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)