Contributor: Bob Hoose

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.

Fighting

Another story romanticizing gristle-and-bone street fights. This time with a cute boy-next-door lead. Only in Hollywood.

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Sacred 3

This Diablo-like series tries for a novel approach, but tends to fly right past fresh to ferocious … and obnoxious.

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Ultra Street Fighter IV

This add-on rendition of the street-side brawler classic packs in some new muscle-bound maulers, moves and mechanics. So we’ll give them a quick one-two.

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Get on Up

The Godfather of Soul gets a biopic. Will it make you wanna get on up and dance, or get on up to find the remote?

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Fantastic Four

Fantastic Four has all the nuts and bolts and moving parts of a fun modern superhero movie—from attractive stars to CGI bombast. But it’s a super-suited tin man seeking a heart.

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The Invasion

An alien virus turns people into mind-numbed automatons. (For the fourth time, now.) Nicole Kidman races to the rescue.

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Lucy

Evolution, brain-pumping drugs, superpowers, gangland shoot-’em-ups … and Scarlett Johansson. Another Avenger’s pic? Not even close.

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Rush Hour 3

Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker team up for a third time for a few more kicks … and punches and backflips and roundhouses.

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Wish I Was Here

Writer/director/actor Zach Braff follows up Garden State with a wistful rumination on lessons yet to be learned … and foul language already spewed. It’ll make you say, “Wish I Wasn’t Hearing This!”

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Planes: Fire & Rescue

Dusty Crophopper is back, not as an ace air racer this time, but as a fire fighter in training.

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Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes often feels exactly like what it is: a second installment, a step in between, a transitional fossil.

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Boyhood

It seems to me that the moments people might spend watching this film could be more fully lived somewhere else.

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Tammy

This Melissa McCarthy vehicle is a one-dimensional sludge-fest of a film that once again sets up a big, sloppy, foulmouthed and sometimes cruel stereotype.

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Civilization Revolution 2

The latest Civilization effort exports its streamlined world-building ambitions straight to your smartphone or tablet.

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Sniper Elite III

Here’s a shooter/combat game that wants you to see exactly what damage you’re causing—every crushed bone and ruptured organ.

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