Taking over one of gaming’s most well known franchises and moving away from the open world genre that they made the standard in the industry many years ago, Rockstar has proven once again that they’re one of the best in the world at what they do. With no open world, no story-driven player decisions, and no revolutionary L.A. Noire facial animations, Rockstar has released the third installment in the Max Payne franchise, which instead focuses on fixing everything the iconic develope... Read More »

Hit? Or miss? That depends. Although I could easily see how Battleship could be a miss, I'm going with hit. What I said a couple days ago regarding The Dictator applies here: in order to enjoy Battleship's voyage, you've gotta realize early that you're expected to simply accept whatever's on screen, no matter how unbelievable or absurd, and (to cite Brooklyn Decker's previous film) just go with it. [spoiler show="Show More Details / Spoiler"]For example, in the prologue we find out ... Read More »

Once you realize in the beginning of the movie that The Dictator is going to be an over-the-top comedy, you'll be able to enjoy it more. But let me warn you now: despite the long list of similarities (including the trademark stunt marketing), Sacha Baron Cohen's latest offensive (to put it very lightly) character trails Borat in nearly every, if not all, aspects of entertainment. If Borat is the Gaddafi or Bin Laden of Baron Cohen's work, then The Dictator is like Kim Jong-un, not real... Read More »

The product of 1995’s singleplayer-only Warhawk on the original PlayStation and 2007’s multiplayer-only Warhawk on the PlayStation 3, Starhawk has undergone many transformations over the years. Like the legendary tale of the phoenix, the Hawk series hasn’t made many appearances since its debut and like the development studio behind the series and the Hawks themselves, Starhawk has risen from the ashes after said transformations to emerge as one of the best multiplayer games of al... Read More »

The summer movie season officially launched today with one of our most anticipated movies of 2012, and damn, was it a freaking blast! The culmination of five prior Marvel films, The Avengers is the pot o' gold at the end of the rainbow of various popular superheroes, wholeheartedly embodying the comic-book studio's name (i.e., you WILL marvel at what you'll see). Even though I had some more-than-satisfying action just last week in Safe, Jason Statham's bad-ass rampage through Manhattan... Read More »

Like Hollywood, the gaming industry has a trend of releasing similar competing games around the same time. One of the most recent and biggest gaming showdowns after Call of Duty and Battlefield is the epic battle between Prototype and Infamous -- both good games, both involving superheroes in open-world cities, and both debuting in the summer of 2009. Although Infamous seemed to be the overall favorite amongst gamers and critics, I’ve always considered it a bit overrated and preferre... Read More »

If not for The Raid: Redemption's stateside release about a month ago, my clear-cut choice for best action movie of the year so far would probably be the new Jason Statham action flick, Safe, a fast-paced thrill ride that more than satisfyingly delivers what I expected from Safe House a while ago. Whereas that Denzel vehicle might have been one of the bigger disappointments of the pre-blockbuster season, Safe ranks as one of the bigger surprises yet and could very well end up being one... Read More »

Bland, ho! This Band of Misfits must've made a stop in the Caribbean because I have a new candidate for the most disappointing film of the year, and I'm a sucker for animated flicks. While Aardman Animations' previous movie (Arthur Christmas) wasn't in the lovable stop-motion format that put them on the map, I've enjoyed their entire track record of films, including Chicken Run, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and Flushed Away. That is, until now. Despite being comp... Read More »

Disneynature's annual celebration of Earth Day this year swings onto big screens as Chimpanzee, a documentary about a primatologist and the gorilla he's trained to communicate with humans via a special device that translates the creature's sign language into a digitized voice. Oh, wait. Sorry, that was the movie Congo. There's really no need for me to elaborate much further on what Chimpanzee is about beyond the fact that like last year's African Cats, the doc tries to humanize a famil... Read More »

Men are from Mars, women are from Venus, glad this wasn't rated R, cuz I didn't see another penis. Think Like A Man is a new he-said-she-said romantic comedy that pits a group of male friends against their female interests and counterparts. Based on Steve Harvey's best-selling self-help book (Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment), the movie presents love as a guys-vs.-girls war, and for battles recounted in Think L... Read More »

Foreign film The Raid: Redemption, one of our Most Anticipated Movies of 2012, is easily the best action movie this year so far and arguably the best martial arts one in years. Coming from Indonesia with very high intensity despite a very low budget, The Raid showcases the country's native martial arts style, called pencat silat, in a furious flurry of machetes and machine guns. Heart-poundingly brutal and gripping, The Raid: Redemption would have been an epic video game. That's not... Read More »

Starring Thor's Chris Hemsworth and a bunch of fresh young meat, The Cabin in the Woods is the new "horror thriller" that's hampered by bad CGI reminiscent of The Mist, except that Stephen King adaptation was good whereas The Cabin in the Woods falls a little short mostly due to its unsatisfactory third act and lack of horror or thrills. Co-writer Drew Goddard, who wrote Cloverfield and several Lost episodes, makes his directional debut a decent and fascinating one with loads of genre ... Read More »

Is it Taken in space? No. I'm just glad it's not the disappointing Unknown in space. Luc Besson's latest production, the sci-fi action thriller Lockout, is comparable to his previous, Colombiana. But what made me like it over Colombiana is Lockout's reckless audacity and sheer ridiculousness. It's like a cheap county fair ride that's an obvious and janky rip-off of a Six Flags attraction, but the bottom line is it's fun as hell while still managing to deliver the thrills. Just don't ex... Read More »

Nearly a full decade since the last slice of American Pie hit theaters comes the return of the billion dollar franchise in American Reunion. As the Reunion title indicates, that's pretty much what the movie is because there's little substance beyond the simple outline of "Hey, look who we managed to round up!" But American Reunion, a rare comedy that manages to get crazier and crazier, is nevertheless a hilarious romp, even if it banks very heavily on nostalgia. Jon Hurwitz and Hayd... Read More »

I'm ashamed I watched this. I blame it on my significant other and because the movie we wanted to watch had no seats left. But mainly I blame her. I'd rather have watched Titanic 3D, where I know I'm guaranteed at least a good hour (the end, of course) even though I'd have to get through two hours of romantic BS first. Instead, I got nearly two full hours of straight up BS. Mirror Mirror is the first of two separate live-action Snow White movies this year. Hollywood has a history of... Read More »

Sometimes movies aren't very memorable. It's only been a couple years since the Clash of the Titans remake, but it's felt like the decade that separates its events and its new sequel. All I could remember about Clash was Sam Worthington, Medusa, The Kraken, and the epically horrible 3D, possibly the worst I'd ever seen. So I rewatched Clash before catching the new sequel, and aside for the vastly improved 3D, Wrath of the Titans is pretty much a recycled version of its predecessor. ... Read More »