”X‑Men Ori­gins: Wolver­ine” deliv­ers what its ads promised it would: tons of action, includ­ing a death-defy­ing leap onto a heli­copter, a motor­cy­cle stunt that makes Ethan Hunt look like an ama­teur, and numer­ous duels with oth­er mutants. Yes, the hero of the film takes a beat­ing. He gets thrown around, he gets back up, he vows to fight on, and he nev­er quits. On that… 

I have no prob­lem sit­ting through dis­as­ter movies. There have been many:  “Vol­cano” (1997), “Armagge­don” (1998), “Deep Impact” (1998), “The Day After Tomor­row” (2004), and more recent­ly, “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (2008).  But what I have trou­bles deal­ing with is when the film becomes less enter­tain­ing and more upset­ting, when it relies exclu­sive­ly on graph­ic scenes to shock instead of sur­pris­ing view­ers with… 

”Watch­men” is the great­est sci­ence-fic­­tion adven­ture since “The Matrix” (1999). Refresh­ing, orig­i­nal, and it takes the con­cept of the super­hero to new heights. The char­ac­ters are each unique in their own way but share a com­mon attribute: they are humans with no real super­hero pow­ers or abil­i­ties (with the excep­tion of John who acci­den­tal­ly acquired pow­ers). These char­ac­ters are strong in appear­ance. They seem apt… 

“10, 000 B.C.” is an adven­ture — not just an action pic­ture but a film which takes view­ers through jun­gles, moun­tains, and deserts, in day and in night, in the heat, and in the cold. Along the way, the main char­ac­ters are chal­lenged by large dinosaur-like birds that are not only men­ac­ing because of their quick­ness when they attack but because the team in charge…