Ed's Review Dot Com

Marvel Studios, Paramount Pictures, Albuquerque Studios,

Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, Clark Gregg, Cobie Smulders, Stellan Skarsgård, Samuel L. Jackson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Paul Bettany

Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is head of S.H.I.E.L.D. brings together a collection of the greatest Marvel superheroes, most of which have been put out to pasture due the danger they bring. There’s Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), The Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow Scarlett Johansson), for starters. Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) has been turned by evil demigod Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and his brother Thor (Chris Hemsworth) shows up to help defeat the evil Loki. Loki has stolen the device that allows him to open a portal and bring in his army of alien warriors, and only The Avengers with a little help from their friends have a chance to defeat them.

Let me first say, that I am not general a comic book hero fan in the least. But I truly think this is the best of this genre ever. It helps a lot if you have seen the previous movies, as this one ties it all together. From Thor to Hulk to Captain America, the First Avenger, to the Iron Man movies. These all tie the characters together and a pretty good at getting the facts straight, which is important to the true fans. It’s a real treat to see all these wonderful characters together. Rather than one hero which saves the world, each of these guys have to use their special talents together to survive. Plus they need a little help from the outside, and a lot of luck to get by. It could have been easy to feature the most popular and strongest heroes the most, but this film does a great job of giving every Avenger his time in the spotlight. Truly no one is really more important than the others. (That, of course, is open to a lot of debate I’m sure.) Dealing with these big ego’s gives Nick Fury fits.

One weird thing was using Robin Sherbatsky (Cobie Smulders) from How I Met Your Mother, as one of the key officers on Nick’s team. Every time I saw her, all I could think of is Robin.

But seriously, this is a great adventure movie that goes strong from the opening through the credits, and never gives you a chance to sit back and relax. At the same time it has a lot of heart, a great deal of humor, especially with the interactions of the Avengers themselves, and some epic battles, special effects, and some of the best damn explosions I have ever seen. Despite the fact that the box office is SO huge for this film, (It made back it budget in the first weekend), this is a film that you ought not miss in the theater. The shock and awe from the rest of the audience and the big screen and wonderful sound systems make it well worth the money. I saw it in 3D, and though it really didn’t add a great deal to the film itself, I’m glad I paid the extra $3.50 for 3D. It was a beautiful and breathtaking film. I loved it, and highly recommend it whether or not you’ve seen the prior films. It’s a great story within itself.

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Color Force, Larger Than Life Productions, Lionsgate,

Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz, Stanley Tucci, Donald Sutherland, Wes Bentley, Toby Jones, Alexander Ludwig, Isabelle Fuhrman

In the future, the U.S. has collapsed and is replaced by Panem, a country divided into 12 districts. Every year, 24 young poeple are selected by lottery, one girl and one boy from each of the 12 districts to compete in the Hunger Games, where they are placed into an arena and forced to fight to the death. Only one winner can come out of the forest arena, but that person will be showered with gifts. When Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence)’s little sister is selected, Katniss volunteers to take her place and fight for District 12, the poorest of the districts. In a four day training excercise with her mentor, Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson) the ill prepared Katniss heads out to fight to the death against those much larger and better trained than she. She will need all her wits and skills to survive in a game where as many die from exposure and hunger as from the other contestants along with Peeta Mellark (Josh Huntcherson) the male counterpart from District 12 and an uneasy alliance they form.

This film, based on the first of a trilogy of books by Suzanne Collins is tearing up the box office! There is a good reason. It is a wonderful story told in a beautiful motion picture. This is a perfect story with heroes and villains, martrys and saviors, good and evil. The casting in the film is just about perfect. They went through dozens of well known actresses before choosing Jennifer Lawrence, and they made the right choice. She is nearly perfect in her portrayal of Katniss. There are some other characters that are also stunning choices. Woody Harrelson is great as Haymitch, the smart-alec hard drinking mentor who blows Katniss off until he realizes that she really does have some skills. Stanley Tucci is Ceasar Flickerman, the long suffering host of the Hunger Games, and a TV personality trying to find drama and humor for the camera in his pre interviews with the tributes. The cinematography is stunning, and the views are spectacular. Most of all, it’s highly believable, and they took a real life approach to the situation rather than depending on our suspension of belief. It seems like it could have really happened. The bad guys are bad, and the good guys are good. Of course the capital is the worst, and Donald Sutherland is the President, and doesn’t ham it up with evilness, but plays a totally believable leader who thinks he’s doing the best for his people, even though something has gone awfully wrong here.

This is a great adventure drama, and one everyone young and old is likely to enjoy. It’s a very good story, and one I highly recommend catching in the theater if at all possible. It’s bound to be a topic of every conversation, so you might as well check it out so you can join in the discussion! I loved it.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Filmax Entertainment, Icon Entertainment International, Elixir Films,

Emilio Estevez, Martin Sheen, Deborah Kara Unger, James Nesbitt, Yorick van Wageningen, Spencer Garrett, Antonio Gil-Martinez, Carlos Leal, Simón Andreu, Santi Prego

Tom (Martin Sheen) is an eye doctor, fully involved in his life, when suddenly a call arrives (on the golf course) telling him his only child, a son who is 40 years old was dead. Daniel (Emelio Estevez) was estranged and didn’t agree with his father on very much, and he was in the midst of a pilgrimage along El Camino de Santiago, the Road of St James, across Northern Spain. For centuries, pilgrims have made this 500 mile walk across Spain to stand at the feet of the statue of St. James in the Cathedral at the end of the road. He died on the first day. Tom rushes to Spain to collect Daniel’s body, and decides to finish the walk in Daniel’s name and to find out why his son was doing this thing, and to find himself.

This is a wonderful independant film. You may have seen Martin and Emelio talking about this film during the pre-show at your local theater or on TV. They decided, rather than doing a huge Hollywood film, to make and promote this film independantly. They correctly figured that the public was looking for a really good story that is frewh and new, and not a recycled remake, sequel, or rehash of what we’ve seen before. They pulled this off. The method for making this film is unique too. There was no caravan of equipment, trailers, and busses! They filmed it with portable equipment and, as Emelio loves to point out, with no director’s chair! Emelio has a small part in this film, as he dies in the first couple minutes, but he directed his Dad in the film, and the two did a wonderful job.

Tom meets a bunch of colorful characters along the way, but I’m not going to talk too much about them here as getting to meet them along the way is part of the charm of this film. But I will say that Tom starts out as an angry grouchy old guy who has to learn as much about himself as he does about his son.

This is a wonderful film, very fresh and interesting, and a remarkable story. In addition, the views and stories along the road as fabulous as well. I really enjoyed this film from start to finish, and I’m very glad they took on this project, and completed it with all the love and care they could muster. I highly recommend this movie. It’s truly one of a kind.

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1984 Private Defense Contractors, Liddell Entertainment, Scott Free Productions,

Liam Neeson, Frank Grillo, Dermot Mulroney, Dallas Roberts, Joe Anderson, Nonso Anozie, James Badge Dale, Ben Bray, Anne Openshaw

John Ottway (Liam Neeson) is in Alaska working for an oil company. His job is to watch out for wolves, and take them out if any come too close to the camp. But Ottway is having a personal crisis. He’s missing his wife, and severely depressed. On a flight with a bunch of the men from the camp, the plane is in distress and crashes out in the middle of nowhere. When Ottway wakes up in the freezing cold, he puts together the few survivors and makes a plan to survive by marching across the snow. But there are packs of wolves in the area, and they’re very defensive of their territory. It’s a huge struggle to get across the plain to search for civilization, and along the way, they’ll all find out what they’re made of.

This is a wild epic film with beautiful scenes of mountains and snow, and intense suspense and downright horror. But it’s not only a grand adventure, it’s a close introspection of self, what you believe and what you doubt, and what you’re made of. Ottway is determined to survive, at any price, yet it’s hard to figure out why. But in extremely harsh times, someone steps up and takes the lead, and that falls to him. He has the only experience with wolves, and therefore knows more about what it takes to survive than anybody else.

If you see this on the big screen with a spectacular sound system, you’re in for quite a few jolts!!! My wife grabbed my arm so hard at one point, I thought perhaps I’ll have a bruise. I truly jumped several times. But additionally, this film does a better job of putting you INSIDE the movie than any I’ve seen in a long, long time. The plane crash is edited in a way that you’ll think YOU were inside the plane. It’s terrifying. The cold and wind and snow is so close and you are in the fight with the wolves from start to finish.

There are many critics of this film. Some people hate it. There are a couple reasons for this. One is that wolves just don’t act like that. Well, ok, perhaps that’s a fact. Certainly you can’t dismiss Jaws because sharks don’t behave that way either. In this case, I will accept that wolves probably don’t hunt humans for sport, but that’s not important to this film. I don’t want the wolves to get a bad rap here, but the story is about survival, introspection, faith, and true grit. It’s not about wolves hunting people. The other reason is that some people claim that it’s a superficial story and the writers and director are too “full of themselves”. I dismiss this. This is really great work by Liam Neeson, and his supporting cast, and it’s a very exciting and suspenseful movie. So the job of writers and directors are to bring exciting and suspensful…and entertaining films to the screen. This is what they did, and they did a great job.

This is way too intense for youngsters, so please follow the guidelines for R rated film. It’s R because of the violence and intense FEAR in this movie, and it would provoke nightmares in kids, so please please don’t frighten your kids. But you want to see an extreme adventure with very intense, edge of the seat suspense, and downright terror, this is a great ride. I completely enjoyed this film, completely forgot that I was watching a movie, and felt as if I was in the middle of the terror. It is an excellent terror filled thriller!

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Henson Associates (HA)