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Bilbo Baggins is swept into a quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor from the fearsome dragon Smaug. Approached out of the blue by the wizard Gandalf the Grey, Bilbo finds himself joining a company of thirteen dwarves led by the legendary warrior, Thorin Oakenshield. Their journey will take them into the Wild; through treacherous lands swarming with Goblins and Orcs, deadly Wargs and Giant Spiders, Shapeshifters and Sorcerers. Although their goal lies to the East and the wastelands of the Lonely Mountain first they must escape the goblin tunnels, where Bilbo meets the creature that will change his life forever … Gollum. Here, alone with Gollum, on the shores of an underground lake, the unassuming Bilbo Baggins not only discovers depths of guile and courage that surprise even him, he also gains possession of Gollum’s “precious” ring that holds unexpected and useful qualities … A simple, gold ring that is tied to the fate of all Middle-earth in ways Bilbo cannot begin to know.

Once again we begin an epic journey that will take 3 parts to complete. Part 1 is a most wonderful journey with our old friends Gandalf, Bilbo, Galadriel, and Elrod. We meet a bunch of fun elves and get to see more of the orcs and trolls. Great scenery, cinematography, battle scenes,and of course the very first encounter with Smeagle (aka Gollum).

It was a great movie of almost 3 hours that moved swiftly so you never look at your watch. I do, however, not recommend seeing it in 3D. While the 3D is very good, the lack of depth of some of the CGI made it a bit disappointing. See it in 2D and you will not notice.

Rating: 4.7 out of 5.

Three high school friends gain superpowers after making an incredible discovery. Soon, though, they find their lives spinning out of control and their bond tested as they embrace their darker sides.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This  movie is shot as a documentary and and is a bit jerky. Interesting plot and watchable. Of course the wallflower of the trio becomes the most corrupted.

Watchable.

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Since this is just out, I won’t spoil it by giving away a lot of the plot.

Bond’s loyalty to M is tested as her past comes back to haunt her. As MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost.

In the movie we get a lot of history behind Bond’s childhood and his relationship to M. Daniel Craig proves to be the best Bond ever and perhaps they will remake some of the more comedic movies that starred Roger Moore and some of the lesser Bonds. Connery was excellent, but when he was in a fight he never got a bruise or cut.

While the movie is great, the ending was a bit sad.

Rating: 4.7 out of 5

In 1979, the American embassy in Iran was invaded by Iranian revolutionaries and several Americans are taken hostage. However, six manage to escape to the official residence of the Canadian Ambassador and the CIA is eventually ordered to get them out of the country. With few options, exfiltration expert Tony Mendez devises a daring plan: to create a phony Canadian film project looking to shoot in Iran and smuggle the Americans out as its production crew. With the help of some trusted Hollywood contacts, Mendez creates the ruse and proceeds to Iran as its associate producer. However, time is running out with the Iranian security forces closing in on the truth while both his charges and the White House have grave doubts about the operation themselves.

Once again Ben Affleck has shown his superb skill as a director and as an actor. He has now proven his acting ability works better for him than stupid movies that show him as a sex symbol.

I personally  think he was cheated last Oscar by not winning one for Best Director or Best Actor in the drama, The Town.

This movie is based on a true CIA operation during the Carter administration and declassified in the Clinton administration.  An excellent screen play, cast, and acting. Remembering the Iran Hostage Crisis from the scenes in the movie make you wonder if anything has really changed in that part of the world.

Rating: 4.9 out of 5

Millions of years ago, the spacecraft of an advanced humanoid alien race arrives on Earth. One of the aliens consumes a dark liquid, causing its body to disintegrate and fall into a nearby waterfall, thus seeding Earth with the building blocks of life.

In the year 2089 in the rural Highlands of Scotland, archaeologist couple Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and her boyfriend Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) discover a star map in a cave which they record among the remnants of several otherwise unconnected ancient cultures. They interpret this as an invitation from humanity’s forerunners. Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce), the elderly founder and CEO of the Weyland Corporation, funds the creation of the scientific deep space research vessel called the USS Prometheus to follow the map to the distant moon of LV-223 several light years from Earth.
The ship’s crew travels in hybernation stasis at light speed while the android David (Michael Fassbender) stays awake at the pilot control to monitor their entire voyage. In 2093, the ship arrives in the orbit around LV-223 (note: it is not the same planet first seen in the 1979 movie ‘Alien’ as confirmed by Ridley Scott in an interview with Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode on Friday June 1st on BBC radio 5 live. ‘Alien’ is set on LV-426). After being awakened from hibernation, the crew are informed of their mission to find the ancient aliens, called “Engineers” whom may be the original humans. They also view a holographic message from Weyland himself, who tells them about his funding for the mission and that he has since died.

Mission director Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron) orders them to avoid any direct contact and to return if the aliens are found. The Prometheus lands near an alien structure (resembling a large temple-like pyramid) and a team including Shaw, Holloway, and David explores it, while Vickers and Captain Janek (Idris Elba) remain aboard the ship and monitor their progress.

They find several cylinder-like artifacts, a monolithic statue of a humanoid head, and the decapitated corpse of a giant alien, thought to be one of the Engineers. Other bodies are later found, and the species is presumed to be extinct. David secretly returns an cylinder to the ship, while the remaining vessels in the chamber begin leaking a dark fluid. A rapidly approaching storm forces the crew to return to Prometheus, leaving crew members Milburn (Rafe Spall) and Fifield (Sean Harris) stranded in the pyramid structure after becoming lost trying to find the way out. Shaw insists they take the Engineer’s head back to the ship with them and they barely make it back alive.

In the ship, Shaw and medic Ford (Kate Dickie) analyze the Engineer’s head, and discover that its DNA is identical to that of the human race. Meanwhile, David investigates the cylinder and discovers a small ampoule containing a small amount of black fluid. He intentionally infects Holloway with the substance, hiding it in a drop of liquid on his finger and briefly tapping it into a glass of champagne Holloway drinks from to celebrate their discovery. Later, Shaw and the infected Holloway have sex. Holloway later looks in a mirror and sees his eyes are changing.

Back inside the structure, Fifield and Milburn are attacked by snake-like creatures. Milburn is killed, and a corrosive fluid (yellow acidic blood) from one of the creatures melts Fifield’s helmet, exposing him to the dark liquid leaking from the cylinders.

The next morning after the storm subsides, the Prometheus crew returns to the structure and finds Milburn’s corpse. David discovers a room containing a living Engineer in stasis and a holographic star map highlighting Earth. Holloway’s infection rapidly ravages his body, and he is rushed back to the ship. As he visibly deteriorates, Vickers refuses to let him aboard, and immolates him with a flame thrower at his own request.

A medical scan reveals that Shaw, despite being sterile, is pregnant. David subdues her, to return her to Earth in stasis, but she escapes and uses an automated surgery pod in Vicker’s quarters to cut a cephalopod-like creature from her abdomen. Weyland is found to have been in stasis aboard the ship; he explains to Shaw that he intends to ask the Engineers to help him avoid his impending death.

A mutated Fifield attacks the hangar bay and kills several crew members before being killed himself. Janek theorizes that the planet they are on was used by the Engineers as a military base until they lost control of their biological weapons, namely the ampoules and the black fluid they contain. The remaining crew return to the structure and awaken the Engineer, who is occupying what is discovered to be a space ship (the same design as the crashed alien space ship seen in ‘Alien’ and ‘Aliens’). David speaks to the Engineer, who responds by decapitating him and killing Weyland and Ford. Shaw escapes the alien ship as it is activated by the Engineer. The still-active David reveals it is going to release the ampoules on Earth. Vickers orders Janek to return to Earth, but Shaw convinces him to stop the Engineer’s ship. Janek and his two surviving crewmen take off and crash the Prometheus into it while Vickers flees in an escape pod. The disabled Engineer ship crashes onto the planet, falling onto Vickers, crushing her. The ship continues to tumble and nearly crushes Shaw, but she escapes.

Shaw goes to the escape pod to retrieve supplies and finds her alien offspring has grown to gigantic size. The Engineer survives the crash, enters the escape pod and attacks Shaw, who releases the tentacled creature. It subdues the Engineer by thrusting a tentacle down its throat. Shaw recovers David’s remains from the alien ship, and together they activate another Engineer ship. Shaw and the remains of android David then take off to travel to the Engineers’ homeworld in an attempt to understand why they created humanity and why they attempted to destroy it.

In the final shot, in the Prometheus escape pod, an alien creature (very similar but not the same as seen in later movies) bursts out of the dying Engineer’s chest.

This is the prologue to the Alien franchise. Some critics say you will like the movie better if you have seen the Alien trilogy; others say you will like it better if you haven’t. Regardless it is a great Sci Fi movie. If you like this genre, don’t miss it.

Rating: 4.4 out of 5.

Alex Hopper is a talented but undisciplined slacker. His brother Stone, a naval Commander, forces Hopper to join the Navy. Hopper becomes a lieutenant on the USS John Paul Jones DDG-53, sister-ship to his brother’s command, the USS Sampson DDG-102. Hopper also falls in love with Admiral Shane’s daughter, Samantha, and wants to marry her, but is afraid of asking her father’s permission, as he doesn’t like Hopper. During the RIMPAC opening ceremony, Hopper gets into a brawl with Captain Nagata of the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force, in charge of JDS Myoko DDG-175. Hopper soon learns that he is to be kicked out of the Navy at the end of RIMPAC. Meanwhile, Samantha accompanies Army veteran and amputee Mick Canales on a hike on Oahu in order to help him adapt to his prosthetic legs.

A small fleet of alien ships arrives in response to the NASA signal. One ship collides with an orbital satellite and crashes in Hong Kong, while five others land in the waters near Hawaii. The aliens erect a massive forcefield around the islands, trapping a number of American, Japanese and other sovereignty’s warships, including Hopper’s ship. The aliens attack, destroying Nagata and Stone’s ships. Hopper’s superiors are killed, leaving him in command of the John Paul Jones. Captain Nagata and some of his crew members are rescued from the waters and assists the Americans in setting up a discreet way to track the aliens using wave-detection buoys. During a night-time battle, the aliens and the Americans exchange pot shots, but Hopper manages to sink two alien ships. They rescue an alien from the water. They discover the aliens are very sensitive to sun light and have to wear filters during the day. Using this knowledge, Hopper attacks another alien ship at dawn, using a sniper rifle with Nagata to breach their cockpit window and blind them with sunlight. Both ships are destroyed in the battle.

A group of alien footsoldiers and scientists lands on Oahu and attack the NASA communications array. Samantha and Mick narrowly avoid their detection, and run into a fleeing NASA scientist. Because the aliens’ communications ship crashed in Hong Kong, the aliens plan to use the NASA array to signal their home planet to invade Earth. Realizing that a larger invasion might be imminent, Samantha manages to get a radio and warns Hopper of the threat.
Having no better options, the surviving crew of the John Paul Jones return to harbor and board the USS Missouri BB-63, a 70-year old decommissioned battleship that has been converted into a museum. With the aid of the museum staff, all elderly war veterans, Hopper manages to put the Missouri out to sea again. With some clever maneuvers, the Missouri destroys the last alien ship and shells the communications array, destroying the aliens and ending the threat of invasion.

Back on shore, the crew and Mick all get medals, including a posthumous one to Stone, after the ceremony, Adm. Shane leads Hopper off to discuss his ‘Terms of Surrender’ over a meal.

Based on the board game. Mindless but watchable.

Rating: 3.2 out of 5.

Scientist Richard Parker (Campbell Scott) is playing a game of hide-and-seek with his young son Peter, but during the game he discovers that his study has been broken into. After quickly gathering together some hidden documents, Richard and his wife Mary (Embeth Davidtz) leave Peter with his Aunt May (Sally Field) and Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen), then mysteriously depart without telling Peter where they are going.

Years later, the teenage Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) has become an alienated social outcast who does not have many friends. He attends Midtown Science High School, where he spends much of his time pining over his crush Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), while frequently getting bullied by the obnoxious Flash Thompson (Chris Zylka).

At home, Peter finds a brief case containing some of his father’s old documents, and learns that his father worked with fellow scientist Dr. Curtis Connors (Rhys Ifans) at a pharmaceutical company named Oscorp. Faking his way into the Oscorp building by pretending to be an intern, Peter sneaks into a laboratory where extremely strong “biocable” is being created from genetically-modified spiders. One of the spiders escapes from its container and bites Peter. On the subway ride home, Peter scuffles with a gang of thugs and discovers that he suddenly has increased agility and strength. Upon returning home, he finds the spider hiding in his jacket, and stores it away.

The next day, Peter goes to Dr. Connors’ house and gives him Richard Parker’s documents. Dr. Connors explains that he and Richard were researching cross-species genetics in order to find a way to re-grow lost limbs, with Dr. Connors being motivated by the loss of his own right arm. Dr. Connors is frustrated because his superior, Dr. Rajit Ratha (Irrfan Khan), is pressuring him into devising a cure for Oscorp’s CEO Norman Osborn, who is terminally ill.
Back at school, Peter gets in trouble after accidentally breaking a basketball hoop during a game with Flash. Uncle Ben is forced to switch a work shift to meet with the principal about the situation. afterwards, Uncle Ben asks Peter to pick up Aunt May, but Peter instead practices his new-found powers and meets with Dr. Connors at Oscorp, who shows him the limb-regeneration formula work on a laboratory mouse.

When Peter returns home, Uncle Ben scolds him for having forgotten to pick up Aunt May, reminding him that Richard believed that people should always make their responsibility their priority. A distraught Peter storms off. He goes to a general store to buy milk, but falls two cents cents short and is refused service by the store clerk. Suddenly, a man robs the store and Peter doesn’t do anything to stop him. Uncle Ben, who was searching for Peter, sees the thief running away and wrestles with him over a gun. The thief shoots Uncle Ben right in front of Peter and runs off.

Shortly after the attack, Peter acquires a police sketch of the killer, and uses his abilities to hunt criminals matching the killer’s description. After attacking a man who fit the description, he is chased by a gang and falls inside an abandoned gym, and a luchador wrestling poster inspires him to create a mask.
Later on, he adds a spandex suit for mobility and suddenly becomes a folk hero who the public refers to as ‘Spider-Man’. The police, led by Gwen’s father Cpt. George Stacy (Dennis Leary), soon start a man-hunt for the masked vigilante.

Meanwhile, Dr. Ratha fires Dr. Connors for refusing to immediately start human trials of the limb-regeneration formula. He takes a sample of the drug and plans to test it at a Veterans Administration hospital under the guise of flu shots. Growing desperate, Dr. Connors injects himself with the formula, and passes out. Upon awakening, he finds his lost arm has fully regenerated. However, he then mutates into a large, reptilian monster and chases after Dr. Ratha at Williamsburg Bridge, throwing cars over the side as he rampages. Spider-Man saves each fallen car with the biocable web, which he deploys from wrist-mounted shooters of his own invention. Spider-Man confronts The Lizard in the sewers, barely escaping alive.

Having learned Spider-Man’s real identity, the Lizard attacks Peter at school and plans to unleash the drug all over Manhattan to mutate all humans into lizards using a cloud-generating device at Oscorp Tower, unaware that Gwen is there making an antidote for the condition at Peter’s request. The police mobilizes to stop both him and Spider-Man, but are delayed when the Lizard infects officers with small dosages of the chemical.

In the manhunt, Captain Stacy learns Spider-Man’s real identity and allows him to go stop Connors while proceeding to the tower himself after Peter mentions that Gwen is there making the antidote. After Captain Stacy retrieves the antidote from Gwen and arrives to save Spider-Man who was being overpowered, both of them fight together to delay the Lizard while Spider-Man modifies the machine to disperse the antidote instead, restoring the humanity of Connors and the infected officers, and allowing him to save Peter from a fatal fall from the tower.

Unfortunately, The Lizard has mortally wounded Captain Stacy beforehand, and Stacy makes Peter promise to keep Gwen safe by staying away from her before he dies from his wounds. Peter initially does so, which offends Gwen until she realizes his reasons. While in class, Peter is told by a teacher to “not make promises he can’t keep” to which Peter replies “but those are the best kind” while looking at Gwen. She smiles, and it is implied that the two resume their relationship. With his first challenge surmounted, Peter officially takes to the streets as a proper hero.

In a post-credits scene, Dr. Connors is sitting in a prison cell speaking with a mysterious man (presumably Norman Osborn), The man inquires about Dr. Connors divulging information about Peter’s father, but Dr. Connors tells the man to leave Peter alone, and the scene abruptly ends with a flash of lightning.

A much better version than the Toby Maguire episodes. A little darker and very well done.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Summary: In the final part of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, Batman must face a foe unlike any he has ever faced. In The Dark Knight, Batman saved Gotham, but could not save himself. Taking the blame for Harvey Dent’s crimes, he was hunted by the Police, and thus had to leave the task of protecting Gotham in Gordon’s hands. After what seemed like ages, Gordon finally brought peace to Gotham, and it was enough to convince the Dark Knight that Gotham was safe and that Bruce Wayne need never put on the Batsuit again. However, eight years after the events of The Dark Knight, a new foe emerges, and threatens to destroy Gotham. When this masked foe Bane proves too much for Gordon to handle, Batman must break his 8-year exile and return to defeat Bane from fulfilling his devious plan and claim his rightful place as the true Savior of Gotham.

Synopsis: (alert: major spoilers in the end) The movie opens with some CIA agents escorting a nuclear scientist, Dr. Pavel, and three hooded prisoners, on board a small military aircraft. On learning that the prisoners worked for a mercenary named Bane, the agent in charge of the operation is excited and begins interrogating the prisoners. However, one of the prisoners turns out to be Bane (Tom Hardy) himself, and getting arrested was part of his plan. Suddenly, the aircraft is overpowered by members of a criminal-paramilitary unit in a C-130 Hercules, from which several of Bane’s men climb into the smaller aircraft using ropes, killing the agents. Bane and his men then grab hold of Dr Pavel and improvise a blood transfer from Pavel to a corpse. They then cause the smaller plane to crash, taking him along with them in the larger aircraft.

The scene then cuts to Gotham, where Harvey Dent’s death anniversary is being celebrated as Dent Day. At a charity event hosted by the forever-absent Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) prepares to deliver a speech revealing the truth about Dent and the murders for which the Batman had taken the fall 8 years ago, but deciding that the time was not right, stuffs the speech into his jacket. Miranda Tate (Marion Cottilard), a wealthy investor, tries to meet the reclusive Bruce to get him to invest in her clean energy project, but is unable to meet him.

One of the maids working at the Wayne manor for the event is Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), a burglar, who breaks into Bruce’s room and his safe, stealing his mother’s pearls. Bruce, crippled in one leg, accosts her, but she attacks him and escapes. Bruce later realizes that she also took a copy of his fingerprints from the surface of the safe. A tracking device was also hidden in the pearls.

Selina then sells Bruce’s fingerprints to Dagget, (Ben Mendelsohn), an industrialist with a shady background, who tries to kill her but Selina smartly creates a diversion using a missing Congressman who’s actually been with her, causing the police to converge on the spot.

A dead teenager’s body washes out from the sewers, and his body is identified by police officer John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), as that of a kid staying at an orphanage where he coaches the kids in baseball. Blake is shown to have a very close relationship with the orphanage and the warden who runs it, and we realize later that he himself grew up in that orphanage, and it was being funded by the Wayne Foundation. One of the kids at the orphanage informs him that they have heard rumours of the sewers providing good employment recently, which makes Blake suspicious.

Bruce causes a stir as he arrives in his Aventador at a gala costume ball. He chats with Miranda Tate then cuts in as Selina is dancing with an older gentleman. As they waltz Selina claims to want to see the rich lose and the city burn. Bruce takes back his pearls but Selina then steals the Lamborghini.
The sewers are in fact the hideout of Bane, who is in the employ of Dagget, and has built himself an army of faithful mercenaries. During a raid on the sewers, a couple of mercenaries overpower Commissioner Gordon and bring him to Bane, but Gordon manages to escape, shot by Bane’s men and grievously injured, but not before Bane seized from Gordon’s jacket the speech in which Gordon intended to reveal the truth about Harvey Dent and his murders. Bruce, wearing a ski mask and speaking as Batman, talks to Gordon at the hospital, who tells him that Batman must return and stop Bane’s organization. Wayne decides to don his cape again and return to crime-fighting, despite being in a hopeless physical condition.While going through the records, Bruce learns that the mercenary Bane was once the member of the League of Shadows but was later excommunicated from the group. Rumour had it Bane had once escaped from a prison, the pits of hell.

Bane and his men launch an ambitious daylight attack on the Gotham stock exchange, taking everybody inside hostage and setting a software program into action. The hostage situation ends with the mercenaries getting away, but Batman enters the scene suddenly, causing the Gotham Police force to concentrate all their resources into arresting him. This gives Bane and his henchman time for the laptop to run its program. Deputy Commissioner Foley (Matthew Modine) is eager to arrest the alleged murderer of Harvey Dent, and after a prolonged chase, Batman is cornered into a dark alley. Batman escapes from the alley in The Bat, a futuristic flying version of the Batmobile built by Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman). Batman recovers the hard drive from the laptop.
Selina breaks into Daggett’s safe looking for the Slate software program. She is surrounded by Bane and his thugs but Batman arrives and rescues her. On a safe rooftop she leaves without thanking him. Back in the bat cave Bruce asks Alfred to get the program decoded, he notices his thumbprint scan is on the memory. His decision to return as Batman leads to a spat with Alfred (Michael Caine) who is afraid of the Batman has a death wish. Alfred surprises Bruce when informing him that during his travels for 7 years (in “Batman Begins”), Alfred had hoped that Bruce would never return. He tells Bruce that he wished that in Florence, Italy, while in a cafe, he would see Bruce happily with a woman, married, having a normal life. They would silently acknowledge each other. Alfred leaves Bruce and the mansion for good after revealing the contents of Rachel’s farewell letter to Bruce, given to Alfred previous to her murder in The Dark Knight.

Bruce learns the laptop program was used to make stock trades that bankrupt Wayne Enterprises. To protect one secret, Bruce and Fox take Miranda to the fusion reactor. This reactor could be turned into a weapon, but Fox and Miranda intend to use it for generating clean energy for the entire city. The reactor is hidden in a chamber underneath the river so that it could be flooded for containment in emergencies. Bruce wants Miranda to become CEO of Wayne Enterprises to safeguard the reactor. Furious that he can no longer acquire the Corporation, Dagget corners Bane blaming him for his failure. Bane kills Dagget proclaiming himself in charge of the city after revealing that it was the only for the construction machinery that he required to build the sophisticated underground sewers and to accomplish his future plans that he complied with Dagget’s orders. Bruce finds Selina at her apartment and says his powerful friend needs her help. He says he knows about the Slate program and he has it.

That night Catwoman leads Batman into the subway tunnels, but Batman is cornered by Bane, betrayed by Selina. A lengthy battle of hand-to-hand combat between the two, eventually Bane overpowers the Batman, and breaks his backbone by smashing him down bodily on his knee. Moments later, Bane’s men blow out the ceiling of the sewers, giving them access Wayne Enterprises’ Applied Sciences division. They find the fusion reactor, Dr. Pavel is brought in and he makes some adjustments to it.

After witnessing the fight, Selina attempts to leave Gotham, but is spotted and tracked down by Blake at the airport. The conversation then turns to Bane, Selina says she’s not sure if Batman is alive. She is then arrested, and placed in Blackgate prison.

Bruce Wayne is left in a foreign prison, still in pain from the fight. The prison sits at the bottom of a deep circular shaft, with the only way in or out by climbing the stone walls. Bane taunts Bruce that he intends to kill his soul first having to witness the destruction of Gotham City and his body only later. This prison was where Bane was rumoured to be born, and it is notorious as a “Hell on Earth”, from which nobody has managed to escape. However, one of the prisoners tells Bruce that a child had managed to escape.

The child was born of a Mercenary, who fell in love with a Warlord’s daughter. The Mercenary was to be sentenced to life in the prison, but the daughter made a deal with her father to free him and instead ended up a prisoner there herself. One day a riot broke out in the prison where she was raped and murdered, and her child escaped. Bruce concludes that the child must have been Bane.

While in his cell, Bruce sees several prisoners attempt to escape by using a safety rope, and climbing up the shaft towards the light, but fail to clear the final jump on to a ledge required to escape.

Meanwhile, in Gotham City, Blake has files that show Daggett’s construction company engaging in activity around the city’s sewer systems. Gordon orders the Police Force (said to be on a ‘training exercise’ so as not to arouse suspicion), into the sewers to find Bane and his henchmen. Captain Foley is skeptical.
Blake tracks down one of the sights, and finds explosive chemicals. He realizes that using Dagget’s construction crews, Bane has rigged numerous construction areas around the city with explosives!

John tries to warn Foley but Bane detonates the explosives the beginning of a football match, causing the entire ground to cave in and collapse, and the tunnels to the sewer are sealed off! Gotham’s football stadium is powerless as Bane declares to the crowd that he’s now in charge of the city. He displays the fusion reactor core and murders Dr Pavel, the only man who can disarm it, in front of the shocked audience. Bane also declares that he has left one citizen in charge of the detonator who would trigger the bomb in case of any sort of civil rebellion.

Simultaneously, all but one of the city’s bridges leading up to the city are destroyed by Bane’s explosives, trapping the entire population of the city inside. Bane threatens the government forces that should anybody try to enter or leave the city, he will detonate the nuclear weapon, thus forcing the government forces to guard the city and stop anybody from leaving. The lone bridge still intact is meant as a means to provide food and relief supplies to Gotham’s citizens.

Bane then proceeds to the prison where more than 1000 prisoners have been incarcerated as per the Dent Act, which gave enormous powers to the police. Here he reads out Gordon’s intended speech revealing the truth about Harvey, and declares the prisoners free, as the man who drew up the Dent Act himself was a murderer and a madman. The prisoners join Bane and together they enforce what Bane calls “martial law”; forcing the rich out of their homes, holding kangaroo courts (presided over by Johnathan Crane, aka, the Scarecrow) and offering them a choice: exile from Gotham or death.Exile means being forced to walk on the frozen river under the detonated bridges, where the ice cracks and drowns anyone making the crossing.

Detective Blake, meanwhile, with the help of the few policemen still remaining in the city, begin tracking three large military trucks, one of which carries the nuclear weapon. To avoid detection of the weapon, the three trucks are driven around the city continuously.

Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne, holed up in the prison, is watching the havoc in Gotham on a TV set in the prison. He gets the doctor there to crudely fix his vertebrae. Enduring the pain, Bruce hallucinates that he sees Ra’s Al Ghul (Liam Neeson). As the days wear on in the prison, Bruce’s anger builds, and he is determined to save Gotham. Rigorously training his body, he attempts to make the escape twice, but fails each time.

After the second attempt, Bruce questions how a child could have escaped, but he can’t. The doctor explains that if Bruce truly does not fear death, then there is no need for him to try to escape using the safety rope. Bruce realizes that was how the child escaped, and his third attempt without the rope succeeds!
Bruce returns to Gotham as Batman, and with the help of Selina, frees Miranda and Fox from Bane’s captivity, and saves Gordon and some of the policemen, who had been captured and were being forced to cross the frozen river. Fox reveals that trigger or no trigger, the nuclear device is unstable and will detonate anyway the next day, and recovers a signal jammer from the Bat which can block the signals from the trigger.

With Blake and Selina’s help, Batman frees the 3000 police trapped in the sewers, who then march the streets and attack Bane’s army. A brutal combat ensues on the streets of Gotham. Batman fights Bane again, and has nearly defeated him, detaching some of the tubes on his mask that feed Bane his anesthetic, which weakens him greatly. However, as Batman tries to force Bane to reveal the location of the trigger device, Miranda suddenly stabs the Batman in the side.

It is then revealed that her real name is Talia, and that she was the child who had escaped from the Hell on Earth prison. Bane had been a prisoner there, and had become her protector. During the prison riot that claimed her mother’s life, Bane helped her to escape, but in the process was hurt severely. The prison doctor attempted to repair the damage, but his methods resulted in Bane needing anesthetics to constantly keep the pain at bay.

After she had escaped, Talia then tracked down her father: Ra’s Al Ghul. She convinces her father to rescue Bane, and both were trained within The League of Shadows.Apart from the realization that Bane was an extremist monster, the injuries inflicted on Bane’s face became a reminiscence of the suffering endured by Talia’s mother in the pit for Ra’s Al Ghul and hence Bane was excommunicated from the group. Talia’s intention is to take revenge on the Batman for killing her father, as well as finishing the mission of destroying Gotham for its greed that cost her father’s life. She then hits the trigger of the nuclear weapon, but Gordon has managed to fit the signal jammer on the weapon just in time. However, there are only eleven minutes left for the nuke to detonate. Miranda says farewell and leaves Bane to kill Batman.

Selina, riding the Batpod, crashes into the lobby and blasts Bane with the Pod’s large cannon, killing the villain. Talia escapes, and takes control of the truck carrying the weapon, but eventually her escorts are all finished off in a prolonged chase sequence, with Selina riding the Batpod and Batman flying the Bat in the air, and attacking the convoy carrying the nuke. Talia’s truck goes off the road and crashes, fatally wounding her. In her last moments alive, she explains how her access to the reactor chamber allowed her to set a timer to flood it, preventing the weapon from being returned there. She soon dies believing she had finally completed her father’s work and avenged his death.

Lucius Fox soon escapes the flooding chamber and realizes there is no way of stabilizing the weapon. The weapon cannot be deactivated in any way, and will detonate in less than 2 minutes. Before deciding to fly the bomb out of Gotham. Batman explains that the Bat has no autopilot, and that he will need to fly the bomb out of Gotham Batman shares a kiss with Selina, before discreetly revealing to Gordon his true identity.

With not much time left, Batman attaches the bomb to the Bat, and flies it away from the city, and out over the bay. The citizens of Gotham watch awestruck as the weapon detonates on the horizon, and the mushroom-cloud balloons over the bay.

In the aftermath, the freed criminals are rounded up by Gotham’s Police Force.

A private funeral is held on the grounds of Wayne Manor for Bruce, by those who knew his true identity (including Gordon and Blake). Alfred sobs quietly, feeling that he let Bruce’s parents down by not protecting him.

Blake resigns from the Gotham Police, and explains to Gordon that the City will never really know who saved it. Gordon tells him that they will know that it was ‘The Batman’ who saved them. In tribute, a statue is erected in Batman’s memory.

In the aftermath of Bruce Wayne’s death, certain provisions are made. The majority of the estate is sold, with the money given to Alfred. Wayne Manor is given to the city of Gotham, as a place for orphaned boys to stay. Strangely, one of the Wayne family’s treasures (a string of pearls) cannot be located.
John Blake is surprised when he is also given a duffel bag as part of Bruce’s will. When presenting his I.D., the woman who checks it says he should go by his real first name as it appears on his I.D.: Robin.

Back in Applied Sciences, Lucius has several workers go over the second camouflage rotor(The Bat) in the underground storage area. Wanting to know what he could have done to get the autopilot functioning, he is surprised when the workers explain that the autopilot is functional, and the computer log shows that Bruce Wayne made the changes 6 months prior!

Up on the roof of Gotham’s Police Department, Gordon finds the once broken Bat signal (destroyed by him personally by the end of The Dark Knight) repaired.

Meanwhile, John Blake has opened the duffel bag, and finds a spelunking rope, and GPS coordinates. The information leads him to a waterfall (the entrance to the batcave). He makes his way past the waterfall, and into the cave, where his light attracts a flurry of bats.

In Florence, Italy, Alfred has returned to the same restaurant that he had visited during Bruce’s absence long ago. As he scans the room, he smiles to see Bruce and Selina at a nearby table. A fleeting glance between both Alfred and Bruce, is enough to assure the other that each of them will be alright.
In the final shot, we see John walking over a pool of water. As he does so, his movement activates the black flooring containing the batsuit. John just stares around him as the flooring rises up.

The best was save for last. An absolute must see on the big screen.

Rating” 5.0 out of 5

In order to gain influence over their North Carolina district, two CEOs seize an opportunity to oust long-term congressman Cam Brady by putting up a rival candidate. Their man: naive Marty Huggins, director of the local Tourism Center.

A Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis toilet humor slap fest. Entertainment Weekly gave this movie an A-, which further confirms their critics don’t know anything and their subscription is overpriced.

Don’t waste your money.

Rating: 0 out of 5

During the Prohibition era, the Bondurant brothers — Forrest (Tom Hardy), Howard (Jason Clarke) and Jack (Shia LaBeouf) — run a successful liquor bootlegging business in Franklin County, Virginia, with the help of their friend, Cricket Pate (Dane DeHaan), using their bar as a front for their illegal activities.

One day, Jack witnesses mobster Floyd Banner (Gary Oldman) eliminating a competitor and they exchange looks before Jack returns to the bar, where Forrest hires Maggie Beauford (Jessica Chastain), a dancer from Chicago, to be their new waitress. Shortly afterwards, the bar is visited by brutal Special Agent Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce), on behalf of District Attorney Mason Wardell. Rakes informs Forrest that he wants a cut of all profit made by Franklin’s bootleggers, but Forrest refuses and threatens to kill Rakes if he returns. Forrest later meets with the other bootleggers and convinces them to stand up to Rakes as well, though they eventually give in to Rakes’ violent intimidation tactics.

Meanwhile, Jack meets Bertha Minnix (Mia Wasikowska), daughter of the local preacher. He attends the church drunk and makes a fool of himself, causing Bertha’s father to forbid her from seeing him, which only makes her more interested in Jack, with whom she flirts. Jack later finds Rakes raiding Cricket’s house in search of his distilation equipment. When they don’t find it, Rakes brutally beats Jack when he tries to intervene. Forrest hears of this and tells Jack that he needs to learn how to fight for himself.

Forrest and Howard arrange to meet with potential clients from Chicago, but Howard misses his appointment to get drunk with a friend, and Forrest ends up beating the two men with Cricket’s help when they harrass Maggie. Later, after Cricket leaves, the men return, slash Forrest’s throat, and rape Maggie.
Howard and Jack meet a surviving Forrest at the hospital, and Jack decides to travel to Chicago with Cricket to sell the liquor. Arriving there, they are doublecrossed by their clients, but are rescued by Banner, who recognizes Jack. Banner already knows of the attack on Forrest, as well as the identities of the two assailants, and he provides Jack with their address, and also advises Jack that they are working for Rakes. Forrest and Howard later find, torture, and kill the men to send a message to Rakes.

Banner becomes a regular client of the brothers, who move their distilation equipment to the woods and have great profit. The money allows Jack to continue courting Bertha, while Forrest begins a relationship with Maggie after she moves into the bar for her safety, though she doesn’t tell him she was raped.
Jack eventually decides to show Bertha the distilation center, but they are ambushed by Rakes and his men, who had followed her. Howard incapacitates Rakes and Jack nearly kills him before they are forced to flee from Rakes’s men with Bertha and Cricket, who is later recaptured and murdered by Rakes, who snaps his neck. Wanting revenge for Cricket’s death, Jack goes to confront Rakes and his men at a roadblock in the local bridge. Howard follows after him, rallying the bootleggers to come to their aid. Forrest decides to join them, though Maggie tries to dissuade him, telling him that it was she who had found him with his throat slashed and took him to the hospital. Forrest realizes then that she was also attacked that night, but Maggie continues to deny having been raped.

The bootleggers engage Rakes’ men in a violent firefight, during which Rakes shoots Forrest multiple times before being shot in the leg and attempting to escape. A wounded Jack follows him to the bridge and shoots Rakes in the chest, wounding him. Howard later stabs Rakes with a large knife and leaves him to bleed to death. With Rakes and his men dead, the Bondurant Brothers decide to save their money and retire after Prohibition ends. Jack marries Bertha, Forrest marries Maggie, and Howard marries a local woman, all having children. During a reunion at Jack’s house, Forrest drunkly dances on a frozen lake and falls into the freezing water, dying of pneumonia a few weeks later.

Great movie. Based on a real story. Having grown up in the deep South in the age of bootlegging, it seemed all too familiar.

Rating: 4.3 out of 5.