Movie Review: Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Paramount Pictures
Runtime: 2 hours, 12 minutes
Rated: PG-13 (for intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence)
Director: J.J. Abrams
Writers: Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana
Action | Adventure | Sci-fi

Despite all of the atrocious adulterations and meat-headed melodrama of the 2009 Star Trek movie, director J.J. Abrams (Star Trek, Super 8) is back at it with Star Trek Into Darkness, a second movie that takes the finely recreated crew members and puts them into something more credible.

Movie Review: Pain & Gain (2013)

Paramount Pictures
Runtime: 2 hours, 9 minutes
Rated: R (for bloody violence, crude sexual content, nudity, language
throughout, and drug use)
Director: Michael Bay
Writers: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely
Starring: Mark Walhberg, Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie, Ed Harris,
Tony Shalhoub
Comedy | Crime | Drama 

A movie like Pain & Gain doesn’t come along all that often. When one does, the last thing you want to do is get in line to trash it like most critics and many viewers have. There is gold in this dar’ film…well, maybe just silver, and it’s tarnished, but still there.

Documentary Review: LIGHT (2013)

Khaney Pictures
Runtime: 1 hour, 17 minutes
Rated: No MPAA rating
Director: Christopher Sakr
Writer: Christopher Sakr
Narrators: Michael Elie-Layoun, Nour Petra-Hamieh, Eva Bekahi
Documentary

LIGHT gives us the perspective of Christopher Sakr, a boy who in 1987 left his home in Beirut to come to America. In 2011, he went back. The experience of seeing what Lebanon has become brings us this presentation.

Movie Review: Iron Man 3 (2013)

Paramount Pictures
Runtime: 2 hours, 10 minutes
Rated: PG-13 (for sequences of intense sci-fi action and
violence throughout, and brief suggestive language)
Director: Shane Black
Writers: Drew Pearce, Shane Black
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Guy Pearce
Action | Sci-Fi | Thriller

While the first two Iron Man movies had the combined value of action, humor, and a lean storyline that was digestible with no unwanted extras, you can forget about all of that in the third addition.

Movie Review: Olympus Has Fallen (2013)

Millenium Films

Runtime: 2 hours

Rated: R (for strong violence and language)

Director: Antoine Fuqua

Writers: Creighton Rothenberger, Katrin Benedikt

Starring: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman

Action | Thriller

Gerard Butler’s return to the big screen didn’t go off quite as planned. There are gunfights with automatic weapons, terrorist standoffs, and tons of explosions with property damage to boot. There are White House officials in serious briefings and others tied up with guns to their heads, but Antoine “Training Day” Fuqua’s new patriotic action movie doesn’t cut the mustard.

Movie Review: The Croods (2013)

Twentieth Century Fox / Dreamworks
Runtime: 1 hour, 38 minutes
Rated: PG (for some scary action)
Director: Kirk De Micco, Chris Sanders
Writers: Chris Sanders, Kirk De Micco
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds
Animation | Adventure | Comedy

“Grug” (Nicolas Cage), the caveman, is the proud head of his prehistoric family. He boasts that while so many other relatives have kicked the bucket from disease, giant beasts, tar pits, and the like, he found a cave to hide in. The cave is Grug’s answer to every problem. It protects them all from nearly everything, but it can’t protect them from what is to come.

Movie Review: Oblivion (2013)

Universal Pictures
Runtime: 2 hours, 6 minutes
Rated: PG-13 (for sci-fi violence, brief strong language, and some sensuality/
nudity)
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Writers: Joseph Kosinski, Arvid Nelson, Karl Gajdusek
Starring: Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko
Action | Adventure | Mystery

Directed by Joseph “Tron: Legacy” Kosinski, Oblivion is the movie adaptation of the graphic novel co-written with Arvid Nelson for Radical Comics. It takes place in the year 2077, more than 60 years after Earth was attacked by a race of aliens known only to humans as “Scavengers” (or “Scavs” for short).