In between paper revisions, football games with horrible outcomes, sleeping, I managed to watch a few more movies this weekend.
FRIDAY NIGHT FILMWORKS
'Despicable Me 2' (PG) ***1/2
So here at Ball State the student-led University Program Board (UPB) sponsors various entertainment events on campus. Among these is 'Friday Night Filmworks', which shows movies that are out of theaters and usually haven't been released on DVD/Blu-Ray yet. I will usually go if it's a movie that I haven't seen yet. This semester the one's I hadn't seen in the theater were 'The Purge', 'Despicable Me 2', and 'Grown Ups 2'. I wasn't able to go to watch 'The Purge' and since I missed it I made sure to get it from Redbox as soon as it became available (more on 'Purge' in a bit). So after I got off work on Friday I immediately headed over to Pruis Hall to watch 'Despicable Me 2'.
Gru (voice of Steve Carell) is now raising Margo (voice of Miranda Cosgrove), Edith (voice of Dana Gaier) and Agnes (Elsie Fisher) and is retired from being a villain, instead starting a line of jams and jellies that he has his Minions and Dr. Nefario (voice of Russell Brand) make. But he is soon recruited by the Anti Villain League and forced to team up with Agent Lucy Wilde (voice of Kristen Wiig) to try and stop a new super villain who has stolen a chemical that can make any living organism into a nearly indestructible, extremely aggressive monster. Simply put, I loved this movie and liked it a lot more than the first movie. It's extremely funny and extremely cute.
REDBOX
'The Purge' (R) ***
Like I said earlier, 'The Purge' was being offered at Friday Night Filmworks a few months ago but I wasn't able to go. So since I missed it I decided to rent it from Redbox whenever it finally came out. So purging myself of the awfulness of the Notre Dame/Pitt game I sat down and watched this.
It's 2022. Crime is at an all time low and unemployment is at 1%. Poverty is almost non-existent. This is a result of the Annual Purge, which the leaders of the United States enacted to save the country and make it reborn. For 12 hours, all crime is legal. All emergency services are shut off. Putting blue flowers in front of the house shows your support for The Purge. James Sandin (Ethan Hawke) is a wealthy home security salesman living in a nice, gated community with his wife Mary (Lena Headey), daughter Zoey (Adelaide Cane) and son Charlie (Max Burkholder). After the Annual Purge has started and the family's house is on lock down, Charlie sees a bloody stranger out on the street (Edwin Hodge) yelling for help. He lets him into the house, much to the chagrin of his family. This causes the bloody strangers pursuers to show up at the house and demand that the family hand over the bloody stranger or else they will be forced to enter the house and kill everyone.
Simply put, I liked it and thought it was very original and pretty suspenseful in parts. Of course the whole idea of a 'Purge' is completely ludicrous and many characters make really dumb decisions, but it's a solid rental and Ethan Hawke gives a pretty good performance.
NETFLIX
'Olympus Has Fallen' (R) **1/4
Disgraced former Presidential guard Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) finds himself trapped
inside the White House in the wake of a terrorist attack; using his
inside knowledge, Banning works with national security to rescue the
President (Aaron Eckhart) from his kidnappers. It's basically 'Die Hard' in the White House, only not as much fun as 'Die Hard'. Sure the whole movie is pretty dumb, but the first half really sets the bar low. It picks up once the White House has been taken over and overall the movie's okay. Since I've watched this I guess I gotta go watch 'White House Down', since from what I've heard these are practically the same movie.
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