J.J. Abrams has taken what was a very popular series that was slow paced and slightly dull and turned it, with the help of a stellar cast, into a sleek, action packed thriller that makes even Star Wars look a bit tame. Into Darkness ups the ante for the rebooted franchise and surpasses the mark that even the wonderful Star Trek left us the last time we joined the Enterprise crew.

Abrams and crew use CGI to great effect making what we see believable, but at the same time not detracting from the cast or the story. While other sci-fi films tend to get a bit carried away with the technology at their disposal, Into Darkness uses it only to enhance an already great product.

Into Darkness is a tale of the souls and learning what lengths one is willing to go for the overall good. A personal story of vengeance, anger, duty, honor and love. This Star Trek film has you on the edge of your seat, feeling what the crew feels, making you feel as if their journey is your journey.

Star Trek Into Darkness takes the sci-fi genre to a new height and leaves us eagerly awaiting what will happen next. We here at MJR not only urge to go see this film, we demand it of you. It will be money well spent and we should know, seeing as all of us will be going back to see it again.

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Movie Jukebox Review

Iron Man 3 has everything you could want in what appears to be the finale of the Iron Man franchise, yet I couldn’t help feeling like there should have been more. Perhaps my expectations were too high.

The Iron Man franchise has had a well balanced diet of humor and while Iron Man 3 does have several funny moments, it comes over as a bit much and takes away from what is a very personal struggle for Tony Stark (Downey Jr).

Robert Downey Jr plays a man that is still haunted by the events of New York that took place in Avengers and it is taking a heavy toll on his life preventing him from sleeping and putting a strain on his relationship with Pepper (Paltrow). At the same time, a mistake in his past is slowly catching up to him and everyone he holds dear.

Iron Man already had a solid cast and the additions of Guy Pearce and Ben Kingsley only help to improve it on that front. While far from a perfect film and a twist or two didn’t quite mesh with how I hoped the story went, Iron Man 3 is a good finale to a series that has kept us entertained over the last five years. We here at MJR urge you to go see this film if you are a fan of comic book movies, but it isn’t a must see.

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Bill ‘The Butcher’ Cutting

Another X-men film featuring Hugh Jackman? The Wolverine has potential, lets hope that it gets handled right and finally compete with such great comic book films like The Avengers and the Batman franchise. Only time will tell, but so far the films to come out of the X-men franchise have always ended up missing their mark in the end.

There was a lot of talk on the net and television how G.I. Joe: Retaliation was going to be the first big blockbuster of the summer and be a fresh of breath air to a franchise that flopped with its opening film. Perhaps I believe some of the hype and yes I have a little bit of fanboy still in me that loved G.I. Joe as a kid and yes, perhaps I had a little too much faith in Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.

While kids may love this movie and viewers who look for nothing more than explosions and lots of violence will find nothing to complain about, G.I. Joe feels a bit choppy with some of the scenes feeling disjointed and many of the performances appearing mailed in. Bruce Willis whose work I usually enjoy, was one of the biggest disappointments of the film. It looks like that he was casted just to add some star power to the credits and take a bit of pressure off of The Rock who isn’t quite ready to lead a film on his own but ended up not delievering.

The only standout of the film for me was Adrianne Palicki. She managed to bring Lady Jaye to life on screen and gave the liveliest performance out of the cast, plus her beauty will leave you hypnotized. (Just wait for the scene with the red dress)

We here at MJR can’t recommend going to the theaters and wasting your hard earned money. G.I. Joe: Retaliation is a rental at best or you could just wait for it to be on television.

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White Goodman