CAPSULE REVIEWS - 'Monsters University', 'Lone Ranger', 'The Heat', 'Mama'

Catching up on reviews for movies that I went to see on my nights off from camp, as well as a movie I got from Redbox a few days ago.

'Monsters University' (G) **1/2
Pixar's first prequel puts Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) and James P. 'Sulley' Sullivan (John Goodman) in college, meeting each other for the first time and being forced to team up.  While funny with bright and colorful animation, this is nowhere near as good as 'Monsters Inc.' and doesn't pack an emotional punch that 'Monsters Inc.' did.  And don't see this in 3D.

'The Lone Ranger' (PG-13) ***
An aging Tonto (Johnny Depp) tells the tale of how he and John Reid, AKA The Lone Ranger (Armie Hammer) started riding together and seeking justice in the Old West.  It gets a little confusing with the random jumps back and forth in time, but that's the only negative I can think of.  It's a fun movie.  The performances are all good and the action is exciting.  It's genuinely funny without forcing it for the most part (apart from a horse poop joke).  Apart from seeing the commercials and trailers for it this was a movie that I went in without having read any reviews of it whatsoever.  Afterwards, I looked up on Rotten Tomatoes and found that the reviews it had been getting were extremely scathing.  It's also bombing at the box office.  For what it's worth, I liked it.  It's fun.  Just goes to show how subjective movies are.

'The Heat' (R) ***1/2
Uptight FBI Special Agent Sarah Ashburn (Sandra Bullock) is forced to team up with extremely foul-mouthed, bold Boston cop Shannon Mullins (Melissa McCarthy) to take down a drug lord.  Sure, it follows the stereotypical buddy cop movie tropes, but it's entertaining enough and it's very funny.    If you have a problem with hearing a constant barrage of foul language over a two hour time frame, well, you've been warned as there are very few sentences in this movie where Melissa McCarthy does NOT drop the f-bomb.  

'Mama' (PG-13) **3/4
Two young children that have been missing for five years have been discovered in a cabin in the woods.  Their uncle Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and his girlfriend Annabel (Jessica Chastain) take them in, and they keep talking to some unknown entity that they call 'Mama'.  Creepy things start happening around the house as Annabel, Lucas, and psychiatrist Dr. Dreyfuss (Daniel Kash) try to figure out who or what 'Mama' is.  For the most part it's a creepy movie and as a rental I liked it.  It is a little long and sometimes the CGI is poor, but the creepiness of the movie overcame those flaws.