“Fast and Furious 6”

You can read the synopsis on Wikipedia, but sometimes it’s just best to get first hand what movie is like from everyday people like myself to give a review based on the dynamics.

So in the beginning of the movie, Hobbs played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, recruits Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his “family” to capture Owen Shaw (Luke Evans) and Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez). By this time, Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) and Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster) had settled in the Canary Islands and had a son they named Jack. Mia stays behind with baby Jack while the rest of the crew capture Shaw and Letty. The crew at this time consists of: Dominic, Brian, Tej Parker (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges), Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Han (Sung Kang), and Giselle (Gal Gadot).

This movie consists of custom built types of Formula One type of cars that are made of military grade metal. The audience will get to see Mercedez Benz SUV’s be totaled as well as American muscle cars. Cars and trucks are blown up throughout the whole movie. Even a military aircraft is supposedly blown up towards the end. There is a disclaimer at the end of this movie that the stunt driving should not be duplicated! After the first movie that had come out over a decade ago, movie goers have NOT taken the advice that the action driving sequence should not be replicated and that the real driving in the movie is only done so by professionals who are trained to drive that way.

I do say, the audience in the screening that I attended, did in fact get involved in the movie as if it was really happening in real life right before their eyes. The driving scenes did get intense but at the same time a good portion was obviously too fake. There are some fight scenes between Letty and Riley (Gina Carano) that were VERY intense and even in the dark, the straight males were turned on! The crowd got wired up when there’s a fight scene between Hobbs (The Rock) and one of Owen Shaw’s henchmen who’s also a massive in size body builder with tats. When Dom was fighting Owen, it was obvious who’d win that fight because in reality, it’d be Vin Diesel since Luke Evans is a bit scrawny in comparison!

Best lines from a scene:

“There’s one thing you boys are forgetting, he’s a man.” –Giselle
“…..If it’s not a big rock, you gotta be big somewhere else.” –Roman to Han.
Han response to Roman, “Is that why all your girlfriends wear so much bling?!”

Oddly enough, I do recommend this movie for anyone who may be interested in Formula One type of cars.  Plus stay through the credits when Owen Shaw’s older brother Ian Shaw, played by Jason Statham, chases Han in Tokyo, causing him to crash and shoots him as he tries to get out. As he walks away from the flames, Ian calls Dominic to tell him, he’s after the rest of them and then hangs up!

My movie grade for this: A- (too much dialogue in some scenes that were made for action sequences)

“Hangover Part 3”

The humor of this movie is best laid out until the very end shortly after the credits start rolling!
In the beginning, Chow (Ken Jeong) escapes a Thai prison. Because he’s known for his trouble making, he has become a wanted fugitive heading back to America.
Alan (Zach Galifinakis) has an argument with his father (Jeffrey Tambor) which leads his father to suffer a heart attack. At the funeral, “the wolfpack” are present to support Alan for his loss. Alan’s mother seeks an intervention for Alan with the help of his friends: Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), and Doug (Justin Bartha). En route to help Alan, the guys are hijacked by Mitchell (John Goodman) who knows the guys have contact with Chow and he wants his $21 million in gold bars. Doug is taken for ransom until the Chow is brought to Mitchell.
Alan has been unbeknownly exchanged emails with Chow and the other guys go to meet up with him. Chow has Phil, Stu, and Alan help him to retrieve gold from “his” house, only to find out that they had broken into Mitchell’s house instead. Chow escapes and the manhunt to Las Vegas to capture him, is a bit of a reminiscent of what happened there to begin with several years back.
Eventually Chow is captured and given to Mitchell in exchange for Doug to be alive. When Mitchell threatens the guys, Chow pops out of the limo and shoots Mitchell and his bodyguard, saving the wolfpack. Chow keeps the gold and the other guys set off to go back to their normal life.
Along the way, Alan meets a woman played by Melissa McCarthy who owns a pawn shop in Las Vegas. In the end, Alan marries her 6 months later.
Shortly after the credits start rolling, another scene pops up of Phil waking up on a hotel floor and Stu comes out of the bathroom with women’s panties and a breast augmentation. Alan and his new bride are on the floor. The last thing Alan says is, “The wedding cake is a gift from Chow.”
So expect a part 4!
Reminder, don’t sit with people who don’t laugh during movies. There’s a lot to laugh about!

Movie grade: A-

“Star Trek Into Darkness”

To start off, I would like to say that Simon Pegg “Scotty” (Shaun of the Dead), Alice Eve “Carol Marcus“, and John Cho “Sulu” (Harold and Kumar) arrived into the theatre to introduce the movie to the audience. Everyone cheered for the actors and as they were leaving, John Cho as high fiving people in the audience.

Simon Pegg, Alice Eve, and John Cho introduce the screening of Star Trek Into Darkness at Century 9 Theatres – Wednesday, May 8, 2013

When a terror attack happens in the futuristic London, the star fleet enterprise learn that the person behind it was formerly one of them who went by the name of John Harrison. When the star fleet search out this person that they were informed used to be one of there own, Captain Kirk and his team go to Kronos, which is the planet where their arch enemies the Klingon reside. When Captain Kirk captures the man that was known as John Harrison, he learns that the man is actually Khan Singh “Khan” (Benedict Cumberbatch) instead who has human super power.

Khan has 72 warrior people frozen for 300 years in hopes to create an army of better fighters. These men and women that Khan put into the time capsules that the Enterprise were going to use as torpedoes, was a matter unknown until Bones McCoy (Karl Urban) and Carol Marcus discovered what was inside by opening one of them up. Khan escapes from captivity and Mr. Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Uhora (Zoe Saldana) go try to capture him again and while Spock is fighting Khan, Uhora informs him that they need Khan alive to save Captain Kirk who died while trying to save the fleet. Spock gave a good beating to Khan!

In the end, all the main characters are alive and well. There’s definitely too much bromance between Spock and Kirk! J.J. Abrams did a good job with making this movie. And Leonard Nimoy makes a cameo as the older Spock. Throughout this movie, it goes back to reminisce the bromance between Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock which is greater and probably the original of it’s kind.

Movie grade: A