San Andreas

Spanks – 5

Director – Brad Peyton

Writer – Carlton Cuse

Starring – Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, Alexandra Daddario, Ioan Gruffudd, Archie Panjabi, Paul Giamatti, Hugo Johnstone-Burt, Art Parkinson, Will Yun Lee & Kylie Minogue

Release Date – 29 May 2015

MPAA Rating – PG-13

Run time – 114 Minutes

San Andreas is an excellent disaster film and one of the most fun in the genre in years. This film is exactly what you would expect from a disaster movie, so don’t expect anything award winning in a non-technical category. It has lots of destruction, cheesy dialog, and a silly plot. It is exactly what you would expect from a disaster flick.

The film follows the family of an LAPD rescue helicopter pilot (Ray Gaines) and a seismologist (Dr. Hayes). Ray is in the middle of a divorce and his wife (Emma) and daughter (Blake) now live with a rich real estate developer (Daniel Riddick). An earthquake at the Hoover Dam causes Ray to get called into work and can’t take Blake to college. She then decides to go with Daniel but with a pit stop in San Francisco. Meanwhile, Dr. Hayes is at the Hoover Dam to test new equipment to predict earthquakes. With the data they collect they learn that the equipment works. It tells them another quake is coming very soon that will be on the San Andreas fault and it will be big. Unfortunately for Blake, it hits while she is in San Francisco.

If you go see San Andreas, it is going to be a lot of fun. The effects are great, which is most important in this kind of movie. I don’t think it is scientifically accurate, but who cares. It is a movie that was made for you to enjoy two hours of your day, so go enjoy it.

Tomorrowland

Spanks – 5

Director – Brad Bird

Writers – Damon Lindelof and Brad Bird

Starring – George Clooney, Hugh Laurie, Britt Robertson & Raffey Cassidy

Release Date – 25 May 2015

MPAA Rating – PG

Run time – 130 Minutes

Tomorrowland is about a young teenagers journey to uncover the secrets of Tommorowland. The film is more of a mystery film then anything else. It follows Casey Newton who is trying to sabotage the dismantling of a NASA launch pad. When her father picks her up, a pin with a “T” is with her stuff. When she touches it, she can see the futuristic world which she learns is Tomorrowland before it stops working. She then wants to know more and searches for the answers.

I thought the movie was amazing. I liked how Tomorrowland is a mystery and that the viewer doesn’t know anything until Casey finds out. Listening to people around me in the theater after the movie, a lot of people didn’t like that. I think if you are an optimistic and open person you will like this. It has a good message that Walt Disney would like, which is to never give up.

I don’t want to give anything away and ruin the mystery. I am not going to write anything else. Just watch it for yourself.

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Spanks – 5

Director – Joss Whedon

Writer – Joss Whedon

Starring – Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, James Spader, Samuel L. Jackson, Don Cheadle, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Cobie Smulders & Anthony Mackie

Release Date – 1 May 2015

MPAA Rating – PG-13

Run time – 141 Minutes

Avengers: Age of Ultron is a great movie. It has everything the first film has with more Avengers. The film starts with the heroes on a mission to retrieve Loki’s scepter from a Hydra base in Sokovia. When they take it back to to Avengers tower, Tony Stark finds an AI in the scepter’s stone. He and Bruce Banner then try to use it for Stark’s Ultron global defense system. It doesn’t work and the new AI attacks the Avengers and escapes and wants to destroy the world.

With so many characters you would think that the movie would be a big mess, but everyone has their stories progress. They did a good job telling more about characters who have not had their own films like Hawkeye and Black Widow which was really cool.

The movie has a lot of action scenes and the first and last one are a little long. If your not into all that you might get a little bored. I enjoyed it all! It had so much going on with the different characters that it wasn’t a repetitive sequence. This movie is funnier then the first Avengers film but the first one is slightly better. Still well worth the price of admission. Hopefully I’ll have time to go see it again this summer.