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In Venice, the Three Musketeers Athos (Matthew Macfadyen), Porthos (Ray Stevenson) and Aramis (Luke Evans), with the help of Athos’ lover, Milady de Winter (Milla Jovovich), steal airship blueprints made by Leonardo da Vinci. However, they are betrayed by Milady, who gives the blueprints to the Duke of Buckingham (Orlando Bloom). Upon returning to France, the Musketeers are forced to disband by Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz) for their failure.
One year later, the young D’Artagnan (Logan Lerman) leaves Gascony for Paris in hopes of becoming a Musketeer, like his father once was, only to learn that they no longer exist. D’Artagnan ends up challenging Captain Rochefort (Mads Mikkelsen), the leader of Richelieu’s guard, to a duel after being offended by him, but Rochefort merely shoots him while he’s distracted. In an attempt to get revenge, D’Artagnan offends Athos, Porthos and Aramis for petty reasons, and schedules duels with each of them, at the same day and at the same place, but in different times, not knowing who they are.
Before they can duel, however, D’Artagnan and the Musketeers are attacked by the guards for breaking the law by having a public duel. They fight the soldiers off, at which point D’Artagnan discovers their true identities, but end up being captured and brought before the young King Louis XIII (Freddie Fox) and his wife, Queen Anne (Juno Temple). Richelieu attempts to convince them to execute the four prisoners, but they are too impressed, and congratulate them instead, much to Richelieu’s anger.
Later, Richelieu meets with Milady, who is actually working for him. He orders her to plant false love letters among Queen Anne’s possessions and steal Queen Anne’s diamond necklace and hide it in the Tower of London with the objective of framing Queen Anne of having an affair with the Duke of Buckingham, who is in France on behalf of the King of England, and who has built a fully armed airship using the designs stolen from the Musketeers. The affair would force King Louis to execute Queen Anne and declare war on England. At this point, the people would demand a more experienced leader for the country: Richelieu himself. Before leaving, Milady demands that Richelieu gives her an authorization declaring that she was working on behalf of France’s best interests.
However, Queen Anne’s lady-in-waiting Constance Bonacieux (Gabriella Wilde) discovers his plan and pleads with the Musketeers to stop Richelieu. They follow Milady and Buckingham to London, while Constance is kidnapped by Rochefort for helping the Musketeers to escape from him. Meanwhile, King Louis finds the false letters and is advised by Richelieu to set up a ball in which Queen Anne would be forced to wear the necklace. If she doesn’t, then her affair is real, and there will be war.
In London, Milady warns Buckingham of the Musketeers arrival, claiming that they want revenge for being outsmarted by Buckingham one year prior. Buckingham captures D’Artagnan and prepares to interrogate him when D’Artagnan reveals that he was acting as a decoy to allow the Musketeers to steal Buckingham’s airship. They rescue D’Artagnan and capture Milady, who gives them the authorization in an attempt to have her life spared. Upon realizing she failed, she jumps out of the airship into the English Channel.
The Musketeers recover the necklace and return to Paris, only to be attacked by Rochefort, piloting an airship secretly built by Richelieu, who was given copies of Da Vinci’s blueprints by Milady. Rochefort feigns an attempt to exchange Constance for the necklace in order to capture D’Artagnan, but the Musketeers come to his rescue and the two ships crash in the Notre Dame Cathedral, where D’Artagnan fights and defeats Rochefort, rescuing Constance, who returns the necklace to Queen Anne.
The Musketeers arrive at the ball and, for the sake of King Louis’ and his people, lie by saying that Rochefort was trying to sabotage an airship that Richelieu built for them, for the purpose of identifying a traitor. To convince King Louis, Athos presents Milady’s authorization, which King Louis accepts. Richelieu, satisfied, offers the Musketeers a place in his army, but they refuse, which infuriates Richelieu, who swears revenge.
Meanwhile, at sea, Milady is rescued by Buckingham, who reveals that he intents to avenge her and destroy the Musketeers. It is revealed that Buckingham is advancing towards France with a massive fleet of airships and sea-faring ships.

This must be the 40th remake or adaptation of this story line. Updated of course with some CGI and more spectacular effects, it wasdefinitely a fun romp if you like this genre of movie. It was definitely made for the PG audience, but still worth seeing.

Rating 3.8 out of 5.

The theory that it was in fact Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford, who penned Shakespeare’s plays. Set against the backdrop of the succession of Queen Elizabeth I and the Essex rebellion against her.

A great period piece. This movie was excellent. Of course, I did minor in English Literature, and Shakespeare was also very fascinating. While we may never know who really wrote Shakespeare’s works, this is definitely a good theory. While there were obvious period factual flaws, it was an amazing movie. It is a shame that works of this nature do not appeal to the less enlightened populace.

Rating: 4.8 out of 5.

Note: this is an English-language adaptation of the Swedish novel trilogy by Stieg Larsson. But with the same setting in Stockholm, Sweden. This is the American Version of the first movie in the Swedish trilogy.
On his birthday, Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), retired CEO of Vanger Industries, receives a pressed flower in the mail from an anonymous sender and phones retired inspector Gustaf Morell (Donald Sumpter).
Co-owner of the magazine Millennium, Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) is swarmed by reporters as he leaves a courthouse, having lost a libel suit leveled against him by corrupt businessman Hans-Erik Wennerstrom (Ulf Friberg). His reputation destroyed and his life savings gone, Blomkvist returns to the office and informs his co-owner Erika Berger (Robin Wright), who is also his lover, that he is resigning.
Dirch Frode (Steven Berkoff), the attorney of Henrik Vanger, meets with Dragan Armansky (Goran Vijnic) at the headquarters of Milton Security, having requested a background check on Blomkvist. Armansky has arranged for Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), a teenage girl with multiple tattoos and facial piercings whom is his best researcher and computer hacker, to come in and personally report her findings on Blomkvist.
On Christmas, Blomkvist receives a phone call from Frode summoning him to the Vanger estate on Hedeby Island in Hedestad for a face-to-face meeting with Henrik. Upon his arrival, Henrik explains that he is interested in hiring Blomkvist to investigate the murder of his niece Harriet Vanger, who disappeared from the island over 40 years ago. Before she vanished, Harriet would give Henrik a pressed flower for his birthday every year, a tradition that he believes has been continued by the person responsible for her disappearance. Convinced that someone in the family murdered Harriet, Henrik will allow Blomkvist to conduct his investigation out of a cottage on the island, under the guise of writing a memoir about Henrik and his life. Blomkvist is reluctant to accept, until Henrik offers him incriminating evidence that would validate his claims against Wennerstrom.
Lisbeth pays a visit to the home of her legal guardian Holger Palmgren (Bengt C.W. Carlsson) and discovers that he has had a stroke. Ruled legally incompetent as a child, Lisbeth is a ward of the state and she is placed under the guardianship of lawyer Nils Bjurman (Yorick Van Wageningen), who takes full control of her finances and forces her to perform sex acts on him in exchange for access to her money. One night, when she requests money for food, he has Lisbeth come to his apartment, where he handcuffs her to his bed and proceeds to rape and sodomize her, unaware that she has secretly recorded the crime using a hidden camera on her backpack. Taking up residence in the cottage, Blomkvist begins his investigation of Harriet, taking particular interest in a notebook of Harriets that has a list of five names and a corresponding five-digit number for each of them. Speaking with Morell, the chief investigator who was called in when Harriet first disappeared, Blomkvist is informed that they are simply random local phone numbers. But a surprise visit from his daughter yields unexpected results, and he discovers that the names all belong to victims of unsolved murder cases and the numbers refer to specific bible verses in the Book of Leviticus that each depicts the different methods used in each killing.
When her computer is damaged during an attempted mugging in which she savagely beat her would-be attacker, Lisbeth goes to the apartment of Bjurman to get funds for a replacement, and she tasers him when he answers the door. Tying him up in his own bedroom, Lisbeth tortures him and reveals that she recorded the previous nights rape and intends to release it all over the Internet if he doesnt allow her to control her own finances and apply to have her status of legal incompetence rescinded. Before she leaves, she tattoos I AM A RAPIST PIG on his chest and informs him that she will kill him if he ever brings another woman to his apartment.
Just as Blomkvist begins to suspect that he is on the trail of a serial killer, Henrik falls ill and Blomkvist must now answer to Frode and Martin Vanger (Stellan Skarsgaard), brother of Harriet and current CEO of Vanger Industries who also lives on the island. Blomkvist requests a research assistant and Frode recommends Lisbeth, revealing that he paid for a background check on Blomkvist, which he demands to see. After reviewing the file, Blomkvist realizes that Lisbeth hacked into his computer and pressures Dragan Armansky into giving him her address for a face-to-face meeting.
Lisbeth is initially suspicious when Blomkvist shows up on her doorstep, but she relents when he reveals that he needs her assistance in finding a serial killer of women. She agrees.
While he is waiting for Lisbeth to come to the cottage, Blomkvist takes a stroll across the island and is shot at by an unseen gunman, sending him fleeing back to the cottage where he finds that Lisbeth has arrived and even begun to set up surveillance cameras. After treating his head wound, Lisbeth strips naked and the two of them have sex, despite the initial reluctance of Blomkvist.
While Lisbeth is off collecting information about each of the murders, Blomkvist discovers photos from a parade that Harriet attended on the day she disappeared, which imply that she saw something that frightened her. Visiting a woman who was also present at the parade, Blomkvist finds that she has an obscured picture of a mysterious man standing across the street from Harriet, whom he believes to be the killer. Once Lisbeth arrives on the island and presents her information from each murder, Blomkvist asks Frode and Martin for access to their corporate archives, in hopes of finding a connection between the company and the different locations of each killing.
Scouring the archives dating back to the 1940s, Lisbeth discovers that Gottfried Vanger, the late brother of Henrik, was in the same town as each of the women during the time they were murdered, with the exception of one victim who was killed two years after Gottfried downed in the lake outside his home on the island.
Back on the island, Blomkvist pays a visit to Harald Vanger (Per Myrberg), a recluse who is shunned by the rest of the family for being a Nazi, and asks to see some pictures he took from the days after Harriet first disappeared. One photo in particular catches his attention, because the person in the photo is wearing the same school uniform as the mysterious man from the parade. Blomkvist asks Harald to identify this man and he says that it is Martin when he was only a teenager.
Back at the archives, Lisbeth begins to notice that Martin is visible in the background of news clippings of Gottfried visiting each of the towns on business, having accompanied his father on his travels. She then realizes that the final victim, killed two years after the death of Gottfried, studied at the same school as Martin, leading her to believe that he took after his father.
Unable to reach Lisbeth due to poor cell phone reception, Blomkvist decides to break into Martins house alone and look for clues, but he is caught and led at gunpoint by Martin to a secret basement where he is knocked unconscious and hung from his neck. Martin reveals that this is where all of his killings take place and he even had a girl held captive there when he, Blomkvist, and Frode met at his house a couple days ago. But when Blomkvist suggests that he killed Harriet, Martin becomes furious and admits that he too has no idea what happened to Harriet. Just as he is about to kill Blomkvist, Lisbeth appears behind him and strikes Martin in the face with a golf club, having checked the cottage surveillance cameras and seen Martin looking for Blomkvist. Martin flees in his car and, after cutting Blomkvist loose, Lisbeth gives chase on her motorcycle, causing him to crash and then die in the resulting explosion.
With Martin dead, Blomkvist pays a visit to Anita Vanger (Joely Richardson) in London, who was the best friend of Harriet, but she is surprisingly unaffected by the news. Confronting her further, Blomkvist discovers that she is, in fact, Harriet. When she was a teenager, her father Gottfried would repeatedly rape her and eventually Martin began to do so as well. After fighting back one night and drowning her father in the lake, Harriet thought the nightmare was over, until she saw Martin at the parade, watching her intently from across the street after leaving school. Determined to get out, Harriet turned to Anita for help, who smuggled her off the island and whose identity Harriet assumed once she died several years later. Harriet has also been the one sending Henrik the flowers, intending for them to be a sign to him that she is living well.
After Harriet returns to Sweden and back to the island for a tearful reunion with Henrik, Blomkvist discovers that the evidence Henrik has against Wennerstrom is useless, having past the statute of limitations. But Lisbeth reveals that she has hacked into his computer and offers Blomkvist the evidence he needs, which he uses to convince Erika Berger to publish another article exposing Wennerstrom. When Wennerstrom goes on the run once the allegations and evidence become public, Lisbeth travels Europe in disguise and converts all of his funds into bonds which she takes for herself, making it appear as if he has emptied his accounts and taken it all for himself. His criminal associates are none too pleased and, in a matter of days, news breaks that Wennerstrom has been found dead.
Having done all of this for Blomkvist, Lisbeth intends to declare her love for him by presenting him with a motorcycle jacket she saw in an old photograph on his computer. But, when she arrives at this apartment, Lisbeth sees him happily walking off with Erika, prompting her to throw his gift into a dumpster and then drive off on her motorcycle.

Even though I had previously seen the Swedish versions, this one kept my interest although I did have a number of deja vu moments as it followed the book and the Swedish movie very closely. The American Lisbeth fit the part so well, I initially thought she was the same actress in the Swedish version. Daniel Craig continues to demonstrate he is a serious actor and not just another pretty face.

Rating 5 out of 5.

On assignment in Budapest to intercept a courier working for a person of interest code-named “Cobalt”, IMF agent Trevor Hanaway is killed by an assassin named Moreau. Hanaway’s team leader, Jane Carter, and newly promoted field agent Benji Dunn extract Ethan Hunt and Hunt’s source Bogdan from a Moscow prison. Hunt is recruited to lead Carter and Dunn to infiltrate the secret Moscow Kremlin archives and locate files identifying Cobalt. Halfways through the mission, someone broadcasts across the IMF frequency, alerting the Russians to Hunt’s team. Although Hunt, Dunn and Carter escape, a bomb destroys the Kremlin and Russian agent Sidirov accuses Hunt of masterminding the attack.
The IMF extracts Hunt from Moscow. The Russians have called the attack an undeclared act of war and the US president activates “Ghost Protocol”, a black operation contingency that disavows the entire IMF. Hunt and team are to take the blame for the attack, but will be allowed to escape from government custody so that they may operate to track down Cobalt. Before Hunt can escape, the IMF’s secretary is killed by Russian security forces led by Sidirov, leaving Hunt and intelligence analyst William Brandt to find their own way out. The team identifies Cobalt as Kurt Hendricks, a Swedish-born Russian nuclear strategist who believes the weak must die for the strong to survive, and so plans to start a nuclear war to start the next stage of human evolution. Hendricks bombed the Kremlin and acquired a Russian nuclear launch-control device, and now needs its codes from the Budapest courier in order to launch a nuclear missile at America.
The exchange between Moreau and Hendricks’ right-hand man, Wistrom, is due to take place at the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. There, Hunt’s team-members separately convince Moreau and Wistrom that they have made the exchange with one another. However, Moreau identifies Brandt as an agent. While Hunt chases Wistrom only to realize Wistrom is actually Hendricks in disguise as Hendricks escapes with the codes Carter detains Moreau. Moreau attempts to kill the inexperienced Dunn, and Carter throws her out a window to her death. Brandt accuses Carter of compromising the mission for revenge against Moreau, but Hunt accuses Brandt of keeping secrets from them, as he has displayed fighting skills atypical of an analyst. While Hunt seeks more information from Bogdan, Brandt admits he was assigned as security detail to Hunt and his wife Julia while on assignment. Julia was killed by a Serbian hit squad, prompting Ethan to pursue and kill them before he was caught by the Russians and sent to prison.
Bogdan and his arms-dealer cousin inform Hunt that Hendricks will be in Mumbai. Hendricks facilitated the sale of a defunct Soviet military satellite to Indian telecommunications entrepreneur Brij Nath (Anil Kapoor), which could be used to transmit the order to fire a missile. While Brandt and Dunn infiltrate the server room to take the satellite offline, Carter gets Nath to reveal the satellite override code. But Hendricks has anticipated Hunt’s plan and takes Nath’s servers offline before sending a signal from a television broadcasting tower to a Russian nuclear submarine in the Pacific. The submarine fires on San Francisco. Hunt pursues Hendricks and the launch device while the other team-members attempt to bring the broadcast station back online. Hunt and Hendricks fight over the launch-control device before Hendricks jumps to his death with it to ensure the launch. Dunn kills Wistrom, allowing Brandt to restore power to the station and enabling Hunt to deactivate the missile. He is confronted by Sidirov, who sees Hunt has stopped the missile, proving the IMF is innocent in the Kremlin bombing.
The team reconvenes weeks later. Hunt issues them new assignments. Brandt refuses to accept the mission, but Hunt reveals that Julia’s death was staged, as he knew he could not protect her and used her death as a pretext to infiltrate a Russian prison and get close to Bogdan, an IMF source on Hendricks. Relieved of his guilt, Brandt accepts his mission while Hunt watches Julia from afar. They share a smile before he goes off on his next mission.

This is the 4th and in my opinion the best of the Tom Cruise Mission Impossible genre. If one were to make a guess, the next MI movies in this franchise will feature Jeremy Renner as the star and may bypass Cruise. A good choice in my opinionl

Rating: 4.4 out of 5.

The film opens with Hoover (Leonardo DiCaprio) in his office during his later years. He asks that a writer (Ed Westwick) be let in, so that he may tell the story of the origin of the FBI for the sake of the public. Hoover explains that the story begins in 1919, when A. Mitchell Palmer was Attorney General and Hoover’s boss at the Justice Department. Palmer suffers an assassination attempt, but is unharmed when the bomb explodes earlier than intended. Hoover recalls that the police handling of the crime scene was primitive, and that it was that night that he recognized the importance of criminal science. Later, Hoover visits his mother (Judi Dench), and tells her that Palmer has put him in charge of a new anti-radical division, and that he has already begun compiling a list of suspected radicals. He leaves to meet Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts), who has just started as a secretary at the Justice Department. Hoover takes Gandy to the Library of Congress, and shows her the card catalog system he devised. He muses about how easy it would be to solve crimes if every citizen were as easily identifiable as the books in the library. When Hoover attempts to kiss her, she recoils. Hoover gets down on his knees and asks her to marry him citing her organization and education, but is once again denied. However, Gandy agrees to become his personal secretary.
Despite his close monitoring of suspected foreign radicals, Hoover finds that the the Department of Labor refuses to deport anyone without clear evidence of a crime; however, Anthony Caminetti the commissioner general of immigration dislikes the prominent anarchist Emma Goldman. Hoover arranges to discredit her marriage and make her eligible for deportation, setting a precedent of deportation for radical conspiracy. After several Justice Department raids of suspected radical groups, many leading to deportation, Palmer loses his job as Attorney General. Under a subsequent Attorney General, Harlan F. Stone, Hoover is made director of the Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation. He is introduced to Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer), a recently graduated lawyer, and takes his business card. Later, while reviewing job applications with Helen Gandy, Hoover asks if Clyde had applied. Gandy says he had, and Hoover interviews and hires Clyde.
The Bureau pursues a string of gangster and bank robbery crimes across the Midwest, including the high profile John Dillinger, with general sucess. When the Lindbergh kidnapping captures national attention, President Roosevelt asks the Bureau to investigate. Hoover employs several novel techniques, including the monitoring of registration numbers on ransom bills, and expert analysis of the kidnapper’s handwriting. The birth of the FBI Crime Lab is seen as a product of Hoover’s determination to analyze the homemade wooden ladder left at the crime scene. When the monitored bills begin showing up in New York City, the investigators find a filling station attendant who wrote down the license plate number of the man who gave him the bill. This leads to the arrest, and eventual conviction, of Bruno Hauptmann for the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh child.
After going to a Shirley Temple movie with Hoover’s mother, Hoover and Clyde decide to go out to a club. When a girl asks Hoover if he ever wishes he had someone to keep him warm at night, he responds that he has dedicated his life to the bureau. Another girl asks Hoover to dance and he becomes agitated, saying that he and Clyde must leave, as they have a lot of work to do in the morning. When he gets home he shares his dislike of dancing with girls with his mother, and she tells him she would rather have a dead son than a “daffodil” for a son. She then insists on teaching him to dance, and they dance in her bedroom. Soon after, Hoover and Clyde go on a vacation to the racetrack. That evening Hoover claims to be considering marriage to a girl he has been seeing in New York City, this provokes outrage from Clyde, and the two fight on the floor, culminating in a kiss. Hoover demands that it must never happen again.
Years later, Hoover feels his strength begin to decline. He requires daily visits by a doctor, and Clyde suffers a stroke which leaves him in a severely weakened state. An attempt by Hoover to blackmail Martin Luther King, Jr. into declining his Nobel Peace Prize proves ineffective, and Martin Luther King, Jr. accepts the prize. When Clyde appeals to Hoover to retire, Hoover refuses, claiming that Richard Nixon is going to destroy the bureau he has created. Clyde then accuses Hoover of exaggerating his involvement in many of the bureau’s actions. Upon Hoover’s death, Helen Gandy is seen destroying stacks of files, assumed to be Hoover’s rumored “personal and confidential” files.

This movie give you good and pretty accurate insight into a true American icon. Whether you liked him, hated him, or were indifferent, the movie is well done. DiCaprio should win the Oscar for his performance and once again, Clint Eastwood has demonstrated his great ability as a director.

Rating: 4.9 out of 5.

Antarctica: an extraordinary continent of awesome beauty. It is also home to an isolated outpost where a discovery full of scientific possibility becomes a mission of survival when an alien is unearthed by a crew of international scientists. The shape-shifting creature, accidentally unleashed at this marooned colony, has the ability to turn itself into a perfect replica of any living being. It can look just like you or me, but inside, it remains inhuman. In the thriller The Thing, paranoia spreads like an epidemic among a group of researchers as they’re infected, one by one, by a mystery from another planet. Paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) has traveled to the desolate region for the expedition of her lifetime. Joining a Norwegian scientific team that has stumbled across an extraterrestrial ship buried in the ice, she discovers an organism that seems to have died in the crash eons ago. But it is about to wake up. When a simple experiment frees the alien from its frozen prison, Kate must join the crew’s pilot, Carter (Joel Edgerton), to keep it from killing them off one at a time. And in this vast, intense land, a parasite that can mimic anything it touches will pit human against human as it tries to survive and flourish. The Thing serves as a prelude to John Carpenter’s classic 1982 film of the same name.

I was curious that this 2011 movie was the “prelude” to John Carpenter’s 1982 classic of the same name. This 2011 entry certainly held true to the genre Carpenter created in the 1982 classic, except this one does show the origin of the transformation virus and getting the see the CGI creatures made this even more frightful. Of course the extreme frightful nature of the 1982 classic was in the fact that you never really knew where the virus came from and not seeing the “creature” was even more foreboding. Similar to the Alien series, you just didn’t get a good enough look of the creature in the first one, but it was way scary.

If you like this genre of move, it is definitely worth takinga look. I only wish I had seen it ont he big screen rather than the having to wait for the DVD.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5.

The invitations are sent out. Jacob turns and runs to Canada after he gets his invitation. Bella is nervous about the wedding and has a bad dream that she and Edward kill all of their guests.
Bella’s mom comes out for the wedding and Bella gets to see her one last time. Alice arranges the whole event and they have the wedding at the Cullen house. Bella is clearly nervous and doesn’t appear to want to go through with the wedding, but after she locks eyes with Edward, she becomes more confident and assured. Jacob shows up at the reception to wish Bella well and see her one last time before she is a vampire. Bella explains that they are waiting until after the honeymoon to turn her. Jacob gets upset, knowing that sex human to vampire could kill Bella. Edward rushes over to tell Jacob to mind his own business and the wolves appear as well to pull him away from the reception.
Edward whisks Bella off and they have a romantic honeymoon at a secret location off the coast of Brazil. They make love the first night but Edweard refuses to touch Bella again after leaving her full of bruises the first time. The native Brazilian maid freaks out when she sees human Bella in Edward’s arms. They spend most of their honeymoon playing chess while Bella tries to convince Edward to make love to her again.
Two weeks after losing her virginity to Edward, Bella gets morning sickness and throws up. She then realizes after seeing her box of unopened tampons, that her period is late. Bella runs to the mirror and sees a bump as if she is already a few months pregnant. Then she feels a twitch inside her womb. Alice calls Edward concerned about Bella because she can no longer see Bella’s future. The Brazilian maid tells Edward the baby will kill Bella. Edward packs their bags and takes Bella home, intending on having Carlisle abort the baby. Meanwhile, Bella has called Rosalie and enlisted her help to prevent the abortion.
Bella tells Charlie that she has gotten ill and is extending her honeymoon until she feels better. Jacob, Sam and the rest of the wolf pack find out Bella is pregnant with Edward’s baby. Sam says they have to protect their people and prevent this monster from being born. Using his alpha-wolf voice that the pack must obey, Sam declares that the wolf pack must kill Bella and the rest of the Cullens. Still in love with Bella, Jacob uses his birth right as the true alpha to resist Sam’s order. In doing this, Jacob creates a second wolf pack. Leah and Seth leave Sam’s pack and follow Jacob. Jacob tells them to go back, but they don’t listen and Jacob refuses to use his alpha voice. Jacob’s pack warns the Cullens and takes up guard duty outside the Cullen house.
Bella gets weaker and weaker as her baby grows alarmingly fast inside her. Desperate, Edward tries to get Jacob to convince Bella to abort the baby. Edward gives Jacob permission to kill him if Bella dies. Bella insists on keeping this baby. Worried, Jacob suggests that the baby might want blood. The Cullens fix Bella some O- human blood to drink that Dr. Carlisle got from a blood bank. It works and Bella gets a little stronger. Her belly is fully pregnant but the rest of her body is frail and thin. The babies weight starts to break her rib cage. Edward is still convinced that they should abort the fetus.
Suddenly, Edward hears the baby’s thoughts. He knows that the baby is innocent and not a blood thirsty monster as he had feared. Everyone but Jacob now wants to keep the baby. Bending over to clean up the blood she spilled, Bella hears a loud crack as her back breaks. As she falls to the ground her knee breaks as well. Edwards rushes to catch her head. Carlisle is out hunting with Esme and Emmett as none of them have fed for weeks trying to protect Bella from the wolves. Edward performs an emergency C section to save the baby and then uses a metal syringe to inject his vampire venom directly into his wife’s heart, hoping to save her from death.
Meanwhile, Jacob is sure Bella will die. Bella sees her new baby girl, named Renesme, and then her heart stops. Edwards tries to pump the venom through her heart and bites her multiple times trying to save her. Jacob tells him he will not kill Edwards so he will have to live with the guilt. Furious at the baby for killing Bella, Jacob goes to kill the baby. However, as soon as he sees Baby Renesme, Jacob imprints on her. Jacob sees her life and how she grows up to be a beautiful woman. He knows he will do anything and be anyone for her.
The wulf pack decends and the Cullens are out numbered. Luckily Carlisle, Esme and Emmett come back just in time. Seth and Leah fight their own brothers to protect the baby. Then Jacob comes out. Seeing that he has imprinted on the baby, the wolves can no longer harm her. Edwards explains that it is their oldest and most sacred rule.
Edward cleans and dresses Bella. Hoping that the venom will soon kick in and she will come back to life. Slowly her body begins to fill with regular body fat again, her bones repair themselves, her bite marks disappear and the movie ends with her eyes opening, showing a blood red color instead of her usual brown eyes.
After the credits, we return to Italy where The Volturi; Marcus, Caius and Aro find out about Bella becoming the newest vampire to their coven. Marcus and Caius assume their fued with the Cullens is over, but Aro assures them that it’s just getting started because they have something that he wants.

This next “episode” of the Twilight saga is a transparent continuation of the previous released. It is somewhat darker, as expected, with this cliff-hanger of Bella giving birth to a half-human/half-vampire child, it effecting her death, and the attempt to “save” Bella by transforming her. The gasp from death to vampire life ends this next to the last episode. Hopefully it will be fast-paced, dark, and full of gratuitous violence to compensate for the previous hours we have been forced to watch her fawn over Edward.

Rating: 2.5 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. The movie starts as a self-filmed documentary and the cinematography persists throughout the movie. I am not a fan of this type of cinematography but perhaps added a touch of realism and poignancy sought for the characters.

Clocking in at 1 hr 24 minutes, any longer and it could have gotten boring. Another example of how the down-trodden, bullied student cannot control or cope with new found power and popularity. It becomes predictable that nothing good is going to come of the gift of the new power.

This movie received an A- from Entertainment Weekly which is why I was interested in seeing it. Movies of this type are not usually rated that high. I am still not sure what they actually saw in this other than it certainly was a movie that focused on the frailty of the human condition.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Matt Weston (‘Ryan Reynolds’ ) is a CIA rookie who is manning a safe house in Cape Town, South Africa, when Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington) the CIA’s most wanted rogue agent is captured and taken to the safe house. During Frost’s interrogation, the safe house is overtaken by mercenaries who want Frost. Weston and Frost escape and must stay out of the gunmen’s sight until they can get to another safe house.

Two excellent actors in a fast paced, action-packed Jason Bourne-esque movie. Ryan Reynolds does a great job in this serious role. Denzel Washington, as expected, is in his element. The two characters have a synergistic relationship and keep the pace of the movie going.

A lot of gratuitous violence and collateral damage.

Rating: 4.3 out of 5

A feel-good movie for Christmas Day. While Spielberg continues to be ablet to take the mundane story and turn it into a movie spectacle, how many different ways can you analogize “Lassie Come Home.” The book was a better presentation of the story as it was strictly “coming from the horse’s mouth.” In this screen version you get the impression that the story is told by the human hero, not the equine one.

Boy sees horse being born in field of neighboring farm. Boy watches horse grow up. Owner sells horse. Boy’s father buys horse. Boy trains horse and it becomes his companion. Father has to sell horse to save farm. Horse sold to military. Horse goes to war. Boy pines over horse. Boy goes to war. Both have harrowing experiences. At the end of the war boy unites with horse and they go home and ride into the sunset.

Probably a great story for children. A bit boring for adults.

Rating: 1 out of 5.