2010 Reviews: "Diary of a Wimpy Kid", "The Town" and "Devil"

#60: Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Starring Zachary Gordon and Robert Capron. Rated PG. 1 hour 34 minutes. Critics Grade: 55%. My Grade: C+. Honestly, I can go either way with this movie. I was a bit surprised that I actually found myself enjoying the movie as a whole. I thought it had a pretty good story, and one that is fairly realistic. This is almost how a real junior high is, and almost exactly like what real junior high kids act. I thought the funniest part of the movie was Robert Capron, the pudgy best friend of our main character. He had some pretty funny lines, obviously this is kid humor though so it wasn't hilarious for an adult per say. I liked the random supporting actors that popped up, there's a few big names in here I wasn't expecting to be in a movie like this. I thought the main star, Zachary Gordon carried the movie rather well on his shoulders. However, he's not exactly a likable character. Honestly, this kid is a little piece of shit who thinks he's God's gift to earth. I wasn't a fan of the character, but Gordon delivered an overall good performance. But the main character in a movie like this should have redeeming qualities...but my God he was a little turd. Overall I was happily surprised by this film. It has a good message in the end, although the message just kind of pops up last minute so it doesn't really resonate. Pretty good movie for the kids. For adults...it's a decent one time viewing.

#61: The Town. Starring Ben Affleck and Jeremy Renner. Rated R. 2 hours 5 minutes. Critics Grade: 93%. My Grade: A+. Ever since I first saw the preview for this movie, I was pumped to see it. Affleck directed the film Gone Baby Gone a few years back and that was one of the best films of that year. Now with The Town, Affleck has absolutely found his calling. I've never been a fan of his acting but his directing is top notch! However he also delivers quite a great performance here. He should direct himself more often! The Town is a brilliant heist film with a fantastic group of characters. It has a great and believable love story in the middle that is not your average tale of two lovers. The movie is so well written and has a great deal of tense scenes. The robbery scenes are filmed very well. Although there is a LOT of gun fire and barely anyone ever gets shot. That's always a common cliche in movies like this I just wished Affleck would have been more gutsy in that regard, but oh well no big deal. But yes, the writing is amazing. The story moves so smoothly and rarely ever gets boring. You kind of root for these characters, even though they are kind of scum. It also has another side story of the FBI agents trying to capture this criminals, and is led really well by John Hamm of TV's Mad Men. Like I said earlier, Ben Affleck probably delivers the best performance of his career. His character is troubled and wants to get out of this business. He falls in love with one of his robbery victims and she has no idea who he really is. His character is believable and you like him. There is also a supporting performance from Blake Lively (from Gossip Girl apparently) that was surprisingly good! I think she was supposed to the Amy Ryan type character (from Gone Baby Gone) and she does well with it, not nearly as good as Ryan's Oscar nominated performance however. The best performance comes from last year's Best Actor nominee Jeremy Renner. The guy plays a loose cannon and he is pretty nuts. It's a far cry from The Hurt Locker, but man this guy can act! I don't think he will get any Oscar credit this year, but he is certainly deserving. This movie is smart. This movie is high octane fun. It's entertaining. It's a brilliant, nearly flawless film that at this point...might very well be my favorite movie so far of 2010. But there's always Inception so....grr, I don't know. This movie is a must see, it's amazing! Go see it!

#62: Devil. Starring Chris Messina and Logan Marshall Green. Rated PG-13. 1 hour 20 minutes. IMDB Member Grade: 66%. My Grade: B+. Devil, for me, is the surprise hit of the year so far! The preview made the movie look cool, but M. Night Shymalan's name was spread across the ad's for this movie and honestly...I was expecting the movie to be a total shit fest. Well I'm happy to report that I was super wrong! I loved Devil. It's one of the better horror movies I've seen in recent years. It's light on the gore, and heavy on the mind screwing. 75% of this movie takes place in the small confines of an elevator (something I have a great fear of) and the cast is a group of relatively unknown actors so you don't know who to trust. We know from the ad's, and from the title...that one of these people is the devil. That's no surprise. Finding which one of them is the devil and which one is killing these people off is the tricky part. Also interesting is the reason why these people are together in the elevator and why the devil is going after them. On the outside, a police detective is trying to piece together who of these 5 people are killing everyone. All he has is a video monitor to watch them and can only communicate one way. So he has to figure out who each person is and what their dark past holds. He has a troubled past himself. When each person dies the lights in the elevator go out and so we as an audience don't know who is killing everyone as well. It's like a game of Clue that involves the devil. The story (the only part M. Night had any part of) is very simple and very easy to follow. It's a horror movie that uses a story element over shock, gore and tons of violence. It's a pretty damn tense movie, mainly for me because I HATE elevators! I loved the mystery aspect. I also enjoyed the fact that there weren't any stupid characters like we see so often in horror movies. Everyone does things that makes sense. The cop doesn't believe the idea the devil may be doing this for most of the movie which makes his story believable. The dialog is well written and there really isn't anything cheesy about anything these people say or do. This is a horror movie that is tense and creepy. I was really into the whole movie and it never got boring or ran off course. The movie is only 1 hour and 20 minutes long so it goes by fairly quickly. A horror movie should be short and simple. By the end, it did not disappoint. I thought the final act of the movie was perfect and did not go down a typical "dumbed down" horror movie road. I haven't seen many horror movies this year, but this is certainly one of the best. The Last Exorcism is probably going to be my favorite horror movie this year, but Devil is not very far behind. This may not be a common opinion about this film, but for me...I loved this movie! It was a great surprise and I think fans of horror films will enjoy it as much as I did. I highly recommend it!