Review: Cars 2

Cars 2 is fun, funny, fast paced, and an exciting spy movie that improves upon the original Cars and has fun with the genre its playing in; while turning in some quality set pieces that a lot of action movies wish they had.

Check out my review of the Toy Story Toons short in front of Cars 2; Hawaiian Vacation.

The original Cars has grown on me every time I’ve seen it and while it’s still my least favorite Pixar film I still think it is quite a good little movie.  One thing I realized recently about Cars, don’t know why it took so long, is that it is almost without a plot.  Sure there is the race but it is just a character piece more or less and that realization even furthered my enjoyment of the original film.  And it wasn’t till we got to Radiator Springs in Cars 2 that I realized how much I liked and missed these characters and their stories.  I honestly think I would have enjoyed Cars 2 had it just been another nice and easy character piece in Radiator Springs and this sequel made me retroactively appreciate Cars even more for its great character work.

People that were affected, consciously or not, by Cars lack of plot will have no issues here as Cars 2 is full of it.  [Read more...]

Review: Valkyrie

Tom Cruise and Bryan Singer team up for a solid suspense thriller that surrounds the conspiring, attempt, and fallout of the final assassination attempt on Adolph Hitler during WWII.
Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise) is a member of the Nazi army and after his stint in North Africa, in late 1944 Stauffenberg becomes more concerned about his soldiers lives then the mission of the Nazi party. He also quickly finds that he is not alone and that there is a bit of a underground resistance building in an attempt to try and figure out how they can help Germany to save face as well as they can after this the war. To do this, they plot to assassinate Hitler and the scheming and the attempts to recruit, stay secret, and hopefully finally succeed after their last failed attempt is what this film focuses on. Stauffenberg enters the resistance’s ranks as a recruiter of sorts but quickly ascends the ranks as his dedication is proven to be to the end. Stauffenberg lost his eye, two fingers, and a hand in Africa and is risking himself and his families lives by betraying Hitler and to some the country. [Read more...]

Review: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

The tales of Narnia continue in this follow up that is superior to the follow up, more action, more peril, darker tone, and very little Christian overtones. Prince Caspian we are quickly introduced to, and who is the current aire to the thrown of Narnia. Waiting to simply become of age to take the thrown, his uncle, Miraz, wife gives birth to his own son, instituting a coup d’etat to claim the thrown for his bloodline which involves murdering Caspian to clear the way. Narrowly escaping his death, with the help of his professor, Caspian flees to the forests which are steeped in legend and mystery when he stumbles upon a pair of dwarfs who realize who he is by a special horn on his side, which he sounds before being knocked out by one of the said dwarfs.
We then cut to the Pevensie four, who after a brief fight among Peter and some classmates in a subway station, are transported back to Narnia as the subway station dissolves around them. [Read more...]