This Means War

I really liked this movie!  It was amusing, entertaining, and a perfect movie for a date night!  Chris Pine and Tom Hardy play best friends who are CIA agents.  Reese Witherspoon plays their love interest – but unknowingly to the guys, they are in love with the same woman.  It is a game of high tech cat and mouse while each of them try to get her to fall for them.  The movie is filled with lots of action, car chases and amusing one liners and a touch of romance as she must decide who she ultimately loves.  Just a fun flick that’s laugh out loud funny!

The Grey

I did not like this movie.  Had I known more about it – I don’t think I would’ve watched it.  It was a very dark, depressing movie with no hope.  A small band of survivors of a plane, crash, in a remote, frozen, barren, wilderness and struggle to stay alive.  They fight against all the elements of nature, the wind, snow and the wolves that hunt in packs.  Their only hope is to survive in a place where humans aren’t meant to survive and only the fiercest of animals make their way.  In a way, this movie was almost like a horror movie just in the fact that the wolves were picking off the survivors one by one.  Some of the story lines were unbelievable and some of them were meant to make you think about life and death.  I don’t want to watch a movie so depressing that it depresses me!!!  Some people will like this show, some will go into the depths of their mind and souls and come away with some big meaning to life through the death scenes – all I wanted after watching it was to watch a little bit of I Love Lucy and quit being so depressed!

The Grey

Well, I did “like” this movie.  And pretty much for the same reasons that Christy didn’t like it!  It WAS dark, it WAS depressing, it WAS bleak.  I guess how I saw it was showing that real life isn't a fairy tale.  Life isn't fair.  You can do all the "right" things and still die in a plane crash.  Or drown in a river.  Or get eaten by a wolf!  It definitely wasn't a classic or top notch by any means – and some things weren’t very realistic, but I thought it was way better than I was expecting.  I think I was looking more at the story or what they were trying to convey with it, rather than the actual "how" of it all.  I would watch it again - not that I "enjoyed" it - just feel like there was more to it than some people have seen when they watched it...

New Year's Eve

What happens when you get a huge group of actors and ask them all to be in a movie?  Nothing!!  This movie was like, 1000 different stories rolled up into a ball of messy, tangled twine.  New Year’s Eve tells the stories of different people and how their lives intersect on New Year’s Eve.  It wasn’t so much the different stories, but it was the lack of energy, imagination, and general acting!!  I wasn’t impressed by this movie because it seemed like they threw this movie together for the holiday season in hopes of making a buck or two.  There were some storylines I did like, there were some sweet moments, but overall, I was just sitting through a movie waiting for the credits so I didn’t feel like I wasted 2 hours.

Dark Tide

I like sharks and I like Halle Berry, but I DID NOT like this movie very much!  The storyline was incredibly basic, the acting was awful, and I didn’t care if any of them lived or died - I didn’t even care how the movie was going to end!!!  The sharks were the best actors if that tells you anything!  The story was about Halle’s character having been hired to take a man and his son out to “swim free with sharks” without a cage - because she’s the best - but hadn’t been in the water for over a year because of a tragic accident that left her friend dead.  The actual filming and scenery were nice, Halle Berry was beautiful, of course, and like I said, the sharks did very well – but you need more than that to make a decent movie!

Joyful Noise

Let’s start out with the positives of this movie.  Great music!  I knew going into this film that I would hear awesome, uplifting music and I wasn’t disappointed!  Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah star in the movie as dueling divas of a church choir but it’s the two young stars of the movie that deliver outstanding vocals!!  That said, the story itself was very clichéd.  A single mom raising kids with attitudes, a grandson that has a checkered past, the two young kids fall in love and there is no love lost between Dolly and Queen Latifah until they realize they must work together to win the national choir competition.  The acting was fair.  I was expecting a “blockbuster” feel to the movie and I came away feeling like I watched a “lackluster” film.  I don’t want to say this is a bad film because I’ve seen worse so if you liked the Sister Act movies and enjoy Christian/Gospel music – you will enjoy this one too!

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

This is the fourth installment in this franchise and the best!  I have enjoyed all the MIs, but I was very happy to see new life breathed into this film.  The first 3 are dark and very brooding and this one hits with new energy! The locations, the cars, the stunts are just incredible!  Tom Cruise reprises his role of Ethan Hunt, an IMF agent who has been disavowed and he, with 3 other agents, must stop a mad man with a nuclear device.  It’s all very clever, very thrilling and I’m a sucker for movies with a nod to the original and of course, there’s the famous music of Mission Impossible, which I’m still humming in my mind!  It runs a little long but “should you choose to accept the mission” you won’t be disappointed!