Movie Review Ninja

Saving Mr. Banks Review

Another behind the scenes look at the making a classic movie, Saving Mr.Banks could have been  a pure Oscar bait movie. It would have been easy for that to happen and be overloaded with sap and melodrama. Luckily it doesn’t, as Saving Mr. Banks was great. It’s a lot of fun and has really strong emotional elements. It is also well scored and has some of the best performances of the year.

Saving Mr. Banks is the story of the making of Mary Poppins and the fight between P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) and Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) and her travel to …

The Hobbit : Desolation of Smaug Review

The Hobbit : Desolation of Smaug is a fantastic sequel to last year’s The Hobbit : An Unexpected Journey. The numerous action sequences are amazing and fun, the adventure is epic, and the cinematography, just like in the last one, is excellent. It is also well acted and features spectacular CGI by the always strong WETA. That CGI includes one of the best digital creatures of the year, Smaug.

The Hobbit : Desolation of Smaug opens with a flashback of Gandalf ( Ian McKellan) and Thorin Okaenshield (Richard Armitrage) first meeting where Gandalf convices Thorin to attempt to take back the …

Philomena Review

Philomena at it’s core is a road trip movie. It is not your usual road trip movie with a group of people traveling to one place , getting into comical situations and in some sort of a dangerous situation along the way. Philomena is different. It is two older people, going to a few locations without getting into any dangerous situations or experiencing any of the typical road trip hijinks, but it is fun. It is also very heartfelt, has 2 fantastic lead performances and moves along at a good fast pace.

Based on a true story, Philomena is about Philomena …

Kick-Ass 2 Review

Several things changed between the release date of Kick-Ass and start of production of Kick-Ass 2. The director of the first one, Matthew Vaughn dropped out and replacement director Jeff Wadlow was chosen in his place. The cast also got older and there was one minor recast. Then there’s the fact it is a comic book adaptation sequel that was released just over 3 years after the original. With all of this, Kick-Ass 2 had a lot going against it. Yet it works as it’s still a lot of fun and has a lot of the same spirit that made …

The Hunger Games : Catching Fire Review

A sequel should increase the stakes, devolp the characters from the previous illiteraton more, and attempt to fix the problems of the original while still feeling fresh and original. That may be hard to do in the case of an adaptation sequel but The Hunger Games : Catching Fire does all of this and more. The social and political commentary/satire is stronger making the themes stronger and the main problems of the original are fixed.

The Hunger Games : Catching Fire starts a few months after the 74th Annual Hunger Games. Katniss (Jennifer Lawerence)  is out hunting when Gale (Liam Hemsworth) …