September Voyage

Riddick

 Vin Diesel has one the most interesting acting careers ever known. Here's a guy who was supposedly fill the shoes of the departing Schwarzenegger. Proving to audience that he can handle macho action flicks, with Pitch Black and The Fast and the Furious. Also, showing how well rounded he can be with a animated film, The Iron Giant. Then somewhere in between, a few wheels came off that wagon of his. I personally blame Babylon A.D. I know there's The Pacifier, but everyone can do a movie like that and make up for it. Babylon A. D. was his one his core genre and he failed, miserably. So, like everyone else, who believed they're careers were going to take off after the first Fast and Furious installment, but soon, discovering how awful they're careers were getting, Diesel returns to popular franchise. Now, back on top again, even though Dwayne Johnson has perfectly settled into the Schwarzenegger chair, while improving his acting ability along the way, Vin is still capable of setting his own stone, which he has done with bringing back one of the coolest characters in a sci fi movie. I've never seen Pitch Black and I hated Chronicles of Riddick, but now, with his revitalization, I had to check out Riddick and was really blown away. I love low-key sci-fi films that are more concerned about entertaining the audience with cool characters and action and just some over the top CG heavy, celebrity driven, dull looking garbage. Yeah, Gravity, I'm looking right at you. I enjoyed how it wasn't just all Riddick. Every actor had a chance to show off their character, like Katee Sackhoff, who's amazing. I even enjoyed Batista, although the face off between him and Riddick was a letdown. Cool Movie-but next time leave out the CG dog. That was terrible. It's okay when you bring in an actual dog and kill it off, because it does bring in a emotional reaction for audience. But why would I care about something that isn't real and on top of that just as hideous as can be.

 Insidious Chapter 2

Insidious:Chapter 2 is to Insidious as 1981's Halloween 2 is to 1978's Halloween. Doesn't top it's original, but at the same time just as good, which is very rare for horror films. Like Halloween's switch from horror suspense style to Halloween 2's slasher horror style, the Insidious franchise takes the same interesting step with switching from creepy, supernatural horror to more of a possession type horror film. Another thing that makes Insidious:Chapter 2 a great sequel is that it doesn't restart the story and use the same elements; it's more of an addition, which makes Chapter 2 a perfect subtitle.

Prisoners

Whatever happens throughout the last few months of this year. I will never forget 2013: the year I discovered just how weak an actor Hugh Jackman is. Mostly playing Wolverine throughout most of his career, it was really hard to find where Jackman lands as an actor. When I first saw the trailer to Prisoners, I knew that I will finally find out what this guy is really about. And did I ever. If there's any good I have to say about Jackman's performance is that it goes along the lines of my feelings towards this movie. Terrible. Jackman is playing this bible quoting, master hunting, super zombie apocalyptic survivalist, with his safety basement. Yeah, I know, how can a guy like this lose a child. Not to say that they way the children in this film were taken were reasons of complete negligence, but with a guy like this, it was a little strange. Also, I never saw where these traits were necessary for this character, even as he was torturing Paul Dano's character. Terrence Howard and Viola Davis were so inconspicuous I didn't see the point of them, as far as the casting of these two high quality actors goes. It was like they tried so hard to star stud this movie, because the script is nothing less but a thrown away episode of an police procedural tv show. Prisoners is decent during the first and second act, but the final moments is where this movie just completely comes apart. It tries so hard to be this grim tale and holds back momentum in every scene. On a good note, Jake Gyllenhaal was the only good thing about this movie.