So sleepy...

I'm super exhausted so forgive me if this turns out to be a short article. Tonight I caught two films, the latest family production from Dreamworks, The Croods and the action-packed Olympus Has Fallen. I was very surprised by both films but not in the way I'd expected. Let's start with The Croods.

Let me begin by saying I wasn't to jazzed about seeing this one when I saw some of the early trailers for it. I don't like cavemen and a caveman cartoon just did not appeal to me. Then I caught wind of the crazy list of epic actors that signed up to voice the characters and decided to take another look. Frankly, if Ryan Reynolds and Emma Stone think a film is good enough to lend their voices, then there's no way it can be bad right?

Right!

This one was cute, sweet, funny and outrageous. The tag line for the film is "Meet humanity's first modern family" and that really is the best way you could describe it. We find a neanderthal family struggling to survive during the shifting of the plates and basically trying to stay together as a unit while navigating through the ever changing terrain. Nicolas Cage plays the over protective father, Grug, trying to keep his family safe while inadvertently stifling his adventurous daughter, Epp, voiced by Emma Stone, from exploring and coming into her own. This causes a rift in the family dynamic and Grug finds himself trying to keep everyone together while adjusting to the fact that his daughter is growing up. 

Then, Guy, voiced by Ryan Reynolds, stumbles into their part of the world and teaches them about "new" things like fire and footwear, impressing young Epp and stealing dear old dad's thunder.  You can imagine the kind of power struggle that goes on after that. 

The movie was very sweet and one I was surprised by to be sure. If you get the chance, go check it out. 

And as for you.......

Sigh... Where to begin? 

I was so looking forward to this movie and the damn thing let me down, big time! We already have four Die Hard films (I will not count that last one and you can't make me), but Olympus Has Fallen seems to be trying to reinvent the wheel here. Guess what boys, ya'll failed. I'm talking, crashed and burned failed. 

While this one was full of stars and even gave audiences some decent action and a boat-load of fire fights, this one just couldn't be saved. The dialog was some of the cheesiest junk I've heard in a long time (and I've seen every Twilight film!) and a lot of the stuff throughout the film was extremely predictable. 

Now, I don't know about you. But when I look forward to something, I like there to be a little surprise here and there. So when I sat down and figured out who the bad guy was within the first five minutes, I was ready to leave right then and there. But I was good, I stuck it out and let the crappiness continue. I was hoping after blatantly revealing who was responsible for helping the bad guys take over the White House, that we might get some good drama and suspense, a decent standoff at the very least; but no. No, instead what we were given, was an uncreative man's version of Live Free or Die Hard featuring an actor who is unbelievable as commander and chief and a hero who, while hot and believable, has been given absolutely nothing to work with. For heavens sake, at one point Gerard Butler actually gets on the radio and antagonizes the bad guy, Willis-style! You gonna climb into a vent next buddy? I mean come on.....

All in all it was an acceptable action film, but is it one I think you should spend your hard earned money on? Nope.