Movies starring Chris Hemsworth

The Avengers kicks ass. It's a loud, brash spectacle that blows up as many things as a Transformers outing but without the same grinding sense of soulless robotic monotony. For years, Marvel has been building to this movie, painstakingly introducin...

Minimal spoilers. There are some vague references to things that happen and the usual discussion about plot elements available via trailers and pre-release clips, but I have tried to remain as “spoiler-lite” as possible. As always, however...

12 Strong represents a recent war as depicted on screen in an old-fashioned way. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, war movies followed an established template that pitted the “good guys” (often Americans) against the “bad guys.” Such fi...

Note: Thor is available in both 2-D and 3-D formats. I chose to see it in the former because of my growing dislike for the latter. I'm satisfied with the decision. Thor is not a native 3-D production; it was converted after the fact. By all accoun...

Note: The Cabin in the Woods works best if left unspoiled. Its impact relies not on a single unexpected twist but upon the cumulative impact of little unanticipated actions and incidents. It's virtually impossible to write anything coherent without...

Minimal spoilers. There are some references to things that happen and the usual discussion about plot elements available via trailers and pre-release clips, but I have tried to remain as “spoiler-lite” as possible. As always, however, if y...

If you’re looking for a strong narrative to go along with kick-ass action, you’re not going to find it in Extraction, a direct-to-Netflix thriller that offers plenty of the latter but not a lot of the former. The movie provides little more...

Let's start out by not dwelling overmuch on the existence of Mirror Mirror. The basic story outline may be the same, but the similarities end there. Everything of importance is different: tone, intent, plot specifics, and so forth. Mirror Mirror is...

Ron Howard is probably best known for making slick, well-produced, crowd pleasing motion pictures. From his early days behind the camera, with light fare such as Splash, to his most accomplished feature, Apollo 13, to his Oscar-winning A Beautiful ...

Blackhat (a slang term used to designate a hacker) represents Michael Mann's attempt to put a new spin on an old genre by adding "cyber" to "crime thriller." Blackhat uses the foggy world of hackers and cybercrime much as he might use background mu...