Pacific Rim

Jean, This must be one of the top spectacular action movies of the summer. The battles between the Jaegers (huge robots, controlled by humans inside them) and the Kaiju (monster reptiles coming up out of the Pacific Ocean) are amazing to behold. The Jaegers make the Transformers look like toys to me, and the Godzilla would not have a prayer against the Kaiju. For some reason, you can follow the battles as the monster robots are following the actual physical actions of their two man or man and woman "pilots". It is a blow by blow match and not a mass of metal against metal. There is some technical jargon such as neural handshakes and mind melds and drift compatible,. which you can pick up on as the movie continues. The story line sorts itself out but the basis of the cratonic plates around the Pacific Ocean and that weakness in the crust is the source of the action and the solution. I saw it in a nearly full theater.  I  also was impressed with the Category 4 and 5 monster reptiles and the analog versus the digital monster robots. You can enjoy the differences between the huge combatants and some of the lines such as "this is not a refuge, this is a buffet line."  Dad

 

P.S. The previews were:

 

Gravity with George Clooney and Sandra Bullock)

Seven Sons

Paranoia

Jobs

Captain Phillips (with Tom Hanks and Catherine Keener))

The World's End

White House Down

(Reviewed June 28, 2013)

Jean, This movie actually is quite a bit of fun for the summertime. Roland Emmerich has pulled out all the stops on this one. He has enough catastrophe situations for 4 movies here. I mean Air Force One in jeopardy, Norad and the firing off of all the country's missiles (think War Games), flights of Raptor jets and flights of Apache Helicopters. On top of that you practically go through the succession to replace the President of the U.S. Everyone seems to have machine guns, bazookas, ground to air missiles and they leave the White House in a complete shambles. But the actors do not take themselves seriously and there is added humor. "Do not step on my Jordans" , "That was a priceless 1600 Ming vase you just broke" and so many times they refer to the secret tunnel under the White House that JFK and Marilyn used.  I lost count how many times Jamie Foxx gets shot or injured fatally and gets back up. The final question of who gave out the secret codes seems awfully "tacked on" to me. Forget saying "how can that happen" and enjoy the movie.  Dad

 

The previews were:

 

Elysium

Jobs (Steve)

2 Guns

The World End

World War Z

(Reviewed June 21, 2013)

 

Jean, I found this a  suspenseful and entertaining movie. I did not  expect that after the articles (think Vanity Fair) about changing the writers and  changing the ending and trying to settle on the "tone" of the film. The movie comes down closer to "Contagion" than "Dawn of the Dead". Also you will see an awful lot of similarities to the 2005 film of Spielberg/Cruise entitled "War of the World". Brad Pitt is just great in all his scenes and there are really no other actors of note in the film. Brad seems to know where to look  for clues at pivotal times in the movie.  The book, World War Z  on which the movie is  based by Mel Brook's son, Max Brooks   is a smart, thinking  man's book. The film has a talent for showing a world in chaos with aerial shots of many different cities across the globe, without a boring repetitive killing of the zombie hordes.. Some of the questions it answers are "what happens when you find a Zeke (zombie) in the bathroom on your airliner?" or" how do you save your friend when she is savagely  bitten on the hand  by a blood-crazed zombie?". Dad

 

P.S. The previews were:

 

Anchorman: The Legend Continues

The Conjuring

You're Next

Insidious 2

Elysium

The Wolverine