The Wolverine review

THE WOLVERINE:

SLICING WITH EXCITING COMIC BOOK ACTION AND HUGH JACKMAN!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

20^TH CENTURY FOX AND MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT

Hugh Jackman back in action as The Wolverine

            Everyone’s favorite metal-clawed mutant from X-Men is back in the latest spinoff of the X-Men franchise, The Wolverine. Before everyone starts comparing this movie to the 2009 prequel, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, it’s nothing like Wolverine Origins, this new Wolverine movie has a better story, more action, and better character development, plus more entertaining than the other Wolverine movie as well.

            Some time after the events of X-Men 3: The Last Stand, we find Logan AKA Wolverine (Hugh Jackman-X-Men franchise, Les Miserables, The Prestige) suffering from the loss of his friend, Jean Grey, who went power mad back in the third movie. Anyway, he keeps visioning her in his dreams and he eventually wakes up every time the dream shifts into a nightmare.

            So Wolverine is called back into action, thanks to a young ninja girl from Japan named Yukio, who also has psychic abilities. Yukio encourages him to come with her to Tokyo on behalf of her employer, Yashida so he can thank him for saving his life many years ago, and perhaps he can make Wolverine mortal, with a bone marrow transplant that can remove his immortality.

            Unfortunately chaos is unleashed when an evil viper-mutated woman sends in a legion of killer ninjas to battle Wolverine, capture Yasida’s daughter, Mariko, and extract Wolverine’s immortality and put him up against a mechanical samurai, known as the Silver Samurai. With the help of Yukio, Wolverine will do whatever it takes to save Mariko, put an end to Viper’s reign of evil, and save the day.

            Overall The Wolverine is once again another great movie in the X-Men franchise, while I wouldn’t say it’s as enjoyable as X-Men or X2: X-Men United, Wolverine is still a damn good spinoff of the series and definitely better than X-Men 3: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The action is exciting, Hugh Jackman is always a powerhouse actor, the mutants are all unique, but that’s what X-Men is best known for, creating unique mutants, good character development, and an entertaining story, it’s pretty much everything X-Men Origins: Wolverine should have been to begin with.

            The Wolverine is right up there with Iron Man 3 and Man of Steel as one of the three best comic book blockbusters of the summer, Marvel for the most part certainly knows how to bring their heroes to the big screen, and the X-Men movies are no exception. With its colorful cast of characters, classic comic book action, and great science-fiction elements, X-Men is right up there as some of Marvel’s best movies and after seeing The Wolverine, it’ll most likely get you pumped up for the next film in the X-Men franchise, X-Men: Days of Future Past.

            

Turbo review

TURBO:

ZIPPING WITH NITROSOXIDE RACING ACTION, HUMOR, AND HEART!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

20TH CENTURY FOX AND DREAMWORKS ANIMATION

Turbo and his team of racing snails getting ready for the big race in Turbo

            Over the years DreamWorks has always seemed to create some great animated movies, with films like Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, and How to Train Your Dragon all becoming critical box office hits but cherished by both kids and adults. So with the success of their last movie, The Croods under their new distribution deal with 20^th Century Fox, things really started to speed up over at DreamWorks with their newest animated feature, Turbo, and it’s definitely a trophy worthy contender.

            A garden snail named Turbo (voiced by Ryan Reynolds-Green Lantern, The Croods, R.I.P.D.) dreams of becoming an Indy racer. His brother, Chet (voiced by Paul Giamatti-Win Win, Duplicity, The Haunted World of El Superbeasto) encourages him to give up the whole racing dream and start living his life as a snail.

            After a freak accident Turbo realizes he now has super speed and can now jolt his way into the race, with a little help from a supportive taco salesman named Tito (voiced by Michael Peña-End of Watch), a colorful crew of other snails led by Whiplash (voiced by Samuel L. Jackson-The Avengers, Django Unchained, Pulp Fiction), and Tito’s supporting team. Turbo can finally make his dream come true by entering the Indy 500 racing competition and prove to everyone that even a small snail can succeed in something big.

            Overall Turbo is a cute animated movie, the kids will love it, and most likely adults and some teenagers will find some amusement out of it. While I don’t think Turbo is nearly as great of a movie as How to Train Your Dragon or Shrek, it’s still a passing feature from DreamWorks, the writing is decent, the visuals and 3D effects are colorful, the characters are very likable, and the voice acting is very good.

Ryan Reynolds is very likable as Turbo, same with Paul Giamatti, Samuel L. Jackson is very amusing as the voice of Whiplash, Michael Peña is delightful as Tito the taco salesman, gotta have a loveable idiot in these movies, and Ken Jeong (The Hangover trilogy) is just hysterical as the old lady, Kim Ly. Other enjoyable cast members include rap artist, Snoop Dogg as the voice of the hippie snail, Smooth Move, Michelle Rodriguez (Avatar, Machete, Resident Evil) provides the voice of vehicle mechanic, Paz, and many others.

Another fine animated feature for 2013, I enjoyed the movie but I wouldn’t consider it better than Epic or Monsters University, but it’s right up there with Despicable Me 2 as an amusing family film for this year. It’s a perfect movie to see with your entire family, colorful animation and visuals, cool racing action, comedy, fun characters, and very talented voice actors, it’s nice to start with a good animated family movie like Turbo before moving into, ugh, The Smurfs 2! 

RED 2 review

RED 2:

SILLY ACTION-PACKED FUN AT FULL FORCE THAT’S JUST AS ENTERTAINING AS ITS PREDECESSOR!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT

Bruce Willis, Mary-Louise Parker, John Malkovich, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Helen Mirren, Byung Hun-Lee, and Anthony Hopkins are Retired Extremely Dangerous in RED 2

            Bruce Willis (Die Hard franchise, Looper, G.I. Joe: Retaliation), John Malkovich (Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Warm Bodies), Mary-Louise Parker (The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford, Solitary Man, The Spiderwick Chronicles), and Helen Mirren (The Queen, Hitchcock, State of Play) are back in action in this hilariously entertaining sequel to the 2010 action comedy, RED, based on the comic book series by DC Comics, RED 2, while it isn’t as fleshed out as the first movie, it makes up for it with its talented cast, goofy comedy, and even goofier action scenes.

            Retired black-ops CIA agent, Frank Moses (Willis) is reunited with his unlikely team of “Retired Extremely Dangerous” operatives for a global objective, track down a missing portable nuclear device that can wipe out an entire country. In order to pull off the mission RED must survive relentless assassins, menacing terrorists, and power-crazed government officials, all eager to get their hands on this weapon of mass destruction.

            The mission takes Frank and his team of elite operatives to Paris, Moscow, and London. Outgunned and outnumbered they must use their cunning wits, old school attack strategies, and rely on each other as they do whatever it takes to save the world, and stay alive at the same time.

            RED 2 as a whole is a pretty enjoyable sequel to RED, running on comedic dialogue, heavy gunfire, and action that will keep you at the edge of your seat. Besides the action and comedy, RED 2 also brings some new cast members in like Anthony Hopkins (Hitchcock, Thor, The Wolfman) as the film’s antagonist, Edward Bailey, Byung Hun-Lee (G.I. Joe) as a vengeful assassin from Hong Kong, Han Cho Bai, and Catherine Zeta-Jones (The Mask of Zorro, Rock of Ages) as Frank’s old lover and professional killer, Katya.

            While I enjoyed the sequel, I wouldn’t consider it better than the predecessor, RED I just thought it was executed a little better, had more witty dialogue, and plus Morgan Freeman was in it. I’m not saying RED 2 was bad or mediocre; overall it’s a very fun sequel filled with action and humor, and it should satisfy fans of the first movie and the comic books. 

Pacific Rim review

PACIFIC RIM:

BIG ROBOTS, SPECIAL EFFECTS, AND FUELED WITH AWESOME!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

WARNER BROS. PICTURES

Gypsy Danger getting ready to fight giant monsters in Pacific Rim

            What do you get when you put Godzilla and Transformers into a blender? One hell of a sci-fi flick, Pacific Rim, directed by Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy II: The Golden Army) is not only blasting with state of the art special effects and epic battles, but it’s also well casted, good character development, and an amusing premise.

            We always thought aliens came from the stars, we were wrong; they actually came from deep beneath the sea. Long ago a portal to another dimension was created in the Pacific Ocean, unleashing a legion of giant monsters known as the Kaiju, and destroying the world.

            The humans started a defense program to defeat the Kaiju called the Jaeger Program, where two pilots simultaneously operate giant robots, called Jaegers to battle the Kaiju. The Jaegers are controlled by the pilots’ minds and memories, the bigger the memory is, the stronger you fight. The humans must battle the Kaiju and save humanity from being destroyed by these massive beasts, in a series of Godzilla/Transformers-like fights.

            Pacific Rim might very well be the definition of “Summer Blockbuster”, with its impressive special effects and intense robot on monster action. Remember the battles between the Autobots and Decepticons in the Transformers movies? Picture those battles, but replace the Decepticons with an army of Godzilla monsters.

Besides the action and special effects, the casting was very good, Charlie Hunnam (Children of Men) as the leading pilot of the main robot, Gypsy Danger, typical underdog hero kind of character, but he’s good, Charlie Day (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Horrible Bosses) is funny as the scientist, Dr. Newton Geiszler, Rinko Kikuchi (The Brothers Bloom, Babel) is very enjoyable as the Gypsy Danger co-pilot, Mako Mori, Idris Elba (Thor, Prometheus) is great as the commanding officer, Stacker Pentecost with a great speech before the big climax, and Ron Perlman (Hellboy, Drive) is awesome as the black marketer, Hannibal Chau. I was expecting Perlman to have an awesome role in this film; he’s always cool no matter what movie he’s in.

The movie as a whole is hugely entertaining, I’m serious giant robot and monster battles, a powerhouse of special effects, pretty much everything sci-fi geeks love, my favorite kind of action is always the giant style where everything is up close and in your face, especially when viewing the movie in 3D. Besides great directing, Guillermo Del Toro is also a master at designing creatures, I mean look at how creative everything was in Pan’s Labyrinth and the Hellboy movies, this guy really knows how to design awesome looking creatures and the monsters in Pacific Rim are certainly no exception, these things are cool looking, vicious, and put up a great fight against the humans.

Sorry Man of Steel, but I’m gonna have to put Pacific Rim at the #3 spot now on my Top Summer Movies of 2013, I wouldn’t consider it to be better than Star Trek Into Darkness or Iron Man 3, but it holds up well with its action, visual effects, direction, and cast. It has a very strong spot at #3 while Man of Steel is now at the #4 spot, that’s still an enjoyable movie too.

If you were to go see Pacific Rim, you may end up asking yourself, why can’t Guillermo Del Toro direct the fourth Transformers movie?