The Dark Knight Rises- 4 1/2 out of 5 stars

As someone that has spent the entire past semester doing practically nothing but read Batman comics, a lot of my friends have asked me the question "What if the The Dark Knight Rises actually sucks." To which I would respond, "Honestly, I love Batman too much to be disappointed." While The Dark Knight Rises is not the perfectly crafted masterpiece that its predecessor was, it is still one heck of a movie that has done nothing but proven why Chris Nolan is one of the greatest directors out there. The Dark Knight Rises takes place 8 years after the events of The Dark Knight, Gotham has been on a steady incline of improvement since the latter years of crime, almost to a point where Batman (Christian Bale) is no longer needed. That is, set aside from one terrorist group leader who goes by the name of Bane (Tom Hardy) decides to show his mask. To any fan of the Nolan's Dark Knight saga, I can honestly say this is the perfect ending to the trilogy. The climax and conclusion of this film makes the end of Harry Potter look like something out of a Michael Bay or M.Night Shymalan movie. Without a doubt The Dark Knight Rises is the most Epic of the trilogy. As far as the plot goes, I honestly feel bad saying it, but it lacked in the creativity and mind-blowing-ness that made The Dark Knight the perfect movie it is, however it is still much better than just about every movie released in the past year. It has many twists and turns, that unless you are a hardcore gothamite such as myself there's no way you will see it coming. The next big question you are probably asking, is how do Bane (Tom Hardy) and Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) compare to The Joker (Heath Ledger) and Two-face (Aaron Eckhardt). While, for obvious reasons, I prefered the acting of Heath and Aaron, Chris Nolan has made a great choice in picking villains that are essentially the opposite of them. I truly enjoyed Tom Hardy and thought his acting and portrayal of Bane to be nearly Identical to how I have interpreted Bane in the comic series Knightfall. At some parts in the movie I found saying "what?" when Bane would speak, but a few words later I caught up to what was going on so this issue is but minor. Next is one that only comic fans would understand, I would have liked to see them show bane's "power" with the drug, venom, as well as some explaining for those who do not know Bane, how his mask ties into it. It would have made an already epic movie even more so to see during one of the fights between Bane and Batman, to see Bane activate the venom to gain the upper hand on Batman. Anne Hathaway shines as Catwoman, I thought she did a spot on A+ portrayal of bringing Selina Kyle to the big screen. Too many times in the past has there not been enough of a balance between the sexiness and the mysteriousness that Selina Kyle/Catwoman has, both on screen and in comics. Chris Nolan has found the perfect balance of the two by focusing mainly on the struggle Selina has in her personal life and giving the sexiness the backseat, even with this choice she is still much better looking and less skanky than Scarlett Johansson's portrayal of Black Widow in The Avengers. Honestly my only complaint with Anne's portray of Selina Kyle/Catwoman was that she went off screen. Christian Bale has made the right decision and turned the down the grumbly yell that he had in The Dark Knight, in my personal preference I think Christian's balance of the Scumbag Steve act that Bruce puts on to hide Batman leaves him as my personal favorite actor as Bruce Wayne/Batman. Joseph Gordon-Levitt shines as John Blake as well as Milia Cotillard as Miranda Tate, although I would rather not go into too much details to avoid spoilers. The soundtrack, although it is not Hans Zimmer's best work, a master piece on its own. In conclusion if you have not seen this movie yet than you need to shut your computer down, go on fandango and purchase tickets this instant, If you have already seen it, than go watch it again, Chris Nolan has done nothing but make another phenomenal movie that has blown is competition of The Avengers away by a long shot. So sit down, buckle up, and prepare to be amazed.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of vengeance - 1 out of 5 stars

Every once in a while one of those movies come out that are just soo terrible and soo pathetic I spend the entire movie laughing at it, I wanna stress at and not with. Ghost rider 2 is one of those types of movies. The story is a complete mess, It is about how the devil (Ciaran Hinds) gets some chick named Nadya (Violante placido) pregnant and then Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider (Nicholas Cage) has to save Nadya and her son Danny (Fergus Riodan) from the bad guys and kill the devil, all while trying to lift his curse. The plot really doesn't evolve much past that. Just about after every 5 minutes I had myself asking what was the point of that scene? And how bout instead of standing there rocking back and forth and staring people in the eyes awkwardly you just go and kill them. It was made very clear that they tried desperately hard to try and make Cage look cool, but in all honesty he is not and thanks to this movie, his acting career is soon to be dead. No actor in this movie showed any emotion, during those "deep heartfelt" moments where you are supposed to see someone cry, cage just stares awkwardly at the camera. The soundtrack was another spot where they tried too hard to make it seem cool, and it just failed and led to awkward fight scenes. The Cgi I'll be honest was pretty good, but the complete fail of 3D ruined it. In terms of art direction only one scene interested me a bit, with which on the left half of the screen was a guy talking on the phone and the right was the guy he was talking to, the contrast in 3D was neat to see but it kinda overloaded my brain a bit. The one liners are horrendous and had me face-palming consistently throughout the movie, they rival all of the time puns that were said throughout spy kids 4. The whole concept of Ghost Rider I feel has potential, but thanks to the terrible directing choices by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor it is just a complete train wreck. If you are looking for an awesome kick-a** action movie to see, skip this one. However if you are looking for some great laughs AT it, not with, then it might be worth shelling out the money to see it.

Favorite Quote:
Danny: Are we safe?
Johnny Blaze: I'd say yes! H*** Yes!

Reaction to the Ending:

The Grey- 4 out of 5 stars

In "The Grey" the movie follows a man named John Ottway (Liam Neeson) who is hired by an oil drilling team as protection from wolves and other animals who may attack the team as they work. This begins my biggest complain about the movie, I felt that there was not enough of a back-story as to what the heck is going on in the beginning. They really don't explain what the team is doing in what I'm going to assume is Alaska, there is a small hint of character development in this time frame but it is only with Liam's Character, no other characters are introduced until they get on that plane. If you go to see this movie, be prepared for one of the most intense plane crashes you will ever see. After that scene I was left with just saying "Wow". After the plane crash a few survivors are left and they begin their fight for survival. That is when the group gets attacked by a pack of wolves and their already low numbers start to dwindle further. My next complaint is something that just about every horror movie does. In a movie like this you want the audience to sit there in their seat shed a tear as the next character is viciously ripped to shreds by the antagonists not have apathy or a want for them to bite the dust. The Grey improves on this as some of the characters I did not want to see go, but a few especially in the beginning I really didn't care that they died. This could have been avoided had there been more development in each of the characters aside from Liam's before the plane crash. Most of the character development is spent with the crew talking around the bonfire about their past and loved ones, I am not complaining about this but at some points the pacing felt a little off with the balance of wolf attacks and "Bro-mance" points in the movie. On another note the acting all around in the cast was very well done, you can truly see the cast really get into their roles during the most intense of scenes. For most of the movie CGI is used for the wolves, which was very well produced but I would have liked to see a bit more of actual wolves instead. The musical sound track was well made, while it is no Hans Zimmer the main title played in Liam's flashbacks about his Dad and in the end was exceptional and also my favorite. For the most part I liked the plot, a few scenes left me confused as to what happened or why the wolf just stood there as the cast prepared their weapons, these scenes are pretty spread out so it did not bother me too much. The cinematography was very well done, I really liked many of the shots of the cast trudging through the snow with the beautiful landscape behind them. The action scenes with the wolves were extremely intense, and very graphic so those with weak stomachs will probably have their eyes closed during quite a few scenes. My last complain wasn't exactly with the movie per-say but rather the trailer, which for the sake of spoilers kind of showed a pretty important thing that happens in the movie. This is probably due to the fact that they did not have enough theatrical moments to pull from since much of the movie is the cast sitting around a fire or walking through the snow. In the end The Grey stands out as my favorite movie so far this year as I am sure many people will agree with me. There is also a scene at the end of the credits but it really wasn't important to wait for.

Favorite quote:
Ottway: Once more into the Fray. Into the last good fight I'll ever know. Live or die on this day. Live or die on this day.