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Blended is a mess, and as enjoyable as it may be in parts on the whole it’s still an exasperating misfire wasting its inherent plusses and attributes to an almost unforgivable degree.

X-Men: Days of Future Past manages to take such a convoluted scenario and present it in ways that are easy to process and even more fun to digest. It treats its audience with intelligence and respect but doesn’t skimp on action pyrotechnics.

“I hope [Locke] is seen as a bit of a comedy, a bit of a thriller, a bit of a melodrama, but at the same time you begin to feel that all of this is real, that everything happening was actually happening.”
– Steven Knight

Edwards has done the unthinkable, crafting a modern Godzilla that not only pays deft homage to the creature’s glorious past but also makes many of its closest impersonators feel hollow and misguided when stood up next to it.

In many ways Locke is the thriller of the year, a real time, ticking clock masterwork of tension and suspense that’s as unrelenting and unmerciful as anything likely to see a release in all of 2014. In others, it is nothing more than a quickly paced melodrama of responsibility and regret, focusing entirely on a single character, the choices he has made and the price he is forced to pay when the bill for his self-centered actions come tragically due.

For family audiences, Disney’s latest inspirational sports drama Million Dollar Arm fits the bill with appropriate life-affirming aplomb, and if the pitch being thrown isn’t exactly a strike that doesn’t mean it misses the mark by a whole heck of a lot.

Alien Abduction doesn’t do a bad job of following the found footage playbook, and there are definite hints that Beckerman might be a director worth keeping an eye on, but overall the film is a forgettable waste of time, ultimately kidnapping 85 minutes of my time that I’ll never get back.

Moms’ Night Out is a family-friendly sitcom masquerading as a feature film with more laughs than expected and enough heart to make the majority of the odious aspects borderline tolerable. If those obnoxious (and slightly noxious) elements are taken with a grain of salt it’s not too bad, and while not the greatest of recommendations, considering the alternative it’s going to have to do.