Liam Neeson continues to cement himself as an action star with his latest movie, The Grey, but there’s a lot more going on in it than you probably expect from the “Liam Neeson punches wolves” trailers.

Neeson stars as Ottway, a survival expert/hunter who works perimeter security for an oil drilling station in remote Alaska.  He’s suffered some sort of personal trauma and is basically on the verge of suicide as the movie opens but he quickly has to put everything aside when he and a small group of oil workers survive a horrific plane crash on their way back to civilization.  As if the freezing cold and remoteness of their crash weren’t bad enough, the men have seemingly crashed into the middle of wolf territory, as a pack of vicious wolves starts stalking and killing the men.

Neeson is at his absolute best in The Grey, giving both emotional depth and bad assness to the character of Ottway.  He effortlessly goes from staring down the wolf pack to comforting a man who is about to die.   No matter what situation comes up, Ottway keeps a level head and tries, and unfortunately usually fails, to drag the other men along with him to safety.  I also loved his resourcefulness whether he’s tying himself in to his airplane seat with three seatbelts to creating “wolf sticks” with some found shotgun shells and homemade spears.  If I was lost in the Alaskan wilderness, I would follow Ottway in a heartbeat.  The rest of the cast is a bunch of extremely solid character actors with the standout probably being Frank Grillo as Diaz, who starts out as what seems to be the typical asshole character but slowly grows and accepts his situation until he comes to his heartbreaking end. All of the characters are fleshed out extremely well and through things like fireside conversations, you start to care about them, which makes their eventual deaths to wolves, etc. that much more effecting.

Joe Carnahan does a great job of relating how dire the survivors situation is and how desolate a region they are in.  There are tons of shots of the wintry landscape that feel more and more hopeless as the movie goes on.  Not to say that the movie isn’t exciting as well, especially as there’s the almost constant threat of the wolf pack and there’s numerous times where you will probably jump out of your seat as a wolf comes out of nowhere to snatch away another survivor.  The plane crash is also one of the best I’ve seen.  Besides the wolves, the guys also have to fight the elements and just as many guys succumb to the freezing cold and nature as to wolves ripping their throats out.  The big scene that most people are probably waiting for, Liam Neeson taping bottles to his knuckles and taking on one of the wolves, is definitely not what you are expecting it to be and, *SPOILER* you don’t actually get to see Neeson go one on one with the wolf but the build up to that scene is so great emotionally that it would probably cheapen everything else, even though it would probably be awesome in the short run.

Just as I hoped, The Grey is the first great movie of the year, even though it’s not the balls to the action movie you might be expecting.  It is a fantastic survival movie with an amazing Liam Neeson in the lead and just goes to show the versatility of Joe Carnahan as the The Grey is a complete 18o from his last movie, the awesomely insane A-Team movie.  It’s definitely highly recommended and sets a high mark for the other movies of the year to match.

5 out 5

Liam Neeson continues his domination of the early parts of the year by having another number one action movie in The Grey this weekend, following on previous number ones Taken and Unknown.  The Grey took in a solid $19.6 million, a little bit under those other Neeson action flicks but they both also came from bigger studios.  Underworld: Awakening fell by 51% from it’s number one weekend last week but still took second place with another $12.4 million.  One for the Money performed above expectations, which granted were extremely low, with a gross of $11.5 million.  It probably got a boost from it’s Groupon promotion where you could get a ticket for $6.  Red Tails and Man on a Ledge rounded out the top 5 with Man on a Ledge having a pretty terrible opening, getting beat by previous Sam Worthington movie The Debt, which made $9.9 million it’s opening weekend.  In other box office news, The Descendants returned to over 1,000 theaters over the weekend and rocketed back into the top ten, going from 16th last week to eighth this week.  Going in the opposite direction, Haywire and Contraband both fell drastically from previous weeks with the former barely staying in the top ten.

Starring: Liam Neeson, Frank Grillo, Dermot Mulroney, Dallas Roberts, Joe Anderson

Directed by: Joe Carnahan

Plot: A group of oil workers on their way home from Alaska are forced into a fight for survival when their plane crashes.  To make matters worse, a pack of vicious wolves is stalking the group.

Rotten Tomatoes Freshness: 76%

Critic Consensus: “The Grey is an exciting tale of survival, populated with fleshed-out characters and a surprising philosophical agenda”

Man on a Ledge

Starring: Sam Worthington, Elizabeth Banks, Ed Harris, Jamie Bell, Edward Burns, Genesis Rodriguez

Directed by: Asger Leth

Plot: A wrongly fully accused ex-cop, Nick Cassidy, becomes a distraction for his accomplices by feigning a suicide attempt while they break in to a nearby building to get proof of Nick’s innocent.

RT Freshness: 20%

Critic Consensus: “Uninspired acting and preposterous plotlines diffuse Man on a Ledge’s mildly intriguing premise”

One for the Money

Starring: Katherine Heigl, Jason O’Mara, Daniel Sunjuta, Nate Mooney, Sherri Shepherd, John Leguizamo

Directed by: Julie Anne Robinson

Plot: Stephanie Plum loses her job at Macy’s and decides to become a bounty hunter at her sleazy cousin’s bail bondsman office.

RT Freshness: N/A

Critic Consensus: N/A

January is typically a dumping ground for movies the studios have had lying around or didn’t think were strong enough to be released in November/December.  The seems to be the case for a bunch of this month’s releases but there’s still a couple that look solid like The Grey with Liam Neeson and Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire.  Check out all of this month’s offerings below.

January 6th

• The Devil Inside- A young woman travels with an unauthorized team of Catholic priests who perform exorcisms in an attempt to figure out what’s wrong with her psychotic mother.

January 13th

• Contraband- Mark Wahlberg stars as a former smuggler who is pulled in for “one last job” when his wife’s brother blows a job for a ruthless drug dealer.
• Beauty and the Beast 3D- The Disney classic gets converted to 3D and returns to theaters.
• Joyful Noise- Queen Latifah and Dolly Parton star as church rivals who must join forces to get their choir ready for a massive competition.

January 20th

• Haywire- Steven Soderbergh directs his first straight up action movie with Gina Carrano starring as an elite CIA agent who is betrayed and goes on a revenge fueled rampage against her former employers.
• Red Tails- George Lucus produces this World War II movie about the all African American fighter squadron, the Tuskegee Airmen.
• Underworld Awakening- Kate Beckinsale returns to the Underworld franchise as vampire Selene, who awakens from cryostasis to find humans have not only become aware of the war between between vampires and lycans, but have entered it.

January 27th

• The Grey- Liam Neeson leads a crew of oil workers through the Alaskan wilderness after their plane crashes but things get more dangerous when a pack of vicious wolves starts stalking the group.
• Man on a Ledge- Sam Worthington stars in this Inside Man looking crime movie as a man who is seemingly on the verge of committing suicide but is really just the diversion for a heist.
• One for the Money- Yet another Katherine Heigl romantic comedy, this time she stars as bumbling bounty hunter Stephanie Plum, who goes on the trail of her old high school boyfriend, who has skipped bail and has a massive reward on his head.

Easily one of the most anticipated movies of the 2012 is Peter Berg’s adaptation of the Hasbro board game, Battleship (In case you can’t tell I was being sarcastic).  Starring Taylor Kitsch (for whom 2012 is make or break as he’s the star of two $100+ million movies), Rihanna, Liam Neeson and Alexander Skaarsgaard, the movie follows a battalion of Navy vessels as they head out from Hawaii into the Pacific Ocean for some war games.  The group comes across a mysterious structure that turns out to be an alien device that unleashes cyborg commandos and attack ships and also creates an impenetrable barrier around Hawaii and miles of the surrounding oceans.  The first trailer was ridiculous and this one is even more so, since they have more of the alien technology featured.  It’s also such a Michael Bay rip off that he might be able to sue them for copyright infringement.  There’s still no sign of Liam Neeson growling, “You sunk my Battleship!!” and I maintain that if that doesn’t happen, the movie is a complete failure.  Battleship is out in May of next year.

Name: Peyton Westlake

Occupation: Scientist developing artificial skin for burn victims

Family: N/A

Allies: Julia Hastings, Yakititio

Enemies: Louis Strack, Robert Durant and his goons

Weapon of Choice: Fists, impersonation

Body Count: At least 8

Memorable Quote: ”I am everyone and no one. Everywhere. Nowhere. Call me… Darkman.”

See Peyton in Action: 

This week on the show, Zach, Chris and Joe talk about the on going Netflix troubles, Drive, The Lion King, obscure horror movies, deep cuts from Jason Statham, Liam Neeson punching a wolf, the latest from Clint Eastwood and so much more.

• Show and Tell: Joe has been catching up on TV like Sons of Anarchy and The Office, Chris watched some Parks & Recreation and also obscure horror movies Mom and Office Killer and Zach watched Drive, Chaos, The Lion King 3D and The Informant!
• News: Trailers for The Grey, J. Edgar and Premium Rush, Emmy winners, Netflix splitting into two companies after losing a million subscribers, Source Code becoming a CBS show and Avatar invading Walt Disney parks.  Plus a ton of TV in the New Release Round Up.

We want to hear your comments, feedback and, most importantly, suggestions for discussion topics. Send them all to contact@everythingaction.com. Also, be sure to subscribe to us in the iTunes music store (just do a search for Everything Actioncast in the store) and follow us on twitter @evaction and on Facebook (www.facebook.com/everything.action)

Liam Neeson makes brass knuckles out of mini bar liquor bottles and PUNCHES A WOLF IN THE FACE!  I feel like I don’t have to write anything else about this movie because that image is so unbelievably awesome but you probably want a little bit more information.  The Grey is from director Joe Carnahan, who teamed with Liam Neeson last summer for the surprisingly awesome big screen adaptation of The A-Team.  In The Grey, Liam Neeson is the head of a group of oil rig workers who are flying home when their plane crashes in the wilderness of Alaska and the men have to make their to civilization while surviving the freezing temperatures and a pack of vicious wolves.  Ridley and Tony Scott are producers on the movie and it’s out this January.  Consider me extremely excited.

• New Vehicle from The Dark Knight Rises photographed:  More stealth photos from the filming of the The Dark Knight Rises in Pittsburgh as it looks like a possible new vehicle was being shot.  Judging from the rig, it appears that it might be some sort of flying vehicle, possibly a hovercraft version of the Tumbler.
• Riddick sequel casting, direct sequel to Pitch Black:  Vin Diesel and director David Twohy were optimistic that they could start shooting the next Riddick this summer but it’s going a little slower than they expected.  Casting has just started for the next movie, simply titled Riddick right now, that will be a direct sequel to the awesome Pitch Black, with only minor references to the mess that was Chronicles of Riddick.  Twohy has also stated that Riddick will be more vicious and bad ass than he ever has been.
• David Yates/Steve Kloves working on an adaptation of The Stand:   The director and writer of the last four Harry Potter movies, David Yates and Steve Kloves, respectively, are reuniting to adapt another lengthy book, Stephen King’s The Stand.  The Stand is about the end of the world after most of humanity is killed by a viral outbreak.  East Texas resident Stu Redman leads the forces of good while Randall Flagg leads the forces of evil.  The general consensus is that Yates and Kloves did a fine job of adopting the lengthy Deathly Hallows for film and they could probably do a good 2 part movie of the 1000 page The Stand.  The Stand was previously adapted as a TV miniseries starring Gary Sinise and Miguel Ferrer.
• Joe Carnahan’s The Grey opens January 27, 2012: Liam Neeson vs. Wolves from the director of The A-Team, what more do you need to know?
• Resident Evil 5 on the way:  Just like the zombies that star in it, the Resident Evil movie series refuses to die.  The fifth entry, Retribution, will begin filming this October for a release next September.  No plot details are known right now but casting includes characters like Barry Burton, Leon Kennedy and Jill Valentine.  Milla Jovavich will return yet again as Alice and Paul W.S. Anderson will once again direct.
• Bruce Willis in talks to play the original Joe in GI Joe 2: The casting for GI Joe 2 continues as it seems like Bruce Willis is in talks to play the original Real American Hero.  The Rock was previously cast as Roadblock and the movie also features RZA, Ray Stevenson, Adrianne Palicki and returning cast members Channing Tatum, Ray Park and Byung Hun-Lee.
• World War Z set for a December 21, 2012 release date, plot details revealed:  It’s had a rough development but thankfully the adaptation of World War Z is filming and scheduled to be released next winter.  Brad Pitt will star as UN officer Gerry Lane.  The movie’s plot is drastically different from the book in that it’s taking place as the zombie outbreak is happening and following one character.  Other sites are going completely ape shit about this but as long as they have some of the set pieces of the book, like the Battle of Yonkers, and has some of Max Brooks’ original takes on the genre, than I’ll still be down for it.
• Frank Darabont apparently fired, didn’t step down, from The Walking Dead:  This story keep getting messier but apparently Frank Darabont was fired by AMC for refusing to work within their demands for The Walking Dead.  Darabont appeared at the show’s panel at Comic Con and then it was announced he was stepping down from the show the following Monday.  Now it seems like AMC fired Darabont because he seemed to be having difficulty working under the faster production schedule of TV and was demanding more money for the show.  Rumors are that AMC is stiffing their other shows to keep the budget for Mad Men where it has been.

You can all these stories as they come up during the week by going to our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/everything.action

With their major action figure lines already having big screen adaptations (GI Joe, Transformers), Hasbro has been pushing for their board games to start getting movie adaptations. Ouija, Candyland, Monopoly are all in various stages of development but the first one out of the gate is Peter Berg’s version of Battleship.  Starring Liam Neeson, Taylor Kitsch, Rihanna, Brooklyn Decker and Alexander Skarsgard, Battleship follows a Naval fleet that is participating in an international war game when they discover a mysterious wreckage.  Upon investigating, the fleet is enveloped in an energy bubble and comes under attack from alien ships.  I will watch anything with Liam Neeson in action mode and I’ve loved some of Peter Berg’s previous movies (The Rundown in particular) but this movie looks fucking ridiculous.  The aliens are literally shooting the pegs from the board game at the ships!  This seems like someone watched Battle: LA and thought, “I wonder what the Navy was doing while the Army was fighting in Los Angeles?”  The movie will be out next May and you check out the trailer below.

This week Brian, Zach and Chris discuss Unknown, Falling Skies, Burn Notice, a bunch of new trailers including the awesome new Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol trailer and much more.

• Show and Tell: Brian watched Morning Glory and Futurama, Chris watched 10 to Midnight and Unknown and Zach watched Burn Notice, Falling Skies, Last Man Standing (the Lifetime action movie) and Leon the Professional.
• News: Trailers for Killer Elite, Brave, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and a new Captain America trailer, Seth Gordon directing a reboot of WarGames, Jamie Foxx will most likely play Django in Django Unchained and our first look at Martin Freeman as Bilbo in The Hobbit.  Plus the New Release Round Up.

We want to hear your comments, feedback and, most importantly, suggestions for discussion topics. Send them all to contact@everythingaction.com. Also, be sure to subscribe to us in the iTunes music store (just do a search for Everything Actioncast in the store) and follow us on twitter @evaction and on Facebook (search on Facebook for our Everything Action group).

I don’t know about everyone else but I for one have been loving this evolution of Liam Neeson into an ass kicking action hero which probably started around Batman Begins but began in earnest with the fantastic Taken.  Being promoted as the follow up to Taken, Unknown falls a little short but it’s still a fun conspiracy thriller.

Neeson stars as Dr. Martin Harris, a botanist who travels to Berlin with his wife Liz for an important science convention.  Arriving at their hotel, Martin realizes he left his briefcase at the airport and hops into a cab to go and get it.  Unfortunately, the cab gets into an accident, crashes into a river and Martin is in a coma for four days.  When he wakes up, he can’t remember much about the day of the accident and, worse yet, another man has seemingly assumed his identity and his wife doesn’t recognize him.  Martin sets out to prove he his who says he is and what is going on.

Liam Neeson is pretty much always amazing and he’s fantastic here as well, growling out his lines and kicking ass in the couple of fights he gets into.  He’s not the killing machine that he was in Taken however, since he’s just a doctor of botany, and he spends most of the movie confused as flashes of memories assault him and angrily claiming that he’s Martin Harris.  Aiden Quinn plays the impostor Martin Harris and he has a great, cocky asshole thing going that makes you root for Liam Neeson to eventually kick his ass in the most brutal way possible.  Frank Langella shows up for a little while as Martin’s friend Rodney and he’s quickly cornering the market on mysteriously creepy older gentlemen.  The weakest link is probably January Jones, who is incredibly attactive but is pretty flat and has pretty much one facial expression the entire movie; she looks like she’s trying to think really hard about something but is just increasingly more confused.

As far as action, Unknown features a couple of really good fight scenes and one great car chase (probably one of the top 3 best car chases involving a taxi) but despite the trailers, Unknown is really a conspiracy thriller, as Neeson tries to piece together his tattered memories and increasingly mysterious circumstances like a black SUV that seems to be stalking him and a code in his favorite book that seems to be in his wife’s handwriting.  Everything culminates in a pretty crazy twist that is extremely reminiscent of an early 90′s action classic but saying which would probably spoil the twist.  I was actually pretty surprised by the twist as I was expecting something a little more standard going by the trailers.

Overall you could do a lot worse during this dead time at the box office than Unknown.  If you adjust your expections to not expect Taken 2, you should have a pretty fun time trying to unravel the mystery of Dr. Martin Harris and Liam Neeson always makes everything he’s in better than they normally would be otherwise.  If we continue to get one or two Liam Neeson action thrillers a year, I will be a very happy man.

4 out of 5

Liam Neeson continues his ass kicking streak by beating all other competitors at the box office this weekend.  Unknown took the top spot with $21.7 million, which is a little less than Neeson’s previous solo actioner, Taken, but still strong for the usually horrible mid-winter season.  Second place went to the teen action movie I Am Number Four with $19.4 million.  Gnomeo and Juliet remained in third place with another $19.2 million.  Last week’s number one, Just Go With It, fell down to fourth with $18.5 million and the other new release, Big Momma’s: Like Father, Like Son rounded out the top five with $16.3 million.  Justin Bieber had a massive drop off from the previous week, going from second to sixth with $13.3 million.  Other than those, there wasn’t a lot of other movement in the top ten.

Starring: Liam Neeson, January Jones, Diane Kruger, Aidan Quinn

Directed by: Jaume Collet-Serra

Plot: Dr. Martin Harris gets into a car crash while visiting Berlin and wakes up four days later to find out that someone else has taken over his identity and his wife and everyone else don’t recognize him.

Rotten Tomatoes Freshness: 55%

Critic Consensus: “Liam Neeson elevates the proceedings considerably, but Uknown is ultimately too derivative — and implausible — to take advantage of its intriguing premise.”

I Am Number Four

Starring: Alex Pettyfer, Timothy Olyphant, Teresa Palmer, Dianna Agron

Directed by: DJ Caruso

Plot: A group of vicious alien bounty hunters are hunting nine teenagers with special powers and John Smith aka Number Four is next on their hit list.

RT Freshness: 28%

Critic Consensus: “It’s positioned as the start of a franchise, but I Am Number Four’s familiar plot and unconvincing performances add up to one noisy, derivative, and ultimately forgettable sci-fi thriller.”

Big Momma’s: Like Father, Like Son

Starring: Martin Lawrence, Brandon T. Jackson, Jessica Lucas, Faizon Love

Directed by: John Whitesell

Plot: FBI Agent Malcom Turner and his stepson Trent both must go undercover at an all girls school when Trent witnesses a murder.

RT Freshness: 0%

Critic Consensus: N/A

This week Zach and Chris hold down the fort and talk about the X-Men, crazy DC superheroes and their favorite Liam Neeson movies.

• Show and Tell: Chris watched Boondock Saints II and The Exam while Zach watched the Season Two premiere of Justified and Superman/Shazam: Return of Black Adam.
• News: X-Men: First Class trailer, Possible future projects for Statham/Stallone, Fantastic Voyage/Logan’s Run remakes get directors, Shane Black possibly writing/directing Iron Man 3.  Plus an Unstoppable New Release Round Up.
• Liam Neeson: Zach and Chris talk about some of their favorite Liam Neeson movies in honor of Unknown coming out this weekend, including Taken, Kingdom of Heaven, Batman Begins, The Phantom Menace, Gangs of New York, Krull, Rob Roy and more.

We want to hear your comments, feedback and, most importantly, suggestions for discussion topics. Send them all to contact@everythingaction.com. Also, be sure to subscribe to us in the iTunes music store (just do a search for Everything Actioncast in the store) and follow us on twitter @evaction and on Facebook (search on Facebook for our Everything Action group).

• Star Wars on Blu Ray Release Date: Star Wars comes to Blu Ray in September and you can get all six movies, just the prequels or just the original trilogy.
• Stephen Sommer not directing next GI Joe movie: Maybe it will actually be good now?
• Joe Carnahan re-teaming with Liam Neeson for “The Grey”: A-Team director Joe Carnahan will be re-teaming with Liam Neeson for the movie “The Grey”, which is about a group of oil rig workers who are flying over the tundra of Alaska and crash and have to survive both the weather and a pack of vicious wolves.
• McG directing Ouija: Charlie’s Angels/Terminator: Salvation director McG has beaten The Crazies director Breck Eisner for the director’s chair of the movie based on the Ouija board.  Despite being a horror movie staple, the movie based on the board game is supposed to be more of an action/adventure in the vein of National Treasure or Indiana Jones.
• Gareth Edwards directing the new Godzilla: Coming onto the scene last year with the super low budget but still pretty impressive Monsters, Gareth Edwards has been tapped to direct Legendary Pictures’ new Godzilla movie.  It’s the first American attempt at the big G since Roland Emmerich’s over hyped version in 98 and unlike that movie, Legendary has said that it’s going to be OG Godzilla, not a mutated iguana.
• Pixar bits: Monsters Inc. 2 is possibly coming up for Pixar and it might actually be a prequel to the original movie.  Also the short before Cars 2 this summer is the Toy Story 3 based “Play-cation” and finds the gang trying to cheer up Barbie and Ken after they get left behind when Bonnie heads off to Hawaii by turning Bonnie’s room into an island getaway.

• Sam Neill one of the leads of “Alcatraz”: Everyone’s favorite paleontologist, Sam Neill, has been cast in JJ Abrams upcoming TV show “Alcatraz”, which also stars Jorge Garcia, Jonny Coyne and Jason Butler Harner.  The show is supposedly about a group of guards and prisoners who disappear from Alcatraz when it was still active and reappear in the present day.  The police and FBI are then tasked with tracking these time travelers down.
• Bond 23 might be back on track: MGM has reportedly gotten most of the problems that were hampering the next Bond film and it will probably start shooting next year for a 2012 release.  Daniel Craig will still be Bond and Sam Mendes is scheduled to direct.
• Cate Blanchett returning for The Hobbit: Cate Blanchett is returning to the Lord of the Rings universe to reprise her role as Galadriel for The Hobbit.  Six other roles were announced as well but I have no idea who the actors are nor who the hell the characters they are playing are.
• Liam Neeson back for Titans 2: Clash of the Titans didn’t exactly set the world on fire but a sequel is in the works with Battle for Los Angeles director Jonathan Liebesman taking over for Louis Letterier.  Liam Neeson confirmed this week that he’ll return as Zeus and Sam Worthington, Ralph Fiennes and Gemma Arterton are all scheduled to return as well.  Rumors are saying that Javier Bardem might be cast as Ares and James Franco might be Agenor, the son of Poisedon.
• Wachowski Siblings possibly making an urban retelling of Robin Hood: Seemingly disappearing after Speed Racer, the Wachowskis are reportedly working on a modern, urban retelling of the Robin Hood story.  They’ve also supposedly been in talks with Will Smith to star.
• Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel now titled Paradise: That’s pretty much it.
• First Official Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides Pictures:

Name: Bryan Mills

Occupation: Former CIA “Preventer”, freelance security

Family: Kim (Daughter), Lenore (ex-wife)

Allies: Stuart, Sam, Jean Claude

Enemies: Albanian Mafia operating in Paris

Weapon of Choice: Beretta 92FS

Body Count: 32

Memorable Quote: “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.”

See Bryan in Action:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter, Robbie Coltrane

Directed by: David Yates

Plot: Harry, Ron and Hermione set out on a quest to destroy all of the evil lord Voldemort’s horcruxes, the source of his power and the only way to defeat him.

Rotten Tomatoes Freshness: 76%

Critic Consensus: “It can’t help but feel like the prelude it is, but Deathly Hallows: Part I is a beautifully filmed, emotionally satisfying penultimate installment for the Harry Potter series.”

The Next Three Days

Starring: Russell Crowe, Liam Neeson, Olivia Wilde, Elizabeth Banks, Brian Dennehy, Lennie James

Directed by: Paul Haggis

Plot: After his wife goes to prison for a murder she says she didn’t commit, John Brennan hatches a desperate plan to break her out.

RT Freshness: 42%

Critic Consensus: “Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks give it their all, but their solid performances aren’t quite enough to compensate for The Next Three Days’ uneven pace and implausible plot.”