12.15.13
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The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

My rating: ratings5

The dwarves, along with Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf the Grey, continue their quest to reclaim Erebor, their homeland, from Smaug. On their way, they meet Legolas and Tauriel, two elf archers who help battle the orc invasions from Dol Guldur. They also meet Bard, a bowman who is determined to kill the dragon after his ancestor failed to when Smaug took over Erebor and Dale. Meanwhile, Gandalf and Radagast battle the Necromancer and discover his true identity. Eventually, Bilbo and the dwarves reach the mountain, and finally battle Smaug. The film’s cast includes Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Luke Evans, Orlando Bloom, Evangeline Lily, Lee Pace, Benedict Cumberbatch, Cate Blanchett, and Sylvester McCoy.

I saw this movie on Friday (Dec. 13) with my friend, my dad, and my brother. We all really enjoyed the movie. I thought it was way better than the original Hobbit movie. The visual effects and soundtrack are just amazing! I enjoyed every moment of the movie! My favorite characters were Legolas and Tauriel. You can tell that they both have that bad-ass spirit that other movie characters have, such as Richard B. Riddick (played by Vin Diesel) from the Riddick movies, and Hit-Girl from the Kick-Ass movies. The film’s ending (don’t worry, I won’t spoil anything) is such a cliff-hanger that I absolutely cannot wait another year to watch the trilogy’s finale (which hits theaters next December). I think any fans of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies should watch this movie, since it’s a prequel to them. But you should only see it after you have seen the first Hobbit movie. I would recommend this movie for kids 12 and up, since there is a lot of violence, including slicing off heads (no blood shown).

Here is the film’s site and trailer.

Below is a picture of my friend, my brother (they both saw the movie with me), and I standing near a poster of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

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12.07.13
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Frozen

My rating: ratings3

Frozen, Disney’s latest animated movie, follows the story of princess sisters Elsa (soon-to-be Queen) and Anna in Arendelle. Elsa can create snow and ice, but has repressed her ability since a childhood accident. The climax of the movie occurs when Elsa let’s her powers get out of hand and freezes Arendelle into ice, cursing the kingdom with eternal winter. One of the movie’s antagonists, the Duke of Weselton, attempts to turn the people against Elsa, for personal gain. Anna, embarks of a journey to save her sister and the kingdom, meeting a handsome ice seller named Kristoff, his reindeer Sven and a snowman named Olaf along the way. The film’s cast includes Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, Santino Fontana, Josh Gad, and Alan Tudyk.

I saw this movie this week with my family. We all liked the movie but my parents enjoyed it especially! The film has great animation, great songs, and a great story-line. I think kids and adults of all ages will enjoy the film!  I have to admit that I enjoyed the film more than Tangled, another Disney animated film with the same elements as Frozen, but not as much as other animated films this year, such as Despicable Me 2 and The Croods. I also have to admit that Frozen was better than I expected. At first when I saw the trailer for the movie, I thought it would just be another predictable Disney princess movie, but eventually I decided to give it a try. And then I watched the movie, and enjoyed it!

The animated short film that accompanies Frozen, a Mickey Mouse short titled Get a Horse, was very hilarious and clever, in ways that I don’t know how to explain. It is kind of like you are watching it in a theater, and when Mickey and other characters burst out of the screen, they are in CGI and no longer in black and white.

Here is Frozen’s trailer.

11.24.13
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The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

My rating: ratings4

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire begins as Katniss Everdeen has returned home safe after winning the 74th Annual Hunger Games along with fellow tribute Peeta Mellark. Winning means that they must turn around and leave their family and close friends, embarking on a “Victory Tour” of the districts. Along the way Katniss senses that a rebellion is simmering, but the Capitol is still very much in control as President Snow prepares the 75th Annual Hunger Games (The Quarter Quell) – a competition that could change Panem forever.

I saw this movie this week with my friend. We both really enjoyed it, even though it was really long and slower than the first film. The costume design and soundtrack are both great. Jennifer Lawrence pulls off an amazing performance as Katniss, but the rest of the casting is okay. For example, the actress who played Wiress looked a little too old to have the role. But overall, the movie was great. I think it was even better than the first film. I think any fan of the book series (like me) will enjoy the movie. But if you haven’t read the books, I still think you will enjoy the movie. I would recommend this movie for kids 12 and up, because their is some action in the movie, but it isn’t bloody, except for one scene when Gale (Katniss’ childhood BFF) is being whipped in public because he tackled a Peacekeeper to save an old lady, and lots of blood is shown on his back after getting whipped.

Here is the film’s site and trailer.

11.09.13
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Thor: The Dark World

My rating: ratings4

Millennia ago, a villain named Malekith and his Dark Elves battled to bring the universe back into darkness (like it was before it was created), but were defeated by Odin(Anthony Hopkins)’s father, Bor, and his army. In the present days, Malekith has now been reawaken by a weapon called the Aether (which Malekith once possessed), which has now possessed Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), Thor(Chris Hemsworth)’s love interest in the first Thor movie. Thor soon realizes that Jane has been possessed and brings her to Asgard. Thor must now team up with his adoptive brother Loki (Tom Hiddleson), who was the antagonist in The Avengers, and defeat Malekith, get the Aether out of Jane, and save all Nine Realms!

I saw this movie on Friday and I really enjoyed it! The visual effects and the action scenes are awesome! Like many other Marvel movies, the film is filled with humor, but I think this one had the most! For example, there is one scene where Jane’s scientist friend, Dr. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard) has gone crazy and is running around the Stonehenge naked (private parts are blurred) on TV! There is also one scene when Loki, who apparently can shape-shift, starts shape-shifting into many people, and one of the people he shape-shifts into is actually Captain America (just for laughs, but only for, like, 10 seconds)! The villain in this movie turned out to be nothing close to interesting, but I still enjoyed this movie. I think this movie is definitely worth paying for! But if you do watch it, then I think it’s best to watch it in 3-D, because it is pretty awesome in 3-D. So, in conclusion, I think this is the best Marvel movie since The Avengers! I would recommend this movie for kids 11 and up because there is a lot of action.

Here is the film’s site and trailer.

11.02.13
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Ender’s Game

My rating: ratings4

In the future, Earth barely survived an alien invasion, and 50 years later, the planet’s military commanders, led by Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford), are expecting another attack any day. To prepare, they’ve recruited child-soldiers whose minds are especially agile and suited for a new brand of warfare. Andrew “Ender” Wiggin (Hugo’s Asa Butterfield) is one of those kids, who attends a school where students learn about the aliens and play strategy games, and the best students are chosen by Colonel Graff and his colleague, Major Anderson (Viola Davis), to go to train at Battle School, a space station where students train to battle against the aliens. Ender is chosen by Graff to go to Battle School and train. In Battle School, he makes some friends, including Petra (Academy Award Nominee Hailee Steinfeld) and Bean (Aramis Knight), and some enemies as well, mainly Bonzo (Hannah Montana‘s Moises Arias). Eventually, Ender is promoted to Command School, where he must lead his own army, which includes Petra, Bean, and his former enemy Bernard, to defeat the aliens once and for all. This movie also stars Ben Kingsley and Abigail Breslin.

This film, which is directed by Gavin Hood (the director of X-Men Origins: Wolverine), was very enjoyable, especially for someone like me, who has read the novel that the movie is based on. I did, though, notice a few changes the filmmakers made. One of them is that Viola Davis’ character, Major Anderson, is a male in the book but for no reason at all, Anderson was changed to a female! Also, in the book, the aliens are known as the Buggers, but in the movie, they are known as the Formics. But overall, for someone like me who has read the book, I was pretty satisfied. The film was better than I expected. The visual effects and music are great! So, in conclusion, if you have or haven’t read the book Ender’s Game, then you will definetley enjoy the movie! I would recommend this movie for kids 12 and up, because there are some violent scenes.

Here is the film’s trailer.

10.08.13
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Gravity

My rating: ratings5

Have you ever wondered how it’s like to be stranded in space with no communication with Earth and a limited amount of oxygen? In this movie, Sandra Bullock and George Clooney play two astronauts, Ryan Stone and Matt Kowalski, who are on a space shuttle mission. It is Stone’s first mission but Kowalski’s last before he retires. The film begins with an amazing 13-minute scene, beginning with a view of Earth from space. Then you start to hear Stone and Kowalski speaking with the Mission Control in Houston. The space shuttle starts getting closer to the screen and you can see the astronauts. Soon, Houston starts to warn them about a field of satellite debris, which is now destroying more shuttles. Their shuttle is soon destroyed as well, and now Stone and Kowalski are the only two survivors, with a limited amount of oxygen and no more communication with Earth. Stone, now panicking, must work with her partner to get to a nearby Chinese space station and get back home.

I saw this movie last week and loved it! The cinematography and visual effects are amazing, beautiful and visually stunning! I think it deserves an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and Best Cinematography. When you see how realistic all the scenery looks like, you may think, “How the heck did they do that?” It’s amazing how the filmmakers can make everything look so darn realistic! I wonder if they actually filmed it in space.

I would recommend this movie for kids 13 and up because there is some language and a lot of intensity.

Here is the film’s site and trailer.

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10.02.13
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Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2

My rating: ratings3

In the end of the first Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs movie, Flint (Bill Hader) destroyed his  “Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator” (FLDSMDFR for short) … or did he? In the sequel, Flint and all the other residents must leave Swallow Falls (because of the food storm in the first Cloudy movie) and be relocated to the city of San Franjose, California. In San Franjose, Flint meets his childhood idol, an inventor named Chester V (Will Forte), the head of a company named Live Corp. One day, Chester recruits Flint to back alone to Swallow Falls to defeat a group of  huge cheespiders, a combination of a cheeseburger and a spider. These cheespiders where created by the FLDSMDFR. But against Chester’s orders, Flint brings along some old friends to the island: weather intern Sam Sparks (The Dictator‘s Anna Faris), policeman Earl (The Expandables‘ Terry Crews), cameraman Manny (Despicable Me 2‘s Benjamin Bratt), chicken mascot Brent (That’s My Boy‘s Andy Samberg), Flint’s dad (James Caan), and Flint’s lab partner, a monkey named Steve (How I Met Your Mother‘s Neil Patrick Harris), who can talk but only says a few things, including that he’s hungry. But when they arrive at Swallow Falls, hey discover that the entire island is infested with foodimals, including tacodiles, watermelophants, shrimpanzees, flamangos, wild scallions, hippotatomuses, mosquitoast, buttoads, fruit cockatiels, buffaloaves, crab cakes, meatbalruses, apple pie-thons, and much more! Now it is up to Flint and his friends to destroy the FLDSMDFR and defeat the foodimals!

I saw this movie not too long ago and was very impressed by the film’s amazing animation. The film was also pretty hilarious. But one major and extremely weird flaw in the movie was that Chester is extremely flexible. He can repeatedly move his arms and legs around in weird ways, as if he has no bones. He is similar to the titular character of an animated TV show called “Uncle Grandpa”.  Another flaw is that Chester keeps calling his second-in-hand (an orangutan named Barb (voiced by Kristen Schaal)) a monkey, but she keeps getting angry and yelling, “I’m an ape!”, but isn’t an ape a type of monkey?

Overall, the movie was hilarious and had amazing animation. I would recommend this movie for children of all ages. Even adults might enjoy this humorous movie.

Here is the film’s site and trailer.

09.14.13
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Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters

My rating: ratings3

The film begins with 4 young Half-Bloods (Luke (Jake Abel), Grover (Brandon T. Jackson), Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario), and Thalia) running to Camp Half-Blood, but only 3 make it because Thalia sacrificed herself to get the other three Half-Bloods to the camp. Her father, Zeus, turns her into a tree which creates a barrier, protecting the camp from intruders. Seven years later, Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) discovers that the Tree of Thalia has been poisoned by Luke, and the only antidote is the Golden Fleece, which is located in the Sea of Monsters, what humans call the Bermuda Triangle. Percy, Annabeth, Grover, Clarisse (Leven Rambin), another Half-Blood and Tyson (Douglas Smith), a Cyclops who is Percy’s half-brother, must journey there to retrieve the Fleece.

I saw this movie last week. I liked it, but I thought that the first Percy Jackson movie was better. The film did have a few flaws, though, including that Pierce Brosnan isn’t in it! Instead, an old guy named Anthony Head plays Chiron. Also, Polympheus was way smaller than I imagined. And Anabeth’s hair is blond; in the first movie her hair is red.

But if you haven’t seen the first movie or read the bboks, you might enjoy it more than I did, like my friend, who saw the movie with me and hadn’t seen the first one yet or read the books, but still really enjoyed the film. There were also a few parts that made us laugh. I would recommend this movie for kids 11 and up, because the film is very violent, frightening, and has some language.

Here is the film’s site and trailer.

09.05.13
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Jobs

My rating: ratings2

Ashton Kutcher plays Steve Jobs in this movie, which tells you about how Apple was created, and how Steve Jobs changed the world of technology. The film manages to deliver a message: You can do the impossible as long as you believe it, but if you don’t, you will not succeed. In other words, some people see what’s possible, other’s change what’s possible.  Josh Gad hilariously plays Steve Wozniak, Jobs’ childhood friend, partner and co-founder of Apple. Dermot Mulroney plays Mike Markkula, who invested in Apple in 1976 and eventually started working there, while Matthew Modine plays John Sculley, the former CEO of Pepsi, who soon becomes the CEO of Apple and forces Jobs out of the company in 1985, and Luke Haas plays Daniel Kottke, Jobs’ friend.

Ashton Kutcher is an amazing actor in this movie. In the first scene, which shows Jobs presenting the iPod at an Apple Town Hall meeting in 2001, for a second I thought it was the real Steve Jobs! After about an hour, the movie started to get a little boring, so I think older people would enjoy this movie more than I did. This film is filled with laughs and great acting, but I don’t think this movie is appropriate for kids under 14 because there is a lot of language. But if you are 14 and over, I think you would really enjoy this movie and laugh a lot from it.

Also, here is the film’s site.

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08.29.13
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Turbo

My rating: ratings3

Theo is an ordinary garden snail. He works 24/7 at the garden and dreams of someday racing in the Indianapolis 500, like his idol, Guy Gagne. One day, he gets into a freak accident when he gets sucked up into the supercharger of a street race car, fusing his DNA with Nitrous Oxide. Theo now has super-speed and calls himself Turbo. He makes friends with some more snails, a taco driver named Tito, and Tito’s friends, and together they go to Indianapolis so Turbo can compete in the Indy 500 and live his dream.

This movie, distributed by Dreamworks Animation, is filled with laughs and a lot of heart. I also think the storyline was very well-written. All of the film’s character’s were very funny, even though the minions from Despicable Me 2 are 10 times funnier. The film’s amazing cast includes Ryan Reynolds, Paul Giamatti, Michael Pena, Luiz Guzman, Bill Hader, Michelle Rodriguez, Richard Jenkins, Ken Jeong, Maya Rudolph, Snoop Dogg, and Samuel L. Jackson. I would recommend this movie for kids 6 and up, because there are some things little kids might not understand. Overall the movie was funny and cute, but it was a little too short and is very predictable, too.

Here is the film’s site.