To Rome With Love (2012)

Rated: R - Runtime: 111 min
tesg's Rating: Three stars (out of four)

Allen's series of films where he drops relationship stories in scenic European locales continues with Rome. This time, it's a parts-bin series of relationship stories...some related, some not...that mostly dabble in unexpected celebrity.

There's lots of trademark Woody Allen absurdity like we haven't seen in years. Allen himself takes on a role for the first time in his last few projects. Alec Baldwin is a highlight as a character that essentially plays the subconscious of Jesse Eisenberg's character, even though all the characters surrounding him know that he's there and interact with him. Roberto Benigni gets an awesome role as an average guy who suddenly finds himself inexplicably famous for no reason.

Your mileage may vary based on how much you like each story. They're all ideas that, on their own, couldn't be hashed out into a feature. But I personally dug them all.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Rated: PG13 - Runtime: 165 min
tesg's Rating: Two stars (out of four)

The last twenty minutes of this movie is pretty good.  The problem is the two hours and twenty-five minutes prior to that.  If you can overlook that, you'll probably enjoy this.

The dialogue is relatively simple compared to the previous two efforts.  The villain, a big guy with an in-car drive-in speaker attached to his face, sounds like an amplified Jeffrey Lebowski.  I kept expecting him to try and sell someone a Hyundai.  Catwoman had almost no reason to exist in this movie.  I saw the plot twist coming a mile away.  And Batman's return after an eight-year hiatus...really didn't take much to accomplish, did it.

This is Spider-Man 3 bad.  Really.

Ted (2012)

Rated: R - Runtime: 106 min
tesg's Rating: Two and one half stars (out of four)

They spoofed "Airplane".

Seriously.

AIRPLANE.

"Ted" is a funnier than average mediocre romantic comedy that runs about ten minutes too long and would have been better without the sub-plot and if Wahlberg's character just said "Oh well!" when he got dumped and moved back in with Ted and they partied happily ever after. Or if Flash stole Ted's girlfriend and they went in a whole weird direction with that.

I'd sort of wondered if women would even go to this, but the women in this audience were raving about it afterward in the corridor. 

Brave (2012)

Rated: PG - Runtime: 100 min
tesg's Rating: Three stars (out of four)

It's true what everybody says about this not feeling like a Pixar movie.  And I thought it started a little slow, but as it headed towards the finish line, improved quite a bit.

The short before the feature was, however, totally Pixar.  And totally wonderful.

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

Rated: PG13 - Runtime: 136 min

tesg's Rating: Two and one half stars (out of four)

First off, this thing is full of plot holes.  They make a point of pointing out how secure Oscorp is in the beginning, yet they have a high school intern with full access to everything including the secret codes to evacuate the facility.  Not to mention Parker appears to be able to parade in and out at will after sneaking in the first time.

That's just the start, though.  It IS overall worth seeing and I suspect teens will be far more into this than I was, but the villain isn't all that interesting and a lot of regular Spider-Man characters are outright missing.

Not as good as the first two Spider-Man movies.  Better than the third.  Then again, three quarters of all movies ever made in the history of the world are better than Spider-Man 3.

Apparently, this was rebooted just so Sony could keep its rights to the franchise locked out of Disney's hands.

Mission accomplished, I guess.