Camille

Forced to marry Camille (Sienna Miller), the sheriff’s niece, parolee Silas (James Franco) takes his bride on a Niagara Falls honeymoon, where he plans to escape to Canada. Certain the trip will rehabilitate Silas, Camille remains enthusiastic — even after she dies in a crash. Now, Silas must deal with Camille’s denial about her death and her slow decomposition. David Carradine co-stars in this quirky romantic comedy.

Matt
Rating: 5 out of 10

This movie started very promising. We’re set up with a stick-sweet, innocent country gal who marries the totally wrong man. She’s so goodhearted that no matter how rotten he is, we feel for her. But then something happens on their doomed honeymoon — she dies. However, she doesn’t know she’s dead, or at least hasn’t come to terms with it, and her body still continues to live. It seems strange and a huge leap, but this movie made it work for the most part.

From here, we’re catapulted into a fairy tale stylized story that moves nicely. There is genuine conflict within and between our two main characters, played well by Miller and Franco. They have little adventures and moments where they grow closer and even begin to love each other. But they’re constantly dealing with her death. She begins to decompose, her skin color fades to a pale white, and her hair begins to fall out. But they remain endearing characters that we care about.

Where this movie goes wrong is in its last act, where it gets completely cheesy and takes some really easy outs. SPOILER ALERT: They literally leap into a rainbow, riding a unicorn to end the movie, if that clues you in on how corny it got.

Sucker Punch

In this mind-warping action thriller, Baby Doll (Emily Browning), a girl slated for lobotomy in a 1950s-era asylum, leads a group of young female inmates in an attempt to escape both their mental fantasy worlds and the actual institution where they are prisoners. To accomplish her plan, Baby Doll must steal five objects — but is the man who’s trying to stop her real, or a figment of her imagination? Zack Snyder (Watchmen, 300) directs.

Matt
Rating: 4 out of 10

I had a ton of faith going into this movie. My wife and I were looking forward to seeing what Zach Snyder’s latest flick would be like. I’m a huge fan of “Watchmen,” which I think is one of the best comic book movies ever made.

This film follows his typical epic fight scenes — full of CG on the most massive scale and slick movement without being dizzying. But I found myself wishing this movie would end about half way through.

It starts out with a strong story of a troubled girl who loses her mother, accidentally kills her sister while trying to defend her from her monster of a step-father and gets institutionalized. After that, it takes very strange turns. It’s a film that follows the fantasies within fantasies of a girl’s mind — almost like the dreams within dreams in”Inception.” However, this film concentrates more on action than plot and character development. Through the first hour of the movie, there couldn’t have been more than 25 lines of dialogue, and that’s being generous. We’re given characters we don’t care about because they haven’t been developed, and we’re given so many epic fight scenes that they lose the effect they could have. The whole movie was flat. Strangely, my wife really liked it. She loved the girl power theme. But it’s hard to imagine women being empowered by scantily-clad, barely legal girls who wield loads of guns and bombs.

Surfer, Dude

Laid-back Steve Addington (Matthew McConaughey) lives his dream life as he tours the globe, catching the best waves in every hemisphere. But when he returns to Malibu, things change: The good waves have disappeared, and to his great dismay, they don’t return all summer! Soon, Steve begins to question his existence, searching for meaning in his life with no waves to ride. Woody Harrelson and Willie Nelson co-star in this comic romp.

Lauren
Rating: 1 out of 10

Matthew McConaughey should have been thrown out of Hollywood for making “Surfer, Dude.”

I don’t even know where to start with how awful this movie is. The story centers around an aging surfer name Steve, played by McConaughey, who has no idea why people pay him to surf. He doesn’t realize he is advertising their clothes and surfboards. And, when he somehow gets himself signed up to live in an MTV Real World-style house for famous surfers, he decides he can’t handle the commercialization. For some reason at this point the waves stop coming and Steve takes off in frustration.

Everything about this movie is bad. Even appearances from McConaughey’s friends Willie Nelson and Woody Harrelson couldn’t help.

W.

Oscar winner Oliver Stone directs an all-star cast in this satiric retrospective of the life and political career of George W. Bush (Josh Brolin), from his troubles as a young adult through his governorship of Texas and all the way to the Oval Office. Richard Dreyfuss plays Vice President Dick Cheney, with Elizabeth Banks as First Lady Laura Bush and Thandie Newton as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Directed by Oliver Stone (World Trade Center, Any Given Sunday).

Matt
Rating: 4 out of 10

Oliver Stone is one of the most overrated directors in Hollywood. I lobbied my brother to put him on our list, but he didn’t make the cut.

“W.” came out too soon, much like the flop “World Trade Center.” Bush was still in office when this hit theaters, and no one cared then or now. Stone can’t get a budget, but actors like Brolin and Al Pacino still come out and work for him. “W.” lacked focus and realism. Stone didn’t want to totally nail Bush against the wall, which is easily done and justifiable. Instead, he wanted to show that Bush is human, and like the rest of us, makes mistakes. Stone portrayed Bush with great naivete, taking the stance that he actually was duped into believing that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction by bigger powers like Dick Cheney — played to perfection by Richard Dreyfuss, a lone golden nugget in this below average film.He also took the stance that Bush wanted to get revenge for his daddy and his cabinet wanted to finish the job he never did.

Personally, I found this to be a cartoonish apology by Stone on Bush’s behalf, taking the position that he didn’t know better, so it made everything OK. There was also the portrayal of Colin Powell by Jeffrey Wright as the voice of reason, the veteran with a conscious who tries to talk the cabinet out of going to war because of the lack of proof. Powell later admitted to fabricating the weapons of mass destruction speech he gave to the United Nations. I have a hard time believing he was the voice of reason.

In the end, the story is not very strong — it jumps from his youth to presidency numerous times and develops neither. With a watered down story and weak direction, “W.” is a clunker.