michael's movie reviews
2013
These are the movies I reviewed in 2013.
reviewed 2013.12.15
So, they've rebooted "The Hulk" movies...
reviewed 2013.12.14
This is a Pixar movie, but you can scarcely recognize the genius behind "Toy Story" and "Finding Nemo" in this abysmal straight-to-DVD release that incredibly somehow makes "Cars" look good...
reviewed 2013.11.27
This is an excellent animated kids' movie about an elderly man who is being pressured to give up his home by callous real-estate agents...
Transformers: Dark of The Moon
reviewed 2013.10.11
This is the second sequel to the splashy first from six years ago...
reviewed 2013.09.24
This is a fictionalized telling of the capture and execution of Osama bin Laden following the 9/11 attacks...
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
reviewed 2013.09.11
This is the sequel to the original Transformers movie from 2007, which was entertaining. I saw that one in the cinema, before I had kids. Sigh.Anyway, this thing is a complete mess. It reverses the supposedly momentous death of the Big Bad in the previous movie, and introduces a new Uber Boss to cannon. He doesn't survive, needless to say.What has survived in abundance is product placement, it..
reviewed 2013.08.12
I enjoyed this movie more than I expected to...
reviewed 2013.07.15
Everything about the Iron Man character in these marvel movies rubs me the wrong way. Since seeing the original Iron Man movie on a plane at some point, I've avoided these things. But The Boy wants to watch them so here I am.In this movie New York is threatened by Loki the Norse god, who's apparently well past his Trickster years and into his Adversary phase...
reviewed 2013.07.14
This is a movie that attempts to tell the tale of the Cabin in the Woods from the point of view of the supposed inbred hillbillies that terrorize the urban teenagers. In this telling, two confused fellows arrive at a work site to witness a series of grisly accidental deaths. Coming to believe that it's a "death cult" they do what it takes to survive.I thoroughly enjoyed this lunatic goofy piece...
reviewed 2013.07.03
I won't belabor this: this 2009 film is the most disappointing comic book adaptation I can recall...
reviewed 2013.06.30
This is an animated movie set in a mythical Earth in which Norsemen of the viking era are at war with dragons. A young man encounters a strange dragon of a very rare type and attempts to befriend it. What follows is the usual generation-gap story plus dragons and not a small helping of scrawny inventor versus brawny fighters.My son, aged five, enjoyed this...
reviewed 2013.06.08
This is a spy - or perhaps, counter-spy - story about a retiree who is called back to active duty to unmask a mole in Britain's intelligence division...
reviewed 2013.05.23
This is a movie about two men with young sons in the same town...
reviewed 2013.05.23
I really wanted this prequel to the first Alien movie to recapture the dread, world-building, character-driven narrative, and over-all vibe of that original movie...
reviewed 2013.04.17
This movie features a 29-year-old actor playing a seventeen year old, in a retelling of Peter Parker's becoming Spider-Man...
reviewed 2013.04.08
Only the incredibly self-serious X-Men franchise could start a superhero movie with a scene from a Nazi prison camp. They're obviously trying to ground the fantastical world of super-powered mutants in a historical context. With the underlying themes of these movies are intolerance and persecution, so there are few historical choices that are going to resonate so well with an audience.Having set..
reviewed 2013.03.15
This is a story about a grievously injured soldier who is put into service in a simulation in order to stop a bombing of a train...
reviewed 2013.03.07
This is a movie about a couple who are dealing with middle age...
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
reviewed 2013.02.25
I have no idea how this mess of a movie got released. It looked interesting enough in the trailers, but by the ten minute mark I felt more like I was being patronized or perhaps insulted than anything. It's a tired, stitched-together pastiche and the actors look like they were going through the motions. Seriously, the star looks like he regrets being there.And since when are mermaids vampires? W..
reviewed 2013.02.03
This is a sequel to the original Hangover, which was set in Las Vegas...
reviewed 2013.01.25
This is a tale of a couple who divorce after the spark is lost in their marriage...