Grown Ups
Directed by Dennis Dugan
Starring Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Kevin James, David Spade, Rob Schneider
Rated PG-13
Release date: June 25, 2010

If you only see one movie this summer, it would be a smart idea to make it anything other than Grown Ups, the latest film to star Adam Sandler and the usual group of people who seem to rely entirely on Sandler for work.

What rough passes for the plot of the movie is this: A group of friends were all on their grade school basketball team together and won a championship game. Thirty years later, their former coach passes away, and the friends decide to spend a weekend at a cottage on the lake after his funeral. They bring their families, straight from the funeral, and hilarity ensues… right? Not really.

Every single character is a one-trick pony that runs the same joke into the ground repeatedly. Eric (Kevin James) is a family man who tries hard to be a big shot but cannot have a honest conversation about most things. Kurt (Chris Rock) is an emasculated househusband who likes to cook, but only so much that it’s mentioned once early in the film. Marcus (David Spade) is a sex-hungry womanizer. Rob (Rob Schneider) is a new-age dimwit who likes much older women. Then there’s Lenny (Adam Sandler) who’s rich, successful, and great at sports all while being surprisingly humble and down-to-Earth about it all.

Heavy Rain
Developer: Quantic Dream
Platforms: Playstation 3
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
ESRB: M
Release Date: February 23, 2010

Because the mystery is what makes a large portion of the story enjoyable, I will try and keep spoilers from the main portion of the game to a minimum.

The highly anticipated Heavy Rain has finally arrived. After being touted as a revolutionary step forward in video gaming and spending years in development, the finished product does not disappoint.

The story revolves around four main characters and the investigation into a series of murders in a unspecified neighborhood (though contextual clues imply the setting is near Philadelphia). Over the span of three years, 8 boys disappeared, only to be found several days later, drowned in rain water, with an orchid and an origami figure near their bodies. With no real leads to go on, the police are nowhere near catching the “Origami Killer.”

A majority of the time, especially early on, the player controls Ethan Mars (Pascal Langdale), an average man whose happy married life falls apart after the accidental death of one of his two sons (taking place two years prior to the events of main game). Divorced and having a hard time connecting to his living son, Shaun, Mars suffers from blackouts and depression, made worse when Shaun disappears and is feared to be the next victim of the Origami Killer.

Date Night
Directed by Shawn Levy
Starring Tina Fey, Steve Carell, Mark Wahlberg, Jimmi Simpson, Common
Rated PG-13
Release date: April 9, 2010 )

It seems like good comedies are increasingly hard to come by these days. Why bother with decent writing and actors with skilled comedic timing when you can just make pop culture references and poop jokes? Yes, I’m looking at you Friedberg and Seltzer.

Date Night, on the other hand, will probably be remembered as the best comedy of 2010. While the film is already be called this year’s The Hangover, I’m going to just say something that will probably bring me ridicule and debate. Date Night is better than The Hangover. Obviously comedic values are very subjective, but I personally find awkward, fish-out-of-water comedy much more entertaining than drunken wackiness. Each has their place, but I think in the long run Date Night will appeal to more people as The Hangover is more of the definitive “guy movie.”

Date Night stars a powerhouse of comedic talent in Tina Fey and Steve Carell. Carell has proven himself to be a strong comedic lead with The Office and The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and Fey may just be the most talented comedic writer in television today. While they don’t have much romantic chemistry between them on screen, the plot only requires that they have comedic chemistry, of which they have plenty.

Bioshock 2
Developer: 2K/Digital Extremes/Arkane Studios
Platforms: Playstation 3 | Xbox 360 | PC
Publisher: 2K
ESRB: M
Release Date: February 9, 2010

Welcome back to Rapture, the Objectivist dystopia where one of the best stories in video game history takes place. Every since Bioshock changed the way people viewed FPS games, fans have anxiously awaited the sequel. The wait is over, and patience has paid off for those who wanted more.

Bioshock 2 takes place 8 years after the events of the first game. Industrialist Andrew Ryan, the founder of Rapture, is dead, as is his arch-nemesis Frank Fontaine, whose scheming brings about a civil war that caused the city’s infrastructure to collapse. In the time since the war ended, the remaining citizens have continued their decent into complete madness, made worse by the complete isolation and continued abuse of the gene-altering drug known as ADAM. ADAM grants users special abilities, but can easily be abused, resulting in a loss of sanity.

The story begins two years prior to the events of the first game, with the player as a “Big Daddy” one of the super-strong brainwashed warriors decked out in a scuba suit/battle armor. As a mindless soldier, the player only watches as they slowly lurch through Rapture guarding a “Little Sister,” a genetically modified and brainwashed child tasked with extracting ADAM from dead bodies throughout the city. While defending the girl from “splicers,” ADAM addicts whose minds have been ravaged by prolonged abuse, you are interrupted by Dr. Sophia Lamb, a psychiatrist causing a stir within Rapture. It turns out your “little sister” is Eleanor Lamb, Sophia’s daughter. Wanting her daughter back, Dr. Lamb uses mind control to force you to kill you yourself.

Blood Creek
Directed by Joel Schumacher
Starring Dominic Purcell, Henry Cavill, Michael Fassbender, Emma Booth
Lionsgate and Gold Circle Films
Release Date: January 19, 2010

Those Nazis were into some weird stuff, and despite being defeated 65 years ago, filmmakers are still finding ways to make them the villains. In the case of Blood Creek, the villain is a single Nazi, Professor Richard Wirth (Michael Fassbender), who travels to America prior to WWII in search of mysterious runestones. His search brings him to the farm of a German family in Town Creek, West Viriginia. Wirth, a student of the occult, finds what he’s looking for — an ancient runestone he believes holds the secret to immortality — but not before war breaks out.

Seventy years later, Victor Marshall (Dominic Purcell) disappears for nearly two years in the same town. When he reemerges in the middle of the night looking like a tortured caveman, he refuses to explain his absence to his brother Evan (Henry Cavill) and demands his help. Evan does as he is asked without getting the details. Personally, if my feared-dead brother suddenly reappeared after two years looking like he had been through hell and demanded I grab as much ammo as possible and follow him, I would probably ask a question or two.