Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) is a teenage geek who loves comics and is fascinated by superheroes. He asks his two best friends why no one has ever tried to be one. Regularly preyed upon by bullies, he orders a costume off the Internet and decides to become a vigilante, calling himself Kick-Ass. His first task of taking down two criminals results in him being left in hospital. To his dismay, a rumour is also spread around the school that he is gay which catches gets the attention of his dream girl Katie (Lyndsy Fonseca). Declining to give up on Kick-Ass, Dave makes a comeback and saves a thugs life during a fight. As the status of Kick-Ass increases, he finds fame and popularity on the Internet through social networking sites. Meanwhile, crime boss and coke dealer Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong) is tormented by a father and daughter pair of superheroes called Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage) and Hit-Girl (Chloe Moretz) who have their motives for battling crime together. Frank is also regularly pestered by his son Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), who is willing to do anything to be part of the family business.
Although this ultra-violent adaptation of the graphic Marvel comic book Kick-Ass might seem like a parody of superhero films, there is not enough effort to transcend a number of the clichés that the script has been written around. Dave regularly reminds the audience that he is just an ordinary geek, but the plot still owes all too much to the first Spider-man film. The initial donning of the daggy costume, the chance to win the girl of his dreams, the inexperience of early battles and the dilemma between personal relationships and duty, are just some of the familiar grounds that Kick-Ass insists on covering once again. The film is at its funniest when it directly references and parodies other films, like cutting to Dave as he stands at a grave, vowing his revenge during a thunderstorm. However, Kick-Ass desperately lacks the sincerity of Sam Raimi's superhero films, which skilfully balanced the most fantastical elements with moments of humanity. Peter Parker might have been a geek but he was not a caricature. The reality of his problems, like his job and his relationships, made him a believable and interesting person outside of Spider-man. Dave has been written like a stereotype and the obligatory traits, like being girl shy and the masturbation jokes, are in check. There are certainly some laughs from the protagonist, but a lot the humour in the film is lowbrow and cringeworthy at times, asserting the films highly exaggerated and goofy tone.
M & M_Club Rating : 4.0/5
Six months after revealing his identity as Iron Man, Stark Industries CEO Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) has helped maintain world peace. He re-institutes the Stark Expo in Flushing Meadows, New York, to continue his father's legacy. A United States Senate committee, led by Senator Stern (Garry Shandling), demands Stark release the technology for military application. Stark refuses, claiming his competitors are years away from successfully recreating the technology.
Stark is slowly being poisoned by the palladium in his arc reactor, and attempts to find a substitute element have failed. Growing increasingly despondent and thrill-seeking as a consequence of what he believes to be his impending death, he appoints his former personal assistantPepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) CEO of Stark Industries, replacing her with Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johansson).
While racing in Monaco, Stark is attacked by Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), who has constructed an arc reactor of his own, along with whip-like energy weapons. Stark defeats Vanko with the aid of his portable briefcase armor. Afterward, Stark learns that Vanko is the son of his father's old partner, Anton Vanko, who collaborated with Howard on the first arc reactor but was deported to the Soviet Union and died in poverty. Ivan blames the Starks for his family's fate, and seeks revenge. Rival weapons manufacturer Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) has Vanko broken out of jail and recruits him to perfect a line of armored combat units he will use to upstage Stark at his own Expo.
M & M_Club Rating : 4.0/5
Valentine's Day:
In 2154, the RDA corporation is mining Pandora, a lush, Earth-like moon of the planet Polyphemus.
Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi) heads the mining operation, and it employs former marines for security.
The corporation intends to exploit Pandora's reserves of a valuable mineral called unobtanium. Pandora is inhabited by the Na’vi, a blue-skinned species of sapient humanoids with feline characteristics. Physically stronger and taller than humans, the Na'vi live in harmony with Nature, worshiping a mother goddess called Eywa.
Humans cannot survive exposure to Pandora’s atmosphere for very long and use oxygen masks. In an attempt to improve relations with the natives, scientists create human-Na’vi hybrids called avatars, controlled by genetically-matched human operators. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic former marine, becomes a last-minute replacement for his murdered identical twin brother, a scientist trained to be an avatar operator. Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), the head of the Avatar Program, considers Sully an inadequate replacement for his brother, and relegates him to a bodyguard role.
Jake escorts Augustine and biologist Norm Spellman (Joel David Moore) on an exploratory mission in their avatar forms to make contact with the Na'vi, in order to help establish diplomatic relations, solve the problem of resources and end the threat of violence. The group is attacked by a predator, and Jake becomes separated and lost. Forced to survive the night in Pandora’s dangerous jungles, he is rescued by Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), a female Na'vi. Neytiri brings Jake to Hometree, which is inhabited by Neytiri’s clan, the Omaticaya. Mo'at (C. C. H. Pounder),
the Na'vi shaman and Neytiri's mother, shows interest in the warrior "Dream-walker" (their term for the Avatars), and instructs her daughter to teach Jake their ways. Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), leader of the security forces for RDA, hears of Jake's unique relationship with the Omaticaya and promises Jake his "real legs" in exchange for intelligence about the natives and what it will take for them to abandon Hometree, which rests above a large deposit of unobtanium.
M & M_Club Rating : 4.5/5
Margaret Tate (Sandra Bullock) is the executive editor-in-chief of a book publishing company, Colden Books, who forces her assistant Andrew Paxton (Ryan Reynolds) to marry her in order to avoid being deported to Canada.
He grudgingly accepts, under the condition that he is promoted to the position of editor. When the government investigates, the two are forced to spend the weekend with his parents in Alaska in order to sell the lie. The family suggest they could marry the same weekend, and they reluctantly accept.
They start to fall genuinely in love as they spend more and more time together. Because of this, during the wedding ceremony, Margaret decides she cannot do this to Andrew and confesses the business arrangement in front of everyone--including the immigration officer handling their case.
She is then told that she has 24 hours to get back to Canada, and thus goes back to New York to pack her things. Upon doing so, however, Andrew shows up at the office and confesses his love for her in front of the entire office staff, proposing marriage all over again.
When high-powered book editor Margaret faces deportation to her native Canada, the quick-thinking exec declares that she's actually engaged to her unsuspecting put-upon assistant Andrew, who she's tormented for years. He agrees to participate in the charade, but with a few conditions of his own.
The unlikely couple heads to Alaska to meet his quirky family and the always-in-control city girl finds herself in one comedic fish-out-of-water situation after another.
M & M_Club Rating : 3.5/5
