These characters are better suited to being on the sideline of a larger film. Sure they sell merchandise, and the kids in the theater seemed to be having a good time, but this film doesn't begin to compare to the quality of the heartwarming and funny Despicable Me films. The best part of the film happens during the end credits, when it starts to feel a bit more like a real Despicable Me film. I guess I knew going in that a feature-length film starring gibberish-speaking yellow blobs wasn't going to be very good, but even with my hopes so low it still managed to be a bit of a disappointment. Maybe catch it on Netflix for the few cute laughs it offers.

2.0 Stars (out of 5)

I actually enjoyed this film. I am, however, a big fan of the first two films in the franchise, and given that this entry plays out like the ultimate fan-fiction, fan-service fan-film, it isn't surprising that I enjoyed watching it. The first act was especially good, showing us what went on before the Terminator and Kyle Reese were originally sent back to 1984. It was inventive and the attention to detail from the original story was incredible. If only the other two-thirds of the film were as worthy. I'm afraid the casting of Reese and Sarah Conner were the film's biggest mistakes. These actors brought nothing to the film and might as well have just been placeholder dummies posed in front of the camera. Schwarzenegger is good in his iconic role. He was more believable in this one than the third film if you ask me. And J. K. Simmons stole the show, when he was on screen that is. It was a small part, but it was the best part. The final act of the film was awful, predictable, and despite all the explosions and special effects, ultimately uneventful. As a huge fan of the first two Terminator films, I enjoyed this reboot/prequel/sequel/remake, but I can't imagine anyone else really caring at all. It was at least better than the last two in the franchise, and just like Jurassic World, that's all we can really hope for anymore.

3.0 Stars (out of 5)

Finally a return to the original Pixar we used to love. Inside Out is extremely clever, maybe sometimes to a fault, but also as heartwarming and moving as Pixar gets. I have not been a fan of some of their recent films: Brave, Cars 2, and Monsters University. I'm happy to finally see an original film again (even if it is reminiscent of Herman's Head or Cranium Command). The voice casting was impeccable for the film, with Amy Poehler as the perfect 'Joy', Bill Hader as a hilarious 'Fear', Lewis Black as the fitting 'Anger', Phyllis Smith as 'Sadness', and my favorite, 'Disgust' played by Mindy Kaling. It's like a SNL/The Office crossover with this cast, and it couldn't have been done any better. My favorite things about the film are how it attempts to explain how the mind works in both grand and small fashion with clever and unique concepts. Everything from how we get a commercial jingle stuck in our head to how we grow and mature from an adolescent with simple reactionary emotional responses to an adult with a more nuanced emotional outlook. A beautiful movie, let's just hope they don't go and make a sequel.

3.5 Stars (out of 5)

Jurassic World is a sequel 14 years in the making. And it was well worth the wait. The fourth installment in the Jurassic Park franchise has gone through many iterations. It started out as a simple story about procuring the lost shaving cream can from the old island. Then for a short while it was going to be a horrific film about monster human-dinosaur hybrids designed to be used for war.

When writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, the brilliant minds behind the Rise of the Planet of the Apes film, took the reins a few years ago I was excited. Excited to see some clever voices take control of a flailing sequel that had been greenlit so many times in a decade it could make your head spin. When they were finished with the script some story points leaked on the web about a working theme park with a Sea World type show featuring a water dinosaur eating a great white shark and a plot revolving around trained velociraptors helping to track down a new type of killer dinosaur loose on the island. Once Colin Trevorrow was hired as director he explained in interviews that they needed more time so he could completely re-write the script from scratch. (Yet we still have a Sea World type show where a water dinosaur eats a great white shark and trained raptors help stop a new killer dino, so not sure how much he re-wrote.)

I'm a huge fan of the original Jurassic Park. Clearly I'm not alone. It is the film that made me want to make movies. It incorporates two of my biggest loves: dinosaurs and theme parks. And it was by my favorite director, the great Steven Spielberg. It had it all. When I saw it at midnight on June 11th, 1993 it blew my, then twelve-year-old, mind. When I found out there was going to be a sequel in 1997, I went nuts. I bought all the toys. I hung up posters, cereal boxes, candy containers, and anything with The Lost World branding on it. And at Memorial Day weekend my friends and I saw the midnight showing, only to walk out of the theater saying, "eh".

Eighteen years later and Jurassic World is coming out. Once again I buy the poster, I buy the toys. I buy candy and anything with the Jurassic World branding on it, and I see the early showing the day before and walk out of the theater and say, "hell yes!" This is the sequel to Jurassic Park I have been waiting exactly 22 years for. This is the best Jurassic Park film, since Jurassic Park.

Jurassic World is a Jurassic Park film for Jurassic Park fans made by a Jurassic Park fan. It's almost entirely fan-service, (except for a sub-plot that feels a lot like Universal mandated that they shove in there.) We get to finally see a working dinosaur theme park. We get to experience what it might be like to visit and touch these animals. And most importantly for me, we get to re-visit the place where it all started, Isla Nublar, the island from the first movie. The subsequent films took place on Isla Sorna, a land of bland jungle.

But the nostalgia factor is a double-edged sword. While paying so much homage to the original film, Jurassic World has trouble creating its own voice, and sometimes feels a bit like an imitation or a reboot. You get the feeling that it isn't as authentic, much like the undeserved sequel Indiana Jones 4 and the Quest for More Money. However these complaints are actually answered in Jurassic World itself, by Jake Johnson's character, that stands in for the audience, calling out Jurassic World for not being as "legit" as the original Jurassic Park. "They didn't need hybrids back then". And he's right. The film gets a little meta here and there, giving so many nods to the original film that it's shaking its head up and down the whole movie.

It's a fun popcorn movie. It's a blast the whole way through. You're strapped in and ready for the ride from the very beginning. I loved every minute of it and I'll watch it again and again. But it lacks some soul. It's a bit too glossy, and at times feels a bit piecemealed together. You can tell it's a fifth or sixth iteration of an idea for a sequel. There are subplots thrown in for no reason other than to either satisfy a studio requirement or lay the groundwork for inevitable sequels. Some of the characters are underdeveloped, and worst of all, there is no true protagonist.

In Jurassic Park, from the beginning we meet Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler. They are the main characters and we see the events of (almost) the entire film through their eyes. We arrive to the park with them, seeing it all for the first time when they do. When they split up, we follow Alan's story lost in the park with the kids and we follow Ellie's story back at the control room trying to reboot the park. Then they come back together for a satisfying third act. In Jurassic World, we start by following two children as they arrive to the park. Then the camera flies across the island to the control room and we follow Claire, the head of park operations. Then we meet Owen, who is training raptors. Owen and Claire meet up, then separate, then meet up again. And every once in awhile we check in on the kids. There's no cohesive story flow. In fact, the only character we truly follow is the camera itself, as it flies from one part of the park to another trying desperately to connect a disparate story. By the end, all the main characters inevitably come together, but not in any way organically. More just because they have to.

It's easy to pick on the problems of the film, but I do want to reiterate that I love the movie. It's eight-thousand times better than Jurassic Park 3, and I even like it more than The Lost World, which I have actually come to appreciate over the years, like a fine wine that gets better with age. The Spielberg films had something that JP3 and JW are missing though, and that's big set-piece scenes, both dramatic and suspenseful. The dinner table scene in the first film is incredible. Here we have five completely different characters simply discussing science, discovery, and ethics around a table, and it's one of the most riveting scenes in cinematic history. Another great scene is where John Hammond talks about his flea circus with Ellie while all the ice cream is melting (a metaphor for his dreams of a real dinosaur park dying around him).

There aren't many scenes in Jurassic World that last more than three minutes, so we never really dig in to anything. It's like the montaging of a movie, quick quip here, fast cut there, then action action action. There is a sweet moment with Claire, Owen and a dying Apatosaurus, but even that is brief and fleeting. The other type of big scenes missing are the suspenseful ones. In the original Jurassic Park, the T. rex escaping on the road is my favorite scene in any movie ever. It's long, scary, suspenseful, and there's not an ounce of music for ten minutes. It's just pure unadulterated terror. The Indominus rex breakout scene in Jurassic World has a similar feel, but comes up short (literally, it's a rather quick scene, as most are in the film). Even The Lost World has an intense scene with the two rexes attacking the RV. When Julianne Moore's character is laying on the glass while it's cracking around her I am on the edge of my seat. That sequence clocks in at nearly 15 minutes. Jurassic World could've used something like that early on, rather than jumping around so much.

It's for those reasons that I am giving this film four stars rather than five. It's still got dinosaurs, clever action, fun dialog and the best ending of any action movie I've seen in years, but it lacks the slowdowns, and long suspenseful sequences that the made the original a masterpiece. I adore the new score by Michael Giacchino. It's at times chilling and the new theme is just beautiful. I've been humming it in my head as much as I did the John Williams theme after the first film. Chris Pratt, was and always is, great. The effects were good, especially the new Indominus rex and the raptors. Some of the other dinosaur designs were a bit lacking and usually shown only in the background unfortunately. I've already seen Jurassic World twice in theaters and will probably see it again once more. Of course I will buy it to add to my collection on Blu-Ray. Here's hoping to see some deleted or maybe even extended scenes on the special features.

4 Stars (out of 5)

Even though this is a film about a dinosaur theme park, it's unfortunate that we don't really learn too much about dinosaurs in it. We do learn that keeping an animal in isolation its entire life can be bad for its temperament. We learn, once again, that raptors are smart pack hunters. But not much else. Dr. Henry Wu makes a point in the film that the animals of Jurassic World, and Jurassic Park, are not now, nor ever been, real dinosaurs. They would look much different, he goes on. But you wanted bigger, and more teeth. And that's exactly right. The Velociraptors of the real world would've been much smaller and covered in feathers for example, but this isn't a documentary. It's an action movie.

We go for the singing, and that part is great, but the quality of the comedy has gone down a bit since the first one. There were long stretches of silence in my theater during what should have been the big comedic set-pieces, but they just fall flat on their face. Then they start singing and things pick up, and for a few moments, you actually think you're watching a decent film. The performance at the end and the original song made the whole thing worth it. I'd watch another one to be honest, but my expectations are low on actually laughing at the "jokes".

2.5 Stars (out of 5)

I really wanted to love this movie. The film starts off with a bang, the first act sees us at the 1964 World's Fair, we hear the song from Carousel of Progress, and get to take a ride on It's a Small World. Overwhelming synergy overload aside, I loved the first half of this film. You really couldn't guess what was coming next, it did a great job of setting up the stakes, and the sequences were fun and clever. However, somewhere after George Clooney's character starts to reveal details about the real Tomorrowland, and his own childhood experiences with a child-shaped android, the film takes a nosedive for me. It becomes more and more clear that we're not going to get a satisfying conclusion and the film just sort of ends, because it wants to. The message is beautiful: to keep hope alive and to never give up on a bright future. But the movie tells us to be inspired, rather than actually inspiring us. They save the day at the end, but it doesn't feel organic, more like they do it because the film's running time was running out. Maybe there's thirty minutes on the cutting room floor that help square it away. I love Brad Bird. I love his directorial style and the messages he tries to convey. I just wish this film did a better job of that and had a better climax.

Seeing the movie opening weekend, they gave us a Tomorrowland pin and E-tickets for the film, reminiscent of the old style ride tickets from Disneyland when it first opened. While I absolutely adore the pin and everything it represents, it's the epitome of everything wrong with this film: They get the props, production design, and feeling right, but without a good and memorable story to hold it up.

3 Stars (out of 5)

Having never seen any of the previous Mad Max films I was a bit hesitant to jump into this one, but after hearing such great things about Fury Road I had to see what the fuss was about. Fury Road is an amazing action movie, and the type of action movie you just don't see any more: One that isn't mindless mind-numbing CG nonsense. Even though this film is pretty much a two-hour chase scene, it still takes a few moments to let you catch your breath now and again. It has genuine character development. And it has a female character not just supporting the male lead, but actually holding her own. In fact, what is most monumental about the story is how the two main leads help each other, playing to each others' strengths, throughout the story. They use teamwork. Not a man saving a woman, or a woman saving the day despite the fact that she is a woman, but two people, working together, regardless of gender.

The film's world is fully realized, yet never clumsily explained. Things just are the way they are, and we can enjoy seeing it, without having it shoved down our throats. Many of the big action set-pieces utilize practical effects, real explosions, incredible specially made vehicles, and even dummies rather than CG humans when the story calls for someone to kick the bucket. Sure there are some CG flourishes here and there, and even a big sandstorm that's all effects, but it's always done with the weight and reality of an old-school movie before computers took over. I enjoyed the story, characters, and the entire ride. And you don't have to be familiar with the prior films to get into this one as it's perfect as a stand-alone film. Would watch again.

4 Stars (out of 5)

As a stand-alone film it doesn't work as well as some of the other films, most notably The Winter Soldier. It feels like a long episode of an Avengers television show, (and I do mean long). I'm exhausted just watching all of these films from the Marvel cinematic universe, so I can understand why Joss Whedon is tired of making them. There's too many characters to pay service to, too many plot-lines to pay attention to, and too much special effects for the filmmakers to get them all done well. (The opening sequence had rubbery digital people as bad as The Matrix Reloaded's Agent Smiths fight. Haven't we moved past that phase of CG?) As one would expect there was some great comedic moments in the film, and clever dialogue in true Whedon style. But the film is drably directed, trudging along its set path, moving from one scene to another, without really sitting long enough to completely take anything in. Surprisingly, Hawkeye had some of the most memorable moments, and I thoroughly enjoyed Paul Bettany as The Vision, although there wasn't nearly enough for him to do in the film. Strangely enough, this was one of the smaller storylines in the Marvel universe, and yet, once again, the fate of the entire world was on the line. It's hard to stay invested after the world has been in peril this many times.

3 Stars (out of 5)

The underpinning scientific theories described by the film are fascinating to me, and the film does a good job of illustrating them and their real-world importance. It's as beautifully stylized as any great science fiction film. The performances are believable on every level, from Oscar Isaac's reclusive, eccentric, and unpredictable inventor/millionaire, to Alicia Vikander's mysterious artificially intelligent being. Domhnall Gleeson ties the story together as the relatable every-man, Caleb, navigating this futuristic scenario through the eyes of today's tech.

The film explores the ideas of the Turing Test, the Chinese Room thought experiment, and the A-I Box Experiment, as well as modern dilemmas like tech companies using our personal data to do whatever it is they wish. All these concepts are meshed together into a science fiction story that plays like a cautionary tale more than your average Hollywood sci-fi, imparting the average movie-goer with some heavy philosophical ideas to contemplate after they've left the theater.

4 Stars (out of 5)

The gimmick of Unfriended is cleverly executed. The entire film takes place on a laptop screen and that's probably the best thing about it... That, and the 82 minute run-time that is. Every character in the film is thoroughly unpleasant, obnoxious, and self-absorbed, which makes it hard for the anti-cyber-bullying message to come across. Don't cyber-bully or ghosts will kill you through Facebook! Other than the poor characterization, the film handles the story well, explaining motivation through well-thought out mouse movements and strokes on the keyboard. Seeing the main character type something, hesitate, backspace, and start again helps illustrate what's going on in her mind. Web searches and YouTube videos help with delivering exposition. While I liked the execution, let's hope this is a one-of-a-kind found-footage film, because I've had my fill and don't need any more copycats (looking at you Modern Family).

3 Stars (out of 5)