The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies

Actors:  Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Evangeline Lilly, Lee Pace, Luke Evans, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ken Stott, James Nesbitt, Cate Blanchett, Ian Holm, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Orlando Bloom.

Rating: 9 out of 10, I'm an unrepentant geek I am when it comes to Tolkien and the movies. I still remember sitting next to a heating vent on cold December mornings before junior high school marveling at the world unfurling for me as I read first The Hobbit and then The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Then you put this fascination up on the big screen as perfectly as Peter Jackson has done over the last fifteen years and I'm apoplectic. The Hobbit will always suffer when compared to The Lord of the Rings because the story is so much smaller in scope, despite Jackson’s best efforts. The battle scenes in this latest film comprise fully half of the entire movie and are unremittingly exciting.  Jackson has come to rely a little too heavily on his CGI but seeing the five armies assemble and then go at it was worth the wait.  I think Jackson kept Thorin Oakenshield in his A-Hole stage a little too long but he also wisely went to Martin Freeman’s heartfelt Bilbo every time some humanity and common sense needed injecting. There was so much going on in so many different locations but Jackson expertly wove an understandable journey for the viewer.  I loved the movie and can’t wait to watch all six of the two trilogies in one sitting (probably have to wait for my wife to be out of town for that).

MVP:  Freeman really grew into Bilbo and made him the lovable conscience

Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1

Actors: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jeffrey Wright, Stanley Tucci, Donald Sutherland.

Rating:  8 out of 10, This takes the Katniss Everdeen story beyond the games into the full-fledged rebellion her actions generated.  This is an obvious transition movie to get all the pieces in place for the final confrontation.  There’s not as much action and we spend a lot of time watching Jenifer Lawrence emote about the unfairness of her choices while experiencing a series of really bad hair days.  Luckily she’s such a great actress that’s not a bad fate for any movie goer but overall the movie was pretty depressing. Now we’re forced to wait year so the movie makers can wring the last possible dollar out of the franchise instead of delivering a completely satisfying movie. I still can’t get the damned Hanging Tree song out of head either.

MVP:   Lawrence as Katniss can now effortlessly carry a very big movie

Horrible Bosses 2

Actors: Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, Charlie Day, Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Spacey, Jamie Foxx, Chris Pine, Christoph Waltz

Rating:  7 out of 10, I loved the first movie which was raunchily funny throughout.  They weren’t able to maintain the magic in this second outing.  The three leads were still funny but the Jason Sudekis character wandered into the idiotic personae of Charlie Day’s which meant Jason Bateman was the only sane one in the bunch.  There was still a lot of really funny banter between the three boneheads who now try their hand at kidnapping instead of murder and it goes predictably and very entertainingly south.  Bateman remains the absolute master of the offhand hilarious comment. This one was nowhere near as funny as the original because the three guys were supposed to be regular Joes caught in a bad situation not of their own making.  Here they are buffoons and a long way from the likable trio of the first film.  The best parts are saved for the supporting characters who are uniformly awesome.  Kevin Spacey in his Shark mode, Jennifer Anniston channeling her naughty side again, Jamie Foxx as MF Jones and new bad boy Chris Pine completely steal the movie and I found myself anxiously waiting for them to reappear on the screen.  Overall, still a funny movie, but the original set the bar too high.

MVP:   Jason Bateman as Nick Hendricks, the everyman saddled with two complete idiots

Maze Runner

Actors:  Dylan O'Brien, Aml Ameen, Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Will Poulter, and Ki Hong Lee.

Rating: 8 out of 10, This is apparently another one of those “young adult” series of books cloned from the DNA of the Hunger Games.  I was pleasantly surprised by the flick which was well edited and boasts a plot that keeps the action and tension taut enough to ignore the obvious inconsistencies and plot holes. The story revolves around a group of teenaged boys thrown into the middle of a maze with their memories wiped out. The door to the surrounding maze opens each day which allows the boys to explore before nightfall when menacing robotic creatures called “grievers” wander the maze to kill. This was an updated take on the Lord of the Flies with the millennial youth doing much better with their isolation than their predecessors, or so it appears on the surface.  The movie is carried by the young cast, especially Dylan O’Brien in the lead role, who was so good in last year’s The Internship. This kid’s got a real future, someone to look out for.  I know this movie was aimed for the young fans of the books (if the teenybopper mutterings from the last row of the theater were any indication) but the film got my attention as well. I really liked this movie.

MVP:  O’Brien as Thomas the central character who easily carries the movie

John Wick

Actors:  Keanu Reeves, Michael Nyqvist, Alfie Allen, Adrianne Palicki, Bridget Moynahan, Dean Winters, Ian McShane, John Leguizamo, Willem Dafoe,

Rating: 9 out of 10, A cross breed of Shoot ‘Em Up and Payback with Keanu Reeves as a very dangerous hero.  He plays a retired mob hit man who, shortly after the death of his wife, is wronged by the son of a former associate. Reeves then spends the rest of the movie relentlessly chasing Theon Greyjoy all over New York City with legions of double tapped Russian mobsters in his wake. This is exactly what you expect going into an action/revenge flick; it doesn’t apologize for the cartoon level of violence but revels in it.  The pace is outstanding and Reeves is surprisingly good even though he only says six or seven words for the entire movie (probably a correlation there).  There’s a very cool vibe to this movie, a real win for Keanu, thoroughly enjoyable, as long as you can stomach multiple head shots and a dead puppy. One of my favorite films of 2014.

MVP:  Reeves in the title role as the completely bad ass John Wick

Fury

Actors:  Brad Pitt, Logan Lerman, Shia LaBeouf, Michael Peña, Jon Bernthal

Rating: 9 out of 10, A Brad Pitt vehicle set in the last days of World War 2 with Pitt as a tank commander fighting his way across the remnants of the 3rd Reich.  He and the rest of his veteran crew take on a fresh-faced newcomer, Logan Lerman, to replace a dead comrade.  The movie boasts some truly amazing battle scenes where some obvious effort went into realism.  The movie is more about the loss of humanity of the veteran crew (all excellent actors) caused by years of war.  You see Pitt trying to hang onto the last vestiges of his own humanity when he sees himself reflected back in Lerman’s reactions.  Despite their fragile existence living on the edge of barely retained sanity, fighting together establishes a bond that excuses their descent to a certain degree.  A really well done war movie, brutal to the extreme, but so is war.  I spent my entire career in light infantry and didn’t work a lot with tanks (they referred to us as “crunchies”).  Tankers were a strange, fatalistic breed which the movie does a great job of capturing.  Infantrymen have a healthy respect for tankers, probably dating back to the initial training where they have a sixty ton, armored beast come straight at you and do a couple pivot steers directly on top of your position.  A change of underwear is usually required afterwards.

MVP:  Pitt as Wardaddy balancing brutality and humanity

Vegas Vacation

Actors:  Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Randy Quaid, Ethan Embry, Marisol Nichols as

Rating: 6 out of 10, The worst of the bunch by far because Chase always managed to make Clark somewhat likable if extremely flawed. Here he’s just an A-hole undeserving of his family. The kids make a comeback and Cousin Eddie re-appears which is always welcome. Wayne Newton’s pursuit of Ellen doesn’t play well although D’Angelo still had “it” at this point. The best plot line has Ethan Embry as Rusty mirroring Chase’s futility at gambling with his own success. Time to send Chase out of pasture – he’s just not that funny and the material was too main stream, losing the edge of the earlier efforts.

MVP:  Embry as the very lucky Rusty