The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water

Directed by : Paul Tibbitt 

Written by : Glenn Berger, Jonathan Aibel 

Starring : Tom Kenny, Mr. Lawrence, Bill Fagerbakke, Carolyn Lawrence, Rodger Bumpass, Antonio Banderas 

Release Date : January 28, 2015 

This movie's sense of humor is silly enough to entertain a kid with attention deficit disorder, and the plot is absurd enough for an adult that's willing to embrace their immature side. Basically, the writers for this have got to be high on something. The audience for this probably should be high on something as well.

The movie involves a pirate, a magic book, talking animals, characters who live under the sea, and a fight for a burger recipe. The story is generally insane and all over the place, that it's easily described as unconventional in nature. That's the charm of this whole thing I suppose, but it also means that this is targeted at a very specific audience.

I did find the movie generally amusing and enjoyable, but I also thought the jokes were more miss than hit. It's at its best when it goes further down the deep end with how ridiculous the story can go. Fans of the TV show should enjoy the nonsense of "The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water," but I'm kinda reluctant to recommend this to anyone else.

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Jupiter Ascending

Directed by : Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski 

Written by : Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski 

Starring : Channing Tatum, Mila Kunis, Eddie Redmayne, Sean Bean 

Release Date : February 2, 2015 

Writers-Directors the Wachowskis are very ambitious and have great imagination when it comes to their filmmaking, and it really shows here. From the galactic royal family drama, the space police, the gene spliced bounty hunters, the truth about humanity’s origins, the flying boots that allows someone to seemingly rollerblade on air, to how bureaucratic red tape exists even in civilizations that live in space. The world building in this movie and the great visuals are simply fascinating to witness, and only makes this better than it has a right to be.

Unfortunately the screenplay is a bit all over the place and suffered from the fact that they really tried to cram a lot of content into this two hours narrative. People may have problems with how dense the plot is, and how the pacing of the story can get too frenetic. It’s almost like this is a condensed version of a whole movie trilogy. It felt like there were scenes in-between scenes that were missing, and it felt like character arcs that should be part of the story are completely non-existent. This has caused some problems with the plot, as well as character inconsistencies.

This movie borders the line between an incoherent mess and a gloriously epic fantasy space opera. While I did find even the primary characters lacking in development, the movie was still successful enough to make me feel invested in them; although there were several scenes with Mila Kunis’ Jupiter Jones that were very eye rolling worthy. I admit that “Jupiter Ascending” may not be for everybody, but I won’t say I didn’t enjoy it. I simply had a lot of fun seeing this adventure; which felt like a live-action anime, and honestly wouldn’t mind seeing another installment.

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Project Almanac

Directed by : Dean Israelite 

Written by : Jason Pagan, Andrew Deutschman 

Starring : Jonny Weston, Sam Lerner, Allen Evangelista, Virginia Gardner, Sofia Black-D'Elia, 

Release Date : November 13, 2014 

Unfortunately, this movie utilizes the handheld camera found-footage amateur documentary style, and it is still very annoying to watch. Fortunately, the story of how some high school kids have discovered a device that allows them to time-travel is actually rather entertaining. It doesn't bring too much new things to this particular genre, but I did find it enjoyable nonetheless.

The main conceit to this story is that it's portraying what teenagers would likely actually do with a time-machine. This is pretty much wish-fulfillment, so expect some abusive use of its ability from the point of view of a high schooler. This creates some amusing comedic situations that were fun to see play out, but it does also get serious enough when the consequences of their actions happen.

Despite the good this movie tries to do, there were several things that were illogical in its storytelling, its character developments, and its execution of doing the video blogging camera that's always recording (with on-the-fly editing?!!). I at least found the conclusion satisfying enough, and it even justifies the reasoning behind the handheld camera direction. "Project Almanac" is not necessarily a great time travel movie by any means, but fans of the genre may as well check it out.

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Manny

Directed by : Leon Gast, Ryan Moore 

Starring : Manny Pacquiao, Jinkee Pacquiao, Freddie Roach, 

Release Date : January 23, 2015 

There’s a lot of people who are familiar with Manny Pacquaio; who is one of the most popular boxers around, but how much do you really know about him? This is a good documentary that will educate you on him. It’s definitely inspirational to see what his life became to be, and is surprisingly emotional in unexpected ways. For all the boxing fans, this is worth watching just to see all the boxing highlights featured here, including those from his very early days in the sport.

There’s a huge emphasis to his boxing career here, but this movie also tackles his rags to riches story, his impact to the people and country of the Philippines, his connection to religion, his tenure as a politician, his love of singing, his celebrity status, the people in his life, and of course Floyd Mayweather. This documentary can be a little one-sided though, because while it references some of the more negative aspects that come with Manny’s celebrity status, it doesn’t really delve deep into that territory.

This “Manny” documentary starts and ends with the conclusion to “Pacquaio vs. Marquez IV,” and if you’re familiar with how that fight ended, then you’d think this was a weird choice to bookend the narrative. There is a thematically relevant reason behind that decision though, and it actually compliments Manny’s current view on life. Manny Pacquaio is a very fascinating guy, and is definitely the perfect boxer to do a movie about.

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Taken 3

Directed by : Olivier Megaton 

Written by : Luc Besson, Robert Mark Kamen, 

Starring : Liam Neeson, Forest Whitaker, Maggie Grace 

Release Date : January 1, 2015 

Since they are marketing this as the final chapter of this series of movies, most people will be going into this thinking that the story ties in with the villains that were introduced in the first two installments of “Taken.” It’s a logical assumption, but it’s the wrong one. If the continuation to that story thread was the reason to see this movie, then you just lost that excuse. It doesn’t help that the new antagonist is just another uninteresting and convenient cliche.

Sure you can watch this movie to see Liam Neeson be a kickass action hero, and you do see that happening here. However, those action sequences from the gunplay, physical combat, or chase scenes, were all actually kinda mediocre. You are better off seeing Neeson being all badass in his other films like in “A Walk Among The Tombstones,” “The Grey,” or the first “Taken” movie.

Liam Neeson as “Bryan Mills” is not a bad character, so it’s disappointing that creators Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen could not give him more than one good movie that’s truly worth watching. “Taken 3” is simply the definition of what an unnecessary, uninspired, and unexciting action movie can be. Plus no, Forest Whitaker as an OCD genius detective is not some great addition either for this franchise. Skip this.

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The Wedding Ringer

Directed by : Jeremy Garelick

Written by : Jeremy Garelick, Jay Lavender

Starring : Kevin Hart, Josh Gad, 

Release Date : January 14, 2015 

It's plot is predictable, nonsensically flawed, and filled with cliches. It's humor is crude, uninspired, and just unashamedly panders to the audience. However by the end of the movie, I have to be honest and say that I actually did not hate seeing this.

Kevin Hart is just that entertaining. He turns this movie with a ridiculously stupid premise into something that was surprisingly enjoyable to watch. It also helps that the chemistry that Hart has with Josh Gad worked really well, and just made this story much more likeable than it had a right to be.

Despite the fact that I actually had good things to say here, I can't deny that this is still technically a bad movie. It's surprisingly not a horrible movie, but it's no where near close to a great one. How much you like Kevin Hart pretty much determines whether you should see "The Wedding Ringer" or not.

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