Movie 18# Inception

Dom Cobb is a skilled thief, the absolute best in the dangerous art of extraction, stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state, when the mind is at its most vulnerable. Cobb's rare ability has made him a coveted player in this treacherous new world of corporate espionage, but it has also made him an international fugitive and cost him everything he has ever loved. Now Cobb is being offered a chance at redemption. One last job could give him his life back but only if he can accomplish the impossible-inception. Instead of the perfect heist, Cobb and his team of specialists have to pull off the reverse: their task is not to steal an idea but to plant one. If they succeed, it could be the perfect crime. But no amount of careful planning or expertise can prepare the team for the dangerous enemy that seems to predict their every move. An enemy that only Cobb could have seen coming.

Movie 17# The Kingdom

In the aftermath of a deadly attack on American forces in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, diplomats are slow to act, but meanwhile, FBI special agent Ronald Fleury (Jamie Foxx) assembles a secret team of U.S. counter-terrorism investigators to enter the city and find the criminal behind what has quickly become an international incident. The crew, however, finds their attempt to capture the perpetrators stalled by bureaucracy and their presence unwelcome. Desperate to gain the trust they need to accomplish their mission in just five days, the team enlists the aid of a Saudi Arabian police officer (Ashraf Barhoum), but as the agents infiltrate the dark and complex world of the Saudi crime scene, they find that the perpetrator's next target may be them. Directed by Peter Berg, The Kingdom also stars Jennifer Garner, Chris Cooper, and Jason Bateman. 

Movie 16# X-Men Origins Wolverine

The gruff, adamantium-clawed Marvel superhero Wolverine strikes out on his own in this X-Men spin-off starring series regular Hugh Jackman. The story gets under way as the boy who will become Wolverine makes a shocking discovery about his family bloodline, and gains a brother in the process. Flash forward to find the mutant siblings battling side by side through two world wars and Vietnam -- where they are sentenced to death for killing a commanding officer -- and Logan (Hugh Jackman) and his brother, Victor Creed (aka Sabretooth, played by Liev Schreiber), have joined a top-secret government task force. When their targets begin to include innocent civilians, conscientious Logan escapes to the Canadian Rockies, where he builds a home with pretty schoolteacher Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins). Informed by his old commanding officer William Stryker (Danny Huston) that the members of his old team are being targeted for death, Logan is heartbroken when Victor finds and kills Kayla. Vowing revenge, Logan agrees to take part in a dangerous experiment that will fuse his bones with a powerful metal alloy called adamantium, which makes him virtually indestructible and gives him the strength needed to defeat his powerful brother. Subsequently betrayed by Stryker, Logan (now Wolverine) sets out to find his blood-lusting brother and stop the cycle of violence once and for all. Along the way, the temperamental hero is joined by fellow mutants John Wraith (Will.i.Am) and Remy LeBeau (aka Gambit, played by Taylor Kitsch). But before Wolverine can seek vengeance against Striker and his brother, he'll have to do battle with Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) a formidable mutant instilled with many powers. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Movie 15# X-Men First Class

There's a specific feeling I get only when watching a blockbuster film that's working, a feeling almost like vertigo, being lifted out of my seat by the power of special effects and pounding score and explosions that are used really, really well. There are a lot of moments like that in X-Men: First Class, a rousing and full-throated adventure that's technically a comic book movie but influemced by everything from battleship war films to 60s-era James Bond. Even with a script that sometimes loses its grip on subplots and sells short more than a few characters, it's exactly what a comic book movie ought to be, full of energy and wit and actors who seem to know exactly how much fun it is to be a superhero. 
If there's any magic ingredient that makes X-Men: First Class, a notoriously rushed and sloppy production, it's the dynamite chemistry between James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, playing telepath Charles Xavier and magnet-powered Erik Lensherr in the early, ambitious days of their partnership. We meet each of them briefly as children, Charles growing up privileged in Westchester and taking in a fellow mutant girl (Raven, a.k.a. Mystique, played later by Jennifer Lawrence), and Erik suffering in a Poland concentration camp. The two finally meet in the early 60s, after a spectacular and fiery action sequence, and discover that they are fighting a common villain: Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), another mutant who has gathered an underground group called the Hellfire Club and is bent on wreaking global nuclear havoc. Strait-laced Charles has teamed up with the CIA to avert this disaster, while feral and angry Erik hunts Shaw alone for far more personal reasons; despite their reservations Erik and Charles agree to team up, recruiting any other mutants they can find and building the only army capable of stopping Shaw. 
McAvoy and Fassbender are the undeniable center of X-Men: First Class, the push-pull relationship between Charles's logic and Erik's paranoia boiled down to a friendship between two men who know they need each other. It helps to have seen this relationship crumble into fierce rivalry, as played by Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen in Bryan Singer's X-Men films, but Fassbender and McAvoy so fully inhabit their characters that you don't really need it; you get what they see in each other, just as you get that this relationship can never hold. But the group vibe that's such a highlight in the original X-Men films is present here too, largely among the younger mutants who build a quick rapport at the encouragement of Raven, who soon dubs herself Mystique and helps come up with nicknames for all the other new recruits. Charles doesn't seem that interested in being known as Professor X, but Erik is clearly intrigued by the intimidating potential of Magneto. 
Matthew Vaughn, adapting beautifully to the zippy adventure style, directs in a way that reflects the contrast between Charles's optimism and Erik's darker impulses; the action is entirely bloodless and almost always spectacular, but scenes with Erik and especially Shaw and his cronies are shot with the kind of shiny, cynical zing very familiar from Vaughn's last film Kick Ass. Shaw comes very close to becoming a campy villain, holing up under an iceberg in his mod submarine with his fashion plate sidekick Emma Frost (an appropriately frozen January Jones), but both Vaughn and Bacon nail his undercurrent of real menace, and between him and Erik you understand how problematic and maybe impossible Charles's dream of a utopian mutant-human future may be.  
There are tons of hints sprinkled throughout about the future for these mutants that we've already seen, from jokes about Xavier's hair to some very well-placed cameos, but X-Men: First Class never suffers the kind of turgid explication that crippled the Wolverine movie; Vaughn and his bevy of fellow screenwriters knit these characters so well into the real world that you don't need to know Beast from Banshee to understand their motivations. That's a rare, rare thing in comic book movies, particularly when elsewhere in the Marvel movie universe every film seems to be geared not toward its own characters, but toward a larger mythology that requires hours of research to understand. Though it is certainly the kickoff of a new franchise, and lugs around a story more sprawling than it needed to be, X-Men: First Class feels spry and self-contained, a blast of colorful and passionate enthusiasm with just enough weight to matter. It feels phenomenal to have these mutants back. 

Movie 14# Get Smart

In the World of covert intelligence, only one man is Smart. Steve Carell is in Control as Maxwell Smart, the novice agent often out of his depth but never out of options in this action comedy pitting him against the nuclear scheme of the evil spy group Kaos. Anne Hathaway partners with Max as ever-capable Agent 99. And director Peter Segal (The Longest Yard) guides his stars (including Dwayne Johnson and Alan Arkin) through the dangerous realm of molar radios, multifunction pocketknives, exploding dental floss and more. "Get Smart works as an action film and it's funny."

Movie 13# Bedtime Stories

Funnyman Adam Sandler stars in Walt Disney Pictures' Bedtime Stories, the magical comedy that's packed with adventure and lots of heart. When Skeeter Bronson (Sandler) babysits his sister's (Courteney Cox) children, his imagination runs wild as he dreams up elaborate bedtime stories-alway's casting himself as the hero. Entranced, the children add their own ideas to these once-upon-a-time tales of heroics and chivalry. Then...nighttime fantasies become Skeeter's daytime realities, leading him on a real-life adventure in search of his wn happy ending. Filled with colourful characters, humour and whimsy, this heartwarming comedy will enchant your entire family again and again.

Movie 12# Devil

With his name tarnished by a string of badly-reviewed and poor-performing movies, M. Night Shyamalan is taking a back seat for a trilogy of movies called The Night Chronicles. He comes up with the stories and produces, but allows others to write and direct.Devil is the first entry in this series, and it looks like this could be a career-saving move for Shyamalan.

The premise is pretty straightforward, but the approach and the execution are enough to make this movie stand out. Five strangers find themselves trapped in an elevator, and there's reason to believe that the devil is among them. We know this because of narration supplied by Ramirez (Jacob Vargas), a stock character of the "superstitious Hispanic" variety. He shares a story his mother used to tell him about the Devil's Meeting—a South American legend of the devil coming to collect souls of the wicked in a manner designed to teach a lesson to more than just his victims.

The five are the expected demographic cross-section: a large black security guard (Bokeem Woodbine), a sleazy Pakistani salesman (Geoffrey Arend), an old lady (Jenny O'Hara), a cute chick (Bojana Novakovic), and a white guy (Logan Marshall-Green). They all seem like they have something to hide. As if being trapped together in an elevator weren't enough to test their patience with each other, they start to die one by one in mysterious ways.

Desperately trying to save these people, and to figure out what the hell's going on, is a security guard (Matt Craven) in a helpless situation. When Detective Bowden (Chris Messina) of the Philly PD comes to take over the situation, it's not much relief. He hands out orders and gives an air of being in control, but he also has his own demons to contend with, as is required by the Movie Cop Rule Book.

Discussing any more about what happens would spoil the fun, and I certainly wouldn't want to do that, because Devil is a lot of fun. Brian Nelson's screenplay is clever and original. He resorts to the typical cliches only when avoiding them would just bog down the movie. His telling of Shyamalan's story is tight and fast-paced, but it's not non-stop; he knows when to allow a joke here and there, when to slow things down, and when to pull the floor out from under you.

John Erick Dowdle's direction is equally impressive. He establishes two distinct feels to this movie, and the contrast is extremely effective. When seeing what's happening in the elevator, we feel like we're one of the people trapped there. Often times we get a subjective perspective, but not exclusively from the point of view of the same character; we don't know who we're rooting for and who we should be weary of, because Dowdle shows us all five sides of the story firsthand. By contrast, when we're outside of the elevator, seeing the security camera view from within the control room or watching Detective Bowden race throughout the building as he pieces the story together, there's a freeing sense of openness that only reinforces how claustrophobic the cramped elevator is. They're sitting ducks in there, and they and we all know it.

I was especially struck by the camera work, which aids in this effect thematically, but is also technically amazing. There's a mirror in the back of the elevator which must've been the bane of cinematographer Tak Fujimoto's existence while shooting, and yet it's used to great effect—in more ways than one. Dowdle makes good use of the Philadelphia skyscrapers of Devil's downtown setting, almost fetishizing them to a point, again giving us a taste of the outside and a sense of sprawl before thrusting us back into the enclosed elevator once again.

Like pretty much all horror movies—especially those with a religious basis, which is most of them—this is a morality tale at its heart. As Ramirez keeps reminding us, the devil comes for those who have done wrong, not just to punish them for their deeds but to remind the rest of us what's in store if we follow a similar path. But then again, for most of the movie we're not sure if it's actually the devil at work in that elevator or not; maybe there's an explanation for it all, and Bowden is just the sleuth to find it. Or maybe he'll become a believer himself (according to that same Movie Cop Rule Book, he also must be a steadfast skeptic, and so Bowden is). The main cast all does great work, each convincing us that we shouldn't be convinced of his or her character's innocence or guilt until the last moment. Chris Messina runs the show, though; not only is his character in charge of the situation, but his performance ties everything together as well. I really liked the interplay of Logan Marshall-Green and Bojana Novakovic as two of the trapped five, too. You'll see what I mean.

Movie 11 # Eagle Eye

Eagle eye begins at a US military control center, where the brass is hedging bets about conducting a fateful target assassination missile strike against what may or may not be a fake Afghan funeral, and with a most wanted insurgent possibly in attendance. And the bombing sets off a wave of retaliation against the US internationally, in its wake.

At the same time, bottom feeder Chicago copier clerk Jerry Shaw (Shia LaBeouf) receives word that his high achiever Air Force officer identical twin has just been killed in a car crash. When Shaw returns home, his bank account is suddenly overflowing with nearly a million bucks; the dive he lives in has filled up with boxes of explosive devices and weaponry seemingly out of nowhere; and the FBI breaks down his door and drags him off to jail after a strange female voice on the phone advises to him to high tail it out of there, like thirty seconds ago, all in quick succesion.

And on another side of town, single mom Rachel (Michelle Monaghan) gets demanding calls from the same mystery voice, ordering her to follow instructions or have her eight year old son die in an explosion aboard the train he's riding. Eventually these two targeted victims of who knows what, are tossed together via the same bossy cell phone messages, to pay attention or die.

On the tail of these two clueless fugitives, is Billy Bob Thornton's equally clueless but determined FBI agent. And as the panicky pair eludes massive police dragnets, they get lots of help from the Voice Lady, who shuts down assorted powers grids, while text messaging instructions for fleeing that show up in commandeered neon lights across the metropolis, to help them along the way.

At one point their getaway car is delivered by crane to a safe haven far from police in pursuit, and still later they're dispatched to a mall to stop by Macy's for Visa gift cards with coded messages, before heading over to Circuit City for further subversive cyberspace revelations. Eventually plot resolutions unfold on the top secret 36th floor harboring covert military designs, but not before a weary audiences has tagged along for far too long after car chases, explosions and dangerous devices hidden inside a trumpet.

And Thornton, who gets the best line in the movie, declares that 'I'm not going down in history as the asshole who let this happen.' Not sure he's referring to the movie, but that might not have been a bad idea, considering. Eagle Eye, a wireless espionage romp where Frankenstein is a female.

Movie10 # Fast & Furious 4

Vin Diesel and Paul Walker reteam for the ultimate chapter of the franchise built on speed -- "Fast & Furious." Heading back to the streets where it all began, they rejoin Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster to blast muscle, tuner and exotic cars across Los Angeles and floor through the Mexican desert in the new high-octane action-thriller.

When a crime brings them back to L.A., fugitive ex-con Dom Toretto (Diesel) reignites his feud with agent Brian O'Conner (Walker). But as they are forced to confront a shared enemy, Dom and Brian must give in to an uncertain new trust if they hope to outmanuever him. And from convoy heists to precision tunnel crawls across international lines, two men will find the best way to get revenge: push the limits of what's possible behind the wheel. 

Movie 9 # The Art of War 2 Betrayal

When Agent Neil Shaw (Wesley Snipes) comes out of hiding to avenge his former mentor's murder, he winds up on the trail of betrayal and lethal corruption. Under the charge of his friend and Senatorial candidate, his mission is to set things straight. But when more people turn up dead, Shaw realizes that he's been framed. Now he's letting the fists fly where they may to get to the bottom of an assassination conspiracy that everyone thinks he's behind, It's time to turn up the political heat and enjoy the action of the martial arts master.

Movie 8 # Night Passage

Emmy and Golden Globe Award winner Tom Selleck ( Three Men and a Baby. TVs "Magnum, P.I ") reprises his starring role as police chief Jesse Stone in this prequel to the hit telefilm "Stone Cold" and based on the best-selling series of Jesse Stone murder/mystery novels by Robert B. Parker.
Following his divorce and the loss of his job as a homicide detective at the LAPD, stone travels across the country to Paradise, Massachusetts, a small and seemingly quiet New England town where he recruited by the town's board of selectmen to become the new Chief of Police. But things are not quite so heavenly in Paradise, as Stone starts off his first day on the job by investigating a domestic abuse case that leads to a money-laundering scheme possibly involving bank manager Hasty Hathaway (Saul Rubinek, Unforgiven, The Contender , Stephen Baldwin and Stephanie March co-star)- oneof the men responsible for hiring Stone.

Movie 7 # Indiana Jones and the Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull

The newest Indiana Jones adventure begins in the desert Southwest in 1957 – the height of the Cold War. Indy and his sidekick Mac (Ray Winstone) have barely escaped a close scrape with nefarious Soviet agents on a remote airfield.
Now, Professor Jones has returned home to Marshall College – only to find things have gone from bad to worse. His close friend and dean of the college (Jim Broadbent) explains that Indy's recent activities have made him the object of suspicion, and that the government has put pressure on the university to fire him. On his way out of town, Indiana meets rebellious young Mutt (Shia LaBeouf), who carries both a grudge and a proposition for the adventurous archaeologist: If he'll help Mutt on a mission with deeply personal stakes, Indy could very well make one of the most spectacular archaeological finds in history – the Crystal Skull of Akator, a legendary object of fascination, superstition and fear.
But as Indy and Mutt set out for the most remote corners of Peru – a land of ancient tombs, forgotten explorers and a rumored city of gold – they quickly realize they are not alone in their search. The Soviet agents are also hot on the trail of the Crystal Skull. Chief among them is icy cold, devastatingly beautiful Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett), whose elite military unit is scouring the globe for the eerie Crystal Skull, which they believe can help the Soviets dominate the world... if they can unlock its secrets. 
Indy and Mutt must find a way to evade the ruthless Soviets, follow an impenetrable trail of mystery, grapple with enemies and friends of questionable motives, and, above all, stop the powerful Crystal Skull from falling into the deadliest of hands. 

Movie 6 # Final Destination

On what should have been a fun-filled day at the races, Nick O'Bannon has a horrific premonition in which a bizarre sequence of events causes multiple race cars to crash, sending flaming debris into the stands, brutally killing his friends and causing the upper deck of the stands to collapse on him. When he comes out of this grisly nightmare Nick panics, persuading his girlfriend, Lori, and their friends, Janet and Hunt, to leave... escaping seconds before Nick's frightening vision becomes a terrible reality. Thinking they've cheated death, the group has a new lease on life, but unfortunately for Nick and Lori, it is only the beginning. As his premonitions continue and the crash survivors begin to die one-by-one--in increasingly gruesome ways--Nick must figure out how to cheat death once and for all before he, too, reaches his final destination. The film marks the latest in the highly popular "Final Destination" series, and its first 3D installment, giving horror fans an especially visceral thrill ride. 

   

Movie 5 # Terminator Salvation

The highly anticipated new installment of "The Terminator" film franchise is set in post-apocalyptic 2018. John Connor is the man fated to lead the human resistance against Skynet and its army of Terminators. But the future that Connor was raised to believe in is altered in part by the appearance of Marcus Wright, a stranger whose last memory is of being on death row. Connor must decide whether Marcus has been sent from the future, or rescued from the past. As Skynet prepares its final onslaught, Connor and Marcus both embark on an odyssey that takes them into the heart of Skynet's operations, where they uncover the terrible secret behind the possible annihilation of mankind. 

Movie 4 # The Mummy Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor

"The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" is the film in question. Like the previous "Mummy" sequel, the third film in the franchise jumps forward a decade plus, to the cozy year of 1946. After spinning their various previous adventures into a career as spies for the Allies during the war, the O'Connell's (a returning Brendan Fraser and Maria Bello stepping into replace Rachel Weisz) have given up their adventuring ways, turning the keys over to their now twenty-something son Alex (Luke Ford). But when Alex uncovers the long lost tomb of the immortal Dragon Emperor (Jet Li), the fractured family's got to solve its problems in order to stop another mummy.
A movie series called "The Mummy" is naturally going to have a fairly limited focus. Universal and Alphaville might have been better off resetting the series to focus on the various adventures of Rick and Evelyn to give them a wider range of material to use. But they haven't, so mummies it is. New director Rob Cohen ("XXX," "The Fast and the Furious"), stepping in to replace franchise originator Stephen Sommers, and his screenwriters Alfred Gough and Miles Millar ("Smallville") have wisely chosen to pass on bringing previous villain Imohtep back, opting instead to create a new villain for the series based on the famous Terracotta Army from China.
In practice though, the new mummy is all but indistinguishable from the old one. He spends most of the time stomping through the film as a computer creation that vaguely resembles Jet Li, speaking with a heavily modulated voice, but with none of Li's charisma. The idea of an unstoppable Terracotta Soldier come to life isn't a bad one. Maybe not unique, but not bad, but the filmmakers don't seem comfortable with that, imbuing him with extra superpowers (control over the five classical Chinese elements). The only thing he's interested in is conquering the world, he doesn't seem to have any other desires or facets even before he became a mummy, and all he needs to do that is an ancient Chinese artifact that will allow him to fully unlock his powers and become immortal. An artifact the O'Connell's happen to have. Hmmm. This is all sounding vaguely familiar.
That's potentially okay though. The series has always been as much about the heroes as it was the villains, mixing a light sense of humor and decent repartee with some well-conceived heroics. A lot of that comes from good casting. Fraser remains a criminally underused leading man, one of the few able to change gears so easily between comedy and action without shortchanging either. And Bello cuts a surprisingly dashing action heroine, whose Evey is a completely different person from the bookish intellectual of the previous films. All of the film's best moments belong to them, especially their introduction as they slowly go mad in retirement. It's possible Fraser and Bello have even better chemistry than Fraser and Weisz did.