Pain and Gain

The budget of Michael Bay’s Pain and Gain is roughly 10% of the budget he was given for the latest Transformers film Dark of Moon. Perhaps it marks a change from Bay as it a step away from the franchise he has been directing since 2007. Anyway, ‘based’ on a true story Pain and Gain stars Mark Wahlberg as Daniel Lugo, a fitness freak who works as a personal trainer for Sun Gym. Lugo wants to get rich (the American dream, ya know) and decides the best way to do that is to rob his massively rich client Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub).

Elysium

In the year 2154 the planet is overpopulated and in terrible condition, those who dwell on the planet live in mostly in poverty whilst those privileged and lucky enough live on Elysium. Elysium is a utopia in which only the rich live, they hold strict immigration laws that deny access to the utopia to those who belong on Earth. After a health and safety disaster Max di Costa (Matt Damon) is exposed to a lethal dose of radiation that only gives him five days to live. His only means of survival is a Med-Bay, but these are only found on Elysium and access to Elysium isn’t easy. 

The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug

The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug starts off where An Unexpected Journey bid farewell one year ago with the fellowship of thirteen dwarfs, a hobbit (Martin Freeman) and a wizard (Ian Mckellen) being tracked by a group of blood thirsty orcs. Attempting to avoid a number of vicious animals that roam the forests, mountains and grasslands of Middle Earth the company’s main quest is to reach the Lonely Mountain, retrieve the Arkenstone and restore Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) to the throne. One rather problematic issue once they get there is the stone is protected by a fire breathing dragon (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch) that destroyed the Dwarf city of Dale some time ago.

We're the Millers

David Clark (Jason Sudeikis) is a low level marijuana dealer who is robbed of his stash and money that he owes to his supplier. In order to repay his supplier, Brad Gurdlinger (Ed Helms), David agrees to traffic a small batch of marijuana over the border from Mexico. To avoid arousing suspicion David creates a fake family (Jennifer Aniston, Emma Roberts and Will Poulter) to ease access across the border from Mexico. Upon arrival at the meeting point the volume of drugs David has to smuggle is a lot larger than anticipated.

Catching Fire

Around the time Catching Fire was released news broke that the film based on the final book of the series, by Suzanne Collins, Mocking Jay will be split into two films. Not entirely surprising as the idea worked well (financially at least) for the Harry Potter and the Twilight franchises. It has become the norm for Hollywood to do this because of the immensely packed nature of each of the final books. Splitting the films into two 2-hour segments rather than a three hour + trek is far easier on the audience’s bladders and their supposed inpatient minds. It also boosts revenues considerably (but with Hollywood being an institution that is all about original ideas and not containing a greedy bone between them money was an afterthought). 

2 Guns

Criminals Robert Trench (Denzel Washington) and Michael Stigman (Mark Wahlberg) are caught crossing the border after they met with Mexican drug lord Papi Greco (Edward James Olmos). It turns out that Trench is an undercover DEA agent and he reports back to his superior that he does not have substantial evidence in order to convict Papi Greco. In an attempt to convict the drug lord, Robert Trench and Stigman rob a bank and steal $3,000,000 allowing an opportunity to convict the drug lord for money laundering (bit like how they got Al Capone for tax evasion).

Kick Ass 2

Kick-Ass (Aaron Taylor- Johnson) inspired a vast number of people to don their own costumes and fight the injustices of this world, being regarded as the world’s first superhero Kick Ass is attributed to being the main influence in the wave of costume wearing vigilantes roaming the streets of New York. Kick Ass wants to continue to fight crime, but he can’t do it alone. When Hit Girl, Mindy Macready (Chloe Grace Moretz), hangs up the cape, Kickass joins a group of costume wearing crime fighters. They are soon put to the test upon the arrival of the Motherfucker, formally Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), who creates the first league of supervillians intent on mass destruction.

Nebraska

Moving on from the Oscar baiting The Descendants (by no means a bad film) Alexander Payne returns to his roots in his latest film Nebraska. Born and raised in Nebraska Payne’s film about the state he grew up in and small town, mid west America is a melancholic and poignant one.

The Lone Ranger

The Lone Ranger became Disney’s second high scale failure in two years after failing to make more than its $375,000,000 budget ($225,000,000 production budget) making it greater failure than John Carter the previous year. The warning signs for a potential failure were there from the get go with budgetary and production issues leading to the film’s cancelation, but after cuts in wages, production soon was back on track.

Man of Steel

Recently actor Willem Defoe slammed Hollywood for its “cynical approach to making money” chastising them for rebooting the Spiderman franchise for second time in less than a decade. Defoe, more critical than others as he starred as the Green Goblin in the twenty-first centuries’ first reboot of the superhero, probably won’t be joining any queue to see the latest Superman reboot.