My Review: What to Expect When You`re Expecting (4/10)

¨I just wanted the glow. The one that they promise you on the cover of those magazines. Well, I'm calling it - pregnancy sucks. Making a human being is really hard.¨

What we can really expect from this movie is pretty much the same thing we got from Valentine`s Day and New Year`s Eve: A lot of celebrities but no real characters. It is the exact same issue I had with the other films, except this is perhaps even worse with everything fitting perfectly together at the end. This is a chick flick and perhaps many will disagree with me for saying this but What to Expect When You`re Expecting is one of the worst movies of the year. The film is based on a very successful series of pregnancy guides written by Heidi Murkoff, which I haven`t read but am pretty sure has to be much better than the screenplay that Shauna Cross (Whip It) and Heather Hach (Freaky Friday) came up with. I can`t imagine the book being like this because it`s really incoherent and unauthentic. There is no honesty whatsoever in the film and it felt sugarcoated with all the celebrities. Director Kirk Jones (Nanny McPhee and Everybody`s Fine) fails miserably in trying to portray a believable film. He follows the exact same clichés and formulas we see in almost every other chick flick. There is no originality whatsoever to this tale and by the end of the year even the people who enjoyed will have forgotten all about it. The film is all about pretty faces, unfunny dialogues, and relationships that aren't given enough screen time to develop. That is why I found it difficult to find believable chemistry between any of the five couples that the film was about. This film was a total waste of time and I can´t find anything positive to say about it. It makes Valentine`s Day and New Year`s Eve look like Oscar worthy contenders.

The story deals with five different couples which in some minor way interact or overlap with each other. First off we have celebrity fitness expert Jules (Cameron Diaz) who has fallen for her dance partner Evan (Matthew Morrison) in the Celebrity Dance Reality Show she`s participating on. Then there`s photographer Holly (Jennifer Lopez) and her hubby Alex (Rodrigo Santoro) who can`t have children and have decided to adopt. Wendy (Elizabeth Banks) is a baby-crazy writer who thinks she knows everything about motherhood but has had trouble trying to get pregnant along with her husband Gary (Ben Falcone). Gary`s father, Ramsey (Dennis Quaid), a former Nascar racer has remarried the beautiful and young Skyler (Brooklyn Decker). When Wendy and Gary discover that they were finally able to get pregnant they go to tell the news to Ramsey and Skyler who also surprise them with the news that they too are expecting. By this time Jules and Evan have already found out that they too are expecting a child, and Jules is trying to work around her busy TV schedule. If this seems a lot to take in, wait there is still more: Rosie (Anna Kendrick) shares a romantic night with a former High School classmate, Marco (Chace Crawford) and ends up pregnant as well. This is where the drama unfolds as we have each couple dealing with pregnancy in different ways. Alex who doesn’t feel prepared to be a father is sent by Holly to meet with a dad`s support group organized by Vic (Chris Rock). The support group is supposed to be the funniest thing about the film, but in my opinion none of the jokes worked really well.

There is not much more I can add about this movie, there was so much going on that it was hard to find any chemistry between any of these couples. They all played one dimensional and stereotypical characters. I don’t think I can say I had a favorite performance here because it all felt bland and fake. The ending is horrible, but I guess most couples were satisfied with this date movie. It has no other value to it, only enjoyable for a couple`s date night or a girls night out.

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My Review: Battleship (5/10)

¨Warning red, weapons tight, I want everything loaded.¨

Battleship has proven that it will be very difficult to compete with the high quality standard that The Avengers left for this year`s Summer movies. Battleship really disappoints although honestly I wasn’t expecting much from the film. There are some good actors in this movie, but the script is just so cheesy that even Liam Neeson looks bad in this. The story has its numbing entertaining moments thanks to all the special effects, but it is just another Transformers 3 all over again (as the trailer proudly announces). Battleship is directed by Peter Berg, the man who brought us The Rundown and Hancock, and who is responsible for the successful TV series Friday Night Lights. He has made some interesting projects in the past, but this film really doesn’t work despite all the great visuals and explosions going on. The greatest problem the film has is the script which was written by Erich and Jon Hoeber who haven’t had success in the past with neither Whiteout nor Red. This move also marks the debut of Rihanna as an actress and she does what she can with the little she was given. Overall this is a forgettable movie and I would rather play the game then watch the film again. Saying that Battleship is based on the Hasbro game is like saying Saving Private Ryan was based on RISK.

Stone (Alexander Skarsgard) and Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) might be brothers, but they are very different. Stone is a Commander in the NAVY, while Alex hasn`t found his calling in life and is sleeping in his brother`s couch. After Alex finds himself in trouble once again Stone decides to enlist him in the NAVY in order for him to mature. Alex becomes a Lieutenant, but is always causing trouble despite his potential, and Admiral Shane (Liam Neeson) has already announced that after the Naval war games exercise he will discharge him from the NAVY. Alex also happens to be dating the Admiral`s daughter, Sam (Brooklyn Decker), but can`t find the way to tell him that he is planning on marrying her. Some of the other officers in Stone`s ship are Weps Raikes (Rihanna), The Beast Lynch (John Tui), and Jimmy (Jesse Plemons). During the international war games exercise where fleets from all over the world have come to Hawaii they find themselves threatened by an alien armada invasion. In the line of fire, these men will do what they can to save the world from extinction after the aliens have proven they are here to wipe them out.

The main character in this film is played by Taylor Kitsch, who still hasn’t found his break out performance after the huge John Carter box office failure. He is still mostly known for his role in Friday Night Lights. Alexander Skarsgard is also known for his role in the TV series Trueblood, so there truly isn’t a movie star in this film considering Liam Neeson has a very small role in this. These relatively unknown television actors (unless you’re a fan of either TV series) do what they can with the poor material they were given to work with. They aren`t to blame as to why the movie doesn’t really work. The film takes a while to pick up and there are several unnecessary scenes, like the one where the American NAVY crew is playing soccer against the Japanese; it was just awful. The entire movie felt like a NAVY propaganda telling everyone that if you want to have fun then you should enlist in the NAVY. There isn’t much more to this movie than that so don’t expect too much. This could rank alongside other films with good visuals but no story like Transformers 3 and Battle Los Angeles.

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My Review: Just Go With It (4/10)

¨Feels good being honest, doesn`t it? Were you telling the truth when you said you might be in love with me? ¨

It actually feels good being honest; unfortunately there is nothing honest about this romantic comedy. The movie is just one big lie after another and I simply couldn`t just go along with it. It made no sense at all and at the same time a five year old could know where this movie was heading from the opening credits. The jokes and gags have been told before by Adam Sandler himself and repeated over and over again in his movies. It was funny in his early Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore days, but listening to the same joke repeated time after time again is simply not funny anymore. As for the romance, if you`ve ever seen a chic flick you`ve also seen Just Go With It and it`s clichés. Dennis Dugan has directed Adam Sandler at least half a dozen times before and they seem to be making the same movie over and over again. I don`t blame them: their films make money in the box office and they seem to be having a lot of fun at work because they don`t even have to try to make a good film because audiences simply are willing to just go with it. If you are the type of viewer who doesn`t really care too much about originality, good acting, or good scripts, then you probably will have a good time just going with it, but I guarantee you will forget you even saw it the next day. This movie was just so predictable from the very beginning to the very end that I simply couldn`t just go with it.

This time around Adam Sandler is Danny, a plastic surgeon and a player with the ladies. His heart was broken several years ago on his wedding night, but he also learned an important lesson on how to get girls to fall for him. He keeps the ring and tells the girls he is married, but is going through a rough time. Apparently they all seem to have a weakness for broken hearted and committed men so he gets what he wants: a one night stand and no relationships. The only person who he is really honest to is his assistant, Katherine (Jennifer Aniston), who somehow finds his ¨romantic stories¨ amusing. She is a single loving mother of two children: Maggie (Bailee Madison) and Michael (Griffin Gluck). The player finally ends up falling in love with a gorgeous and much younger woman named Palmer (Brooklyn Decker) who is a sweet math teacher. Danny never actually plays the married card with her, but the next morning she discovers the ring in Danny`s pocket and is upset that she has slept with a married man. Her parents got divorced and she had promised herself she would never wreck a marriage. Danny really likes this girl so he does the only thing he really knows how to do which is to lie. He says that he is getting divorced, that his wife cheated on him, but Palmer won`t believe him until she hears it from his soon to be ex-wife. Danny asks Katherine to act as her, but through a mix up her kids also get involved and now Palmer wants to spend time with the kids so they all travel together to Hawaii and the lies begin to build.

Adam Sandler always finds the best locations to make his movies. He really makes sure he is going to have a fun time while filming. I don’t blame him; he is a great comedian and really doesn’t have to try too hard. He has proven he can act in dramatic roles as well like Drunk Punch Love or Reign Over Me, but those great movies simply don`t get that much recognition or bring in huge box office numbers, so why stress out when audiences continue to go with his light comedies? Jennifer Aniston is a great actress, and she was alright in this movie. Brooklyn Decker might be beautiful, but she isn`t a good actress. My favorite performance came from Bailee Madison; the girl has a lot of charisma and she delivered the most laughs in my opinion. Nicole Kidman and Dave Matthews play secondary characters and they share some moments, but the script really didn`t help anyone out that much. Nick Swardson played the role of the dumb and obsessed with girls’ character that always shows up in an Adam Sandler film. His sole purpose in the movie is just to be ridiculous. I didn’t find him funny at all. I really don’t understand how Sandler`s character was planning on having a long relationship with this girl with all these lies he was telling her. How does a loving mother go along by dragging her kids into this mess? I mean the kids weren’t going to disappear after the ¨family vacation, ¨ but I guess it really didn`t matter because we knew exactly what direction the movie was going to go anyway. All we had to do was sit down, leave our brains at home, and just go with it.

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