Wanted Stars Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman and James McAvoy.  It is rated R for violence, language and intense scenes.  It is an hour and fifty minutes long. 

Based on a graphic novel this movie follows a line of assassins who have let fate provide their kills for them.  The main character, Wesley, finds himself being drawn, no thrust into their world.  One of the head men Sloan (played by Morgan Freeman) find Wesley with the help of his fellow Assassins, mostly Fox (played by Angelina Jolie).  They take this young accountant, who has a droll and lonely life, a man whose boss is a pain in his crack and whose girlfriend isn’t the best girlfriend he could hope for, and they make him a killer.  Or they try to, so that he can get vengeance on the man who killed his father, or the man who had his father killed.  In the end only one assassin can remain standing, and it is a fight to the finish to see who lives.

This movie as I said is based on a graphic novel, and it looks like it, but not in the same well thought out way of movies like Sin City or Batman.  It has some very interesting special effects, at least one involving a car, which were well done and exciting.  Yet I had to realize when I entered the movie that this wasn’t a movie based in plot or storyline, it was a movie based on special effects and not much more.  Plus to see this movie I had to suspend reality more than I have had to do for most other movies.

Everything involving a gun pretty much couldn’t happen, and the reason I know this is because the person I went to see the movie with is a competitive shooter.  There is no way to curve a bullet in a circle killing everyone standing in that circle.  There is no way to shoot one single bullet from so far away that you are basically in another country.  I also am not sure my suspension of belief will go that far.  Plus none of the characters were really that well developed.  We know Wesley’s father wasn’t around to raise him but we get no idea of who did raise him or where he lived or how he got to where he was.  Plus Angelina Jolie’s character, Fox, is the only other character we get any history on and it is only childhood history as well.  We know what happened to her as a young girl but we don’t know really how she got from there to where she ended up.  Plus as a group of assassins they seem so easy to manipulate and not out for themselves enough. 

That said I can’t say if I was happy or not to see this movie.  It was a fun movie, especially if you like lots of special effects and fun, but not a good movie if you like character driven plots and good storylines.  If you are interested in the graphic novel then I don’t know what to tell you because I have no idea how the graphic novel is written or drawn so I can’t say if you would like this or not.  Personally I think maybe I enjoyed this more than I didn’t, it was fun and some of the inner dialogue of the main character Wesley was funny. 

Rated PG and running two hours and twenty minutes this movie stars Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, William Moseley, Anna Popplewell and Sergio Castellitto.

Following the same characters from the earlier Narnia movie this movie begins a year later.  The children are all on their way to school when Narnia comes for them.  They find themselves on a beach in a land that they once knew that has changed drastically.  There a new ruler has found himself in the position to take control and he has desires to be king.  Which is why Prince Caspian must run for his life and search for help from those sons and daughters of olde.  When Susan, Peter, Edmond and Lucy find themselves in Narnia they are startled that so much has changed, and they find that many of the Narnians has disappeared or gone into hiding to save themselves.  A war is on the way, a war for the lives of the Narnians and the control of an empire.  Prince Caspian must make a choice and his biggest adversary might just be himself, or Peter.

Visually this movie follows along the tracks of the first movie.  Most of the characters are digitally animated or added to, and it does take away from the fun of the movie.  At times it can be distracting enough that the viewer is taken out of the movie and pays more attention to the characters visually than what they are saying.  The plot of this movie is lacking and there is way too much going on.  There are too many characters and to be honest the plot seems to suffer, as well as the story.

The biggest drawback of this movie for me was that it seemed like one giant fight scene.  There was no further development of the characters and it seemed as if the scenes of the movie were more thought out as a fight scene than as character storyline.  Even Prince Caspian was lacking.  I didn’t feel like there was enough development of him to care about if he lived or died or became king or whatever.  I really thought that his character and the character of the bad guy and many others should have been expanded a little more.  The character I found myself disliking the most was not of the main bad guy but of Peter.  I was offended by him and thought that he was played a little strongly. 

This movie was a great disappointment to me.  Having read all of the books several times since I was a child I was hoping that this movie would be as well done and fun as the movie before it.  Also I wondered why they creator of the movies didn’t do the first or the third books?  Why skip and do the second and fourth books? 

If you are a fan of the Narnia books I don’t recommend seeing this movie.  If you like fighting then you might like this movie because there are a lot of fight scenes in this movie.  If you want a plot driven movie don’t see this one.

This movie stars Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman.  It is an hour and twenty-five minutes long and is rated R mostly for intense violence and some language.

A newlywed couple try to have a nice romantic evening and are disrupted by a homicidal group of strangers.  The couple (Tyler and Speedman) have no clue why these people, one man and two women, have invaded their lives and are trying to hurt them.  The masked strangers toy with the couple, leading them to hide, seperate and to harm a close friend.  They destroy the couples lives and then they set out to destroy the couple.  Both Tyler and Speedman make attempts to foil the strange killers, but in the end their efforts seem futile as the strangers come closer and closer to causing them death.  Some will live and some will die, all because they “were home”.

Visually interesting this movies scenery sets the setting for the movie.  A lone house on a dusty road with no neighbors, the homocidal strangers found the perfect house to invade.  Trees and a creepy barn add to the scenery.  When the movie begins picking up steam and an earlier character returns the destruction becomes a little more obvious and adds even further to the creepy element this movie attempts to hold.  The acting by Liv Tyler is well done and a different jump for all those who loved her int he Lord of the Ring trilogy.  She is fearfull and scared in all the right places and complacent in the ones she needs to be complacent in.  Of course after saying all of these nice things I must now say what I really thought of the movie.

I thought this movie was pretty bad.  The premise is like one of a million other movies, killers killing because they can and because you are available.  This reminds me of a million other movies like The House of 1000 Corpses, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and even Friday the 13th.  They all have killers who kill randomly because the person they are killing was in the wrong place at the right time.  However most of those movies were interesting and the killers made sense, a homicidal family who kill for fun, a homicidal family who might have been brought on by insest and a killer who is ressureccted for no reason (yes even Jason is more interesting).  These killers aren’t evne that scary to me.  The “scary” scenes used too many startling scare tactics - people jumping out, people looking in windows, things making loud noises, it wasn’t scary.  In fact most of the scenes in the movie were obvious and you knew what scary thing was going to happen next. 

Boring and pointless this movie could be skipped.  No matter that the beautiful Liv Tyler is in this movie, it isn’t interesting enough to stay watching, even though it has some interesting scenes.  Not enough of a draw to watch the rest of the movie, it is too random and the viewer really doesn’t care what happens to the victims or the killers, especially since from the beginning of the movie you know what the end of the movie is going to be like. 

Don’t see it, and if you already have I am sure you suffer from the same watcher’s regret that I do, maybe we should start a support group.  Anyone who has seen this movie, or any of the following Dead Silence, I Know Who Killed Me, Sunshine, or The Happening to name a few.  Skip it, watch something better.

Mark Wahlburg and Zooey Deschanel star in this movie.  It is rated R for some self-inflicted violence and runs one hour and thirty-one minutes.

 Another movie by M. Night this movie tries to follow in the footsteps of his other movies, creating suspense and keeping the viewer wondering what will happen.  A young couple whose marriage has been on the rocks find themselves in the middle of a countrywide crisis.  They, along with a friend and his daughter, run to fins a safe haven.  Yet, there seems to be no escape as the mysterious ailment that causes people to kill themselves follows wherever they go.  Finally the couple (Wahlburg and Deschanel) find a place they think is safe and attempt to hide there, with a strange woman and a creepy doll.  The mysterious ailment follows them even there, and no human is safe from this “happening”.  In the end they take a chance and hope that when they go outside things don’t go too bad and maybe they can survive whatever is causing humans to kill themselves.

I have seen many mixed reviews of this movie, and it reminded me of the reviews of his past movies, which were of both versions, loved it and hated it.  While the landscape of this movie is nice and at times beautiful, the movie in itself is not really that good.  I feel like I wasted my money on it and want to ask M. Night to stop trying to live up to the fame of The Sixth Sense.  The actors were dry and seemed to be cardboard cutouts of themselves (as my friend said after we watched the movie).  The dialogue was dull and I found myself laughing through most of the movie because of how bored I was.  I needed to do something to keep myself awake.

As for the plot of the movie, it was so obvious that this was a movie about global warming and the problems that it could be causing.  I felt that watching this movie was like someone was constantly hitting me over the head with an organic environmentally safe hammer trying to give me a green concussion.  It couldn’t have been more obvious or more tree driven if it had been a movie of just a tree for an hour and a half.  In fact I might have liked that movie a lot more because then I would have known going in what I would be getting.  The actors could have been used so much better than they were, especially when you look at some of the other movies that Mark Wahlburg and Zooey Deschanel have done you know that their talents are not being used in this film, and they can do so much better.  The special effects were overdone, and the plot, well it left a lot to be deserved. 

If you want to watch a movie about going green and pollution and global warming go watch An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore.  It was much more entertaining and less full of itself than this movie felt.  Skip it.  If you want something scary go get gas, the price you pay would be a lot scarier than this movie ends up being.

Starring John Goodman, Christina Ricci, and Emile Hirsch.  It is rated PG, and I don’t think I need to say why, intense scenes mostly.  It is two hours and fifteen minutes long.

Based on a popular 1960’s cartoon entitled, duh, Speed Racer, this is a real life intense racing movie.  Emile stars as Speed Racer, yes folks that is his name.  He has been raised around racing, can’t get enough, dreams about it when he is in school, and finally becomes what he always knew he would become, a racer.  Following in his brothers tainted footsteps, Speed has big shoes to fill, and parents who love and want what is best for him.  Racing is his life, and he wants to be the best.  A giant company decides they want to buy him, bring him into their fold, and crush his spirit, but Speed has too much integrity to fall for that.  With the help of his family, Mr. X, Trixie, and a cast of characters he passes through trial after trial until finally the end is reached.  Yet, does the evil doing company fall, or do they survive to coma again in a sequel?

This was probably one of the brightest and most colorful movie that I have ever seen.  Stimulating to my brain and stimulating for my eyes, this was a cornucopia of fun, and fast cars.  Most of the scenes were some sort of computer animation, or cartooning, but it didn’t matter.  It was a fabulously brilliant movie to view.  The scenes were so colorful that at times I wasn’t even paying attention to the action that was taking place on the screen.  The characters were all well played, especially since they were all based on a cartoon, and while at times they seemed a little cartoonish it never went over the edge to too much cartoonish behavior. 

I didn’t like that there didn’t seem to be enough background on the brother and I found myself a little confused at times by what exactly happened.  I wasn’t sure what had really happened with the brother to cause him to do the things that he did.  It didn’t all make sense to me.  Plus there could have been just a little more depth to some of the characters like Speed’s mom and some of the background characters that held important parts in the film.

You don’t have to have seen the cartoon to be visually stimulated by this movie.  Even if you go see it just for that it is well worth it.  This movie does remind me a little bit of Tron, not so much that I want to make a comparison, but enough that I said something about it after watching the movie.  I pretty much will recommend this movie to everyone who wants to see something with a lot of colors and some really great visual effects.

Get Smart stars Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, and Dwayne “the rock” Johnson.  It is rated PG-13 for some language, sexual scenes, and mild violence.  It is an hour and forty minutes long. 

Based on a popular television show from the 1960’s from the creative genius of Mel Brooks, a somewhat updates version, this is full of action, laughs and some sexy scenes.  Steve Carell plays Maxwell Smart, otherwise known as agent 86.  Starting off as an analyst, Max has failed the Agent test so many times he is on his last leg, and if he fails again he will remain an analyst forever.  Due to KAOS agents, the enemy, he finds himself an agent, an agent with no field experience up against bloodthirsty goons.  Anne Hathaway plays agent 99, a hot little number who does all the work and yet somehow remains girlie and feminine.  “The Rock” plays agent 23, the agent all other agents dream about and dream to be.  This movie follows the agents as they try to stop KAOS, and find the leak in their own group.  Who wants them dead?  Who is behind the plan to rule the world?  Who is agent 99 really?

Fun and funny this movie was really enjoyable.  I laughed out loud several times during this film.  I already knew Steve Carell was funny, but I learned that the rest of the cast could be pretty funny as well.  There is one scene on a dance floor that I loved, and thought not only was it funny, but it gave bigger girls and boys the upper hand.  Knowing that this was a comedic action movie, I was surprised at some of the action scenes.  They were pretty well played out and didn’t make me cringe as they tried adding comedy and action together. 

My biggest problem with this movie was the character of Agent 99.  Anne Hathaway played her really well, but the back and forth between super agent and girlie girl bothered me.  I was happy to see a strong agent and a girl who wanted love, but the ups and downs of this were too much for me.  It was too much of one or the other and not enough blending which could have been done without harming the integrity of the character.

You don’t have to have seen the old television show to have fun and enjoy this movie, I am sure it might help understand the characters a little better, but honestly I have never watched and episode and I enjoyed the movie.  If you want a fun comedy I suggest seeing this movie.  It was fun, and funny, and even had a little sex appeal for those out there who need that.

Starring Will Ferrell and Jon Heder, this movie is rated PG-13 for some violence, sexual references and language.  Run time is one hour and thirty-three minutes long.

Two skaters compete in the men’s singles category.  They tie at the Olympics and fight.  They are ejected and banned for life from skating, losing their dignity and their gold medals.  Soon a homicidal fan sees a loophole, and they take on the task of skating again, as a pair.  Laughter ensues, as does crass crotch jokes and murderous intent from the opposition.  And that pretty much sums up this movie.

While I was watching this movie I was bummed that it wasn’t a lot funnier than it was.  The plot was so simple and the acting so over the top, yet not over the top enough, that I felt I was watching a blueprint of the movie.  This didn’t seem like it was the entire film.  Maybe they shouldn’t have left out all of the funny parts.  I was somewhat surprised to see so many actual olympic skaters doing cameos in this movie.  I would have thought they would have chosen a better skating movie to do cameos in, wait is there a better skating movie?

Okay, maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on this movie, since some of the scenes did give me a little bit of a chuckle.  Most of them however just made me moan in pain.  Will Ferrell as a figure skater and a sex addict is not as funny as Will Ferrell as a San Diego news reporter.  Jon Heder as a figure skater is not as funny as Jon Heder as a dorky high school student like he played in Napoleon Dynamite. 

Falling short of funny this movie was over quick, which is a bonus for it.  if you want something on in the background that you don’t have to pay much attention to, just noise then maybe you might want to watch this movie.  It might be fun to listen to some of what is going on, and some of the music is pretty good.  I liked it. 

My suggestion, skip this one.  If you want a skating movie watch the Mighty Ducks, yeah it’s a kids movie, and no it isn’t about figure skating, but it has a lot of heart and a few scenes that were funnier than this movie hands down.

Thomas Cavanagh stars in this movie along with a lot of other people who have pretty much played character actors.  The version I watched was unrated and have to warn those about gore, violence and sexual references and scenes.  Run time is one hour fifty-three minutes long.

A man checks into the hospital for a routine colonoscopy the day after his fourtieth birthday.  George (played by Cavanagh) finds out that in this hospital things are far from routine.  A mistake leads to some extraordinary visits and happenings.  Doctors apologize for the accident, and the things that happen because of it.  George finds out things that he never knew, like who his daughter is in love with and that his wife may or may not be cheating on him.  A nurse finds that she has an interest in him, and a black nurse stalks him, promising him things that no one has ever promised before.  This routine colonoscopy becomes a road to self-discovery, and George soon finds out how much pain and pleasure a man can take.  Plus he answers the question, if you die in your dreams, do you die in real life.

This movie takes place pretty much in one room, and one house.  It has several confusing flashbacks, some of which are strange and beautiful at the same time.  Not all of them make sense.  The scenery at times is all over the place, grotesque on minute and achingly beautiful the next.  The nurse that feels sorry for what happened to George is beautiful and is continually portrayed as an innocent beauty of sorts.  Picture wise this movie is interesting to watch.

On the other hand this movie is so strange I wasn’t sure what the heck it was really about, and after I watched it I was left scratching my head, and wishing I could scratch out my eyeballs.  There seems to be very little plot in this movie and a lot of the scenes either don’t make sense, or don’t move this movie along.  Scenes which don’t move a movie along are pretty much useless and shoudn’t be used or created.  The acting of most of the characters was subpar, although I enjoyed Lola and the black nurse Mondango.  Their charactrers were interesting enough that I contined to watch this movie. 

Honestly I don’t reccomend this movie to anyone, unless of course you want to watch an incredibly off the wall flick.  Although some of the imagry or scenes are very striking, it doesn’t make it worth the time wasted watching the rest of the movie.  Please, save some time in your life, watch a different movie.

Run time is two hours and thirty-eight minutes.  It stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., Chloe Sevigny, Mark Rufflo and several other well known actors.  This movie is rated R for violence, some drug use, language and sexual content.

Fully following the Zodiac killings of the 1960’s and 70’s this movie is all about the people who were plagued by the relentless taunter the Zodiac.  A man, amusingly, went around California killing.  According to the movie he killed approximately six people, and wounded two others.  The main character is played by Jake Gyllenhaal, a young cartoonist who becomes obsessed with the Zodiac killer, and ends up losing his family and his identity to his search for the truth.  If you know nothing about the case, a killer calling himself the Zodiac, stalked and killed his victims with either a knife or a gun.  Then he wrote to a couple of newspapers, mainly the San Francisco Chronicle, sending cryptic messages and items of bloody clothing.  He was never found.

If you like movies about true serial killers, or homicides, then you should watch this movie.  Otherwise skip it.  The beginning of the movie starts of slow, and it seems to maintain the pace throughout the entire film.  Most of the murders happen in the first forty-five minutes and the rest of the movie just follows the main character as he skips around searching for the real killer, the name of the killer, so he can rest.  The scenery is very interesting, as the film makers tried to keep the movie in the times, with the clothes, and surroundings remaining in the sixties and seventies.  The character played by Robert Downey Jr., Paul Avery, was one of the most interesting characters in the movie however half-way through the movie he disappears.

Slowness was a quality that was plentiful in this movie.  Many of the long scenes could have been shortened or cut.  There was way too much dialogue and too much time was spent setting up the murder scenes.  Some of the scenes seemed to have been put in just to fill in space, but I feel it was probably to stay totally true to the story.  However it could have been cut, a bunch could have been cut.  This movie was just too long and too slow.  Since I was familiar with the story I was hoping that it would give some insight to the story that I didn’t already know, but I was disappointed.  The movie just followed the same story that I could have read in any other book, or the book that was written by the main character. 

The question is was the zodiac found, and if not is he/she still out there?  Of course if he/she is still out there did this movie excite them? 

I don’t know if I would recommend this movie and was somewhat surprised by the high ratings it was given by some.  I found it way too slow, and WAY too long.  But like I said earlier in this review, if you are interested in this particular case, serial killers, or homicide in general you might like this movie.  If you want a really good serial killer movie watch M or Citizen X, both of those were based on true stories, and both of them are pretty good movie.  Citizen X even supplies the viewer with a lot of suspense, which is wonderful since in that one you already know who the murderer is.

Starring Sean Austin, Rider Strong and Brian Presley this movie is rated nothing and shouldn’t be seen by anyone under the age of 17 (at least).  Run time is one hour and forty-four minutes long.

A trio of young college bound guys decides to take a trip to Mexico to fulfill last longings before they go off to the real world.  Once they arrive they meet up with some beautiful young girls and tries to get laid, only one does.  Unfortunately they run into a religious cult that practices Santeria and uses human sacrifice.  One of the boys goes missing and the police are unwilling to help find him.  Of the three boys two of them go through horrible trauma, and two police officers also meet bad ends.  With the help of a young traumatized senorita the remaining boys search for their friend on their own, and realize that in Mexico things are run differently than in the USA.  The police live in the deepest pockets, and the rule of “don’t be a rat” stops everyone from talking, or helping.

Based on a true story this movie is more interesting than Hostel and Turistas because of the sole fact that it is based on a true story, so it could have really happened.  Also while some of the scenes are gory they are not over the top like both Turistas and Hostel (1+2).  Everyone pretty much knows that there are parts of Mexico that you should be careful in, and I am not just saying this since I have a friend who lives in Mexico and does not refute some of the horrific history the country has.  Sean Austin plays a pretty good sadist however his role was a little confusing since he was the only gringo among the group and he was not considered for the role of sacrifice.  I wanted a little more information about his character, like why he was there and how he came to be a part of the group, and felt that his character was not as developed as it could have been.  He didn’t seem as sadistic as he could have been.  The scenes of gore were well done and not too over the top, only one scene made me cringe and that was only because I like having my eyeballs in my head.

Since this movie was based on a true story I wanted a little more on the story.  How many people had disappeared because of this group?  Is the cult still active or have they disbanded because of police and government attention?  Do they have anything to do with the bodies that have been found in and around Juarez?  There were a lot of unanswered questions, and if the story is based on the cult that I believe it was based on then some of the scenes have been overly fictionalized and would have been more interesting if left in facts.  All in all though this movie is more frightening than movies such as the two Hostel movies and Turistas and that is just because it is true.  Plus it is in the same vein of another movie that was based on true crimes, Wolf Creek. 

If you want to see a scary movie that will scare you because it might actually happen watch this movie, or even Wolf Creek.  If you just want a scary movie this works for that too.  If you want something with a lot of gore go for one of the other movies mentioned, and skip this one, you would just be disappointed.  If you don’t like scary movies, stop reading this review and read the review of something you might actually be interested in!

Pulse stars Veronica Mars hot young thing Kristin Bell, singer Christina milan and Rick Gonzolez.  It is rated R unless you get the unrated version, pretty much for scenes of intense violence and supernatural horror (no blood).  The movie runs an hour and twenty-eight minutes long.

This movie is an electric horror.  It stars Kristin Bell as Maddie, a young woman whose friend/boyfriend (not totally sure) commits suicide.  She finds that he had a secret, and he had unleashed something on the world, something that he wishes he could take back, something that sucks the will to live from those who interact with it.  Everyone end up dying, killing themselves or just disappearing.  Maddie tries to find what has happened, and with the help of a handsome young man that she has never met before she learns who started it all and how they might be able to stop it.  With the loss of a few friends along the way, she tries her hardest to stay alive.  Everyone succumbs to the dead and give their lives over, becoming one of them.  In the end the dead rule the cities, but they can only get you through electricity and cell phones.  Don’t use the internet.  Don’t use the cell phone.  When asked what they want they want what they haven’t got anymore: Life.

Based on a Japanese movie titled Kairo this is an interesting interpretation, and it make a little more sense than the Japanese version does.  I enjoyed one of the main points of the movie, that we are too dependant on our cell phones and computers to keep in touch with others and loved ones.  Reaching out isn’t that hard, through a letter or a visit (well these days with gas prices) and unless we want to become a living zombieland where everyone sits in front of their webcams and intamacy involves devices like the one in Demolition Man Sandra Bullock uses to seduce Stallone, maybe we need to put away the computer and drop the cell phone.  In the end Maddie does just that, leaving the modern world behind in hopes of surviving the return of the dead.  They reach out and murder your will to live, and they prevail. 

The visuals in this movie were very well done.  Most of the supernatural beings were so limited and fuzzy that it gave the viewer room to imagine who they wanted, or what they might fear.  There is one scene especially where on of Maddie’s friends loses his battle with the evil undead and disappears into a wall.  It is a great scene that mixes visuals with horror.  Could you really die and dissappear so that all that is left of you is a black stain?  That is what most of the deaths ask. 

Problems: well the creation of this virus, the release of these beings, is never explained well enough to satisfy me.  I didn’t really understand why the dead were coming back, or what had allowed them to come back.  I also didn’t understand how the boyfriend had released this virus onto the world.  It didn’t make sense to me, and to be honest I feel that sometimes horror films rely too much on scare tactics and not enough on plot and story.  I wanted a little more, a little more description and reasoning.  A little more about why the boyfriend had  been hacking into things and released this thing.  Was he a hacker for a job or was he a hacker for fun?  What did he gain?  Plus why wasn’t the government more involved?

I say to everyone if you like watching different things watch the Japanese version of this film and then this film.  If you like horror movies this one isn’t really that scary, but if you like visual horror movies then you should see this movie.  It has some pretty good special effects.  If you want a really fun movie, don’t see this one, watch Enchanted, that one was great fun.

The first Freddy Kruger movie to star Robert Englund and Heather Langencamp, it also helped the career of Johnny Depp.  Directed by Wes Craven this movie is Rated R for violence and language, but mostly violence.  It is an hour and thirty-one minutes long.

“One, two Freddy’s coming for you, three, four better lock your door, five, six better get a crucifix” still is haunting to this day.  The murderer of children Freddy Kruger is sentenced to death by his neighbors.  A madman born to a nun and the son of evil doers, Freddy was destined to be a bad guy.  He fashions a killing claw out of metal and knives and is burned to death because of how he has used that claw.  Now as those who killed him have children of their own Freddy begins to haunt them, killing them to get revenge for himself, killing them in an unusual and frightening way.  The only way to kill Freddy, get him while you are sleeping.  Heather Langencamp plays the main heroine, who lives near the haunted house where everything seems to begin, and return to in later movies.

Nightmare was a frightening movie for it’s day and still hold true to that.  One of the first horrors to have a recurring character that audiences love, Nightmare is one of the additions to the serial slasher.  Of course those slashers have to be invincible, like Jason Voorhees (Friday the 13th) and Michael Myers (Halloween), Freddy joined at jsut the right time, and had an interesting angle.  Not just a serial killer for serial killers sake, he could kill you any way he liked, not just with a knife, gun or his hands, and often surprised his victims when they least expected it.  The main character in the SAW movies could get ideas from watching Freddy work. 

The action scenes are well done, there is a scene where are young woman who is thrown around a bedroom while some unseen force literally rips her apart.  Of course Johnny Depp too falls to a horrible fate and you might never look at your bed again, and of course you will never listen to music through headphones again as you fall asleep.  Inventive for it’s time Freddy surpassed Jason and Michael in the creativity of his homicide spree, and the scenes were well developed, even though a little bit overdone.

A problem with this movie is that Freddy, while frightening, is a very interesting character and spawned several follow-up movies.  This in itself isn’t a problem, but some of the sequels are so unnecessary that it lessens the power of the original character played by Robert Englund in this movie.  Also it surprised me a little how the parents reacted to the dreams and killings of their children.  I thought that the parents could have been portrayed a little better, more frightened at what is happening than angry (which is how they were written).  I also would have liked a little more history into the background of Kruger in this first movie, like his family life or why he killed children.

All in all I enjoyed this movie.  I liked the originality of the character of Freddy Krueger, and the unique way he murdered his current victims.  To anyone who hasn’t seen this movie and is a horror fan I recommend this before and of the sequels to SAW.  If you are not a horror movie fan but still enjoy a good killing every now and then, this is also a movie for you.  I don’t recommend it to anyone with a queasy stomach, or to those who have a hard time suspending reality.  It’s only a movie.

Starring Tilda Swinton, Georgie Henley, William Moseley, Skandar Keynes and Rupert Everett, this movie is two hours and fifteen minutes long.  It is rated PG and is okay for everyone althoug some of the scenes might be too intense for children under the age of 6.

The Chronicles of Narnia is based on the series of books written by CS Lewis.  This is the first in the series of the books.  It is about a group of children who are sent to the safe haven of a professor to wait out the end of the war, and hopefully stay safe.  The movie begins with planes bombing the children and the homes around them so their mother sends them off, like many other children into the homes of strangers who are willing to give war torn children refuge.  Lucy, the youngest, discovers a wardrobe that leads to a magical land.  The land of Narnia is torn between the evil tyrrany of the white witch or the snow queen, and the protective warmth of of Aslan, the heroic lion.  All of the children enter the wardrobe, Peter (the oldest), Susan, Edmund, and Lucy, to find that they are the answer to a prophecy, a prophecy to end the reigh of the queen.  After trechory, traitors, worry, sadness, forgiveness and war things come to a head and the real winner and hero is revealed, is it Aslan, the children or the White Witch?  Well, you have to watch the movie for those answers.

This movie has a lot of computer generated scenes, and some which were not computer generated.  There are many talking animals and it is obvious that they are not really there, but this rarely takes away from the beauty and the scenery of the movie.  The action is well plotted out, even when most of those fighting are not human, and not really there.  Some of the computer generated people/animals are really well done, and sometimes surprisingly so, as was the case of the lion, Aslan.  He was well created and I wondered at one point if there was a real lion involved. 

Issues I had with the movie were that one scene was not as well done as the rest.  It involved Ice and an unfreezing river.  The water was so blue that it was obvious to be that it was fake and in a tub, that scene was not as realistic as I would have hoped and made me laugh a little.  Another problem I had was the character of Lucy, the girl that played her acted quite well, but everytime she cried there were no real tears, which made it seem, well, like acting, and very insincere.  If you are going to have a character cry, at least place a few drops of water on their face so that it looks like they were actually crying.  Geez.

I reccommend this movie to a lot of people.  Children will enjoy it because it has a lot of action and animals and they can see it.  Adults will enjoy it because it is some good clean fun without swear words, plus if you read the books you might enjoy this version of the book, it is better than the cartoon version I watched when I was in grade school, and much more fun. 

Funny movie starring Robert Downey, Jr., Val Kilmer and Michelle Monaghan.  It is rated R for violence, nudity and language.  Run time is one hour and forty-three minutes long.

This is an interesting flick told by Robert Downey, Jr’s character.  Downey plays Harry Lockhart, a criminal who falls into the roll of actor, private eye, and killer.  Harry gets mixed up with things that he doesn’t understand, and it all ends somewhat bad for him, at least he loses pieces of himself along the way.  He teams up with a real private eye (played by Val Kilmer) and is supposed to be shadowing him to see how to play a private eye in an upcoming movie.  Instead he learns that things are not always as they seem.  Harry runs into the girl of his dreams, a girl he has known since he was young, and lusted after all through high school.  She learns that someone close to her is dead and asks him to help her, since she is lead to believe that he is a private eye.  Things happen quickly, several people end up losing their lives, and lots of laughs are had along the way. 

In a movie that involves a lot of violence and death this was quite a funny movie.  I laughed at several of the jokes, and was happy to be laughing at jokes that didn’t involve body humor, or I should be clearer, jokes that didn’t involve farting and burping.  The action is fast paced and if you look away for too long you might miss an important part of the movie, and you might just lose what is going on in the movie.  While it tries to be something of a film noir (ex - old detective talking to the camera about how the girl walking into his office has the word trouble written on her but has lust slipping out of her lips), it doesn’t quite make it in the suspense genre.  As a comedy this movie works quite well as the jokes are fast paced.

The action in this movie is so-so, and there could have been a better detailed explanation about why things were happening or who characters were as players in the film.  There were a couple of characters that I had no idea where they came from or what their role really was in the film.  Also the reason behind some of this was a little convoluted and there seemed to be too much going on to create the story and the suspense.  I would have been fine with just one of these problems or ideas.

All in all I thought that this was a pretty good movie, although to fully understand it I am sure I will have to watch it again, although I don’t mind that.  If you dear viewer are looking for a fun comedy I suggest renting this one, as it was fun and had some really great humor.  Of course if you like violence, comedy and some suspense I totally recommend this movie to you.  If you hate to laugh don’t see this movie.  If you want a serious detective drama, again don’t see this movie.  Personally I think everyone should watch this movie, it is a little bit of joy in a genre that provides too much seriousness.

Starring Robert Downey, Jr., Gweneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges, and Terrence Howard, this is the superhero movie of 2008.  It is rated PG-13 for violence, language and some sexual situations.  The movie runs at two hours and six minutes. 

This movie is based on the Marvel Comic Iron Man, and if you are unfamiliar with the character or the comic no big deal, you don’t need prior history to enjoy this movie.  It is about a man, a very rich man, named Tony Stark, who owns a business that is in the business of creating weapons to end all wars.  An oxymoron I know but this seems to be the way the world works, even if we don’t want to admit it.  Tony (played by Downey Jr.) is a well off, womanizing, rich man with a sense of humor and a brain to boot.  He has the smarts and develops most of the weapons himself, which makes him a target, and he quickly becomes one, landing in the arms of a terrorist group that wants him to recreate his most devastating weapon to date.  He promises to do it while secretly building his way out, a iron man suit.  The suit becomes an obsession, and eventually the design falls into the wrong hands, leading to a superhero/supervillain standoff. 

One of the better superhero comic book movies, I liked this a lot.  Robert Downey, Jr. plays a very human superhero with some major and minor problems.  He is also a very likable superhero, who while at times seems full of himself, is really funny and not as full of himself as he acts.  While every superhero has a quality about him that makes him likable and even more human, Iron Man has a quality that makes him human because if his went wrong it would kill him. 

The attraction between Paltrow’s character and Downey’s is understated but it adds an element of humor as well.  I did have a problem with how weak her character seemed at one point in the movie, almost a stereotypical woman from like the fifties, but most of the problem was that she switched from strong to weak almost at the drop of a needle.  Her character was the one I had the most problem with, also I didn’t quite believe Jeff Bridges as the villain, but is could be because I kept seeing him as “The Dude” with long hair and alcohol coursing  through his veins.

I recommend that anyone seeing this movie in the theatre stays until the end as there is a little bit of a surprise after all of the credits.  This movie is a set up for the sequel which reportedly will be coming out in 2010, and starring all of the same cast.  I recommend this movie to all those who love comic books, and all those who wish that the world had real superheros.

Bette Davis could never have been classified as a classic movie beauty, yet there is something about her, something beautiful and ominous.  If looks could kill her’s would.  Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte is in the same vein as What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?  This movie is rated R for violence, language and supbtance usage.  It is two hours and eleven minutes long.  As well as Bette Davis it stars Bruce Dern, Agnes Moorehead, Joseph Cotton and Olivia de Havilland. 

Bette Davis plays Charlotte, a young sociallite who is in love and having an affair with a married man.  The married man, John, has told her that he would run away with her, but her father has interviened and told him to break it off with Charlotte.  In the end John ends up dead under mysterious circumstances, considered homicide, but no one is ever charged with his murder, although ever one suspects sweet Charlotte murdered him.  Years later and she is living in the same house, which the city is in the process of tearing up, of course they may just have to do it over her dead body.  Haunted by images of her lost lover Charlotte begins to see things and feels herself spiriling towards insanity.  Lost relative Miriam comes to Charlottes rescue, hoping to help her through this trying time, and maybe get her hand on some of the family money.  Deeper and deeper towards insanity Charlotte creeps, until finally it seems to break her, however there are strange things at work, and maybe Charlotte isn’t as crazy as she thinks.

Bette Davis plays a great suspect turned victim turned suspect again.  Her acting is wonderful and delightful, the viewer can almost feel her pain and believes that she might actually be crazy.  The scenery for the movie is quite, set in a large mansion, which helps set the scene of this suspensful thriller.  Although I am pretty sure that this same hosue is used in several other movies, least notible the movie Frogs, which is a cult classic, but is very dull in reality.

An issue I had with this movie was that the beginning was a little long.  You go almost an hour and a half without much action besides the murder of John.  Understandibly movies from the earlier days do not rely on computer graphics and over the top stunts, but the characters seem to lose a little bit after a half hour, and I forgot who was who and stopped paying attention for a short while.  So if you can’t sit and actually pay attention then this might not be a movie for you.  If you are into computer animation and stunts that make you ponder the ability of the human body to take care of itself, then again this movie is not for you. 

If, however, you want a down to earth thriller, with a suspensful ending, and actors that actually act, then this is the movie for you.  I reccommend that everyone see it though because unti you watch the old stuff you can never really appreciate some of the new stuff.