I am Number Four

Another year, another generic fantasy movie trying to build a huge film franchise on the heels of Harry Potter and Twilight. I am Number four feels like a male version of Twilight: shallow, pretty, and ultimately forgettable as soon as you leave the theater. There's action and it's flashy, but poorly done and not shot very well. There's good looking people, but with little character and bad acting. There's a story, but it jumps around too much and isn't fully explained or engaging. I really don't have many positives to talk about in this movie other than Timothy Olyphant is always fun to watch. Skip this one.

Sucker Punch

Zack Synder's (300, Watchmen) latest is a visually stimulating, but emotionally hollow and ultimately shallow film with no merits beyond its looks and popcorn entertainment value. The films story makes very little sense and jumps around from different realities far too often for someone to be able to keep up. This is a movie completely made for the teenage male crowd. Gorgeous women in little clothing, video game style fights and editing with ridiculous characters (samurai's with guns...), and little to no story so they don't have to think. Just sit back, watch and enjoy the show. You know just from reading that and looking at the trailers if it is your type of movie or not. I'm indifferent.

Scream 4

Wes Craven returns to the movie series that made fun of and embraced horror movie conventions in the 90's with mixed results. The original trilogy went out with a whimper (Scream 3 was not well liked by critics or fans of the series) after starting with a bang (Scream is probably one of the best horror movies of the 90's as well as its sequel) and Scream 4 is somewhere in the middle of that spectrum: not terrible, but not that great. I give the actors credits for reprises their roles after 11 years like it was just yesterday, but everything about this movie is repetitive and reeks of a desperate attempt to regain fans through familiarity instead of trying to do something new and intriguing. Even when it looks like it might do something bold, it goes out of its way to take steps back into its normal shell. After 11 years you would think they would come up with something better. It's not as funny as it could be, never scary (biggest complaint I've heard, and I agree), and sometimes a little boring or stale. It has moments where it can recall the good times from the first two, and isn't something that will make you cringe when watching (it's at least competently acted and directed), but it could have been so much more than it turned out to be.