The Time Traveler's Wife

Overview:  Life sorta sucks for Henry DeTamble, because at any random moment his body can disappear like Nicole Richie and land anywhere in time.  Time travel for Henry is basically a curse, and not in the way that we hear it in other movies where the curse is actually something freakishly awesome! No in this movie the curse is actually a "my-life-will-forever-suck-and-I-might-as-well-be-paralyzed-from-the-waist-down" kind of thing.  To make things a bit more complicated he woo's and (SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT) gets married to a girl named Clare Abshire, and during the young married couple find ways to deal with his problem.  Speaking of SPOILER ALERT you know that they get married because it's in the title, ga-der!!

The Good:  Nothing beats a good tearjerker after spending an entire day at school about an hour away.  Sometimes when I get back from school after a stressful day all I want to do is lay down on the couch with the blinds down and a bucket of ice-cream in my hands while a sappy romantic movie tries to touch my heart in weird places.  Eric Bana (to me) is the perfect idea of a MAN, because this guy has done everything from "The Hulk" to "Munich" and then this little diddy that's sure to make even the manliest of men question their testosterone levels.  Rachel McAdams does terrific as always, and she doesn't even need Ryan Gosling or his strategically placed flock of flamboyant delicious-looking geese.  It seems that no matter what role she's given, Rachel will tackle it with flying colors, she's like the chick version of Justin Timberlake.


The Bad:  Oh Nicholas Sparks, you sure do know how to make sappy romances look hopeful, until they fall to the butt-crack of the earth like a pile of bricks... but (sadly) to my surprise I found out that this was not one of his stories, although I could have sworn it was due to all the sad/tragic/happy story-line coming my way.  I know that it was the "sadness" of this movie that made it so appealing to watch, but i'm suddenly in the mood for the cliche chick-flick where nothing goes wrong and everything ends up happy in the end with a make-out scene on the Golden Gate Bridge.

The Ugly:  Eric Bana is definitely one of the manliest men alive, and Rachel McAdams is one of the chickiest of chicks out there as well.  Although this movie reeks tremendously of a Nicholas Sparks fart, it turns out that it's not one of his movies and it's actually pretty engaging.

3 1/2 out of 5

Hanna

The Good: When first seeing the trailer I noticed the "Lovely Bones" girl being trained to fight by her "Eric Bana" of a father in the woods, while at the same time being hunted by Lady Galadriel.  This is as much i'll able to tell you about the story line without completely ruining it.  I went to see this with my brother and dad, and I think I enjoyed it better then they did.  This movie looks like it may be complex, but it's actually very simple... almost too simple.  It's not that movies with complex story lines are bad, it's just sometimes having a simple movie like "Hanna" is a breath of fresh air, because then you don't have to focus too much on the story and instead focus on how AWESOME all the fight scenes are.  Being an art lover, I loved how artistic this movie was, it seemed that every shot taken when making this film could end up on a calender, and i'm not talking about one of those crappy ones that they hand out at banks!  The acting was great! And although Saoirse Ronan and Cate Blanchett did an excellent job, it was Eric Bana (The Hulk, Munich) who put them to shame when he was on camera.

The Bad:  Like I said this movie is extremely simple, which serves a good purpose and a bad purpose.  I liked it because it helped me to just have fun and focus on the incredible action, but I didn't like it because there was practically NO PLOT!!!  This is why I wasn't able to write too much of an overview, because then you would have known the entire movie.  There seems to be a whole lot of fighting and not a whole lot of explaining.  Although the movie doesn't end on a cliff-hanger, it does end very quickly, so you end up having an awkward moment with the people sitting next to you.

The Ugly:  The ugly truth is this was a fun movie to see, because the action and acting is amazing.  One thing you have to make sure of before you see this movie is to have NO expectations; this way you won't be as disappointed due to the lack of plot.  All in all, this is a violent coming of age ( for a 13 year old) movie that is worth seeing at least once.

2 out of 5