The Maze Runner - 2 1/2 stars

It’s been a month since we had a dystopian movie based on a young adult fantasy novel.  Based on the book by Utah author James Dashner, The Maze Runner is a pretty good story idea.  

The movie opens with sixteen year old Thomas waking up in The Glade, a forest area surrounded on all sides by massive stone walls.  He has no memory of who he is or why he is there, but there are about 30 other boys in the same state.  Once a month a new boy arrives, and they have established a community in The Glade.  

It turns out they are in the center of a giant maze.  Every morning the door to the maze opens, and every night the door closes.  Runners are sent into the maze to try and find a way out, and they have to return before the door closes because there are dangerous creatures in the maze.  The creatures are called Grievers, and no one has ever seen them and survived.

That’s a pretty simple setup for a story, and the movie keeps us guessing until the end about why they are there and what’s going on.  Are they being punished?  Are they part of some experiment?  They know someone is in control, because every month supplies arrive along with a new kid.  

One thing that was surprising was the level of violence in this movie.  It’s PG-13, which means we don’t see any blood, but there are still quite a few deaths in this movie.  When the creatures from the maze attack, it’s reminiscent of Starship Troopers.  Those things are quite vicious, and we see a number of the boys stabbed by their deadly tails.  

There were things to like in this movie, but I was disappointed by the lack of character development.  All the characters were flat and two-dimensional.  Thomas is the hero of the story, but we don’t learn much about him other than he is more anxious than any of the others to explore the maze and get out.  And Gally (Will Poulter from Son of Rambow) is the antagonist.  At first, he seems distrustful of Thomas and always walks around with a scowl on his face.  He doesn’t seem to have a problem with the runners trying to find a way out of the maze, but he does have a problem with Thomas fighting the Grievers.  By the end, his motivations don’t make sense, and he’s causing trouble just because the movie needed a villain.

Another problem is the lack of humor.  It doesn’t matter what genre a movie is – every movie needs a little bit of humor.  The characters were so serious all the time, and it got tedious.  Also, the dialogue isn’t bad but it does nothing other than serve the plot.  It would have been nice to see these characters have some fun or have an interesting conversation.  And there are too many scenes of the characters talking earnestly to each other.  The movie is chock full of earnestness.  

The other big problem is that this is going to be another franchise.  Like every other one before it (Twilight, Hunger Games, Divergent), this is the first of a series.  Instead of being a standalone movie, it mostly serves to set up the rest of the series.  The finale is a real letdown because of this.  When we find out why the kids are in the maze, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.  But it’s also trying too hard to set up the next movie in the series.

The story would have made a good Twilight Zone episode, but it doesn’t quite work as a movie.  It’s almost good enough to recommend, but not quite.  If you’re a fan of the books, you’ll probably like it better than I did.

This Is Where I Leave You - 2 stars

When their father dies, the Altman siblings come home for the funeral.  They are Judd (Jason Bateman), Wendy (Tina Fey), Phillip (Adam Driver) and Paul (Corey Stoll).  Their mother is played by Jane Fonda.  Once they’re all gathered at the family home, their mother informs them that their father’s dying wish was for all of them to sit Shiva.  This means they all have to stay at the house for seven days and mourn while friends come by to offer condolences.

Each of the siblings has some drama going on.  Judd recently discovered his wife has been having an affair with his boss.  Wendy is dealing with the guilt of leaving her ex-boyfriend who suffered a brain injury years before.  Paul and his wife are having trouble conceiving, and Paul’s wife used to date Judd.  And Phillip is the black sheep of the family.  He shows up driving a Porsche and dating an older woman who also happens to be his therapist.

This is a dysfunctional family comedy that isn’t really much of a comedy.  All the best jokes are in the trailer, but they work so much better in the trailer.  When I saw the same scenes in the movie, they didn’t make me laugh.  The timing was all wrong, and I wish that whoever edited the trailer had also edited the movie.

The lack of jokes wouldn’t be so bad if the movie wasn’t trying so hard to be a comedy.  I got tired of the jokes about Jane Fonda’s boob job, or the kid who’s potty training, and always carrying his little potty around to different areas of the house to poop.  And there are so many stories going on with these characters that it takes the movie a long time to develop them.  I was bored for probably the first hour of the movie.  After that, I was interested in the characters enough that I started to enjoy the movie, but that’s a long time to wait for a movie to grab you.

Bateman, Fey and Fonda were all disappointments in this movie, but Adam Driver was fun to watch.  The movie got entertaining every time he was on screen, and I wish his character had been on screen more.  There is one really fun scene where the brothers sneak away during temple to get high.  

In the hands of a better director, this might have been a pretty good movie.  The material is there and these actors are really good.  But Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum, Real Steel) isn’t the right director for this kind of material.  Big disappointment.

The Drop - 3 stars

Based on a short story by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River; Gone, Baby, Gone), this is a crime drama set in Brooklyn.  Tom Hardy stars as Bob Saginowski.  He tends bar at Cousin Marv’s, a popular neighborhood bar which also doubles as a money drop for Chechen mobsters.  Bob is quiet and shy.  He knows who he works for, but he isn’t involved in any criminal activity.  He kind of just keeps his head down and does his work.  But we get the impression that he wasn’t always that way. 

One night a couple guys rob the place.  The Chechens don’t really care who robbed them, they just want their money back.  So it’s up to Bob and Cousin Marv (the late James Gandolfini) to either find the robbers, or come up with the money themselves.  Another storyline concerns Bob adopting an abused dog he rescued, and his new friendship with Nadia (Noomi Rapace from The Girl with the Dragon Tatttoo), who helps teach him how to care for the dog.

What’s interesting about this movie is that the story is the least interesting part of it.  There isn’t all that much plot to speak of.  What I liked about the movie is the performances.  Gandolfini is always good, and here he easily embodies this guy who used to be somebody powerful but now has been kind of beaten down by life.  He lives with his sister, and most of their conversations have to do with whether to take their father off life support.

But the movie belongs to Tom Hardy.  He’s one of those actors who disappears into his characters.  He does a good job with the Brooklyn accent and it was amazing watching him be so interesting while doing so little.  

There were a few problems with the movie.  There’s a running storyline with the detective investigating the robbery that doesn’t go anywhere.  And too much screen time is devoted to Bob trying to care for the dog.  The movie dragged in a few places, but most of the time I was absorbed in the story and enjoying watching these actors.  It’s especially sad to realize that this is the last time we’ll get to see a new James Gandolfini performance.

Despite those problems, I enjoyed this movie.  It’s not as good as Mystic River or Gone, Baby, Gone but it had the same feel, with the same working class type of characters.  The neighborhood and the characters felt very authentic, and I was surprised how gripping and intense the climax of the movie was.  This movie is definitely worth seeing.

Dolphin Tale 2 - 2 1/2 stars

This is a movie about a boy and his dolphin.  I didn’t see the first Dolphin Tale (2011), but from what I’ve read, the Clearwater Marine Hospital rescued an injured dolphin and named her Winter.  Winter’s tail has to be amputated, and she is fitted with a prosthetic tail.  This not only allows her to swim without injuring herself, but she becomes an inspiration to everyone.  

In this movie we see how many people come visit the aquarium to see Winter.  She’s especially popular with disabled children and wounded war veterans.  When Winter’s companion dies, they have 30 days to find a new companion for her (USDA regulations say dolphins can’t be housed alone).  If they don’t find a new companion for her, Winter will be moved and the aquarium will be shut down.

That’s the main source of drama in the story.  The other bit of tension is about whether Sawyer Nelson (Nathan Gamble), the boy who works there and is closest to Winter, will leave town to study for three months at a prestigious marine biology program in Boston.  

This is a nice, pleasant enough movie for kids.  Watching it, I was reminded of movies they might have shown us in elementary school.  There’s nothing offensive to kids, it’s not too intense or scary, but it’s too safe and uneventful.  I was bored most of the time.

It was interesting at times to observe what the daily routine is at this place.  Both movies were “inspired by true events” and there really is a Clearwater Marine Hospital.  Over the end credits, we get to watch actual video footage of events depicted in the movie.  That was probably my favorite part of the movie, and I wouldn’t mind seeing a documentary about Winter and the aquarium.

I took my niece and nephews to see this movie (ages 5 – 10), and they enjoyed it.  So based on that, I’m going to say that it’s enjoyable enough for kids and the story is moderately engaging.  But unless you have kids who really want to see this, there’s really no reason to go.

The November Man - 3 stars

Code named 'The November Man', Peter Devereaux (Pierce Brosnan) is a lethal and highly trained ex-CIA agent, who has been enjoying a quiet life in Switzerland. When Devereaux is lured out of retirement for one last mission, he must protect valuable witness, Alice Fournier, (Olga Kurylenko). He soon uncovers this assignment marks him a target of his former friend and CIA protégé David Mason (Luke Bracey). With growing suspicions of a mole in the agency, there is no one Devereaux can trust, no rules and no holds barred. With a screenplay by Michael Finch & Karl Gajdusek based on Bill Granger's novel "There are No Spies" from the bestselling November Man book series, THE NOVEMBER MAN is the ultimate cat and mouse game set in the world of international espionage. Directed by Roger Donaldson (The Bank Job, No Way Out, Thirteen Days), the film is produced by Beau St. Clair of Irish DreamTime and Sriram Das of Das Films.(c) Relativity


Pierce Brosnan is back in spy mode, but this is no James Bond movie.  Peter Devereaux has no problem killing anyone who gets in his way, no matter who they are.  I lost count of how many CIA agents he shot who probably had no idea what they were involved in.  There's a point where he does something to an innocent woman that I couldn't believe.  From that point on, I was hoping that he would be killed before the end of the movie.

I do have to give the movie props for making the character so unlikeable.  I'm sure the studio had some reservations about that.  A lesser movie would have softened him up in order to make sure audiences would root for him until the end.  I've never read the book series this is based on, but I imagine they stayed pretty faithful to the character.

The plot doesn't really matter so much.  It involves the soon to be elected Russian president, a war years before between Russia and Chechnya, and some top level CIA officials who might have been involved.  But the main focus of the movie is the relationship between Devereaux and Mason.  They're both out to kill the other, and Devereaux enjoys taunting Mason whenever he gets the chance.  Neither one is a likeable guy, and there were times were it felt like the movie wanted us to shift our sympathies to Mason. 

There are problems with this movie, but I did find it entertaining.  The action was well done, and no matter how much I didn't like his character, it was really nice to see Pierce Brosnan back in action mode.  This character may actually be much closer to James Bond as originally written than the way he's portrayed in the Bond movies. 

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For - 2 1/2 stars

This sequel to Sin City follows a few returning characters and several new ones.  Marv (Mickey Rourke) wakes up on the street to find two wrecked cars, a bunch of dead bodies, and he has no memory of what happened.  Johnny (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a cocky gambler, rolls into town with plans to beat Senator Roark (Powers Boothe) at a game of poker.  Nancy Callahan (Jessica Alba), the stripper who doesn't strip, is haunted by the death of John Hartigan (Bruce Willis) and is looking for revenge. 

But the best story of the bunch concerns Dwight McCarthy (Josh Brolin) and his ex-lover Ava Lord (Eva Green).  Ava convinces Dwight that she still loves him and needs to be rescued from her abusive new husband.  When Dwight walks into a trap that Ava sets up for him, Dwight turns to Marv for help getting revenge.  This story was the most interesting, and it also took up the most screen time.  I think there were at least 30 minutes of screen time where the movie never cut away from this story.  But most of the time the movie jumped back and forth between the other stories.

I enjoyed most of the movie but the last 15 or 20 minutes focused on Nancy Callahan and I got bored.  Her story isn't that interesting.  She goes on stage, dances while drinking a bottle of booze, thinks about shooting Senator Roark, then goes backstage to pout.  This seemed to happen several times.  By the time she and Marv actually go after Roark, I lost interest completely. 

Just like the first Sin City, it looked great.  Every frame looks like it was taken from the graphic novel, and there were some fun side characters.  My favorite was Christopher Lloyd as a creepy back-alley doctor.  The movie could have used more of him.

This wasn't as good as the first Sin City, but it was entertaining enough until the last 20 minutes.  I just wish the movie hadn't focused so much of Nancy's story.  Maybe they could have done more with Johnny and his story, since it seemed a bit too simple.  The character was too cocky, and he didn't seem to have much of a plan.  But Gordon-Levitt and Powers Boothe were fun to watch.  They seemed to be the only ones having any fun in this movie.

If I Stay - 3 stars

From Wikipedia: The story follows 17-year-old Mia Hall (Chloe Grace Moretz) as she deals with the aftermath of a catastrophic car accident involving her family. In a coma, Mia has an out-of-body experience, and watches as friends and family gather at the hospital where she is being treated. Mia watches as her memories flash before her eyes as she comes to realize that she must decide if she should wake up and lead a life far more difficult than she ever anticipated, or slip away and die.

The movie moves back and forth between Mia in the hospital after the accident, and the year prior to the accident.  We watch her meet Adam, the lead singer of a local rock band.  She and Adam fall in love despite their musical differences - he's into punk rock, she loves classical.  She even has Yo-Yo Ma stickers in her locker.  As high school ends, Mia has to decide whether to try to get into Juilliard or stay in Oregon and be close to Adam. 

For a while, I was kind of annoyed with the back and forth.  I was getting to like these characters, and I was much more interested in watching their relationship progress than watching her ghost walk around the hospital and observe her friends and family sitting in the waiting room.  I felt like the out-of-body thing was an unnecessary gimmick, and I would have preferred a standard, chronological story.  As the movie went along I started to get less annoyed, but I still think the movie would have worked without the gimmick.

I really wasn't expecting to like this movie based on the trailers, but I did.  The characters were well written and well acted, and I thought the dialogue felt authentic.  In movies like this, the dialogue usually feels forced and the characters usually don't talk the way real people talk.  I especially liked the parents.  Mia's dad was a drummer in a punk band when he was younger, and he gave that up to raise his kids.  Her mom was a rocker chick who also settled down.  The parents could have easily been the cliched 'cool parents' but they also felt authentic.

The hospital scenes to get a big tedious at times, but there are some real powerful scenes as well.  I was especially moved by a scene towards the end when her grandpa (Stacy Keach) is talking to his comatose granddaughter.  Bring a tissue - the entire audience I saw it with was crying most of the second half of the movie.

In the wrong hands, this could have been a very tough movie to sit through, but I liked it and I would see it again.