THE REVIEW CORNER

Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, and Dwayne Johnson Directed by: Justin Lin Written by: Chris Morgan and Gary Scott Thompson      Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and the crew are back for yet another action packed heist.  This time, they're in Rio de Janeiro and this is their last job.  But this time, they're doing it to buy their freedom.  So what's the payout?  $100 million from this guy, Reyes, the largest drug trafficker in Brazil.  As they assemble the crew into position, they are tracked down by the FBI.  The team is led by Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), one of the toughest guys in the FBI.  He never misses his target.  All Hobbs wants is for Reyes to be dead.      As the fifth installment in The Fast and the Furious  series, there isn't a whole lot of new stuff that Fast Five offers.  It's the same story but in a different place.  They're trying to steal their money while federal ...

Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana, and Cate Blanchett Directed by: Joe Wright Screenplay by: Seth Lochhead and David Farr    If you like a movie that is somewhat obscure, "Hanna" is the perfect movie.  It's action packed, and off beat.   A 16 year old girl, Hanna (Saoirse Ronan), who lives with her father, Erik Heller (Eric Bana), possibly a rogue CIA operative, is trained to be a badass teenage assassin in the great white north.  Her target, Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett), a high ranking CIA operative who once worked with Heller.  All Hanna must do is flip a switch that tells Marissa where she and Heller are.  They split up and meet somewhere in Berlin where they plan to kill Marissa.  Meanwhile, she's got the best people in the agency after both of them.  This sends Hanna all across Europe where she meets a family that picks her up and takes her most of the way to Berlin.  The big question: What's going to happen to both o...

Voices by: Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, Geroge Lopez, Leslie Mann, and Rodrigo Santoro Directed by: Carlos Saldanha Screenplay by: Carlos Saldanha and Don Rhymer          Imagine being a domesticated parrot that is the last of its species and has to go to the wild for the continuity of the species.  If this happened, we would have "Rio" in real life.     We first meet Blu (Jesse Eisenberg) as a domesticated blue macaw parrot (that doesn't know how to fly) in Minnesota.  He is best friends with his owner Linda (Leslie Mann) until one day, a Brazilian biologist, Tulio (Rodrigo Santoro), comes to her house and tells her that they need to go to Rio de Janeiro so Blu can mate with the last female of the blue macaw species (Blu is the last male), a bird named Jewel (Anne Hathaway).  Along the way, the pair of birds run into a few problems, like being chained together, being stolen, and getting separated from Linda and Tulio. ...

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga, and Jeffrey Wright Directed By: Duncan Jones Screenplay By: Ben Ripley      It's nice to know that Hollywood has finally found some originality, even if this originality seems like a combination of Groundhog Day  and Inception .      Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a military helicopter pilot who has recently returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan.  He's the perfect match for this new program called the Source Code.  It allows a person to enter another person and become them for the last eight minutes of their life.  Seems kind of weird, no?  His job, to become a passenger on a train that has been bombed and look for the bomb, as well as the bomber.  If he fails the mission, he'll just keep going back into the program in the same situation until he succeeds.       Along the way, he meets a woman, Christina Warren (Michelle Mo...

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Marisa Tomei, and Ryan Phillipe Directed By: Brad Furman Screenplay By: John Romano Based upon the novel by Michael Connelly       Matthew McConaughey is a lawyer.  Where's his office?  In the back seat of a Lincoln Town Car.  This dramatic thriller takes viewers for one hell of a ride.       Mick Haller (Matthew McConaughey) is the Lincoln Lawyer.  He's one of the top criminal defense attorneys around.  He has a bunch of clients, but he's got one case in particular that's bothering him; a high profile client named Louis Roulet (Ryan Phillipe) who comes from a very wealthy family.  He's been accused of murdering a prostitute after a night at the club.  So he hires Mick to be his representative in court.  The problem, he keeps lying to Mick so that he might not get convicted of this crime that he claims not to have committed.  All this lying that Roulet does reminds M...

Starring: Bradley Cooper, Abbie Cornish, Robert De Niro Directed by: Neil Burger Screenplay by: Leslie Dixon      What if a pill could unlock your true potential?  What if you could access 100% of your brain power?  Would you do it?  Would you do it even with the potential risks associated with taking it?      The movie opens with writer Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper) standing at the top of a building just outside of his condo in New York about to jump off.  Two questions already arise.  Why is he considering jumping off and how did he get to this point?      From that point forward, most of the movie is a flashback from Morra's point of view.  When he finds an old friend while walking down the street one day, he is offered a top secret pill whose effects have not exactly been tested although it is known what the pill does.  It unlocks your inner potential until you stop taking it, and then you get reall...

Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Michelle Rodriguez, and Bridget Moynahan Directed by: Jonathan Liebesman Screenplay by: Christopher Bertolini     Why does Los Angeles always get to be the city that gets blown to pieces in alien invasion movies?  We've seen this many times before, in films such as  Independence Day, Transformers, Skyline,  and now, Battle Los Angeles .  Isn't it time for some change, like to another city that's not Los Angeles?     Don't get me wrong.  Los Angeles makes for a great city for one of these types of disasters because of its huge population and very scenic landscape.  Already, the film loses originality.     SSgt. Michael Nantz (Aaron Eckhart) is just about to retire from the marines after he lost much of his platoon on his recent tour of duty.  It is not known where his tour was.  As soon as reports of meteors falling near the coast of Los Angeles come in, he is asked back to...