movie. Midgets, families with 19 kids, and having 4 wives are all scarier to me than this movie. The plot was quite predictable. It was actually predicted long before I ever actually knew what was going on. Since I knew why the people were actually going crazy, it made it a lot less effective as a scary movie. I really liked one of the beginning scenes with the man walking out onto the baseball field with a shotgun. That was pretty disturbing. I wish there were more of those scenes. I would give this 2 out of 5 fingers. What this means is it was pretty bad but not bad enough to swear at. Good alternative - Paranormal Activity. Now that is scary.

Catfish...? More like Blowfish

So when I saw the movie trailer for Catfish it really seemed like it had potential. From the trailer it looks as if it was going to be another scary movie filmed by a single camera, but it turns out it wasn't scary at all. The trailer keeps you in the dark and I wish the dark is where I would have stayed.  I don't want to tell what the story is about just in case one of our many readers wanted to watch it but I will say that the movie seemed like it was three hours long even though it was actually under an hour and a half. If the movie is actually real, it may not be a bad one time watch. I'm guessing this movie is fake and therefore is not worth a watch. For those of you who haven't heard of this independent film... don't worry about it. Just go watch The Dark Knight for the seventh time.

Overall Rating: 5
Why it isn't a 10:  It was a boring movie that only had like one or two parts that could keep my attention

First a book now a movie? You go Justin!

The white, young, male Oprah himself, Justin Bieber, will be trying to dance and sing at a theater near you in the not so distant future. Paramount has released the trailer to one of the most anticipated movies since The Sound of Music and you guessed it, it's going to be in 3D! (Shwing!!) I pray that it will have a twist at the end that will keep all of us fans wanting more. Here's the link..


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COJCN3Mhr14&feature=player_embedded

When In Rome....

Well, I watched When in Rome last night with the wifey... it was ok. I will admit that I laughed a few times, but I am also one of those guys that laughs out loud by himself while watching The Office and no one else thinks it's funny... so take it for what it's worth. The plot was cheesy... 'you take a coin out of a wishing well and those people fall in love with you until you put the coins back' I think you can guess the rest of the story from there... Probably wouldn't recommend this to anyone... but it was ok. 7 out of 10

P.S. I Love You. P.S.S. I Also Hate Douche Bags

As far as chick flicks go this one is decently average. First things first I'm glad I didn't have to listen to Gerard Butler's Irish accent for the entire movie. After watching 300 I can't help but think "dude, you cut people's legs off and throw spears at Xerxes, not flirt in Irish accents." He can never leave Sparta in my eyes. It's okay though, I was able to fight through that. He wasn't the douche. After Butler's character Jerry died, his widow Holly (played by Hilary Swank) started receiving letters that he had written to her before he died. I thought that was a pretty refreshing idea for a love story. As she was coping with his death, one of his letters told her that he had set up a trip for her and her friends to go to Ireland. She then goes to a bar and starts chattin up some musician there and push comes to shove and she pounds him. Or he pounds her. Whatever, it was weird. The whole movie she is struggling so bad with her husbands death and then one night she just decides to get down on it. I didn't like that. On top of that, the next day she went and visited her deceased husband's family. Awkward. So that guy she hooked up with was douche #1. Douche #2 came later with some nasty guy that couldn't comb his hair. He annoyed me. I was relieved when they didn't hook up at the end. Overall I would say steer clear of this thing. If you want a chick flick watch the Proposal. Again. I would give this 3 out of 5 fingers. That means, Eh.

Check this trailer out!

Now I know that this isn't a review but I stumbled upon this trailer and it was pretty creative in my eyes. Check it out and see what you think!

The Troll Hunter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy2nAOdBUlw

How to Train Your Dragon... Don't knock it till you try it

After watching this movie I had two wishes.1 That dragons were real 2 That I had one. The movie had a bit of a different feel than the other Dreamworks movies I've seen, and in no way is that a bad thing. To be honest I felt like I was watching a Pixar movie the entire time. The animation was step up from what I am use to from Dreamworks and the music was a great addition to the film. One of the best additions to this movie were the voices. Usually when you get an all star cast of voices it doesn't seem to gel very well but this wasn't the case. I did find it interesting that all of the adults had viking accents and none of the kids did... but I'm over it. I also liked how this movie is fun to watch regardless of age. It also had one of the cutest animated characters I've seen and yes its the dragon. Step aside Nemo.

Overall Rating: 8.9

Why its not a 10: The movie was so good that I wish there could have been a little more, maybe just ten or fifteen minutes longer.

Jonah Hex = Ultimate Let Down

So far as of lately, most of these comic book based movies have been actually pretty good (Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Batman, etc) But Jonah Hex..... wow.... where do I begin? Bad acting throughout from a guy that only talks out of one side of his mouth the whole movie... Megan Fox playing a street whore (typical) and a story line that does very little to keep one entertained. The only halfway good thing that came from the movie was the cinematography / special effects. And those were OK at best... I found myself looking for cool movie editing techniques instead of trying to pay attention. I ended up passing out about halfway through and had to ask my wife how it ended. If you are a Jonah Hex comic book fan, maybe you would appreciate the movie but the actors might ruin it for you. I honestly think that the only reason this movie sold any tickets at all is because Megan Fox is scantily clad throughout, including the movie poster. 5 outta 10 from my side. Not going to recommend this one to anyone.

Throwback Thursday - Blade Runner

The original cyborg-cyberpunk movie, Blade Runner ranks among my all time favorite films.  Ridley Scott's first American flick treated audiences with an eye opening look at what it's like to play god and the relationship between humans and futuristic cyborgs.  In it's simplest form and in Harrison's own words "[i]t's a film about whether you can have a meaningful relationship with your toaster."

Ford plays Rick Deckard, a retired Blade Runner a unique detective that specializes in tracking and destroying (murdering?) replicants who attempt to pass for human.  Replicants are Scott's version of a cyborg.  They are stronger and more intelligent than humans, but are created for off-world slave labor and prostitution.  The movie follows Ford as he is forced out of retirement to track down four renegade replicants, who have returned to earth to seek out a way to over come their built-in four year life-span. 

In some ways the movie is a traditional detective noir, with a morally flawed hero and a voluptuous  replicant (Sean Young),  but has become a cult sensation due to the serious and deep topics it entertains.  I can't recommend this movie enough.

5 out of 5 sauerkraut tacos!

What was I thinking on Thursday?

So if you haven't seen Air Force One.... don't. This movie is not even worth a real review. The movie is about the President's plane(air force one) being taken over by Russian terrorists and the President (Harrison Ford), single handedly taking every armed and bulletproof vest wearing terrorist down. The storyline is way over the top and the acting starts to piss you off ten minutes into the film. It seems like the plane is the size of a five story mall. If you are a fan of Harrison Ford I suggest to not watch this movie as to insure your lasting fandom towards him. Ok i'm done talking about this piece.

Overall Rating: 3.5

Why its not a 10: There aren't any Mother F&@#$ snakes on that Mother F%^&*& plane!

The Town Will Take Your Emotions and Run!

The Town, starring Ben Affleck and Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) has all the makings for a classic CLASSIC thriller! Not thriller in the sense of scary, but more in the sense of 'What in the world is going to happen??' I had my hopes high for this movie... and it delivered. Ben Affleck is not a favorite actor of mine, he is more of a 'if he's in that movie... I'm not going" kinda actor, but he changed my whole perpesctive with his role as Doug MacRay. The movie is based on a town in Massachusets that is home to many of the east coasts bank robbers. The story line gets you instantly hooked with a super intense bank robbery and keeps you satisfied all the way to the end where you breathe a sigh of relief and think... wow... can't believe it's over. The ending isn't predictable but is satisfying all the same. On my list of movies it just pulled into slot number 5 in my top 5 favorite movies of all time. I give it a 9.7 out of 10! Go see it! (Precurser... many F words are said... No sex... so if you can handle the F word, go rent this when it comes out!)

Throwin Thursday way back - Jumanji Style!

I have always thought that older movies, such as ones that were made in the 90's couldn't entertain me. When I watch old Adam Sandler movies, for example, I don't get much out of them. They were funny when they came out but now... I can't really stand them. I started up Jumanji today for our weekly Throwback Thursday and was pleasantly surprised! It seems like if you simplify a movie's plot enough, you can always make it sound stupid. "Oh let's make a movie about a board game that has magical powers and when people play it their lives will be in danger every roll of the dice. But let's not have it be a ouija board." Sound stupid? Mmmhmmm. Jumanji may have even had a stupid plot but when you have good music and good actors, you can make a lot of stupid or silly things really enjoyable. That's what Jumanji did for me. I can handle Robin Williams as long as he's not trying to be funny. Kirsten Dunst was a cute little kid and a good actress! What happened to her? To be honest the special effects weren't horrible for being 15 years old and the little quirky humor that was laced throughout was good enough to make me grin. For a family this movie is great. For everyone else, it's worth a watch when it's on TV or a rent if you're bored.

Overall Rating: 7.5

The Social Network

Well this movie demonstrated to me that you shouldn’t judge a movie by its previews. I thought it was just going to be a movie describing your perfect teenage dream. However, the movie put me in my place. The opening scene of the movie was an intense intellectual argument between Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) and his girlfriend Erica Albright (Rooney Mara), which set the pace for a movie with excellent dialogue and acting. I am personally a Justin Timberlake fan but I was very doubtful of his acting skills, but his performance as Sean Parker, creator of Naspter, was very convincing. The basis of the movie was Mark Zuckerberg getting sued for intellectual property theft for the idea of Facebook for a heavy load of cash. The movie was series of flashbacks of how he came up with biggest social networking sites in the world. The writers and actors kept me glued to my seat waiting to see what the conclusion would be and by the end,  the story of Mark Zuckerberg inspired me to go make something of myself. If you have any interest in facebook, capitalism, or just sheer brilliance, this movie will entertain you from start to finish.

Overall Score  8.5

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

                                            

So I figured that since I'm going to be tearing movies apart on this blog, I would start out on a positive note with a movie I thought was surprisingly original. The movie has a video game feel to it and the fighting is about as realistic as the 90's video games it portrays. Initially one would assume it would get old after 2 hours but they kept adding new comic book elements throughout to keep us engaged. The action was so over the top that I could enjoy it because it was meant to be that way. Besides the action, the movie was entertaining the entire time and mixed love and violence with a heavy dose of comedy.  If you like Michael Cera's brand of humor then you will thoroughly enjoy this comic book style film.  The surrounding cast is pretty good as well, giving a shout out to Wallace Wells because he is quite arguably one of the most likable gay characters I've seen. I would recommend this movie to just about anyone under the age of 40. After that I'm not sure if some of the jokes would land home.

Overall rating: 8.5

The reason it is not a 10:
Scott Pilgrim instantly likes Ramona even though she's kind of a B word to him.  Their relationship heats up as fast as when the Situation takes a girl home from a club.  Also, movie was a little jumpy at times, but no big deal.

Prince of Persia = Bed Time

Man alive. This movie was bad. I know that this is our first movie post and this movie is pretty old but I was almost offended at how awful this movie was. Our neighbors invited us over to watch it at around 10:30 pm. Now here's a little note about me: I have trouble staying awake during movies when I'm watching them late. ( I know what you're thinking, "10:30 is not late Matt!") but that's late for me. :) Anyway, I really gave this movie an honest effort. I loved playing the video games and thought that maybe this movie could deliver just how the games did. This movie delivered about as well as a drunk UPS man. I have no idea why they decided on having everyone speak with British accents, maybe the Brits picked that up from the Persians, I don't know, but I doubt it. Jake Jizzinhall was annoying to me the entire time, the movie was about as predictable as a Justin Bieber chorus, and the fight scenes were impossible to tell who was actually being hit by who. Within the first 30 minutes of the movie, I had twitched twice due to sleep, my wife was out, and the neighbors that invited us over had also hit the sack. Our dog had even called it a night and our dog is crazy. So all I can ask is that Jerry Bruckheimer spend more than a week filming the next Pirates of the Caribbean so it doesn't turn out to be anything like this one.

Welcome to the Crews Reviews

Hello and good evening. The much anticipated, slightly overrated, and never duplicated blog of The Crew is finally happening. Within a bit of time we will finally have this thing off and running. Until then check out The Crew!