Homefront movie
7.25 out of 10
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire movie
8.75 out of 10
Disney's Frozen movie
10.0 out of 10
Delivery Man movie
6.75 out of 10
Thor
8.25 out of 10
Showing posts with label Bradley Cooper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bradley Cooper. Show all posts

Sunday, December 15, 2013

American Hustle

DRAMA


Hustle to Survive

8.0 out of 10 | Rental

Rated: R Pervasive language, some sexual content and brief violence
Release Date: December 13, 2013 (limited)
Runtime: 2 hours 9 minutes

Director: David O. Russell
Writers: Eric Singer, David O. Russell
Cast:  Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Jennifer Lawrence, Louis C.K., Alessandro Nivola


SYNOPSIS:  A con man, Irving Rosenfeld, along with his seductive British partner, Sydney Prosser, is forced to work for a wild FBI agent, Richie DiMaso. DiMaso pushes them into a world of Jersey powerbrokers and mafia.

REVIEW: The Fighter director David O. Russell reunites with Christian Bale and Amy Adams for another period drama based on real circumstances. Written by Eric Singer (The International) and director Russell, Bale, Adams and Cooper try to grift their way to their biggest score.



Irving (Christian Bale) lives a different type of life, growing up in a way that eventually led him to a life of grifting. Even with legitiment businesses from his father, he gravitates to taking advantage of those circling the bottom of the barrel where the desperate and despondent live. At a winter pool party Irving meets a kindred spirit in a woman named Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) who incidentally elevates his con game. But even keeping the cons small enough to manage, Irving and Sydney get pinched by eager young FBI man Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper). Forcing the pair into helping him make a name for himself, Richie promises to let them go if he is handed four significant busts. When Richie gets a taste for success he demands bigger busts from Irving and Sydney. Feeling way over his head, Irving must figure out how to balance his and Sydney's tentative freedom, the good name of the Mayor of Camden Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner) who he has grown to respect, the wants of DiMaso of the FBI and a bunch of mobsters and congressmen who want to invest in the Atlantic City boardwalk.

Set in the Spring of 1978 New York and New Jersey, American Hustle is a great throwback to the con artist movies of the past. Con games and artists are entertaining to watch. It is one of the reasons why White Collar works so well on the USA Network and why Paul Newman and Robert Redford's The Sting is such a classic. It's also why an audience will sit through a 138 minute movie. An audience will put into the time as long as there's a great payoff at the end.

But it's not just the con game that keeps this film rolling. Filled with great dramatic and comedic dialogue delivered by great actors and actresses, as well as a paced plotline, American Hustle boogies down. Adams, Cooper, Bale and Lawrence create unique and nuanced characters filled up with their talent. Louis C.K. and Cooper do great work on a comedic side, making audience laugh at how ridiculous their work relationship is. Bale's Irving and Adams' Sydney are in constant jeopardy, pinning their well-being and livelihood on their grifting talents. The problem is that they have never worked on this large a scale.

The style is 70s tones and disco abandon, letting the characters loose with necklines that extend to the waistline, wide lapels, hairy chest and gold medallions. The real world of 1978 was wrought with a recession, a war that left a bad taste in America's mouth and skyrocketing interest rates. While American Hustle is a story about scamming the system, it is also a backdrop for the state of the union. The FBI was still young and not even thinking about crime at the white collar level. Because of that and people's desperation grifting was very lucrative indeed.

The cast is brilliant, the story is superb and well paced. American Hustle is worth the money to watch, not unlike watching a street hustler move the hidden ball move under the three cups of the shell game. 


Saturday, March 30, 2013

The Place Beyond the Pines

ACTION/ADVENTURE, DRAMA

Fathers and Sons

8.2 out of 10 | Rental

Rated: R Language throughout, some violence, teen drug and alcohol use, and a sexual reference
Release Date: March 29, 2013 (limited)
Runtime: 2 hours 20 minutes

Director: Derek Cianfrance
Writers:  Derek Cianfrance, Ben Coccio, Darius Marder
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes, Rose Byrne, Ray Liotta



SYNOPSIS:  A motorcycle stunt rider turns to robbing banks as a way to provide for his lover and their newborn child, a decision that puts him on a collision course with an ambitious rookie cop navigating a department ruled by a corrupt detective.

REVIEW: Writer/Director Derek Cianfrance, known for the acclaimed Blue Valentine, uses his clout to snag premiere A-Listers Ryan Gosling (Drive) and Bradley Cooper (Silver Lining Playbook). Co-written by Zero Day's Ben Coccio and new writer Darius Marder, Cianfrance brings us 
for a tale with dire decisions and complex consequences.


Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling, Gangster Squad)is a motorcycle stuntman employed with a traveling carnival. When he returns to Schenectady, New York, he finds out that the girl he had a fling with the year before, Romina (Eva Mendes, Fast Five) became pregnant with his child Jason. Wanting to provide for his son, Luke quits the carnival and takes a job as a mechanic with a trailer as a place to live to stay in proximity to his son. Unable to provide Romina with the things her and Jason needs, Luke resorts to robbing banks for money. Enter rookie cop Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper, The Hangover Part 2) who has to chase Luke down. Afterward, Avery finds himself in the spotlight as a hero of the police department. With a job threatening injury, Avery faces departmental corruption in the form of fellow officers , Deluca (Ray LiottaKilling Them Softly) and others. Avery is forced to make hard decisions concerning his pride, his ethics, and his family.

Cianfrance has proven himself a powerhouse indie director with the intense and emotionally charged Blue Valentine. He returns for an epic tale involving the decisions fathers make for their sons. Gosling's Luke looks to make good on a belief that he should provide for his newfound son Jason. Avery provides for his family, too, more comfortable behind the steering wheel of a police cruiser instead of at a prosecutors table in a court of law like his own father. Romina's boyfriend takes the fraternal role from the moment of Jason's birth after Luke left town. Fathers beget sons beget sons. There is a cyclical and circular nature to the way that life repeats itself.

Ryan Gosling is brilliant in this film. He brings his natural charms and rugged great looks to the role, amplified by his severe acting talent. He can deliver as much story by saying nothing as he can through dialogue - sometimes more. Gosling is of the new breed of stellar performers. Bradley Cooper, fresh off his talked about performance in Silver Linings Playbook finds himself playing catch up against Gosling's newspaper dubbed Moto Bandit. As the second act commences the focus of the film draws away from Gosling's Luke and centers itself squarely on Bradley Cooper's Avery. There are other known names in the film with Liotta and Bruce Greenwood, But the film really is Gosling and Cooper's. In the third act when we fast-forward several years to Luke and Avery sons AJ and Jason. Dane Dehaan (Chronicle) and Emory Cohen (NBC's Smash) shine as well although Dehaan is centerstage.

Cianfrance makes beautiful use of cinematography, makes maximum use of a simplistic musical score and stabled superior acting talent. Coming in at over 2 hours and 20 minutes The place be on the Pines is a commitment. Told as three separate interlocking story arcs The Place Beyond the Pines could have been a movie using any of the three acts. My expectation was that Gosling and Cooper would have had a more cat and mouse interaction for a longer period of the film, but Cianfrance had a very specific concept in mine for his story.

Some may be disappointed in how Cianfrance segmented his film. As beautifully crafted and executed as the film is, it still may be too indy for some people to enjoy. The writer/director focused on the nature of relationships between a husband and his family, and fathers and sons. Symbolically, Cianfrance uses repetitive actions and recurring dialogue from different characters to drive home that no matter how we change our life for the good or the better some things cannot be escaped.

The Place Beyond the Pines is another example of independent filmmaking at it near best. In spite of being long and sometimes drawn out, the acting pleases and story gets across its message.

Friday, September 7, 2012

The Words

Fiction or Life

Rated: PG-13 Smoking and brief strong language
Release Date: September 7, 2012
Runtime:  1 hour 36 minutes

Director: Brian Klugman, Lee Sternthal
Writers: Brian Klugman, Lee Sternthal
Cast:  Dennis Guaid, Jeremy Irons, Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana, J.K. Simmons, Olivia Wilde


SYNOPSIS:  When a struggling writer Rory cannot catch a break, a found manuscript propels him to a successful book and awards. When an old man confronts Rory to tell the writer that the words Rory wrote were his, Rory struggles with what to do next.

REVIEW: Writer Brian Klugman Lee Sternthal, writers of Tron: Legacy, step up their game by writing and directing the words they scribed. The writing, and now directing, duo trade the inside of a computer built on written code to the inside of several paralleling stories revolving around the written word.
A struggling writer Rory Jansen (Bradley Cooper, Limitless) spent three years writing a book. Shopping it around to the literary agents, Rory is eventually contacted and told that although the book is a beautiful work of creative art, there would be no way for the agent to shop this type of work to any publisher from an unknown writer. Rory, already going to his father (J.K. Simmons, Contraband) for financial help, realizes he must make a choice between his fiction and his life. He takes a job at a literary agent office, now able to make ends meet and able to support and marry Dora (Zoe Saldana, Takers). On their honeymoon to Paris, Dora and Rory happen upon an old worn satchel in a second-hand shop that Dora promptly buys for the man she sees so much potential in. Back at home, Rory now has problems writing anything new. One day, he discovers a complete manuscript in the satchel and reads its. Realizing that he will never be the writer of stories that he had just read, Rory is haunted by what he just experienced and rewrites the entire manuscript word for word just to feel the words flow from the old parchment through his fingers onto his laptop. Dora finds the new work on the computer and pushes Rory to shop the work to his boss. When the agent loves the book, it is published and becomes a great success. Torn up inside by his plagiarism, Rory is uncomfortable with his success. Things get worse when an old man (Jeremy Irons, Margin Call) confronts Rory in Central Park about stealing his work and tells Rory of a Young Man (Ben Barnes, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) after the Second World War and his enlightening experiences in Paris with a local girl named Celia (Nora Arnezeder, Safe House) that became the genesis of the work that Rory copied. The question is... what are the old man's real motivations, and what can Rory do about it?

The Words is a layered piece of fiction with stories within stories, fiction intertwined with reality. At the onset, we catch a glimpse of a man preparing to read excerpts from his book 'The Words'. What we do not expect is the fact that the author of 'The Words' is Clay Hammond (Dennis Quaid, What to Expect When You're Expecting), not Rory. Immediately we find that Rory and Dora are characters in Clay's newest book. As the story unfolds, Clay recites the words that brings Rory and Dora to life. But as we get deeper into these characters' lives, we find more layers as a found manuscript typed decades earlier unveils an even more heartbreaking story written by a man who was struggling in his own life. Artistic inspiration comes from heartache, struggle, loss, joy, and pain. In The Words, catharsis comes from pouring one's soul from the heart and mind through the fingertips into fiction that imitates life.

The Words is well crafted, each perspective of the story differing from the others. The writer of 'The Words', Clay Hammond, lives in a world of accolades. A young woman, Daniella (Olivia Wilde, The Change-up), corners him and asks him about the book. When they retire to his modern high-rise apartment, she realizes that the glorious city skyline is tempered by stark modernism and sparse furnishings. In the New York City where Rory and Dora live, they are surrounded by a more earthy bohemian environment, struggling to make ends meet but loving each other. The discovery of the old manuscript brings uncomfortable success and the old man who actually wrote, then lost the story decades earlier. As the old man recites his own tale that led to the writing of his manuscript, the world of his younger version and Celia in post-war Paris, the world becomes softer and grainier, the streets fit for a world recovering from a violent era in history.

The story captivates most of the way through, offering intriguing dialogue and scenes. The weaving of the three tales allows the slower pace to be more interesting and varied. The music is driving and harmonious to each scene, helping to tie the worlds together and providing another unspoken character to the film. The pace is slow and deliberate, but not distracting. Only when you return to the outer shell of the story with Clay and Daniella does the film truly slow down to the point where you wonder whether Clay's writing and reading of 'The Words' is truly necessary.

Each character is portrayed with capable hands by each of the actors and actresses. Some of the best scenes are those between Bradley Cooper's Rory and Jeremy Irons' Old Man. Their dialogue on the bench in front of the pond is riveting. And the period work of 
Ben Barnes as the Young Man and Nora Arnezeder as Celia could be a beautiful film unto itself. 

The Words could have been a superior award-winning film, up to the same standard as The Reader. Maybe the slower pace, the twisty ending, or just the novice status of the directors keep it from truly transcending into classic status. A fine film in many regards, there is still an intangible that seems to keep The Words a little too reserved.

WORTH:  DVD or Rental

Monday, August 20, 2012

Hit and Run

Cubic Inches

Rated: R  Graphic nudity, drug content, pervasive language, sexual reference and some violence
Release Date: August 22, 2012
Runtime:  1 hour 40 minutes

Director: David Palmer, Dax Shepard
Writers: Dax Shepard
Cast:  Dax Shepard, Kristen Bell, Bradley Cooper, Tom Arnold, Michael Rosenbaum, Kristin Chenoweth, Beau Bridges


SYNOPSIS: Former getaway driver Charlie Bronson puts his Witness Protection status in jeopardy when he tries to help his girlfriend get to Los Angeles. While on the roadtrip, Bronson and his girlfriend are pursued by both the feds and his former gang.

REVIEW: David Palmer, director of the acclaimed Showtime documentary Stripped: Greg Friedler's Naked Las Vegas, reteams with his Brother's Justice writer and star Dax Shepard in a new action comedy entitled Hit and Run.
Annie (Kristen Bell, Big Miracle) and Charlie Bronson (Dax Shepard, Idiocracy) live a romantic, semi-idyllic life in a small town. When Annie is given the opportunity to create a college program in Los Angeles by her college dean Debbie (Kristen Chenoweth, Four Christmases) she is forced to make the decision to move away to LA without Charlie. The reason why she would have to leave him behind is because Charlie is in witness protection and unable to travel outside the city limits. After some soul searching, Charlie decides to leave the program and his US Marshall handler Randy (Tom Arnold, Madea's Witness Protection) to drive his girlfriend to LA for this once in a lifetime opportunity. But driving Annie to the City of Angels carries with it more than just the miles on the odometer. 
Charlie's old bank robber buddies Alex Demitri (Bradley Cooper, Limitless), Allen (Ryan Hansen, Last Call) and Neve (Joy Bryant, Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins) get tipped off and put the pedal to the metal on Charlie's trail, Annie's obsessive ex-boyfriend Gil (Michael Rosenbaum, Smallville) tries to get her back, US Marshall Randy tries to save his career by getting Charlie back into the town limits, and Charlie has to deal with the repercussions of hitting the open road again.

Dax Shepard and David Palmer create a throw-back action dramedy with plenty of horsepower. Filled with car chases, open road discoveries, and high-speed pursuits, Hit and Run starts off idling for a while before the accelerator jams into the floorboards. At times the story seems more comedic than dramatic, flip-flopping between the two. Tom Arnold's US Marshall Randy has more goofy and unwarranted things happen to him in and around a vehicle than one man should endure. Michael Rosen's ex-boyfriend Gil brings plenty of angst and obsessiveness to become more than just a funny thorn in Charlie Bronson's side. Bradley Cooper's bank robber mastermind rides a double yellow line between tracking down Charlie and dispensing passionate advice about the proper dog food to buy.

Hit and Run starts to accelerate when Charlie and Annie leave their small town behind. Once the town limits fall away in the rear view and Charlie opens up the throttle of a custom rebuild 700 horsepower 1967 converted Lincoln Continental project car heading west, the couple find more than their fair share of obstacles. With Randy, Gil, and all of Charlie's old bank robbery buddies on their trail, Charlie and Annie's relationship is put to the test.

Shepard and Palmer make great use of both high-octane high-speed pursuits and great 60s and 70s thumping music. From Jimmy Hendricks to James Brown to AC/DC, every selection of music is perfectly placed in the story. Aside from heart-pounding anthems, Shepard and Palmer also insert some choice lighter selections to counter some strange moments, especially during an interchange between Bradley Cooper's dog lover and a muscle-head who does treat his animals with the same level of respect. Car chases abound throughout - as one would suspect - taking advantage of a variety of vehicles including the Lincoln Continental, a lighter Pontiac convertible, and even a minivan!

The story is filled with pithy dialogue, some funny and some more serious. Add in car chases, pursuits, and some heavy-handed pursuers, and you have a wild, indie ride. There have been flicks with superior car chases like Smokey and the Bandit, movies with better banter like Pulp Fiction, and stories with more heart. Dax Shepard and David Palmer do put together a solid thrill ride that does have its charms and crashes.

Hit and Run
has been screening for several months. On the eve of its release, this small indie flick should have enough horsepower to carry it a ways down the asphalt. Funny and adrenalized, and filled with action and adventure, Hit and Run runs on most cylinders.

WORTH:  DVD or Rental

Thursday, May 26, 2011

The Hangover Part II

Another Raunchy Blackout!

Director: Todd Phillips

Writers: Craig Mazin, Scot Armstrong, Todd Phillips

Stars: Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms, Justin Bartha, Ken Jeong, Mason Lee



Watch The Hangover Part II Trailer Now


SYNOPSIS: Phil, Doug and Alan fly to Thailand to attend Stu's wedding. Innocent beers around a beach bonfire lead to another blackout involving fires, tattoos, prostitutes, monks, a monkey and a missing brother of the bride-to-be.


Director Todd Phillips returns to helm another raunchy blackout adventure with his favorite wolf pack members. Upping the game with a wedding taking place in an exotic locale, Stu, Phil and Alan take the same constructs from the wildly successful original and twist them right round, baby! It's like how John McClane managed to get embroiled in another terrorist conspiracy just by showing up somewhere around Christmas! The story doesn't seem like it would work again, but Phillips and crew bring all the filthy and hardcore goodness home again.


Replace a missing tooth with a freshly drawn tattoo, a missing Doug with a missing Teddy, and Mr. Chow with Mr. Chow, then throw in a smoking monkey in a Rolling Stones emblazoned denim vest and you have a comedy sequel that will leave you laughing so hard you will cry. And if you thought that you saw everything the first time around, surprises are definitely in store.


What makes The Hangover Part II so unique is its dirty phallic Memento style that keeps the audience equally engrossed and grossed out. Part II also adds in adrenaline with guns, chases, gangsters that make Mr. Chow a tame criminal imitator, bitches! Even the references to the first film are funny. When Phil calls Doug's wife to tell her "it's happened again", you can't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all.


Bradley Cooper's Phil tries desperately to keep calm and collected in the face of chaos, his piercing eyes blazing when not hidden behind amber sunglasses. Zach Galifianakis' Alan is more a child then ever this time out, clued in and clueless in equal parts. Ed Helms' Stu really takes center stage this time in Thailand, though, fighting against all of the warning signs that lead to a repeat of a certain previous Las Vegas bachelor party that was immortalized on a digital camera. Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong) is given a wider role, manic and unpredictable as ever.


The Hangover Part II throws caution to the wind this time around, knowing that to top the original one needed to instill the best components of the first and amp up everything else. And although Las Vegas does not make an appearance in the sequel, its Lady Luck follows the wolf pack in spades.


WORTH: Friday Night Opening and DVD


Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Limitless

Not Quite Limitless

Director: Neil Burger
Writer: Leslie Dixon (screenplay), Alan Glynn (novel)
Stars: Bradley Cooper, Robert DeNiro, Abbie Cornish, Andrew Howard, Anna Friel, Johnny Whitworth

Limitless Movie

RANT: Me and the boys from work quested to the College Point movie theater to take in Limitless. The theater is not the Westbury Regal I frequent and love, but it'll do in a pinch - especially since its 2 blocks from work. A quick Wendy's dinner and we were off!

SYNOPSIS: Loser Eddie Morra can't keep his girlfriend or write the first word in his novel, until he takes a top-secret drug that expands his brain to its limit - and beyond.

Director of The Lucky Ones and The Illusionist, Neil Burger, takes a screenplay written by Pay It Forward scribe Leslie Dixon from a novel by Alan Glynn entitled The Dark Fields. Limitless, as it is now called, revolves around Eddie Morra, a struggling writer and human being who is presented the gift of a lifetime - a pill that allows the user to access 100% of their brain.

The movie is presented with narrative from Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper) a la Sunset Boulevard as he stands on the edge of a balcony several stories up in a high rise apartment, ready to make the leap to his death. What has brought this man to the brink? An experimental drug, MDT-48, which, in the words of Eddie, grants the user a 4-digit IQ. Able to write his novel in 4 days and turn a paltry sum of money into $1.2 million through undetected stock market patterns, Eddie sees this wonder drug as his ticket to bigger and better things. But Carl Van Loon (Robert DeNiro) says to Eddie, "...you haven't earned this gifts", implying that using his super-computer brain without paying his dues will only lead to arrogance, entitlement and corrupt behavior.

Limitless is shot alternately with rich colors schemes and muted washed out tones. The intro title sequence is kinetic and rich, alluding to what the world must be like when using an enhancement substance like MDT-48. Some of the cinematography is disorienting, which also lets the moviegoer feel what its like to be on MDT-48.

While the protagonist is Eddie Morra, the villain of the story could be many people. Throughout the film, Eddie struggles against many obstacles. The first is his own inability to be a better person before the pills. Then he becomes involved in more than one murder that quickly dissipates into plot obscurity. Robert DeNiro's Van Loon could be the bad guy but Morra uses Van Loon's resources to get ahead financially and to learn the finance game. There is even a loan shark, Gennady (Andrew Howard) that wants his money back, as well as a taste of the drug. But at the end of the day, the real antagonist is addiction. Addiction to wealth, superiority, greed, and drugs all play their part.

The story loses strength and its way at times during the film, but finds its way back again as Eddie realizes that there is more at stake than the limitless potential of pharmaceuticals. The audience must have been on MDT-48 as well because some parts of the script on screen were obvious and easily discerned. Cooper's character Eddie says that he sees 50 scenarios, but an intelligent viewer will see much of the film unfold before it actually does.

Limitless is a neat techno-thriller with a couple cool ingredients. You have Bradley Cooper with his cool charm and sharp blue eyes, Robert DeNiro with an admiration and envy of a man he can't figure out, and a plight as to how Eddie will survive on the pills without burning out or killing himself or survive once the pills run out. If you have no other films on your docket, give Limitless a try. Otherwise, you can wait.

WORTH: Matinee or Netflix

Butter Popcorn Meter

Thursday, June 17, 2010

The A-Team

A Wild Ride!
[Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Jessica Biel, Sharlto Copley, Quinton Jackson]



Summer is almost in full swing, and the movies just keep on coming. There is now 2 or 3 movies a week that need to be watched, and I am a man on a mission. And, of course, a man on a mission is critical for taking in a movie like "The A-Team". So, me and the guys from work rallied together and headed to the closest multiplex to the office. Luckily, the closest multiplex is 2 blocks away.

SYNOPSIS: An elite squad of Army Rangers take on a mission outside of Baghdad and are framed for the theft of mint plates. Tried in a military court, the members of the alpha team soon escape and pursue the men responsible.

From polished to player, light to dark, crazy to crazier, and mohawks into meaning -- these are the traits that distinguish the new band of brothers from the original 80s television action series characters of Lt. Templeton "Faceman" Peck (Bradley Cooper), Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith (Liam Neeson), Capt. "Howling Mad" Murdock (Sharlto Copley) and Bosco "B.A." Baracus (Quinton Jackson), respectively.

Ramping up beloved characters from the 1983 to 1987 hour-long small-screen actioner, director and co-writer Joe Carnahan breathes new life and new depths into the members of the A-Team. Gone is the "Face" all dapper and debonair, replaced by Cooper as a ripped bodied playboy living in the moment but unsure of how to measure up to strategic colonel. "Hannibal" from Neeson is a grittier, growling leader, still with a cigar and a catch-phrase but now when a more realistic perspective of life. Sharlto Copley, straight away from "District 9", supplies great laugh-out-loud moments closer to the brink than Dwight Schultz ever was. And Ultimate Fighter Quinton "Rampage" Jackson both channels Mr. T and Ghandi as he struggles with the warrior and new-found peacemaker within.

The story is action packed from beginning to end. Carnahan provides us both the heroes origin tale and several plans that come together. After being framed for the theft of one hundred dollar mint plates, the team is pursued by Jessica Biel as Department of Defense Charisa Sosa, Patrick Wilson as CIA agent Lynch and Brian Bloom as contract mercenary Pike. Bloom brings a lunacy to the Pike role that almost rivals Copley's Murdock, and definitely makes you smile.

But while the story and characters is solid, there are a few key issues. First is that when you use foreign actors, sometimes the native accents come through. While we can forgive Copley for the hints of South Africa since he throws all sorts of accents at us through the film, Liam's native tone seems to seep through too much. The other issue I have is the quality of some of the CGI effects during the beginning and ending of the film. I guess a $100 million doesn't go as far as it used to for digital FX. Lastly, a couple of surprises could have left as surprises. I saw a few plot points coming before the reveal, and wished for better writing in parts.

You will laugh at the villains and the lunacy. You will like the pace, the characters and the action. You will love it when a plan comes together!

Worth: Matinee & DVD