The Heat

First Hit:  There are a few really funny moments, a large number of suppose-to-be funny moments, and also attempts to create a heart felt story.

The story around this film is that we have two friendless women, competent; law-enforcement officers that have to work together to both heal themselves and capture a major drug lord. 

The humor, for the most part is not subtle. It is gross humor with a lot of swearing and doing stupid things. The two women are different and approach work differently. Agent Ashburn (Sandra Bullock) is a pariah in her FBI division because she is incredibly competent, intelligent and shows up the other men in her squad by closing cases with a lack of humility.

She is also a lonely woman and borrows a neighbor's cat to keep her company. On the other hand, Mullins (Melissa McCarthy) is a lonely, overweight, hard charging bullying Boston cop. She intimidates everyone in the entire squad house. Nobody crosses her and nobody does something she doesn’t want done. The unfortunate part of her character is that it seemed very unrealistic and one of the things that put me off on her character.

Her methods were unprofessional; she intimidates with bullying tactics both her perpetrators, other police staff as well as anyone who crosses her for any reason. Her family doesn’t like her because she busted her brother for drugs and sent to him to prison. The humor is not subtle and although some of the scenes are funny, the humor is based more on overt brashness, bullying and swearing.

It wasn't intelligent humor. For the tenderness, each character has their own sadness which they see they can heal with this partnership. On this end, the film is good but not exceptional.

Bullock is the better of the two characters; rather I liked watching her and what she brought to the role. Sandra portrays a tightly controlled character with humor better than most actors and here she shines again. McCarthy is not someone I enjoy watching (see my previous reviews of her). Her bullying personality, which see appears to use in many roles, is tiring and I would like to see her in a role that expands who she is and in a more heartfelt way. Marlon Wayans as Bullock’s FBI support is very good and I felt grounded when he was on the screen. Katie Dippold wrote an OK script. I felt thought, that this film wanted to be serious, heartfelt and funny but didn’t do a good job of balancing these storylines. Paul Feig directed this film and also directed “Bridesmaids” which I found un-watchable and this film suffered from a lot of the same sort of humor that I don’t find funny. However, the two young teen girls sitting in front of me couldn’t stop giggling at the gross action humor.

Overall:  The film was OK, funny at times, and probably worth watching through Netflix or on video.

World War Z (3-D)

First Hit:  Despite the unrealistic plot and 2 hour length, it was very entertaining. First off, the buzz in the trades and in reviews is the argument of whether this film is or isn't a zombie movie. Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) is introduced as a family man who makes pancakes for his kids. He’s not working and left his old job by choice. He's taking his family on a day trip when all of a sudden there is an outbreak of people who are being attacked and bit by people infected with an unknown virus. These newly bit people take on the same virus behaviors in about 12 seconds, which in turn create more infected people running around biting people. These infected people surround Lane's car so Pitt highjacks a motor home and they hightail it out of the city. What we learn about these infected people is they stand around moving little, in a zombie mode, until there is noise mostly human made noise depicting humans doing something and upon hearing the noise, they rush around in a crazy way to find, bite and kill the nearest humans. The rushing around is very un-zombie like. It didn’t appear that these creatures don't eat the un-infected humans, they just bite and kill them to pass on the virus. This is all done very effectively, however a weakness in the film is that Lane's character, without explanation or supporting information, as some very important United Nations guy who… solves problems? The film never lets the audience know his who Lane is and what is his background story. He’s not a doctor, researcher, but someone who has this undefined power to be important and to fix something that is wrong. Despite this lack of background, Pitt does a good job being this person. Of course they figure out how to conquer the virus and for the movie goer, the ride is enjoyable.

Pitt is very good as someone who figures out how to conquer the virus problem even though the script provides no background of who he is and what his capabilities include. Mireille Enos (as Karin Lane) is good in a minor and caring role as Gerry Lane’s wife. Daniella Kertesz (as Israeli soldier Segen) is good as the soldier who helps Lane figure out how to stop the virus. Matthew Michael Carnahan and Drew Goddard wrote a good screen play but it lacked context and background for the main character. Marc Forster directed this well enough. Some of the CGI effects of people climbing up very tall walls looked very much like how ants accomplish this when driven.

Overall: This film was entertaining despite little context to ground it.

Man of Steel

First Hit:  By the last 45 minutes I got bored stiff with the relentless ill conceive battles.

A little over a week ago I was watching the “Colbert Report” and he posed a question to the director (Zack Snyder) of this film: Why did you forgo the red trunks this character has always worn? Snyder’s response was we wanted to make this film more realistic. Really?

Make a film more realistic about a man who flies faster than a speeding bullet, leaps tall buildings in a single bound, and more powerful than a locomotive, realistic? I will say that Snyder did do a good job of making Clark Kent / Kal-El (AKA: Superman) (played by James Cavill) somewhat human as we go from his childhood to adulthood. It is when we get to his having to fight General Zod (Michael Shannon) his home planet Krypton for his and earth’s survival that it loses steam.

Be prepared to spend 40 – 60 minutes watching an ill-conceived battle. It is a wasteful use of CGI and my time. Superman is about helping individuals in trouble on earth, not fighting some alien invasion.

Cavill as Superman is good. There is some depth in his character but made to spend all his time fighting Zod. Amy Adams playing Lois Lane is wonderful. I really like her. Shannon was very good as Zod but unfortunately his role was too large. Diane Lane and Kevin Costner play Clark Kent’s earthling parents and they were very good – grounded. Russell Crowe as Jor-El (Superman’s father) was overplayed. The only reason we saw so much of Jor-El was because he was Zod's arch enemy and I'm sure they felt required to beef up the role for Crowe. David S. Goyer wrote an overly long battle driven script. Snyder wasn’t able to make Clark Kent both human (he did this better) and savior. He made this film about fighting Zod – so what.

Overall:  Wasted my time despite some wonderful moments.

The East

First Hit:  Interesting, thoughtful, and stayed with me long into the next day.

The premise of this film, for me, was three fold: It was about activism, social responsibility, and personal responsibility.

In this context, the film gives viewers the ability view these three concepts in their own way. The scriptwriters’ and director’s personal biases aren’t overtly being pushed on the audience.

They state a set of facts about what a company is doing or has done, then what “The East” intends as punishment and why. They are an eye for and eye group. The East is a group of younger people who found themselves, for personal reasons, working together to do “Jams” which are the payback sessions for the large corporations. An oil company executive’s home is vandalized by having oil pumped through the vents.

As the Jams get more intense, the prices get higher. The film moves through this story by having Sarah (Brit Marling) get in to and then spy on this activist group. One of the opening scenes after she is with the group gives you a wonderful view of what the group hopes to achieve – it is about eating.

The security company Sarah works for, puts her and other company agents in harm’s way by inserting them with activist groups to find out what companies the activists are going to attack. Then, her boss pitches security services to mitigate activist actions to said companies. It is a rather interesting way for the filmmakers to share the story and give the audience the opportunity to better understand responsibility – theirs and a companies’.

Marling is sublime as the agent who hides her life from her boyfriend, boss, and groups she infiltrates. All the while, the audience understands her dilemma, position and stays engaged with her character. Alexander Skarsgard (as Benji) was perfect as the leader of the group, although they portend to not have a leader. His excellence comes from an insecure sureness that juxtaposes his mission. Ellen Page (as Izzy) is fantastic. Her pointed intelligence stands out as she continues to grow as an actor. Tony Kebbell (as “doc”) was strong as a strong member of the group. Zal Batmanglij and Marling wrote this very strong and thought provoking script. Batmanglij’s direction was superb in its execution.

Overall: I liked this film and it had me thinking about my actions and being responsible for them – just as all of us need to do.

Fast & Furious 6

First Hit:  It was fun however so many of the stunts were so far fetched that it made it unbelievable.

This is one film in a series of films that highlight fast cars, car chases and some sort of crime.

We begin with everyone who participated in the previous film having some portion of $100,000,000 on which they are living the good life. However they cannot return to the United States because they are wanted for robbery. Also in the last film, Dominic Toretto (played by Vin Diesel) lost his love Letty (played by Michelle Rodriguez) in a fiery explosion.

A government investigator Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) is trying to track down an infiltrator named Shaw (Luke Evans) who is stealing items to make some unimaginable weapon (none of this is really clear because the film is more about the chases). Shaw needs only one more item and Hobbs is worried that he'll get it, so he makes a deal with Dom and his Fast & Furious warriors to stop Shaw.

The deal is that they will get absolute pardons for their previous crimes. But this isn’t the reason why they say yes, they say yes because they learn Letty is still alive and under Shaw's control. Tricks like jumping off a car, catching someone in mid-air and then landing on the windshield of another car moving the opposite way and not getting hurt? Right.... Or maybe it was the plane moving quickly down a runway that must have been 5 or more miles long before the plane even got 30 feed off the ground. Just isn't real - there is no such runway. Or maybe it was jumping from a plane and landing in/on a car some 30 feet below. Nope, not lined up like they were - just isn’t real.

I enjoyed the car chases and driving but that was it. “More” and “bigger” is not necessarily better.

Diesel is OK and I felt that the edge is gone and his ability to be believable has been diminished. Paul Walker as Brian is stronger here than he was in the previous films. Johnson was adequate as the government agent. Jordana Brewster as Mia (Brian’s wife) is good in a minor role. Rodriguez is OK but her interpretation of having no memory didn’t work for me. Tyrese Gibson as Roman was funny and enjoyable to watch. Sung Kang and Gal Gadot as Han and Gisele were good but didn't have enough screen time. Ludacris as Taj was funny as well and I liked the way he and Gibson played off each other. Chris Morgan wrote the screenplay and pushed it farther than needed. Justin Lin kept the film moving but some of the stunts were too unbelievable to buy in to.

Overall:  Action was fun, cars were great, but some of the stunts made it unbelievable and therefore I lost interest.