While I still think it was crazy to reboot the series so soon after the original trilogy, I do like Garfield in this role. His chemistry with Emma Stone makes this worth watching, but not much else. It's nice to see a wise-cracking Spiderman. It's cool to see him using his "spidey-senses" to help save innocent people. But I am tired of watching even yet more evil villains' back-stories. I am tired of watching Peter Parker struggle with whether he wants to be a superhero or not. The espionage sub-plot with his parents is completely useless. Seeing the ghost of Dennis Leary show up randomly was odd. This whole film is a disjointed mess. I'm hoping someone edits together all the Garfield/Stone scenes along with the one Times Square action scene in the middle. That would make a quite enjoyable 45 minute Spiderman film that I wouldn't mind watching again.

2.5 Stars (out of 5)

Oculus is a clever horror film, which is kind of hard to believe considering it's about a killer mirror. The film does a fantastic job of building suspense, telling two parallel storylines that converge in the end of a brother and sister trying to prove to the world that the mirror on the wall is responsible for the murders, suicides, and insane behavior of several generations that have owned it. It's a crazy plot but done in such an earnest way that by the end I am actually rooting for the protagonists to make it through unscathed, something I'm not used to feeling from a scary movie.

3 Stars (out of 5)

A modern re-telling of Frankenstein, cautionary tale of technology run amok, and a showcase of future technology all rolled into a suspense drama... That they manage to miss the mark on nearly every beat. This film falls flat, runs long, and confuses more than it astounds, which is unfortunate because I'm interested in the futurist ideas it tries to convey. Perhaps if Depp had shown some sort of humanity in his character we would have had something to compare his digital counterpart to, but unfortunately it's hard to tell them apart due to him, as far as I can tell, phoning it in the whole time.

2 Stars (out of 5)

A much more enjoyable experience than the first film, this one stands alone as a great action adventure and even sci-fi film. It does a great job of tying together the bad guys from WWII to the political issues of the current day, bringing Captain's past to the present, and tying it all up with a nice little bow. I really enjoyed the scene where they discover a supercomputer containing the preserved consciousness of a long dead scientist. They manage to do a better job of conveying such a technology in a five-minute sequence than Transcendence could do in an entire film. I look forward to Avengers 2 and future films in the series.

3.5 Stars (out of 5)

A grand opus of a Wes Anderson film, this movie is beautiful, off-beat, wonderfully acted, and thoroughly entertaining. The storytelling is often silly, utilizing clever camera moves to pull off hilarious sight-gags, it's chock-full of fantastic one-liners, and there's some screwball slapstick scenarios, but they also take a few moments to throw in some more sentimental beats. The interesting use of miniatures and the switching between aspect ratios were also some of the unique flourishes that help set this film apart from anything else out there.

4 Stars (out of 5)

I kind of liked two of the musical numbers in this one, and I felt like the Muppets themselves were true to their original characters, but the magic was just not there for me. The bad Kermit character Constantine steals the show, but everything else falls flat and feels like a waste of time. Gone are the glory days of the early original Muppet movies, with memorable songs that brought a tear to your eye, and earnest storylines that had you actually care for the characters and root for a happy ending. Now it's just more of the same: simple by-the-numbers story with Muppet characters shoe-horned in. The best moment in this film was the few seconds we see Rainbow Connection from 1979 on a television.

2.5 Stars (out of 5)

Having never seen the show I was actually surprised by how well of a stand alone film this turned out to be. It did a decent job of setting up the characters and relaying the information about where the show left off. I enjoy a good whodunit movie and this was just that. I could tell from the overwhelmingly positive response from the audience in my theater that the film paid enough fan-service to the fan-base as well, and seemed to wrap up the storyline nicely for everyone.

3 Stars (out of 5)

Kevin Hart and Regina Hall are hilarious and really play well off each other in this film. Unfortunately the other two main characters' charisma is nowhere to be found. The editing is choppy throughout the film to a detriment that I could never overlook. The story wasn't bad, but I really couldn't believe anything I was seeing. Between the silliness of two out of the four main characters, and the lack of emotion from the other two, it all felt far too uneven to take seriously.

1.5 Stars (out of 5)

This is a well-paced, perfectly acted, and optimistic bio-pic set during the early days of the AIDS epidemic. Mathew McConaughey does a bang-up job here, which would have been almost inconceivable just a few years ago, when all he was doing was terrible rom-coms with no soul. Jared Leto almost steals the show with his insane method acting style and Jennifer Garner does a good job not acting exactly the same as she normally does in all her films, but scene after scene it was McConaughey that was always the strongest. Alright, alright, alright.

3.5 Stars (out of 5)

Have we truly run completely out of new ideas to the point where every single eighties movie must be rebooted in this decade? This one is not the best, but at least it's somewhat watchable. Severely hindered by its PG-13 rating and lack of fun, this movie still manages to capture a little bit of the creepiness that Verhoeven was known for. Most notably, when the main character sees what original parts of himself are still intact underneath the robo-suit, I did get chills. I also enjoyed the discussion about free will being an illusion throughout the film.

2.0 Stars (out of 5)