Rating:

Think of this as more of a “4 + 2” than a true “3.”

This latest installment of the “Final Destination” franchise starts out very promising. The cast represents many stereotypes you’d like to see bumped off in colorful, gory, and creative ways. Including a Tom Cruise look-alike (and act-alike).

The initial set up is good. A bunch of management trainees going off for a team-building exercise. One person on the bus foresees them all dying – and that’s done pretty well – a super job of CGI on the bridge collapse. Then he wakes up, gets everyone off the bus before it goes over the side, and then the Grim Reaper (played by veteran actor Tony Todd) goes to work evening the score.

The first two make-up deaths are epic. The first one I didn’t see coming at all – I was expecting something completely different but they really thought it through and animated the hell…

Rating:

Four stars for a predictable romantic comedy? Yeah. Go figure.

This is a familiar plot – two good looking people from opposite sides of the country happen to meet, become friends, and want to engage in casual sex with no strings attached. Part way through they realize (one way or another) they’re actually in love. Complications ensue, but they end up together. Yay.

What makes this movie work is the chemistry between Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis. I don’t know if they actually like each other, or they’re actually better actors than I give them credit for, but what comes across on screen is absolutely charming to watch. It’s been a while since I saw a movie couple who actually appeared on-screen to be – a couple – two people in sync.

There’s a slight role reversal in that Timberlake’s character is from LA and a little on the soft side, and Kunis’ is from New York…

Rating:

I should preface this by saying that, yes, I’m over 40 and grew up on the original Planet of the Apes movies. The ones which Chuck Heston. I guess by today’s standards, those movies seem silly, but in their day they were awesome. Not for the special effects as much as the acting and storytelling and just basically all around good science fiction stuff. When you look at the cast of the original movies (Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowell, Maurice Evans, James Gregory, etc.), it’s no wonder they were iconic.

The 2011 update is a technically superior film, but lacks the heart (for want of a better term) of the original franchise. The 2001 film actually did a better job capturing the essence of the genre, even if it wasn’t as strong a visual presentation.

On technical merit, the 2011 “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is a really great looking movie. The apes look and move far better…

Rating:

The reviews on this were kind of luke-warm and I really don’t see why. This isn’t an epic Western, nor an epic SciFi flick. But it’s a well-made and entertaining movie.

The basic plot is that a scouting party of aliens have come to the Old West in advance of a full-scale invasion. For some reason which never really gets explained, they’re also mining gold. They’re body-snatching left and right to find the weaknesses in human beings. Our hero, Daniel Craig, gets mixed up in this, meets a hot blonde chick (Olivia Wilde), and then they and some Native Americans hook up with Harrison Ford and save the planet.

Yeah. OK. Sounds kind of dumb. But it hangs together actually pretty well.

Craig does very well as a cobra-quick bad guy; he’s got the moves and the Eastwood-esque mean look down cold. Harrison Ford for most of the movie is pretty close to a bad guy. It’s…

Rating:

The various reviews on “Bad Teacher” were pretty horrible. In this case, the various reviews were wrong. Which is not to say this is a great movie, it’s not even close to “Bad Santa”, only that it’s not nearly as bad as has been written up.

The basic premise is that Cameron Diaz is a teacher who’s looking for a rich guy to take care of her. The road to Mr. Right requires breast implants, so she goes to any means necessary to get the money for the surgery. Along the way, she learns a few things about herself and ends up happy to be in the place she was trying to get away from.

Anyway.

One thing I like about this movie is that it’s a change of pace for Diaz, who usually plays perky, happy, ditzy girls. Her role here is hard-drinking, foul-mouthed, and kind of dark. She’s not really that nice a person, but she…