Red Tails (2012)

World War II – Italy 1944.

Due to overwhelming pressure from Civil Rights Organizations and the black press concerning blacks barred from flying in the military, the US Army Air Corps had for the first time in American War history added an African-American aircraft combat and pursuit squadron to their military forces in Europe. This squadron was a military experiment aimed to stifle and appease protest in the United States: the Air Corps selected and trained a group of all-black soldiers compiled of instructors, maintenance and support staff, navigators and all other personnel needed to keep combat planes in the air, including pilots. These black soldiers were known as the Tuskegee Airmen, they were never actually intended to be a part of any true combat operation therefore were merely supplied with old cast-off aircraft and equipment and only allowed to fly basic clean-up missions many miles far behind enemy lines.

As the war rages on, top military officials in Washington are planning to terminate the Tuskegee experiment due to negative media leaks. Colonel Bullard (Terrence Howard) goes to the Pentagon to defend the Tuskegee Airmen by announcing their valuable potential if given the opportunity of actual combat missions. Within days back at the airbase in Italy, Major Stance (Cuba Gooding Jr.) receives and shares new Frag-Orders with the squadron’s flight leaders; they have been given a combat mission to provide air coverage for a full assault marine beach landing.

Later back at the Pentagon, Lieutenant General Luntz (Gerald McRaney) is very impressed with the action report upon confirmation of the Airmen’s successful mission. He summons Colonel Bullard to discuss the heavy casualty losses his bombers are suffering under their current air support, Bullard assures him that with new planes and a new flight method the Tuskegee Airmen will reduce the bomber losses and help the Air Corps fulfill their target missions. Soon after, Colonel Bullard returns to the airbase in Italy, he instructs his pilots on a new strategy and informs them of the brand new fighter planes they will soon be flying in their new combat missions to provide air support coverage to various bomber fleets. Their planes will all bear the same red painted tail markings to make it easier for their escorts to identify them in the air. And so through the remainder of the war, as proud Red Tails, the Tuskegee Airmen overcame segregation, prejudice, and personnel loss as they became one of the most highly respected fighter groups of World War II. 

This is an excellent movie that stands as a perfect example of true human value and the pursuit of equality for all.  

Underworld: Awakening (2012)

Mankind has finally discovered that they have been sharing this world and coexisting beside two separate non-human species, Vampires and Lycans. This revelation comes in the wake of a new virus that ravages the human genetic code; it gives the infected immortality and causes them to morph into monstrous creatures incapable of controlling their own actions. Although governmental studies have yet to yield a cure they have at least confirmed a fatal sensitivity to ultra-violet light and silver. And so, with the development of new methods and weapons they have deployed a mass cleansing of society to identify and exterminate the non-humans.

Selene (Kate Beckinsale) is a notorious vampire who for many centuries had emerged victoriously from battles against the Lycan clan, she had been forever revered until she met and fell in love with a hybrid named Michael. Their union enraged her elders and she was condemned by her clan when she refused to kill him. Together the two have fought to protect each other from all species ever since, and now with this new purging they have decided to seek safety somewhere faraway from humans and their own kind. However the humans have sabotaged their escape and surrendered their remains as the governmental property of Antigen Laboratory so Dr. Jacob Lane (Stephen Rea) can continue his research in trying to develop an antidote for the disease that still threatens the human race.

Twelve years later Selene suddenly awakens from a suspended cryogenic sleep, she escapes the laboratory and is chasing the visions she believes are coming from Michael. These visions lead her into tunnels underground where the Lycans have been hiding, and then she meets David (Theo James) he’s another vampire who helps her to rescue a young girl Eve (India Eisley); Eve calls herself “subject #2” and tells Selene that she is “subject #1”.

Elsewhere aboveground, Detective Sebastian (Michael Ealy) has been investigating a string of strange recent events that have led him to Dr. Lane who denies allegations of a test subject’s escape and has deceivingly assured him that “all is fine and well” at the laboratory. Later, all h3ll brakes out after Selene learns that Eve is actually her and Michael’s daughter; Eve is unaware of her potential powers so Selene must risk everything to protect her. The humans and vampires both want Eve dead while the Lycans want to use her body to protect them against silver.  

21 Jump Street (2012)

Seven years after high school, two misfits get together when they each join the same police academy; Jenko (Channing Tatum) is still a jock; he has physique, but he lacks brains and common-sense. Schmidt (Jonah Hill) is still a nerd; he has book-smarts, but he lacks coordination and common-sense. They become friends as they decide to help each other through training and upon graduation they become partners as well. Their first assignment is Bike Patrol in a local park; but they muck up their first arrest on a group of pot smoking bikers by failing to properly Mirandize the perp. (Jenko doesn’t even know how to recite the Miranda-Rights.) But that’s okay, Chief Hardy explains that the department is reviving an old canceled program and one of the projects involves the use of young immature seeming officers and “You idiots are perfect. You’re officially transferred.”

Our two cops are then sent to a church on 21 Jump Street where they will report to Captain Dickson (Ice Cube) and receive their new assignment. During the initial briefing Dickson calls his new squad “some Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus lookin motherF’ers”, he’s teaching them to “embrace their stereotypes”; the unit will be working undercover as high school students and he orders them to “Teenage the F#&K-up!” and then he explains the restrictions leading up to the “GOLDEN RULE”, Do Not Get Expelled from school! HA!

There’s a new synthetic drug that kids call “HFS”; Dickson explains that right now HFS is confined to one high school, and then he shows an internet video of a student that overdosed on the shyt a few days ago, now the kid is dead. Jenko and Schmidt’s job will be to infiltrate the dealers and find the supplier so they can eradicate this drug before it reaches the general public and contaminates other schools. As undercover students our cops will also pretend to be brothers, Dickson has cleverly created their new identities and enrolled them both in courses based on their original past academic history. Nevertheless, they manage to get confused on the first day of school, so now Jenko becomes the nerd and Schmidt is the jock. Together they have a lot of fun violating many restrictions through their investigation as they try to fit in with these kids to get closer to their targets, but everything goes awry after Schmidt gets carried away with being popular and Jenko gets caught up trying to prove he’s not stupid. They wind up braking the Golden Rule which gets them fired off the squad, but they have infiltrated the dealer AND their case is just about to come to a head. And since they already missed out on Prom Night seven years ago, and they already screwed up their first arrest in the park; they plan on going to prom to meet the supplier and carry out their big drug bust.

This is a hilarious action comedy that has definitely earned its ‘R’ rating!

Act Of Valor (2012)

Family is not always related by blood or marriage.

A US Navy Seal platoon is called into action after a CIA drug and weapons investigation goes awry. Navy Intel suggests that the platoon’s intended package was trying to work a link between the CIA’s target: Christo, a narcotics /assault weapons dealer in Costa Rico and his childhood friend Abu Shabal, a Chechen terrorist working within South Eastern Asia. The Seal team’s mission is the personnel recovery of a kidnapped CIA agent.

Later, updated information obtained during the completion of the Seal team’s mission reveals that the CIA agent was about to uncover an even greater threat than drugs and heavy guns; Christo and Abu are working together to deploy an attack of mass death and devastation in America. Now the Seal team’s mission has been extended and they’ll have to split up to deactivate the imminent terrorist attack that is already underway just outside the United States of America.

In the end, an uncle passes a poem on from a hero father to his son while also clarifying the ultimate honor and sacrifice of a fallen American Soldier in his final act of valor to defend his family, country, wife and child.

This film is based on real acts of valor and inspired by true events.

Machine Gun Preacher (2011)

Based on the life of Sam Childers

Sam Childers (Gerard Butler) AKA Crazy Horse was a violent drug dealer from a biker gang, and he’s just been released from a Pennsylvania State prison; his wife Lynn (Michelle Monaghan) is waiting outside to take him home. Very few things have changed while he’s been away but he’s about to learn the main changes revolve around Lynn; she’s found Jesus and she wants Sam to find him too. Lynn has become a faithful follower at his mother’s church and tells him that she quit dancing at the stripper bar; she has a new job in a factory with good benefits. Sam is angered by this news and it gives him the perfect excuse to make an immediate return to the biker bar and, his first homecoming drug fix. From there it doesn’t take long to get right back into his old gang ways; until a violent run-in with a hitchhiker causes him to reevaluate the direction of his life. He accepts Jesus and gets baptized, but it takes an offer from a new friend after the devastation of a severe event for him to find a purpose; to help other people in need by using his building skills. Time passes, he’s been able to stay clean and turn his life around and after an inspirational sermon at the church by a pastor from Uganda; he begins to see a new purpose, a way to reach more people that may need his help even more than those right here at home, but he’ll have to go to Africa to do it. While there Sam meets Deng and Marco; Deng explains they are freedom fighters for SPLA (Sudanese People’s Liberation Army) they’re here to protect the area from rebels of the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army.) At night the LRA attack villages, killing the men, women and babies while they steal the older children to rebuild their army. This news doesn’t sit well with Sam; later he witnesses the carnage and destruction after an LRA raid, he helplessly watches while scores of newly orphaned children return home to find their families butchered and scattered about the charred remains of their village. Sam Childers can finally hear his own calling in the grieving cries of the children left behind. His calling leads him to build a new village with an orphanage and a church/school, and his will leads him to fight beside the SPLA against the LRA to save as many lost African children that he possibly can as The Machine Gun Preacher.

This is a true story about life changing events, the inconceivable pain and suffering of children at an intolerable level and one man's redemption to end their terror.   

Wrath Of The Titans (2012)

In this tale of ancient Greece, Zeus (Liam Neeson) tells the story of deception and lack of faith that lead up to the end of the age of gods.

In the beginning; Zeus and his brothers Hades (Ralph Fiennes) and Poseidon (Danny Huston) defeated their evil father Kronos and locked him and the other Titans away deep under Tartarus. Zeus became the supreme god, lord of the heavens; Poseidon became lord of the seas and Hades became lord of the underworld. Zeus proclaimed as law that, no god shall intervene with the fates of man unless the Titans escaped or were released; and from that point on together with their great powers they ruled the world. But centuries later, the once praised and adulated gods grow weak as humans have lost faith through unanswered prayers.

Now Zeus calls upon his demigod son Perseus (Sam Worthington) to help him save the world and all mankind. He explains the coming of calamity and that it will affect both gods and man alike; without prayer the gods will lose their powers and all their work will come undone. The damage has already begun as demons seep through the walls of Tartarus. If the gods lose all their powers they become mortal and can die, and then Kronos himself will escape and make chaos to bring about the end of the world. Perseus is unconvinced of his worth and more concerned about the safety of his own son Helius, so he sends Zeus away to find other gods for this war. Zeus leaves to meet with his brothers and son Ares (Edgar Ramirez), he wants to unite so they can rebuild the walls of Tartarus to keep Kronos and the other Titans contained. A brief scuffle breaks and more demons escape, this time attacking Perseus’s village; when the threat is gone, he takes his son with him to pray to Zeus. But Poseidon shows up battered instead and explains how he and Zeus have been deceived by Ares and Hades and that Perseus is the world’s only hope now; Zeus has been captured and is a prisoner of the underworld. Poseidon mumbles on for Perseus to find his demigod son Agenor (Toby Kebbell) who is with Queen Andromeda (Rosamund Pike), Agenor will take him to The Fallen One, (Hephaestus). The Fallen One will take them to the underworld where together Perseus and Agenor; two half gods can use all of their powers to free Zeus, save humanity and try to defeat Kronos.

This movie relates and is a distant offshoot from Clash of the Titans. Although it’s not quite as creative, still with thrilling action, adventure, drama and fantasy there isn't much more you could ask for.