The Maze Runner

The great thing is that from the very first frame of the movie, you're sucked in.   For the most part the cast of The Maze Runner is full of unknowns. I see a great career in every actor in this film. Everyone had chemistry and I loved how this felt like the filmmakers actually read the book. I'm hoping this becomes a trend with book to film adaptations. The only thing I didn't like, was some important details in the book being left out. The films premise is "Lord of the Flies" meets "Lost." Despite the 2 hour run time, it feels much shorter; but that's because it's an exciting thrill ride from beginning to end. . 

Grade: A-  9/10 4/5 stars

Edge of Tomorrow

I didn't really expect much from this movie. The trailers made me think "Oh, it's just Tom Cruise playing the same character over and over." However, after giving this film a chance, I'm glad I saw it. While it felt a bit redundant at times (But I guess that's the point) and started off a bit slow, by the end I was enchanted. This is one movie Hollywood should NOT make a sequel to because this movie would be instantly tainted. This is not your typical sci-fi movie and is actually quite original. It's interesting to see how just one choice can cause a different outcome then a different choice. My one complaint was it wrapped everything up vaguely and too quickly. It feels like there's no ending. I'm not sure if that was intentional or not to keep the main idea of the movie but it felt rushed to me. I did enjoy the strategy concept of this film, and how it felt like it was poking fun at regenerating every time you die in a video game and have to watch the same cutscene every time. I'm pretty sure this was unintentional, but it was genius. I enjoyed this film and it's quite a shame it's considered a box-office flop.
Grade: A+ 10/10 5/5 stars

Transformers: Age of Extinction

This is, yet again, another time when I disagree with Rotten Tomatoes. This movie is AWESOME!!!! Just forget the previous 3 films happened. This is both a sequel and a reboot. Only this time, the movie works. I think Micheal Bay is learning from his mistakes. Although this film is not without flaws of its own, it's not a pop culture travesty like "Transformers 2 and 3" were. The plot is original, (well, as original as you can get when the movie is about robots fighting each other and also based on a property that's existed for 30 years), the dialogue is humorous intentionally, and the soundtrack by Imagine Dragons makes this film even better than I expected. However, the film overuses slow-motion shots. I don't mind if it's used once or twice, but not during every fight scene. Contrary to popular belief slow motion does not make everything look cooler, It can, if used sparingly and correctly, but not like how it's used here. I felt like this film focused to much on the human characters. The movie is called "Transformers," not "Humans." If some of the unneccesary scenes, such a one of the characters drinking milk on the roof for 5 minutes (I'm not kidding, this is a legitimate scene. Seriously.) and had used that time to show what we came to see, robots beating each other up, the film could have been a bit better.
Grade: C    7/10 3/5 stars