Fast and Furious 6 wholeheartedly succeeds and, despite many spoiler cats being already out of the bag for the coming seventh film next summer, it still surprises with more than enough seat-belt tightening action and twists. Go ahead and let the old farts call it dumb and redundant. They clearly don't know what fun is nowadays. Fast and Furious 6 is perfect summer entertainment.
Read MoreWell, it took a second try, but The Hangover Part III actually attempted the rule of a good sequel by expanding the story and raising the stakes. Because this is the finale, there are still plenty of nods and connections to the first two films, but Todd Phillips did attempt some new shenanigans. The trouble is I'm not sure if it was a direction that worked.
Read MoreIn the end, this isn't just a good sequel. It's a great sequel. Right when you think one story angle can't get more exciting, a new ingredient or wrinkle is thrown in to make the tension and enjoyment that much greater. With a breathless sense of action that builds cliffhanger on top of cliffhanger, Star Trek Into Darkness fires on all cylinders to deliver arguably one of the best summer blockbusters we've ever seen.
Read MoreThe film's cool and soothing central romance really won me over and I think it will win all of you over too. My initial skepticism level was very high, and not all from the usual book-to-movie debate. It's not often that a movie proves me wrong. The Great Gatsby sure did.
Read MoreWhile some of the wackiness never lets up and carries into the course of our villainous conflict, the humor is always bubbling up to the surface. Iron Man 3 is, without a doubt, the most comedic of the Marvel superhero films. That affable effect helps mask many of the really preposterous events and flaws and keeps the whole Iron Man 3 effort extremely likeable and entertaining.
Read MoreBuilding off that solid start, reuniting with Gosling, and bringing his storytelling to an ever larger scale than before, Cianfrance's latest film,The Place Beyond the Pines, is nothing short of a modern masterpiece. Brimming with more of that palpable emotion and wrought with ever-increasing tension, tragedy, triumph, and importance, The Place Beyond the Pinesis the first great film of 2013 and better than just about every movie this critic reviewed in 2012.
Read MoreCome to the film for the visuals and hang around for enough surprises and developments to make you feel better about the IMAX ticket price. Once again, it's not a sure-fire classic, but it's just the start to a promising 2013 for science fiction.
Read More42 completely stands as a respectful, heroic, and fascinating movie that matches the respectful, heroic, and fascinating man himself. Yes, it has its forgivable offenses of oversimplification, sunny optimism, Disney-like gloss, and convenient revision, but the film succeeds in its primary goal to inspire the viewer.
Read MoreOlympus Has Fallen dials up a spring picnic of R-rated thrills and summer-level action a month before the big summer season really gets things underway.
Read MoreAs fun as it is, G.I. Joe: Retaliation isn't breaking any new ground, but, again, it doesn't have to. While it's less out-there than the first film, it still delivers enough cool action to entertain. It was better than A Good Day to Die Hard in this critic's opinion. It's not a movie you'll brag about at the workplace water cooler on Monday, but it's one you'll catch yourself still sitting down to watch again on basic cable for the next several years. It's not dazzling enough to reach a cult status or guilty pleasure level, but if they keep bringing out the big guns, we are likely to keep coming back.
Read MoreAs the title of this editorial suggests, everyone around Chicago probably has a Roger Ebert story. Here's mine...
Read MoreI found Oz the Great and Powerful to be a beautiful mess of a movie. It spared no expense to throw so many dumb things together than I learned one new thing that most of these modern fairy tale movies lack: CHARM
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