Penguins of Madagascar

Well, here it is. The scene-broadsiding penguins from the Madagascar films finally get their own origin story movie; "Penguins of Madagascar". Sorta. It's extremely way more of a frolicky "superspy-guy" flick that is even as zany and demoniacally screwball as you may have notional it might be.

Skipper, Kowalski, anti-racketeering law and young personal frantically flap their wingless manner from metropolis to Shanghai to big apple in pursuit of sphenisciform seabird Enemy No. 1. One-liners angular shape, sight gags zig, and every one manner of silly shlock is thrown at the medium wall to check what percentage giggles can get you to groan.

While moving at the speed of a greased-up goose (sorry, penguins), the quick-paced-and-shallow tale does not extremely provide youngsters abundant to suppose or care concerning. however the story's final statement that appears are not nearly as necessary as actions is actually a tasty treat well price munching on within the age of Kim Kardashian.

So it is a small indefinite amount unhappy that there is additionally associate degree abundance of less flavourous guffaws and goofiness during this specific bag of sleazy Dibbles. it is the quite cross-dressing, bum-slapping, unwelcome lip-locking nonsense between animated male animals that within the days of Bugs Bunny did not raise too several eyebrows. But today, once filmmakers thus typically swing toward as well as their own personal political agendas and/or sexual leanings within the thick of kid-fare fun, well, you kind of suspect they are making an attempt to advance quite simply wabbit looking.

And this band of sphenisciform seabird brothers actually will some winking.

Back within the days once Skipper, Kowalski and anti-racketeering law were simply a trio of baby sphenisciform seabird bros march beside the remainder of their Antarctic colony, things were easier. Just sun, snow and cute march penguins. Simple, see?

Too simple, if you had asked Skipper.

He did not mind the lovable half. After all, that is a penguin's bread and butter. however he was cutaneous sensation to interrupt from the huddle and realize some larger purpose to life, one thing a lot of exciting to waddle through than mile once mile of irritating ice.

So once a stray egg simply happened to come down Capitol Hill past the blokes one cold winter's day (and are not they all?), it had been an ideal excuse to require wing (which during this case means that slippy on their bellies) and provides chase. in fact that LED to worsening a formation, thumping down on the deck of a deserted ship, running from bird-eating leopard seals, barely avoiding an enormous explosion and being set adrift on atiny low chunk of floating ice.

But … it had been higher than mushing through all that boring snow. And on the manner associate degree egg was saved, too—a soon-to-be young they named personal. protective that cute very little lad gave this crew lots of purpose.

Jump ahead ten years and also the penguins simply keep finding a lot of purpose. They've used their prettiness to entertain humans round the globe and at last discovered what they were meant to be: heroes. Yup, they'll be super-agents! World travelers! Penguins of intrigue! And eaters of sleazy Dibbles! (Especially that last one.) And it is a smart factor they've finally fumbled upon this true that means of life. For there is a grave danger afoot, that is, aflipper.

A vacuously vindictive and somewhat slimed character by the name of Dr. Octavius Brine has come back up with a theme to threaten penguins everyplace. No, no, he isn't progressing to kill them. He plans to corral the world's sphenisciform seabird public and go forth … their prettiness. currently that is nefarious!

Credits
Genre: Comedy, Action/Adventure, Animation, Family
Cast: Voices of Tom McGrath as Skipper; Chris Miller as Kowalski; Christopher Knights as Private; Conrad Vernon as Rico; John Malkovich as Dave; Benedict Cumberbatch as Classified
Director: Eric Darnell (Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, Madagascar 2: Escape to Africa, Madagascar, Antz) Simon J. Smith (Bee Movie)
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
In Theaters: November 26, 2014
On Video: March 17, 2015

Reviewer: Bob Hoose

source:http://www.pluggedin.com/movies/intheaters/penguins-of-madagascar.aspx


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The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

“So began a battle that none had expected,” wrote JRR Tolkien in the third-from-last chapter of The Hobbit. “And it was called The Battle of the Five Armies, and it was very terrible.” Peter Jackson’s expansion of this epochal but barely-described fracas, in his third and final film from this slim book, is neither very terrible nor remotely unexpected. It’s a series of stomping footnotes in search of a climax.

In terms of story so far, it ends virtually when it starts – with super-peeved dragon Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) raining down fiery destruction on the pitiful residents of Laketown, and facing the last-ditch heroism of an archer called Bard (Luke Evans).

Everything else is scraps, in both senses. Jackson’s one recourse is to ape the here-we-go-again war mania of The Return of the King. Humans, dwarves and elves duke it out with orcs and wild wolves. It's a whopping great grudge match, a squabble over the contents of Smaug’s mountain lair, and goodness knows what else.

The trouble is that Jackson can’t make it mean very much: when every life on Middle Earth is seemingly at stake, few individually grab our attention. There’s more aftermath than plot left, and very little of it has to do with Bilbo (Martin Freeman), who feels increasingly like a forlorn bystander in his own franchise.

The further and more competently the movie trundles on, the more it begs not to exist, really: hindsight favours a two-part adaptation at most. This isn’t to say there aren’t bright spots. However it was fudged, 92-year-old Christopher Lee doing Shaolin kung fu with his magic staff is great value. And the last third is rescued by one meaty, entertaining set piece – crumbling citadel, frozen lake, one-on-one duels between orcs and the principal cast. Freeman, and Evangeline Lilly as the not-in-Tolkien elf maiden Tauriel, inject some unforced pathos which puts many of their dewy-eyed co-stars to shame.

The bloom has come off Orlando, though, whose main achievement as Legolas – other than some ridiculous mid-air running up collapsing masonry – is to illustrate perfectly what Joey Tribbiani from Friends called “smell the fart acting”.

When the dwarf leader Thorin (Richard Armitage) imagines himself drowning in a pool of molten gold, Jackson’s pet message that Greed Is Bad rings out again – but you have to wonder if a triple-your-money release strategy is quite the seemliest context to preach it in. At 6ft 2", Armitage must be the tallest actor ever to play a dwarf. The film is the opposite: a paragraph on steroids.
source:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/11260252/The-Hobbit-The-Battle-of-the-Five-Armies-first-look-review-begs-not-to-exist.html

Movie Info

From Academy Award (R)-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson comes "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies," the third in a trilogy of films adapting the enduringly popular masterpiece The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien. "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" brings to an epic conclusion the adventures of Bilbo Baggins, Thorin Oakenshield and the Company of Dwarves. 

Having reclaimed their homeland from the Dragon Smaug, the Company has unwittingly unleashed a deadly force into the world. Enraged, Smaug rains his fiery wrath down upon the defenseless men, women and children of Lake-town. Obsessed above all else with his reclaimed treasure, Thorin sacrifices friendship and honor tohoard it as Bilbo's frantic attempts to make him see reason drive the Hobbit towards a desperate and dangerous choice.

But there are even greater dangers ahead. Unseen by any but the Wizard Gandalf, the great enemy Sauron has sent forth legions of Orcs in a stealth attack upon the Lonely Mountain. As darkness converges on their escalating conflict, the races of Dwarves, Elves and Men must decide - unite or be destroyed. Bilbo finds himself fighting for his life and the lives of his friends in the epic Battle of the Five Armies, as the future of Middle-earth hangs in the balance.
(c) Warner Bros

Rating: PG-13 (for extended sequences of intense fantasy action violence, and frightening images)
Genre: Action & Adventure , Science Fiction & Fantasy
Directed By: Peter Jackson
Written By: Philippa Boyens , Guillermo del Toro , Fran Walsh , J.R.R. Tolkien , Peter Jackson
In Theaters: Dec 17, 2014 Wide
On DVD: Mar 24, 2015
US Box Office: $255.1M
Runtime: 2 hr. 24 min.
Warner Bros. - Official Site

source:http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_hobbit_the_battle_of_the_five_armies/

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The Imitation Game

Synopsis

Alan Turing's life story is unequivocally a tragedy. The Imitation Game, a new biopic that focuses on his accomplishments as a codebreaker during World War II, manages to recognize this while celebrating his formidable legacy.

The film tells an important story. Turing, a mathematician, is considered the father of computer science and a pioneer of artificial intelligence. That alone would merit his continued recognition as a great thinker. But he also played a crucial role in World War II—so much so that Winston Churchill said Turing made the most important contribution to winning the war. He was a war hero. Perhaps the biggest war hero.

During the war, the Axis forces had no better weapon than their Enigma machines, cryptographic marvels the Nazis thought were impossible to crack. Turing and other Allied codebreakers thought differently, and built a machine to break the code. This allowed Allied forces to intercept Axis communications, enabling access to information that ultimately helped the Allied forces defeat the enemy.

The film primarily focuses on Turing's time at Bletchley Park's Hut 8. Using a police officer's investigation into Turing in 1951 as a framing device, the story is told largely in flashbacks. The film follows Turing, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, as he antagonizes and bonds with his fellow codebreakers—particularly Joan Clark, the team's brilliant, lone female member (portrayed by Keira Knightley in a subtle, unshowy performance), to whom he was briefly engaged. In the movie, as in life, Turing called off the engagement after he told her he was gay.

The Imitation Game is a good movie, but not a great one: While the actors turn in solid performances, the screenwriting relies too much on the trope of the tortured, misunderstood genius vs. the world, and the historical footage of the war seems awkwardly crammed in to make you remember that, oh shit, U-Boats were scary.

In fact, The Imitation Game is really a few different movies at once: It's a spy caper, a race-against-the-clock film, a celebration of eccentricity, and an indictment of Britain's shoddy treatment of one of her heroes. The framing device was distracting, since it asks us to imagine that Turing would confess his highly classified role to a random police officer.

And the flashbacks to Turing's formative schoolboy relationship border on schmaltzy. Though they do serve to humanize the character, they wouldn't have been necessary if the script gave Turing a more nuanced characterization. Some of his lines sound like it's just Sheldon from Big Bang Theory talking, although Cumberbatch saves much of the material from getting too paint-by-numbers-nerd.

Despite the tremendous debt Britain owes him, Turing died a convicted felon. He committed suicide at age 42, two years after his arrest for "gross indecency" after being exposed as a homosexual. He was unable to continue working with the government, and was forced to choose between chemical castration and prison, and chose castration. The man whose work helped save Britain was treated monstrously, just for being who he was.

The film touches on the tragic ending to Turing's life as the film closes, as well as the way his reputation has been (thankfully) restored in recent years. It notes that he was eventually granted a posthumous royal pardon last year. I'd be surprised if you didn't leave the theater after seeing it without agreeing with former Prime Minister Gordon Brown's apology to the (long-dead) Turing in 2009: "We're sorry. You deserved so much better."

I saw The Imitation Game at the Toronto International Film Festival, but it will have a limited wide release November 21. So spend Thanksgiving this year being thankful Alan Turing existed.

source:http://gizmodo.com/the-imitation-game-review-a-stirring-look-at-turings-t-1633503454

Movie Info

During the winter of 1952, British authorities entered the home of mathematician, cryptanalyst and war hero Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) to investigate a reported burglary. They instead ended up arresting Turing himself on charges of 'gross indecency', an accusation that would lead to his devastating conviction for the criminal offense of homosexuality - little did officials know, they were actually incriminating the pioneer of modern-day computing. 

Famously leading a motley group of scholars, linguists, chess champions and intelligence officers, he was credited with cracking the so-called unbreakable codes of Germany's World War II Enigma machine. An intense and haunting portrayal of a brilliant, complicated man, THE IMITATION GAME follows a genius who under nail-biting pressure helped to shorten the war and, in turn, save thousands of lives. 

(c) Weinstein

Rating:	PG-13 (for some sexual references, mature thematic material and historical smoking)
Genre:	Mystery & Suspense , Drama
Directed By:	Morten Tyldum
Written By:	Graham Moore
In Theaters:	Nov 28, 2014 Wide
On DVD:	Mar 31, 2015
US Box Office:	$90.5M
Runtime:	1 hr. 54 min.

The Weinstein Company - Official Site

source:http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_imitation_game/

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