The Last Exorcism Part 2 movie review

"The Last Exorcism Part II" is an effectively unnerving, slow-burn supernatural horror tale. The film is smartly different enough from the original to survive on its own, though it lacks some of the first film's sense of surprise.

Rather than the disorienting reversals of the first film — a faux documentary in which a team looking to debunk demonic possession comes across a story they can't explain away — "Part II" takes a conventional approach (no fake doc, no found footage) to its story. It picks up with the girl from the first film, Nell (Ashley Bell), seemingly free of the demon who possessed her and entering a transitional group home in New Orleans where she can try to build a new life. (Footage from the original film exists online within the world of the second, labeled "crazy girl possessed in woods.")

The sequel is directed by Ed Gass-Donnelly, who co-wrote the screenplay with Damien Chazelle. (Chazelle previously made the winsome jazz musical "Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench," which seems as unlikely a horror audition piece as one can imagine.) Both the first and second films are rated PG-13 but somehow the new film feels softer.

The first film was more messed up, existing in the register of crazy, and had a sexualized energy that is largely neutered in the second. A moment in the new film when a character slashes his own throat is handled in a way that is too discreet and bloodless, robbing the moment of its most visceral shock.

Just as in the first film, much of what works best in the new movie is thanks to Bell. She has an uncanny, quicksilver ability to flash between naiveté and a knowing darkness. Her physical contortions aren't used as much this time, but there is still a strong physicality to what she does.

Overlooking the semantic peculiarity in the title "The Last Exorcism Part II" — the inevitable sequel might be called "The Final Exorcism Again" — this movie isn't a waste of time. The film could actually stand to be a bit longer, as its final frenzy seems truncated somehow in relation to the methodical build-up that precedes it.

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Escape from planet earth movie review

“Escape From Planet Earth” is a kind of parallel universe to “Planet 51,” the 2009 animated comedy centering on an astronaut marooned on an alien world and his struggle to get home. The plot of the new movie is nearly identical to that of the earlier film, except everything is flipped. Here, the astronaut is a blue-skinned E.T. named Scorch Supernova (voice of Brendan Fraser) who has been captured by the U.S. military. After crash-landing in Area 51, Scorch is captured by the U.S. military, which throws him into a holding facility, along with every other little green man (and woman) who has ever had the misfortune to run out of dilithium crystals in the Nevada desert.

Like “Planet 51,” it’s a cute premise. But the movie doesn’t aim any higher than cute. Its phasers aren’t set on “stun” but on “something to occupy the kids while Mom and Dad pick up a few things at the mall.”

As such, it’s a success, if a less than rousing one.

The highlights include “Star Trek’s” William Shatner, who lends his distinctive voice to General Shanker, the bad guy in charge of the base where Scorch is being held. Sofia Vergara also stands out as Scorch’s sexy alien love interest, Gabby Babblebrock. But it’s Ricky Gervais who really shines, as the voice of a talking mainframe computer on Scorch’s home planet, Baab (pronounced “Bob”). Even toned down for a PG audience, Gervais’s trademark snark lends “Escape” a lot of its low-key charm.

The rest of the voice cast is merely serviceable, with Sarah Jessica Parker, Rob Corddry, Jessica Alba, George Lopez, Jane Lynch, Craig Robinson, Steve Zahn and Chris Parnell failing to make much of an impression in their roles as miscellaneous aliens and humans.

Part of the problem is that the characters are somewhat generic. That’s a weird thing, considering that many of them are visually out of this world. Lopez’s Thurman, for instance, is a slime-covered creature with three eyes. The cold look of the computer animation renders him more bloodlessly than is necessary, even for a character that resembles a giant banana slug.

Just like its hero and his grounded starship, “Escape From Planet Earth” is, for much of the film, a decidedly earthbound adventure.

(89 minutes, at area theaters) is rated PG for mild rude humor and action.

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So undercover movie review

OMG. She's, like, so undercover. Miley Cyrus's transition from music to movie star continues apace with this rather formulaic romp. While the movie might be crap, the truth is Cyrus comes out on top and shows she has a future in fronting teenybopper movies for some time yet.

Cyrus plays a teenage private investigator who, used to snooping on cheating husbands, graduates to the big leagues when Jeremy Piven's FBI agent asks her to go undercover at the local college. Her mission is to infiltrate a sorority to protect the daughter of a mobster (McKnight) who may or may not have evidence that can put a mob boss away. Or something like that. But the potential killer could be anyone and some serious poking about is needed to uncover the imposter.

From the off it's all rather obvious who the imposter is and there isn't enough fun and games to distract from the inevitably of it all. The romance with Joshua Bowman is tossed in for the sake of it and Cyrus's ward, McKnight, might as well not exist. Honestly, when something happens to a girl called Alex midway through, I had no idea that Alex was the girl Cyrus was meant to protect. Roommate Kelly Osbourne shows up every so often with the worst English accent for some time. With a Brummy dad in Ozzy, Kelly opts for a toff Chelsea lilt. But in some scenes it looks like her lines have been dubbed by someone else. So how much is her and how much is the voiceover? And how bad was her original stab?

But So Undercover surprisingly throws up the odd funny moment. When told her name will be Brooke Stonebridge, Cyrus reckons it sounds more like a gated community than a name; the ditsy Cotton's (Megan Park) stupidity gets the sniggers it's after; and Bowman has one of the lines of the year: when told the French can be forgiven, he comes back with 'tell that to the Algerians!' What? Where did that come from?

Cyrus herself is immune to the crap. She's watchable, and not just a substitute for Amanda Bynes.

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Upside down Movie review

Movie goers often talk about a lack of originality in modern film premiers. Well, the sci fi romance Upside Down directed by Juan Diego Solanas  and starring Kirsten Dunst and Jim Sturgess is about to answer their prayers. A brand new world is created in this movie, tagging along innovative imagery, effects, concepts and even language. Let’s just hope viewers will cheer at the prospect instead of clicking their tongues and rolling their eyes in irritation.

A long time ago two planets came so close to each other they are almost touching. Instead of the skyline all its inhabitants see is the terrain of another planet. Each planet has its own gravity laws, with the upper planet being the ruling corporate utopia, drowning in wealth and luxury, sucking out the life of the lower planet, which is plunged into a deep energy crisis.

The people from the two worlds are strictly forbidden to communicate; the punishment of defying this law is death. But they are condemned to a fast demise if they venture into forbidden territory anyway as the laws of gravity of the ‘enemy’ planet will make them burn alive. The premise of Upside Down is indeed a promising one.

A boy named Adam (Jim Sturgess) lives on the dark dystopian lower planet. His parents die in a plant blast, so his Aunt Becky is the only source of comfort in his life.

A girl named Eve (Kirsten Dunst) lives in the opulent ‘heavens’. One day when Adam tosses a paper plane up into the sky, the two meet and become friends, despite the dangers such a friendship entails. That’s the strangest ‘meet cute’ moment in cinema to date.

Romance is rekindled, followed by a string of disappointments, necessary in any love story to build up tension and bring the audience to a satisfactory ending. I will not reveal the last twist for those who do want to see Upside Down in the movie theatre, but let’s just say that two things are clear from it: 1) the couple find a way to irreversibly join the two worlds, and 2) no – there won’t be a sequel (phew).

The visuals are at times breathtaking in Upside Down. The up world is filled with sunlight, gorgeously dressed people and immaculate futuristic architecture. The lows live in a black and white world with an occasional pop of the color pink.

The opening scenes of mountainous terrains and surreal cloud seas in between the two planets are a marvel of CGI, fake snow and all. Vibrant blue upside down cocktails are a fun idea and Kirsten Dunst looks her cute self sipping on them against the dark-eyed Jim Sturgess.

The film is pestered by upside down shots of places and faces, which feel new and fresh at first, but grow pretty annoying by the end of it, which is not helped by the cheesy score. The action is slow-moving, as if the viewer is invited to savor the supposed-to-wow-them visuals. Against such soporific pace, the ending seems crumpled and rushed.

Verdict: Even though the concept is completely new in terms of visual solutions, the story lacks originality, just like the main characters lack chemistry and the conflicts – a realistic poignancy and a sense of danger. Upside Down is a perfect example of the escapism that modern cinema is: perfectly pretty and irreversibly empty. Anyway its a nice change to watch the new. If you are really into sci-fi's you would like to watch it ^_^

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Rise of guardians movie review

Based on the books by author/illustrator William Joyce, RISE OF THE GUARDIANS follows Jack Frost (voiced by Chris Pine), a carefree immortal figure who creates winter fun for children who don't really believe in him. Everything changes when Pitch Black (Jude Law) rallies his nightmare forces to cause worldwide despair and make children stop believing in the Guardians of Childhood: Santa Claus (Alec Baldwin), the Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman), the Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher), and the Sandman. When the Man in the Moon tells the existing Guardians that Jack Frost has been chosen to join them, they must convince him to take up the cause before Pitch can snuff out the light of hope in every child of the world.

Rise of the Guardians (not to be confused with Legends of Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole) is an exquisitely crafted 3-D adventure with an ingenious plot and surprisingly substantive messages that make it just as appropriate for tweens/teens who are still into animation as for younger elementary-aged audiences. The voice performances are all fantastic. Baldwin is hilarious (and nearly unrecognizable) as a tough, tattooed Santa who can wield two swords one moment and play with his workshop's toys (made not by elves but by yetis!) the next. The Easter Bunny (Jackman, for once using his native Aussie accent) is a strapping buck rabbit (but never call him a kangaroo), and Fisher's Tooth Fairy is lovely and amusingly obsessed with teeth.

As the contemplative Jack Frost, Pine nearly reprises some of the characteristics of his young Captain Kirk in Star Trek -- both characters are impulsive loners who don't know how to work on a team until they come into their own and spring into action. The movie's visuals are dazzling (especially in each of the Guardians' headquarters), the dialogue funny, and the threat from the villain real and disturbing (and wow, Law has a creepy accent). It's such a refreshing treat to see an animated film so thoughtfully made that didn't come from Pixar. Director Peter Ramsey has made an impressive, imaginative fantasy where the wonder of childhood reigns supreme.

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Life of pi movie review

 Based on Man Booker-prize winning novel 'Life of Pi' by Canadian author Yann Martel, this film tells the incredible survival story of Pi, a teen stranded on a lifeboat for what seems like forever, with a tiger for company at sea in the Pacific Ocean.

Starting out with the older Pi (Irrfan Khan) recounting his unbelievable life story to an author ( Rafe Spall), we travel down memory lane and are briefly introduced to Pi's childhood in picturesque Puducherry (Pondicherry), his family-owned zoo and his faith in God and religion.

In due course, the family heads to Canada for a 'new chance' at life. Calamity strikes, leaving Pi the only human survivor with a full-grown fierce Bengal tiger for company on a lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. What follows is an epic journey of adventure and self-discovery.

Oscar winner Ang Lee delivers a stunning masterpiece, defying the age-old belief that a film can seldom be as good as the book it's been adapted from. Spectacular 3D and computer-generated imagery make the film a monumental work of art. Lee's cinematic adaptation offers the story deeper meaning, while at the same time, mesmerising the viewer with its visual excellence.

LOP's soothing background score and gorgeous imagery transports you to a world of beauty, where the sky looks as sublime as the sea and the stars shine as brightly as the ripple of a stone thrown in the water. The film is 'visually enchanting' in every sense of the word. India's Puducherry and Munnar have been beautifully captured on camera.

Lee's storytelling keeps you engaged throughout and the credit also goes to the actors. Suraj Sharma is convincing as the adolescent Pi who discovers the meaning of life the hard way. Irrfan Khan as the older Pi contributes largely in making the film emotionally compelling. His on-off American accent is noticeable but does not distract. Tabu makes her presence felt even in her brief but significant role.

Ang Lee interweaves adventure and spirituality brilliantly. And if you still don't know what meditation feels like, Watch Life of Pi, it is therapeutic and profound.

Tip-Off: You may not like this movie if adventure is not your genre.

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The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn 2 – Movie Review

A saga that began in captivating gloom and unbelievable romance has come to a close, much to the displeasure of the million Twilight fandom. In its fifth and theoretically final film of Twilight, the mega movie monster spawned by novelist Stephanie Meyer's phenomenon spends virtually all of its 115 minutes feeding the unquenchable thirst its fans have for all things 'Twilight'.

Bella and Edward are beginning their new lives in blissful matrimony with their daughter - Renesmee. But when the sinister Volutri believe a claim that the child is a half-breed, they set out to destroy the Cullen family. Bella and Edward forge a global alliance with other vampire clans to stand together and protect their daughter.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 is in every sense what it intends to be, the best in the series and will be much loved by Twihards. Romance being the central element of the film that first hooked the teen set, the final adaption takes the Bella-Edward romance to a new level with the entrance of a new family member. Young Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), having given birth to her half-vampire daughter Renesmee with now-hubby Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) is finally revealing in the glorious new vampirism. It also has the werewolf Jacob Black (Lautner) baring his body as well as his soul.

The action sequences are breathtaking, as the characters warm up with arm wrestling and rock climbing then going in for the kill with a head-ripping, body-burning battle that puts the Cullen clan against those world-dominating Volturi. Breaking Dawn Part 2 is about the final showdown. And the events lead up to the ultimate confrontation with the Volturi.

The film has a thrilling climax, as the battle of good and evil commences with an epic action sequence. The sequences have exhilarating cinematography that makes the film a visual delight. Overall, Breaking Dawn Part 2 serves as an ideal finale as the story of the epic saga of Twilight concludes!!

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Hotel Transylvania movie review

More than a century ago, a grieving Dracula (voiced by Adam Sandler) decided to build a human-proof castle called HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA, where monsters could stay and -- more important -- he could raise his half-vampire, half-human daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) without exposing her to the danger of humans. Fast forward to the present day, and Mavis is turning 118 (but looks 18), and "Drac" has planned a huge birthday celebration. As the hotel fills with Mavis' many monster aunties and uncles -- like werewolf Wayne (Steve Buscemi), Frankenstein (Kevin James), Mummy Griffin (Cee-Lo Green), and the Invisible Man (David Spade) -- an unexpected visitor arrives in the form of 21-year-old Jonathan (Andy Samberg), a solo backpacker who somehow stumbles across the supposedly untraceable castle. Not wanting to alarm his guests, Drac puts Jonathan in costume and forces him to pretend that he's Frankenstein's younger cousin. What Dracula doesn't count on is Mavis and Jonathan falling for each other.

  

Although its premise is much better than the execution, Hotel Transylvania is just palatable enough to tolerate for parents. Little kids too young for the genuine spookiness of Monster House and ParaNorman will particularly enjoy how harmless the monsters are (save for Dracula's occasional rage face) and how sweet the relationship is between Dracula and his daddy's girl, Mavis. Gomez is well-cast as a naive adolescent daughter who just wants a chance to discover the world beyond the hotel, and Samberg is like a young Sandler as the bumbling-but-sweet human who ends up stealing not only Mavis' heart but befriending an entire circle of monster pals.

That's not to say that there aren't some issues with Hotel Transylvania; a Pixar masterpiece it's not. The word "zing" (as in the romantic spark between couples) quickly becomes tedious, as do some of the repetitive jokes about the werewolf cubs' poop and the Bride of Frankenstein's hen-pecking (she's voiced by Fran Drescher, of course). But despite the tiny missteps, kids -- and they, after all, are the movie's target audience -- will relate to Mavis, laugh at Dracula and his friends, and be completely invested in this monster mash of an animated comedy.

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Perks of Being a Wallflower movie review

Odious comparisons to J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye emerged when Stephen Chbosky's young-adult novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower was published in 1999. Erase the thought. Chbosky's semi­autobiographical treatment of his high school days was good, just not that good.

The film version, written and directed by Chbosky himself in a rare but welcome instance of Hollywood actually thinking an author might know something about his own book, is a modest but distinct pleasure. Chbosky is clearsighted about the harsh realities of sexual identity, drug use and mental illness, but alert to the scars left by emotional wounds.

Logan Lerman (3:10 to Yuma) excels as Charlie, the smart but socially inept freshman. The novel was done with letters, but Lerman is quite adept at catching the right tone of voice for a character who's still not over a friend's suicide, and a traumatic experience with an aunt (Melanie Lynskey).

It's an unwritten rule that every wallflower needs advisers. Charlie's older sister (a lovely turn from Nina Dobrev of The Vampire Diaries) lends a sympathetic ear. And Paul Rudd brings warmth and nuance to the English teacher who befriends Charlie, within limits.

But Charlie needs help on the inside of this Pittsburgh high school circa 1991. Enter Samantha, a pretty, poised senior possessed of natural cool. She's played by Emma Watson in her first major foray out of Hogwarts. Naturally Charlie aims his misplaced affection straight at her. Watson, sporting a spot-on Yank accent, makes a dream girl to die for.

But Perks is stolen, head to tail, by Ezra Miller (sensational as Tilda Swinton's psycho son in We Need to Talk About Kevin). Miller is a force of healing nature as Patrick, Sam's gay stepbrother. For Charlie, Patrick reps a world where feelings get expressed, where problems get talked out. Miller brings stinging humor and surprising tenderness to Patrick, two qualities Charlie needs badly.

Perks deserves points for going beyond the typical coming-of-age drivel aimed at teens. Chbosky's compassion for his characters is absent any hint of condescension. And that's reflected in performances that leave the feeling you've seen something good and true.

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The possession movie review

The film title pretty much says it all. Years after The Exorcist (1973) was made, filmmakers still seek inspiration from the horror classic. What distinguishes 'The Possession' from 'The Exorcist' is merely the mention of demons in Judaism. Barring the Jewish angle, The Possession, too is about a young girl who's been possessed by a mysterious evil spirit.

The girl starts displaying bouts of violent and bizarre behaviour. Her divorced parents fail to decode her dilemma and evidences of demonic possession. The father ( Jeffrey Dean Morgan), however, senses trouble eventually and wages war against the demon, seeking help of a Jewish exorcist (played by reggae-pop star Matisyahu). Will the demon let go of the girl?

The Possession is high on suspense. It even manages to keep you engaged throughout with its haunting background score and quaint big houses. The actors do a fine job. The very young Natasha Calis is extremely convincing.

The film, however, is low on originality and pace. Bornedal's storytelling drags and gets repetitive, thus diluting moments which could have been scarier. The suspense unfolds a bit too late for it to be too creepy. Tracks like the parents being divorced and the girl vomiting bugs seem cliched.

The Possession is Jewish Exorcist. It's gripping but lacks novelty.

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Paranorman Movie review

Coraline was good, but Laika’s new stop-motion animation marvel ParaNorman takes it to another level. Their first zombie animation knows how to add warmth to the proceedings and make its moral lessons stronger by helping the viewers arrive at their own conclusions rather than pushing clichéd values down their throats.

Norman Babcock (Kodi Smit-McPhee), the cutest antihero ever, speaks to dead people and pets (to great comic effect, at times). His caring Grandma (wonderful Elaine Stritch), who’s been dead for a while, is his only true friend – she knows very well she has to keep an undead eye on him since he is treated as a ‘freak’ by everybody else around him.

His parents (Jeff Garlin and Leslie Mann) constantly fight over his embarrassing paranormal skills while the town is about to get infested with zombies because of an ancient curse. Norman has to stop the witch who promised to wake the walkers but she turns out to be a little girl who was brutally murdered for being a kid different from the crowd – some 300 years before. Norman has to learn to break his way through her rage and save the townspeople, who aren’t much help at all.

Childhood the best of times?

ParaNorman paints the world of childhood as a dark kingdom of horror and ugliness. Every living creature (except the dead ones) is the vision of spastic, useless cruelty. His sister is a mindless phony. The kids at school are stupid bullies who misspell hateful nicknames. The neighbours look like they’d burn him at the pole – gladly. His parents are of no help: at one point Norman is talking to a belly and a bottom (his mother and father, as seen to us from his perspective).

His dad is the biggest bully of all. The abuse he inflicts is the kind of abuse that may leave scars for life. At least those are complete strangers in his school and in the street – they don’t have to love Norman; seeing his own father reject the very essence of him (his supernatural gift) is heart-breaking. No one coming out of ParaNorman will say sweetly that childhood as one’s ‘best years’ – and I would like to especially thank writer/director Chris Butler and director Sam Fell for shooting that idiotic cliché right through its dead head.

ParaNorman gets subversive quickly. We are not afraid of the zombies eating the children, we are afraid of the parents burning the children alive. Surviving in the midst of ugly (in and out) adults like the monstrous Teacher (with her green mask, she is almost indistinguishable from zombies) and the angry, blood-thirsty mob is no easy feat. Norman is the last boy standing – and it’s not the best way to learn about the world when you are a kid.

On the fun side, ParaNorman is a crazy fiesta of vibrant colours and amazing imagery. Norman looks like a child top model with his huge asymmetric eyes, crooked nostrils and Will Smith ears, which light up like overweight fireflies when the sun shines through them. His room is a haven of zombie paraphernalia – from wallpaper and bedcover to nightlight and slippers, all in the most eye-popping, juicy hues.

The whole idea of the zombie apocalypse hasn’t been so reinvented and turned upside down since Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later as it is in ParaNorman. The zombies (slow again) possess intelligence (and sometimes make more sense than humans), communicate with each other and are basically ‘good’ despite smelling terribly and groaning all the time. The focus here is on psychological horror and the intertextual fright potential of the zombie metaphor (we know they might be a threat, so we are scared – just in case).

Verdict: A movie about a bullying epidemic that is like a zombie one (once bitten the virus begins to spread, where former victims become aggressors) couldn’t be timelier. It’s beautiful. It’s very funny. It startles and scares. And it teaches us not to fear. What’s not to love?

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Cosmopolis Movie review

‘Cosmopolis’ gives us a young man riding through Manhattan in a limo on a day that feels more and more like his own self-made apocalypse. He’s a super-rich New Yorker, Eric Packer (Robert Pattinson), a 28-year-old billionaire captain of the money markets and tech industries. He insists on travelling across town for a haircut, even though his driver warns him that a presidential visit and a rap star’s funeral are causing traffic gridlock. Packer’s world is confined to this luxury vehicle. It’s full of screens and gadgets and it’s here that he’s joined first by a 22-year-old whizz kid and then two women, one played by Juliette Binoche, the other by Samantha Morton. Outside, Packer encounters a protester (Mathieu Amalric) who is determined to shove a cream pie in his face, his soon-to-be-ex wife (Sarah Gadon) and a man with a serious vendetta against him (Paul Giamatti).

‘Cosmopolis’ is an odyssey defined by a series of one-on-one encounters. Much of the talk makes no obvious sense: ‘Cosmopolis’ has the air of an experimental theatre piece and trades in heightened, eroticised language. You could say it tries to turn the mind of Packer inside-out: to make the psychological real. That’s tougher on film, surely, than in print, and ‘Cosmopolis’ is at its best when it’s otherworldly and aching with artifice. It’s at its worst when it becomes weighed down by an excessive, wearying wordiness, or when it steps out of the limo – the film’s self-imposed arena of surreality – and into a place more like the real world. ‘Cosmopolis’ threatens to soar and to be important, but it only offers flashes of lucidity; the limo is a mesmerising bubble that is quickly burst when the film leaves it.

That said, there’s a consistent air of charged, end-of-days menace running through the film, which Cronenberg handles with an unbroken sense of precision and confidence. He’s well served, too, by a leering, disintegrating Pattinson, giving a commanding, sympathetic portrait of a man being consumed by his own vanity and power. 

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Diary of a Wimpy Kid 3 Dog Days Movie review

Wimpy Kid is growing up

In this third installment of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, our hero Greg finds himself going into summer vacation before he starts high school.

So Greg must endure the lessons most of us can relate to at that age: We’re different than our parents but also the same, our siblings can be bothersome, losing your trunks in the pool can be embarrassing and getting that girl’s phone number is top priority.

Although Greg’s got big plans for his summer vacation, his dad might have something else to say about that. Will Greg ever finish his favourite video game? Will he survive having his brains scrambled at the amusement park? Will he win the girl?

We say, “It’s funny, smart and kid friendly.”

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Step up 4 Miami heat Movie review

The heat is on in the fourth chapter of the high-energy dance franchise

This time, there are no dance battles between rival crews which culminate in a final reel showdown.

Instead, director Scott Speer somersaults into the increasingly fashionable world of flash mobs, staging impromptu performances around sun-baked East Coast locations.

Sean (Ryan Guzman) and best friend Eddy (Misha Gabriel) work at one of Miami’s most popular hotels.

When they are not serving guests with overpriced drinks, the handsome duo mastermind a troupe of hugely talented dancers and artists nicknamed The Mob.

They orchestrate daring flash mobs around the city, hoping to win an online competition by attracting more than 10 million views to their videos. They are currently ranked second, behind a performing cat.

During a night out, Sean meets Emily (Kathryn McCormick), who is preparing an audition for a prestigious dance company.

Attraction is instant, then Sean discovers Emily is the daughter of Mr Anderson (Peter Gallagher), who has just announced plans to bulldoze the neighbourhood to make way for a multimillion-dollar development.

Sean and Eddy plan the ultimate flash mob to galvanise support against Anderson and stop the bulldozers from destroying their community.

“Enough with performance art, it’s time for protest art!” proclaims Emily defiantly, rebelling against her father, who has never respected her need for self-expression.

Step Up 4: Miami Heat gyrates clear of realism in the opening 10 minutes, which sees The Mob perform atop gridlocked cars as bystanders cheer them on.

Dance sequences become increasingly elaborate, including an intervention at an art gallery that would be logistically impossible given the timeframe and on-site security.

Plausibility aside, Speer’s film is undemanding fun.

By abandoning the rigid structure of dance battles from previous films, choreographers incorporate every conceivable style, including ballet, Latin and robot.

Martial arts fighter and professional model Guzman is easy on the eye and he’s certainly not shy about flaunting his washboard abs.

He doesn’t have the fluid, tight moves of his co-stars so director Speer sensibly affords his leading man just one brief solo before he merges into the frenetic group sequences.

In stark contrast, contemporary dancer McCormick relishes her extended moments alone in the spotlight, demonstrating grace and agility as her feisty heroine hones her audition piece.

On-screen chemistry simmers nicely.

3D is noticeable when dancers blow sand into the camera or a shower of water cascades invitingly over lithe bodies, but otherwise the format is redundant.

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The dark knight rises movie review

It’s almost too much to hope for: a summer blockbuster that’s compelling, original, well-crafted and perfectly cast. Yet that is precisely what director and co-writer Christopher Nolan has given us in The Dark Knight Rises. As someone from the minority camp who didn’t care for The Dark Knight (but did like Nolan’s reinvention of the caped crusader’s origin story in Batman Begins) I now emit a huge sigh of relief.

That’s not to say that The Dark Knight Rises is without flaws or beyond criticism. I still find Nolan’s work ponderous at times and too self-serious—not to mention long. David S. Goyer cowrote the story that Nolan then developed into a screenplay with his brother Jonathan. They enjoy exploring the darkest avenues of human nature, and audiences have responded with great enthusiasm. But the film also has grace notes and dashes of humor I found missing from The Dark Knight.

Among its prime assets are the new role of a straight-arrow cop created for Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who worked with Nolan in Inception, and a much-expanded part for the peerless Michael Caine, who brings warmth and polish to his performance as the devoted butler Alfred. Anne Hathaway has fun with the flippant character who eventually becomes Catwoman. They are joined by a superior ensemble including Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Marion Cotillard, and an unrecognizable Tom Hardy as the villainous behemoth known as Bane. (I also didn’t recognize another old favorite, British actor and onetime Oscar nominee Tom Conti, as a shaggy, bearded prisoner in the latter part of the story.)

As for Christian Bale, he brings a great reserve of repressed emotion and physical command to his dual role as Bruce Wayne and Batman. The story begins eight years after the last film’s conclusion; Wayne has become a recluse, his body and spirit beaten down. That means there’s nowhere to go but up. Watching him harness his inner strength and build up his battered body gives us great rooting interest. Here is a misunderstood hero who is worthy of redemption. I wish the movie didn’t take so many storytelling detours, but I’m willing to forgive a great deal because Nolan gives us such a terrific conclusion. I’m not talking about the extended race-to-the-rescue climax so much as the resolution of the story that brings every character full-circle in the most satisfying way imaginable. For that alone, Nolan should earn the gratitude of Batman fans around the world.

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Ice age 4 movie review

Okay, so your world is falling apart, your dad won’t let you live your life and hates your boyfriend. You’ll identify with teen Peaches. Yeah, so she’s a giant, ancient wooly- mammoth-elephant-like critter but families seem to have the same problems no matter what species.

Scrat is Where It’s At

If your geology class didn’t teach you about continental drift (the break-up in ancient days of giant continents into the land masses we know today), then here’s the cartoon version: Little Scrat is still chasing his beloved acorn. When it goes down a lava tube to the center of the Earth, he follows and, in a chase, manages to rotate the Earth’s core so fast that land masses start to break up on the surface! Whoops.

Family Drama

Back home, Manny the mammoth (Ray Romano) wants to keep teen daughter Peaches (Keke Palmer) away from the wrong crowd (voices include Drake and Nicki Minaj) by not letting her go anywhere. Helping her sneak away is mole pal Louis (Josh Gad) who is secretly crushin’ on her. Syd the sloth (John Leguizamo) gets saddled with his feisty Granny (Wanda Sykes) when the family dumps her on him.

The Big Crack Up

When the continents start moving and cracking up, the gang is separated. Peaches and her loving mom Ellie (Queen Latifah) are left behind with the possum brothers and others while Manny, tiger Diego (Denis Leary) and Syd and Granny are stuck on an iceberg way out at sea. Manny vows to return to his family no matter what.

Pirates Attack

Also on a ship-like iceberg are Gut, a nasty Ape captain and his crew, among them, a rabbit, a huge elephant seal and a hot white tigress (Jennifer Lopez) which whom Diego falls in love. The battle to get home includes a huge whale, scary, critter-eating sea sirens and a whole “Braveheart-style” army of prehistoric chipmunks!

Wrapping Up

This new “Ice Age” tale has more action, more characters, a musical number, romance (for Diego) and looks great in 3-D. The continental destruction is pretty amazing.  You get a story on two fronts; Manny and the iceberg castaways then Peaches and Ellie back home struggling to get to a meet-up point for a reunion with the Manny gang. There are tons of new characters which may be a little too much thrown atcha in one movie.

Loveable Scrat has a whole storyline of his own throughout the movie and I love him most, but it adds more to the visual and storyheavy load. Maybe cut back on the other story arenas and have more Scrat!

The whole movie-going experience starts out with a very charming, funny and sweet “Simpsons” cartoon featuring Maggie the baby versus a daycare bully. Maggie wins of course. Cool

Despite the overblown story, this new Ice Age movie moves along quickly and keeps its family/relationship charm along with the added action so we go 4 stars.

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The Amazing Spider-man Movie review

Well every one knows what story is Spider man so I dont think a special review on the story is necessary.

But anyway, in this day and age, “adults” are also big kids who still see Spider-Man movies, and The Amazing Spider-Man faces the challenge of making both the old and new generations satisfied with a revised vision of an iconic hero. If you fall into the camp of ‘big kids who still love their Spider-Man films,’ know right from the get-go that Amazing Spider-Man covers a familiar origin story – albeit in different fashion than Sam Raimi’s game-changing film did in 2002. If you can’t get behind that idea – even in the slightest – then this movie simply is not for you.

However, for all others:

We pick up the familiar tale of Spider-Man with a re-imagined version of Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield), a high school geek who exists in the contemporary age of smartphones and social media, in which “the geek,” as an archetype, has become something slightly cooler and more accepted than what it used to be. Garfield’s Peter Parker – with his skateboard, contact lenses and vintage punk band tee-shirts – is definitely the epitome of modern “geek chic”; as such, the goofy nerdisms of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s 1960s Peter Parker have been replaced with deeper emotional troubles centered around Peter’s status as an orphan who never answered the question of his parents’ disappearance.

Graced with great performances from Garfield and Stone, The Amazing Spider-Man is a rare comic-book flick that is better at examining relationships than superheroism. If it doesn’t approach the current benchmark of Avengers Assemble, it still delivers a different enough, enjoyable origin story to live comfortably alongside the Raimi era. 

Yeah I said all this but I still miss Tobey Mcguire.

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Bel ami Movie review

Guy de Maupassant’s Bel Ami, published in 1885, is the story of Georges Duroy (Robert Pattinson), a hustler who rises to the top of Parisian society by impressing not the most powerful men in that world, but their women. They include Madeleine (Uma Thurman), the wife of the political editor of La Vie Française, who helps Georges secure a journalist job, despite no obvious talent in that direction. A beguiling young widow, Clotilde (Christina Ricci), and the prim and proper Virginie (Kristin Scott Thomas), wife of the paper’s editor, Monsieur Rousset (Colm Meaney), also fall under his spell.

Georges eventually marries Madeleine, but when he discovers that the tycoons he knows have shut him out of a lucrative deal involving the government’s invasion of Morocco, he dumps Virginie and, to her horror, seduces her daughter (Holliday Grainger). Does this cad know no bounds?

In 1947, director/producer Albert Lewin made The Private Affairs of Bel Ami, which, although hardly a great film, is superior in every way to this new version.  George Sanders, was perfectly cast in the title role, and Angela Lansbury showed her considerable prowess as a character actress even at the age of 21, as Clotilde. It was literate and elegant, everything which the 2012 Bel Ami is not, strenuously try as it might to attain those qualities. 

Expensively produced as this is, with sumptuous costumes and settings, it just never comes alive. The chic soirees, drawing-room encounters and Toulouse-Lautrec bar scenes just lie flat there on the screen, populated by a lot of extras in fancy dress who never generate the kind of vivid human buzz apparent in the period work of directors like Visconti or Ophuls. The screenplay is long on verbiage, short on insight. All the vital political talk involving the controversial French involvement in Morocco has no resonance whatsoever, and everything subsides into a didactic dullness. 

Pattinson’s casting was a major misstep. The women in love with him would seem to offer grand histrionic opportunities for the various actresses playing them, but, from Thurman’s commandingly omniscient Madeleine to Ricci’s wronged flower to Scott Thomas’ complete and devastating degradation.

Being a Rob fan, I am saying this that none of the performers manages to make as strong an impression as the busy music score in this wan enterprise. Unfortunately, it’s not a good one.

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Brave movie review

Longtime readers know that I'm a huge fan of the Disney computer animation division known as Pixar. I love their whimsy, their attention to detail, and their ability to pull on my heartstrings. I'll put in a good word for all of their films, from the highly well-regarded "Toy Story" series to the unfairly underpraised "Cars" movies. Pixar has kept up the good work with their latest offering, "Brave".

Set in medieval Scotland, "Brave" tells the story of Princess Merida (Kelly Macdonald, in an excellent voice performance), daughter to King Fergus (Billy Connelly, in another excellent voice performance) and Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson, in a voice performance so excellent I wonder if it can qualify for an Academy Award).

Elinor wants Merida to behave regally, but Merida wants to be free and go on adventures. Merida goes on and on about her distaste for royal life, which irks me because it's such a privileged life. She's never wanting for food or clothing, nor is she treated meanly or forced to labor. She even has two loving parents, and we all know how rare that is for a Disney movie.

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Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted movie review

Starting in Africa, where they were left in the second feature, Alex the Lion (Voiced by Ben Stiller – Tropic Thunder, Zoolander) decides on his birthday that they all need to be home back in New York where they belong. His buddy Marty the Zebra (Voiced by Chris Rock – Death At A Funeral, Grown Ups) seems to convince everyone they need to find the Penguins that abandoned them (with their witty and sarcastic leader Skipper voiced by the film’s director himself Tom McGrath) and use their now super plane to get back to New York.

On their way to Monte Carlo – where the penguins rule at a Casino with the wildly crazy chimps as their buddies - Gloria the Hippo (Voiced by Jedda Pincket Smith – Collateral, The Nutty Professor) and Melman the Giraffe (Voiced by David Schwimmer – Friends, John Carter) fall deeper into their romance with each other.

Enter the villain Captain Chantel Dubois, a mean and sadistic animal police catcher who prides herself by mounting her prey on her wall. Guess what species she is missing – A lion. This was incredibly voiced with such cleverness and French accented flair by the brilliant Francis McDormand (Fargo, Almost Famous). She even sings in French too! She is the reason the whole gang join the Circus – by accident. 

Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat, The Dictator) is back as Julian as well as Andy Richter (Late Night With Conan) as Mort and even Cedric The Entertainer (Ice Age 2, Intolerable Cruelty) is back as Maurice. But with some great new and extremely funny charters created by Martin Short (Father of the Bride, How I Met Your Mother) as the incredible self-deprecating Seal Stefano and Bryan Cranston (Drive, Little Miss Sunshine) as the prickly Russian Tiger Vitaly, everyone plays their part learning what a circus team can really do and how friendships are important.

Directors Eric Darnell (Antz, Madagascar 1 & 2 – who also co-wrote this one), Tom McGrath (Megamind, Madagascar 1 & 2) and Conrad Vernon (Monsters Vs Aliens, Shrek 2) along with co-writer Noah Baumbach (Greenberg, Fantstic Mr. Fox) spent some time on relationships – a little too much in the middle – but paid it all off with a fast paced, fun and touching ending! Hans Zimmer (The Lion King) score is as always fanciful for this type of project.

The climax is fun – very colorful – and this was one of the better films that used the 3-D to its fullest advantage. Heartwarming is the ending, toe-tapping is the music, neon colors for the eyes and laughter is the ending. So, put on your ‘rainbow wig’ and see this Animated film first.

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