Movie Review: "Super 8"

This movie is best described as “Goonies” meets “ET.” A group or peripubescent friends get together in a Middle American town in 1979 to make a movie about zombies. In the course of the movie making, they witness a mysterious train crash. A series of mysterious and catastrophic events follow. The child acting is superb- especially Elle Fanning. The plot is fairly predictable. Special effects are good, but are not used to carry the story line. If you’re looking for simple summer entertainment that will not shock your sensibilities, this movie is worth seeing.

Movie Review: X-Men: First Class

This latest installation of the X-Men series chronicles events leading to the formation of X-Men. The movie starts during and immediately after WWII. Charles Xavier meets the future Mystique, graduates from Oxford and then forms the collection of mutants known as X-men. The future Dynamo is discovered in a Nazi concentration camp by a Mengele type character played by Kevin Bacon.

Unlike many sequels, this film is probably the best of the series. Similar in talent, scope and story line to the latest Star Trek sequel.

Movie Review: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

This is the fourth installation of the Johnny Depp and the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Jack Sparrow and his sometimes nemesis, Barbossa, embark on a quest to find Ponce de Leon’s fountain of youth. Penelope Cruz plays Blackbeard’s daughter. She and Blackbeard struggle with Captain Jack Sparrow, Barbossa and now the King of Spain for the waters of the legendary fountain.

This episode has similar elements of the original movie. Unlike the third film of the series, this film does not rely as heavily on special effects to carry the plot. There is considerably more closure at movie's end than the last movie.