101. Ice Age

Title: Ice Age
Genre: Animation, Adventure, Comedy
Year: 2002, 2006, 2009, 2012

Summary:

Ice Age (2002): Sid, a sloth who never stops talking is left behind sleeping while everyone else begins the journey to the south. Awaking, he meets Manny, a mammoth who travels to the north, and decides to follow him. When a humans camp is attacked by tigers, a woman takes her baby and jumps into a river and falls off a waterfall. Before she disappears, the baby is rescued by Manny and Sid. The two animals decide to search for the father and return the baby to him. Diego, one of the tigers that attacked the humans, comes also claiming the baby.

Ice Age 2: The Meltdown (2006): Manny, Sid, and Diego are currently living in a large valley surrounded by an enormously high ice wall on all sides. When a water park begins to form, the trio discovers that the ice wall is actually a wall that is barely holding a massive body of water that could flood the valley to nearly a mile underwater. A vulture tells them that there is a boat at the other end of the valley that may save them all, but they only have 3 days to make it or die. Manny is having trouble facing the fact that he may be the last mammoth left. Along the way, they meet Ellie, a mammoth who thinks she is a possum, and her possum brothers Crash and Eddie. As they begin to travel together, Manny learns, with help from Diego and Sid, that having this new mammoth with them, may not be as bad as Manny makes it out to be while they try to escape the oncoming and continually threatening flood. During their journey, Scrat the sabre-toothed squirrel has his own adventures that eventually leads to something else entirely.

Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009): Life begins to change for Manny and his friends: Scrat is still on the hunt to hold onto his beloved acorn, while finding a possible romance in a female sabre-toothed squirrel named Scratte. Manny and Ellie, having since become an item, are expecting a baby, which leaves Manny anxious to ensure that everything is perfect for when his baby arrives. Diego is fed up with being treated like a house-cat and ponders the notion that he is becoming too laid-back. Sid becomes jealous of Manny and Ellie and begins to wish for a family of his own, and so steals some dinosaur eggs which leads to Sid ending up in a strange underground world where his herd must rescue him, while dodging dinosaurs and facing danger left and right, and meeting up with an insane one-eyed weasel known as Buck who hunts dinosaurs intently.

Ice Age 4: Continental Age (2012): One of filmdom's most beloved trios - "Ice Age's" Manny, Diego, and Sid - embark upon their greatest adventure after cataclysm sets an entire continental drift. Separated from the rest of the herd, they use an iceberg as a makeshift ship, which launches them on an epic seafaring quest. Manny and the gang are challenged like never before to become heroes and do the impossible, as they encounter exotic sea creatures, explore a brave new world, and battle ruthless pirates. And Scrat's reunion with his cursed nut catapults him to places no prehistoric squirrel has gone before.

Short Films:

Gone Nutty (2002): It begins with Scrat (Chris Wedge) returning to a huge tree, hollowed out and filled to the brim with acorns. There is one more empty spot in the middle of the acorns where Scrat tries to stuff the last acorn he brought with him (he first tries to slam it in like he did in the opening of the first film, but he seems to remember what would happen if he did, so he places it in gently instead). However it pops back out when his back is turned and after two more tries at getting it in place - both with the acorn popping out again - Scrat gets frustrated and stomps it into place, unwittingly blowing the entire tree, and every acorn along with Scrat is sent sliding down the side of a mountain. The acorns and Scrat go into free fall.

A short musical scene follows (to the tune of Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty Waltz), with Scrat collecting acorns as he falls, turning them into 3 things (a bed, a skyboard and a giant ball). Eventually Scrat collects and forms a 3-D sphere with the acorns, but then (with Scrat on top of it) it tilts upside down so Scrat and the acorns finally fall to the icy land down below. There is one lone acorn (presumably the one he was trying to stuff into the tree) left in the atmosphere. Scrat, stuck in the snow, is only able to free his arms before the acorn impacts right between his eyes, as fast as a meteorite. The extreme force results in continental drift, shaping the Earth's continents (probably Pangea) into their present day form and trapping Scrat on the original spot from the center of the impact. When Scrat digs out the acorn, he finds it has been charred and thus crumbled into ash. Disappointed and defeated, he puts on the remaining acorn cap as a hat.

No Time for Nuts (2006): Scrat, the saber-toothed squirrel (a fictional animal from the Ice Age film series), while trying to find a place to hide his acorn, finds a buried time machine next to the ice-encased skeletal body of a human time traveler. He accidentally activates the machine, sending the acorn away. Scrat gets mad and tries to beat up the time machine and it sends him to the Middle Ages. Finding the acorn wedged under a rock, Scrat sees the Sword in the Stone and decides to use it as a lever to move the rock. He pulls out the sword but then finds himself under attack by a group of unseen archers, and uses the sword to block the arrows fired by the archers. He frees the acorn and takes it and the time machine and races off to find cover, only to hide in the barrel of a cannon. The cannon fires him into the path of hundreds of incoming arrows. The time machine teleports the acorn mid-flight and Scrat just barely manages to activate the machine again for himself.

He materializes in an arena in Ancient Rome. Scrat reaches for his acorn, but is dragged off when his tail is caught on a passing chariot pulled by a horse. Scrat manages to free himself just as a fanfare sounds. He thinks it is victory music introduces himself to the crowd like a triumphant gladiator, proudly holding up his acorn. Then he hears the growl of a lion coming from the tunnel behind him. He activates the time machine again, and lands on a field of ice. He is overjoyed, thinking he is home, but he soon learns he's really in 1912 when he sees the RMS Titanic heading straight towards him. The time machine is activated after impact, and Scrat finds himself in the first Ice Age movie, where he encounters himself and fights himself for his acorn. (Manny, Sid, Diego, and Roshan made a cameo watching the fight.) The acorn is teleported again, much to the distress of both Scrats.

The time traveling Scrat is sent to many dangerous situations where he would have been killed if he had not activated the time machine in time; firstly to the bottom of a launching rocket, Scrat desperately activates the time machine again, and is sent to a jewelery store, and is caught in red laser, and then he is sent to a girl's locker room where he is hit by a roller brush, and then he sent to the French Revolution where he appears under the falling blade of a guillotine, during Benjamin Franklin's famous kite flying experiment, in front of a wrecking ball, in front of Hiroshima, on the tracks in front of a speeding train, and in front of Michelangelo's David (this actually isn't a dangerous situation, but Scrat displays discomfort.). Frustrated, Scrat punches the machine, which sends him into a strange realm of floating timepieces. Scrat spots his acorn and grabs it, just before being drawn into a wormhole along with his acorn and the time machine.

The wormhole lands Scrat in front of an enormous oak tree. Overjoyed at the sight of so many acorns, he tosses away his time traveling acorn, which lands on and activates the time machine. Before it can fire again, Scrat smashes the time machine. Scrat attempts to remove the nuts from the tree, but soon discovers that it is only a sculpture, with a plaque on it reading "Here Stood the Last Oak Tree." Scrat realizes he's in the far future, where oak trees (and acorns) are extinct. He realizes that the acorn he brought with him is the only one real one around. He makes a dash for it, but the time machine manages to fire one last time, transporting the acorn right out of his paws right before the time machine collapsed into pieces. Stranded in the acorn-less future, Scrat lets out a scream of frustration, ending the film.

Then the lost acorn ends up floating behind the credits of the film.

Surviving Sid (2008): Sid, the Sloth, takes a school of children out on a camping trip from home, only to find that in typical Sid style, he is not a very good guide and the children he takes with him don't have a very good time. Scrat makes a small cameo appearance in the short, he has swallowed his nut and is struggling to keep it down, in true Scrat style he coughs it up and it is stolen from him. The camping trip leaves some of the children somewhat traumatized. Sid tries to pick a flower, but somehow this has led to a tree falling, which then hits a rock, which causes a chain reaction and hits a series of larger rocks, until eventually hitting a large iceberg. The iceberg then carves out a u-shaped valley, which Sid later names the Grand Canyon. Afterwards the kids get so annoyed with Sid that it ends with them tying him up. At the end of the short movie (20,000 years later in the present day) it shows a father and son beaver looking over the Grand Canyon with the son asking who made it. The father replies "Nature or a being with infinite wisdom."

Scrat's Continental Crack-up Part 1 (2010): Scrat sniffs an ice cap looking for a place where his acorn would be safe. When Scrat hits the ice it starts to crack, causing him to quickly push ice into the hole to prevent trouble. When Scrat merely touches the ice with the tip of his acorn, it somehow ends up breaking the entire mountain below the ice cap. Scrat gets his acorn and falls into the rift, passing by the weasel Buck mounting his dinosaur nemesis Rudy while he goes, and ends passing through all of Earth's layers, eventually arriving at a hovering, metallic sphere which composes the inner core. While pursuing his acorn, Scrat makes the core spin and breaks Pangea into the contemporary continents, Australia is shown forming, giraffes are created when Africa is separated from Pangea, which stretches their necks , and making the boot-shaped Italian Peninsula kick a nearby island (accompanied by a scream of "GOAL!") during its formation. Scrat eventually trips and starts bumping between the sphere and the solid outer core, creating a Scrat-like Moai, a Scrat Sphinx which loses its nose, and four Scrat faces on Mount Rushmore. Scrat later picks up balance up and grabs his acorn, and ends up spinning in the core until he's thrown out of the rift into the upper atmosphere. While falling, Scrat positions his body as if he would fall into the sea, but ends up landing on a piece of ice, which breaks separating Scrat from his acorn as he lets off another scream of frustration.

Scrat's Continental Crack-up Part 2 (2011): Scrat is riding an iceberg, when he sees an island. He climbs on to the island, where he sees a skeleton. He examines it and realizes it is pointing to a nut under the sea. Scrat uses a large stone to weigh him down the nut. When he pulls out the nut, it reveals to be a map to a giant pile of acorns. Scrat, excited with his find, encounters a swordfish skeleton. The skeleton pulls Scrat up to a pirate ship, where he encounters some pirates including a Gigantopithecus, a boar, a rabbit, a kangaroo, a blue-footed booby, an elephant seal, and a female saber-toothed tiger. The pirates make Scrat dance alongside a tied up Manny, Sid, and Diego.

Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas (2011): In the middle of decorating for the holiday season, Sid accidentally destroys Manny's favourite decorations. Sid, convinced by Manny that he is now on the Santa's naughty list, takes off with Crash, Eddie and Peaches for the North Pole to get back on the Santa's good side. When on the North Pole, Sid and his crew accidentally destroy Santa's Workshop. When Manny, Ellie and Diego worried over Peaches safety, arrive to North Pole, they must come together and save Christmas.

100. Inkheart

Title: Inkheart
Genre: Adventure, Fantasy, Family
Year: 2008

Summary: The story begins with Mortimer Folchart and his wife, Resa reading the fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood" to their baby daughter Meggie. As Mo reads the story, a red velvet hood appears as a narrator explains that people known as "Silver Tongues" are born with the gift that whenever they read a story out loud, the story becomes real, and that some of the gifted people are completely unaware of their power.

12 years later, Mortimer and Meggie are in the European countrysides looking for a book. Mo has learned of his gifts, and nine years prior, Resa had vanished, much to the distress of her extended family. Hearing the calling of books from a bookstore one day, Mo ventures inside. He finds the book Inkheart and is overwhelmed with a mixture of fear and joy.

At the same time, Dustfinger, a character from Inkheart appears and attempts to persuade Mo to read him back into the book. Mo refuses to do so and hastily escapes with Meggie and travels to Italy to pay a visit to Meggie's great aunt Elinor Loredan. Elinor accuses Resa of running off, which upsets Meggie, but the two make amends when expressing their mutual passion for valuable books, and Elinor lets Meggie stay in her library to read. Dustfinger appears again, but this time having informed the book's villain Capricorn and bringing his minion Basta to capture Mo and his family and take back the book, in the meantime destroying Elinor's valuable collection of books.

The trio are taken to Capricorn's castle and imprisoned in the stables, which house various creatures from storybooks, such as the ticking Crocodile from Peter Pan, flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz, and the title character of The Hound of the Baskervilles, as well as the minotaur from the story of Theseus and a unicorn. Mo explains his gift to Meggie and Elinor, stating that when he reads a person out of a book, someone from the real world is sent into it, hence the disappearance of his wife. They are abruptly taken to meet with Capricorn, and meet his current reader Darius, whose perpetual stutter had caused those he had read out of the book to only come halfway out of the story, with various deformities and the words of the stories written on their faces. Capricorn breaks his promise to Dustfinger to have him read back into the book, and throws it onto the fire, burning it. In his despair, Dustfinger leaves the group and runs to the kitchen, where he learns that one of the servant girls, a trusted friend of his who is constantly attempting to escape, is in fact Mo's lost wife Resa, whose halfway transition from the book she was trapped in has left her without a voice. He gives her the access to escape and departs.

After reading from The Arabian Nights and giving Capricorn a stash of treasure, one of Ali Baba's thieves, Farid, is summoned from the story and joins the storyteller and his family in imprisonment. Dustfinger opts not to tell Mo that his wife is in the village and prompts a quick escape using the famous cyclone from The Wizard of Oz. After they escape, Meggie offers the idea that only the author of Inkheart, Fenoglio (Jim Broadbent (a fictional character, unrelated to the Italian writer Beppe Fenoglio)) may have access to a copy of the rare-to-find book.

After learning of the author's location and traveling to his town, Elinor decides to leave to recover what is left of her book collection. Dustfinger stays behind with Farid partly in order to teach him how to juggle fire, but also due to the fact he is afraid of learning his fate at the end of the book. Fenoglio cannot resist approaching his creation and inadvertently blurts out that Dustfinger dies in the novel while saving his marten Gwin. This devastates the fire juggler, who states that the writer is not his god, and he can deem whatever fate he chooses. While Mo attempts to find a way of reading Resa out of the book, Dustfinger has no choice but to confess that she was at Capricorn's village, prompting him and Mo to take Fenoglio's car and leave Meggie behind with Fenoglio. They discover that Farid had stowed away in the car's trunk, and take him along at his insistence. Elsewhere, Elinor has a change of heart and does not take the train back to Italy.

Meanwhile, Meggie learns that she has inherited her father's gift when she accidentally summons Toto from The Wizard of Oz. Basta comes and takes Meggie and Fenoglio back to Capricorn's village. Capricorn intends to use Meggie to read the Shadow, Inkheart's supernatural and most deadly villain, out of the book and into the real world, using a copy of the book he had secretly kept to himself. After a brief reunion with her mother, Meggie is coerced into cooperating or risk Capricorn killing Resa. Elinor in the meantime discovers Fenoglio's ransacked apartment and rents a motorbike to save her family. As Mo, Farid and Dustfinger work on a plan of burning down Capricorn's castle, Dustfinger is captured. After escaping his cell, he attempts to free Meggie and Fenoglio who is working on a way to rewrite the ending of the Shadow for her to read. He is unable to free them, and flees, only to return at his conscience (or perhaps Meggie's) beckoning.

Meggie is escorted out to read the Shadow out of the book, and Fenoglio and Resa are caged to be his first meal. Fenoglio manages to use Toto to give her a page that he had written, and she manages to call off the Shadow. In the scuffle, she loses the rewrite and Shadow attempts again to kill Resa, Fenoglio, and Mo, who had intervened in the fight. Mo gives Meggie a pen to write her own ending, and using her arm, Meggie manages to send all the book characters back to their own stories, and at Fenoglio's request, sends him into the Inkheart world as well. Dustfinger misses his chance to return, and departs when Elinor, Resa, Mo and Meggie embrace, where Meggie discovers that Inkheart had been taken.

Farid catches up with Dustfinger, insisting on traveling with him to find another reader to send Dustfinger back into the copy of Inkheart that Farid had stolen before the castle collapsed. After a moment's hesitation, Dustfinger agrees, and the two start off together, only to have Mo come up to fulfill his promise to return Dustfinger to his book. Dustfinger is transported safely back into Inkheart, where he reunites with his wife Roxane. Farid reveals to the family that Dustfinger's fate has been changed, as he pulls Gwin out of a travel pack he is carrying, and without the marten to sacrifice himself for, Dustfinger is again in control of his destiny. Meggie and Resa invite Farid to live with them, and Meggie agrees to teach him how to read and Farid agrees to teach her how to use the dragon fire.

99. Sky High

Title: Sky High
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Family
Year: 2005

Summary: The story describes the beginning of the freshman year for Will Stronghold at Sky High School, a school for young superheroes that floats in the sky. Will's parents pose as suburban real-estate agents Steve and Josie Stronghold, but they are really The Commander and Jetstream , the two most famous and powerful superheroes. The Commander has superhuman strength, and Jetstream is able to fly. Will's best friend is Layla, a pretty supergirl who can manipulate plant life.

The students at Sky High include Speed, a bully who can run faster than the human eye can see; Lash , a bully who can stretch his body; Penny, a cheerleader who can make copies of herself; and Warren Peace, the brooding, fire-throwing son of a supervillain and a superhero, who are currently at war. Warren's father was sent to prison by the Commander, and will be released after his third life. As the school year begins, Will is the only student who has not yet developed any superpowers. Students with great powers are taught to be heroes, while less capable youngsters are designated as "hero support" and derisively referred to as "sidekicks". The abilities of the sidekicks include melting, glowing, and turning into a guinea pig. Will is put into the sidekick program due to his lack of powers, and Layla is made a sidekick after she protests the two tiered schooling by refusing to demonstrate her powers.

At the end of Will's first day at Sky High, the Commander shows him the Stronghold family's underground control center, the Secret Sanctum, which holds souvenirs from past battles. One souvenir is a weapon called a "Pacifier", which the Commander took from his arch-enemy, a supervillain named Royal Pain, fifteen years ago. Another is the eyeball of a robot the Commander recently defeated. As the Commander and Will chat, Royal Pain remotely spies on them through a camera hidden in the eyeball.

Will initially makes friends with the sidekicks, but he is transferred to the Hero program after his latent super-strength emerges during a fight with Warren. He also attracts the attention of Gwen Grayson, a beautiful "technopath" who controls machines with her mind. Will makes a date with Layla to prove he still likes her, but he forgets about it and has dinner with Gwen and his parents, so Layla tries to make him jealous by getting Warren to go with her to the Sky High homecoming dance.

On the day before the dance, Gwen tricks Will into throwing a party at his house, and Speed steals the Pacifier when she seduces Will into showing her the Secret Sanctum. She also convinces Layla that Will no longer likes her, but Will rejects Gwen's snobbishness and refuses to go to the dance with her, even though his parents have promised to attend as honorary guests. After his parents leave for the dance, Will reads the Commander's school yearbook, which contains a photograph of a girl who looks just like Gwen. When he sees a picture of the girl holding a pacifier, he guesses that the girl is Royal Pain and Gwen is her daughter, sees that the Pacifier is missing, and concludes that Gwen must be avenging herself on the Commander for defeating her mother. Will contacts the Sky High bus driver, who rushes him to the dance.

Meanwhile, Gwen reveals to the dance participants that she is Royal Pain herself, who was formally a brilliant schoolgirl who invented the pacifier, but despite that and her powers, she was underestimated by the school and therefore made a sidekick. Outraged, she hatched a plan to destroy Sky High and replace it with her own school for supervillains, with the intention of turning everyone into babies with the Pacifier and raising them into villains. Only Warren and the sidekicks escape.

When Will arrives at school, he apologizes to Layla and teams up with Warren and the sidekicks to defeat Gwen, Speed, Lash, and Penny. He discovers he has also inherited his mother's flying ability when Gwen throws him off Sky High's floating platform, and he helps to hold the school in the air as the sidekicks reactivate its sabotaged antigravity device. The babies are returned to their original state, Will and Layla kiss, and the dance resumes while Royal Pain and her gang are held in the detention room. Afterward, the villains are sent to prison, Warren becomes Will's best friend, Layla becomes Will's girlfriend, and the bus driver becomes a superhero after falling into a vat of toxic waste.

98. Zoom

Title: Zoom
Genre: Action, Adventure, Family
Year: 2006

Summary: Decades prior to the start of the film, the American military sponsored a superhero group called "Team Zenith." Its leaders were Jack Shepard, aka Captain Zoom, who possessed super-speed, and his brother, Connor, aka Concussion, who could project sonic blasts. The military tried to increase the team's powers by exposing them to an experimental form of radiation called "Gamma-13". This caused Concussion to become more powerful, but it also turned him evil. Concussion killed his teammates Marksman, Ace, and Daravia. Concussion was believed to be killed by Zoom in an explosion, but he had been sent into another dimension instead. Zoom lost his powers, and his brother.

Thirty years later, Dr. Grant, the scientist behind the original Zenith Project, discovers that Concussion is making his way back into their dimension. General Larraby, the military officer in charge of the Project, decides to form a new Zenith Team to fight him.

Jack finds himself dragged back into the Project, this time as an instructor. He is told that a new team is needed to battle a great menace but is not told what it is. He is also told that if natural training does not prepare the new team in time, they will be exposed to Gamma-13. In their secret base, Area 52 (a reference to Area 51), he meets Marsha, who is a beautiful but clumsy psychologist, a big fan of Zoom's, and knows of him only through the comic book propaganda adaptations of the team's adventures.

The project holds an audition of would-be members, most of whom possess useless or disgusting powers. In the end, four young people are selected:

• Dylan West, a 17-year-old boy who can turn invisible and has clairvoyance.
• Summer Jones, a 16-year-old girl with telekinetic powers and empathic senses.
• Tucker William, a 12-year-old boy with the power to enlarge any part of his body.
• Cindy Collins, a 6-year-old girl with super strength.

All of them are shown as having problems adapting to normal life because of their powers. At first things do not go well. Jack is bitter about the past, and his sarcastic attitude disappoints Marsha. Dylan keeps trying to escape, Tucker has self-esteem problems and trouble controlling his powers, and the kids are annoyed by Jack's attitude. The team eventually forces Jack to face the fact that he's not really putting his heart into their training. Slowly things begin to come together. As the new team's abilities improve, they adopt superhero identities.

Eventually, just as Concussion is about to arrive on Earth, it is discovered that Dylan also possesses a kind of clairsentience that allows him to discover not only Concussion's location, but also the project's true purpose: the team is meant merely as a distraction from the military's plans to capture Concussion in a special net to send him back into another dimension. Marsha also reveals that she secretly possesses a superpower of her own: "super breath", which appears as clouds of rainbow-colored wind. She uses this power to aid the team in their escape. Using a malfunctioning flying saucer stored in the base, Jack escapes with the team, including Marsha. He is dropped off at a point in a desert where Concussion will arrive, planning to try to talk to him. Jack tells the team to stay away, but they refuse.

When Concussion arrives, he refuses to listen to reason and starts firing sonic blasts at his brother. The rest of the team takes him on. Larraby orders the net to be fired, but Concussion blasts it away, and it almost lands on Cindy. This causes Jack to react and recover his speed, and he saves her. He then runs back to the base (tripping over in the process), puts on a new costume, and returns to battle his brother. Working together, the team (plus Marsha) knock Concussion into a high-speed vortex that Zoom creates by running around in a circle at super-speed; Dr. Grant yells to Zoom that if he closes the vortex, they can save Concussion; the vortex ultimately sucks the energy out of his body and restores him to normal. The two brothers are happily reunited.

At the end you see that Dylan is dating Summer, Summer is on the cheerleading team, using her telekinetic power to help build the pyramid, Tucker is the goalie on the soccer team, and Cindy is in a play, Rapunzel, and uses her power to pull the "prince" up the tower. In addition they still work together with Zoom as the new Zenith Team.

97. Superhero Movie

Title: Superhero Movie
Genre: Action, Comedy, Sci-Fi
Year: 2008

Summary: Rick Riker is an unpopular student at Empire High School. He lives with his Uncle Albert and Aunt Lucille. He has one friend and confidant, Trey. His crush, Jill Johnson, who hardly notices him, is dating Lance Landers, a bully who torments Rick. During a school field trip at an animal research lab, Rick meets Lou Landers who coughs up blood because he is terminally ill. Dr. Strom, the head researcher at the lab, presents his mutated dragonflies, one of which has escaped and bites Rick, and causes his neck to swell.

By the time Rick returns home he is violently ill. Uncle Albert and Aunt Lucille believe Rick is acting strange, so Albert proceeds to talk to Rick about puberty, but Rick passes out from the bite. He wakes up five days later, tries to look up "dragonfly bite" online but is contacted by a stranger instead who wants to speak to him in person, later adding Rick as a friend on Facebook.

Meanwhile, Lou Landers is involved in an accident during an experiment at the lab, transforming him into Hourglass, a villainous being who can siphon the life energy from others, killing them.

During a science fair at school in which a comically rude and mean-spirited Stephen Hawking is present, Rick begins to experience strange physical traits, such as becoming stuck to objects, which creates a number of mishaps during the fair. Fleeing school, he discovers has developed superhuman abilities, such as the ability to walk on walls and superhuman strength, though he repeatedly laments throughout the film that he cannot fly. After testing his abilities, he pushes an elderly woman and her dog out of the way of an out-of-control truck, colliding with the truck himself. He is congratulated by passers-by, though he notices that the elderly woman he shoved out of the way landed into a woodchipper and crushed, with her dog still on its leash.

Rick reveals his secret to his uncle and Trey and the latter offers to become his sidekick, but Rick refuses. He and Uncle Albert have an argument, which spurs a flashback sequence in which a younger Rick and his parents are mugged in an alley, and die in a spoof of Batman Begins. With his dying words, his father urges him to sell all his shares in Google, but invest heavily in Enron.

Later, after seeing Jill and Lance leave in Lance's Porsche Cayman, Rick, who desires a car of his own, goes to a bank, where he is denied a loan. A bank robber then holds up the bank and after Rick fails to stop him, Uncle Albert is shot and hospitalized. Jill visits Rick at the hospital, and they kiss for the first time. Meanwhile Landers accidentally takes his secretary's life energy, killing her.

Rick is met by Xavier at his school for mutants ala X-Men where he meets Storm, Wolverine, Cyclops, the Invisible Woman and Mrs. Xavier. Rick is told to make a costume by Mrs. Xavier, and adopts the identity of the Dragonfly. He meets the Human Torch but fails to fly. Dragonfly quickly becomes a media sensation, fights and gets badly injured by Hourglass who manages to escape stealing a canister of Cerillium.

Jill is attacked by muggers, but Dragonfly saves her. Just after Dragonfly defeats the last of the thugs, Jill is shown with an admiring look on her face, and it starts to rain heavily, setting the scene for a hot, romantic moment, but Dragonfly disappears up a building. Jill looks for him and when she can't find him, she calls out "Where are you?", and Dragonfly responds "Behind you." A startled Jill turns around and finds Dragonfly hanging upside down hoping Jill will thank him with a kiss. Jill tells Dragonfly he saved her life, and shyly asks Dragonfly if she can thank him with a kiss. This is the moment Dragonfly has been waiting for his whole life, so he agrees, and Jill moves in. Just before she can kiss him, Dragonfly slides down so he has a perfect view down Jill's shirt. Jill lifts him back up, but he goes over the building, leaving Jill alone. Jill thinks her chance to kiss Dragonfly is over,and she desperately searches for him. Dragonfly sneaks up behind Jill and taps her shoulder. Jill turns and sees her savior. The two of them are unsure what to do for a few seconds, but Jill moves toward Dragonfly, and the two of them share an extended kiss, which Dragonfly has been dreaming of his whole life. Dragonfly tries to kiss Jill again, but decides to fight more crime to impress her. Landers plans to construct a machine that will kill 42 thousand people and give him enough life energy to make him immortal. During a Thanksgiving dinner at the Rikers', Landers visits the family, where he nearly catches Rick dressed as the Dragonfly. Though Rick escapes detection, Landers later manages to learn his secret identity. Just as Rick and Jill are about to kiss, the Hourglass appears and murders Aunt Lucille. Uncle Albert recovers, and after a comical funeral, Rick decides to end his superhero career, though Trey and Uncle Albert convince him to find Hourglass, who plans to kill countless innocent people. At an awards ceremony to honor achievements in feminine hygiene, Landers is presented with a Douchebag Of The Year Award. Although Rick goes to the ceremony too, Landers tricks him into thinking that the Dalai Lama is Hourglass, which leads to a brawl in the ceremony hall involving all the attendees, including Buddhist monks, the Pope and Stephen Hawking. During this, Jill discovers that Landers is Hourglass. In a nearby hall there is a superhero convention where a flying machine awaits Hourglass. Landers gets in the convention hall and changes into Hourglass as Rick gets into his Dragonfly costume and fights him. When Hourglass tries to finish off Dragonfly, Jill attempts to intervene and is critically injured. Hourglass flies off with the machine to the rooftop where he activates the machine to steal the lifeforce from all the attendees of the ceremony and the convention.

After Stephen Hawking implores Rick not to give up, using a rationale that Rick points out are the lyrics to Celine Dion's "Taking Chances", he dons the Dragonfly suit, and battles the Hourglass on the rooftop. Dragonfly siphons off some of Hourglass's stolen lifeforce to heal Jill, but the Hourglass throws a bomb at Dragonfly, with the bomb sticking to Dragonfly's crotch. He backflips several times, finally managing to stick the bomb to Hourglass. Stuck to his invention, he shouts "Oh, f**k!" , with the bomb detonating and killing him.

Jill falls off the roof, but Dragonfly jumps off after her. After he grabs her and reveals that he is Rick, Jill tells him that she loves him,and they passionately kiss, and Rick finally grows wings. He flies them away, landing on the rooftop where uncle Albert and Stephen Hawking await them. While they walk away, Hawking's wheelchair gets stuck and hits the ledge sending Hawking to a freefall. Rick and Jill fly once more but they are hit by a helicopter.

As an epilogue, before the end credits roll, several "cut scenes" are shown with even more extreme parody.

Alternate Ending: Instead of the rooftop battle, the Hourglass and Rick battle inside the comic book convention. At one point, several convention attendees tell the Hourglass how to kill people. When the Hourglass is defeated, Landers' nephew realizes that Rick has killed his uncle. Enraged, he lunges for Rick, but is knocked out by Trey with the Douchebag of the Year Award. Instead of Hawking falling off the building, he is blown up by an Hourglass Bomb, and crushed by his falling wheelchair. The helicopter scene is omitted from this version, as Rick and Jill silently share two passionate kisses, which are significant because Rick initiates the kiss with Jill for the first time as the end credits roll.

96. The Santa Clause

Title: The Santa Clause
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Family
Year: 1994, 2002, 2006

Summary:

The Santa Clause (1994): Scott Calvin is a 38-year-old divorced father and advertising executive for a toy company in the fictional city Lakeside, Michigan with a young son, Charlie. On Christmas Eve, Charlie comes over to spend the night with Scott before going back to his mother and stepfather's for Christmas Day. Scott attempts to assure Charlie of Santa Claus' existence, while in full disbelief himself. That night, they are awakened by a clatter on the roof. Going outside to investigate, they can see someone on there. Scott yells at the trespasser, "Hey, you!", which causes him to lose his balance and fall off. He appears to be Santa Claus.

After he lands he magically disappears, but his suit remains. They find a business card in a pocket stating that if something should happen to him, someone should put on the suit, and the reindeer will know what to do. They find his sleigh and eight reindeer perched on the roof. While trying to figure out how to explain all of this to people, Scott bumps his head on a ladder leading up to the roof. Charlie points out the ladder's company name as "the Rose Suchak Ladder Company" and tells his dad "it's just like the poem" (mispronouncing "arose such a clatter"). Scott puts on the suit to please Charlie, and begins delivering toys from house to house.

Their final stop is the North Pole where the head elf, Bernard, shows him a tiny inscription on the card which says that upon the disappearance of the previous occupant, whoever wears the suit assumes the identity of Santa Claus and all the responsibilities that go with it. This is the "Santa Clause", as stated by Bernard: "You put on the suit and you're the big guy!" He also gives Charlie a snow globe as a gift. He then tells Scott that he only has eleven months, until Thanksgiving, to get his affairs in order before becoming Santa Claus full time, which he tries to refuse. He and Charlie spend the night at the factory. The next morning they awaken back in Scott's house, where the only indication of their previous night's adventure is his new silk pajamas with "SC" monogrammed on them. He dismisses it all as a dream.

Soon, however, Scott starts gaining weight and his boss, Mr. Whittle, likens him to the Pillsbury Doughboy and he interjects a presentation on the company's new toy by complaining about Santa not being represented with his sleigh and they should simplify their toy designs. He develops a ravenous taste for Christmas treats, like cookies and hot cocoa. Scott's facial hair grows like crazy, and shaving it off has no effect as it regrows instantly. His hair turns gray then white, despite all attempts to dye it. He somehow knows who has been "naughty" and "nice". Scott also starts wearing clothes with red and green, and his heart even beats Jingle Bells. Children (who somehow know he is Santa despite Scott not dressing like him) approach him with gift requests. His rapid transformation worries his ex-wife Laura and her new husband, psychiatrist Dr. Neil Miller, who tries to terminate his visitation rights to Charlie. They question his mental stability, and believe that his changes are attempts at getting his son to like him.

Eventually, Scott's visitation rights to Charlie are suspended. Disheartened, he begins to lose some of his certainty about his job as Santa. While visiting Charlie on Thanksgiving, Charlie's insistence that Scott is Santa reawakens his magic and he, with Bernard's help, whisks him away to the North Pole. Laura and Neil, who think he has kidnapped him against his will, call the police, who start a massive investigation.

Meanwhile, at the North Pole, Charlie helps Scott and the head elves perfect a new sleigh and communication devices. He calls his mother, but this only reinforces their belief that he is being held against his will. Eventually, Scott, as Santa Claus, goes on with his Christmas Eve trip, but is arrested while delivering presents to the Miller house, and is accused of kidnapping Charlie. A team of rescue elves called the ELFS (Effective Liberating Flight Squad) free him from jail by tying up the front desk guard and using tinsel to break through the bars (which he is very impressed by). The ELFS then fly him and Charlie home to Laura and Neil, to whom Scott/Santa gives the presents they always wanted since childhood but never got: Laura gets a vintage Mystery Date game and Neil gets an Oscar Mayer Wienie Whistle. (It was because they did not get these that they became convinced Santa did not exist.)

Laura, finally realizing that Scott really is the new Santa, tosses the custody papers into the fireplace and welcomes him to visit Charlie any time that he wants. Neil, both amazed and joyful, realises that you don't have to see to believe. Bernard tells Charlie that the snow globe is magical. Anytime he wants his father to visit, all he has to do is shake it. After ten minutes, he does so and Scott comes back, saying he was on his way to Cleveland, and takes Charlie with him to deliver the rest of the presents.

The Santa Clause 2 (2002): Eight years have gone by since divorced father Scott Calvin first took up the Santa Claus suit, and became subject to The Santa Clause. Now he is at the top of his game at the North Pole and could not be happier, at least until Bernard and Curtis, the Keeper of the Handbook of Christmas break the news that there is another clause - the "Mrs. Clause".

Santa/Scott now has to get married before the next Christmas Eve, or the clause will be broken and Christmas will die away. At the same time, Abby the Elf (Danielle Woodman) delivers news that is more distressing; his 16-year-old son, Charlie, is on the naughty list. It then cuts to him one night defacing the walls of the school gymnasium from the skywindow until he is caught by Principal Carol Newman. Scott must return to his home to search for a wife and set things right with Charlie. He even brings this up when visited by the Council of Legendary Figures consisting of Mother Nature, Father Time, Cupid, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and the Sandman.

To cover for Santa's prolonged absence, Curtis helps him create a life-size toy replica of him, much to Bernard's horror. However, this larger-than-life legalist cannot find any grace, mercy, or slack in his plastic heart for minor infractions by children all over the world, having followed the handbook too strictly. Toy Santa takes control of the North Pole, turns it into a strict and evil government, with a duplicated army of life-size toy soldiers and he puts Bernard under house arrest when Bernard attempts to tell the elves that Toy Santa is a fake. He thinks that everyone is naughty, (just by their small mistakes) and he plans to give the entire world lumps of coal.

Because of the impending end of his contract, Scott undergoes a "de-Santafication process" which gradually turns him back into Scott Calvin. He has a limited amount of magic to help him. He attempts to reconcile with Charlie, who keeps vandalizing his school to get attention. They both hit the cold hard wall of Principal Carol Newman when Charlie defaces the lockers.

Charlie confesses to Scott how hard it is for him that Scott is never around like other fathers, and reveals the stress he is under to conceal the secret that his father is Santa. Scott vows to try harder as a dad, and they reconcile.

After a few failed dates, Scott finds himself falling for Carol. He accompanies her in a sleigh to their school faculty Christmas party, which turns out to be dull and boring. Using a little of his Christmas magic, he livens it up by presenting everyone with their childhood dream gifts (much like he did for Laura and Neil in the first film). He makes a special presentation to Carol, and, with his last remnant of magic, wins her over and they kiss passionately. However, she balks when he attempts to explain that he is Santa, believing that he is mocking her childhood, until Charlie manages to convince her by showing her his magic snow globe.

Curtis flies in to deliver the dreadful news about the Evil Toy Santa's coal binge. However, Scott has used up the last of his magic wooing Carol and Comet has eaten too many chocolate bars. After convincing the Tooth Fairy that he is Santa Claus, the Tooth fairy flies Scott and Curtis back to the North Pole but they are captured by the toy soldiers. Toy Santa wastes no time in tying him up with Curtis, but Charlie and a now-believing Carol spring him free by summoning the Tooth Fairy to fly them there. He goes after Toy Santa, who has already left with the sleigh, riding Chet, a reindeer-in-training, and they both battle over the reindeer. With an army of elves, Carol, Bernard, Charlie, and Curtis lead a snowball war to overthrow the toy soldiers. During the battle, Toy Santa and Scott accidentally causes the sleigh to crash back into the village (as well as crashing on the rest of the toy soldiers). Toy Santa is forcibly restrained by the elves and is reduced to his normal six-inch height. Scott marries Carol in a ceremony presided over by Mother Nature herself. He transforms back into Santa, and Christmas proceeds as it always has and he and Carol have a three month honeymoon to go on the next day. In addition, he and Charlie reveal the truth to Lucy, Charlie's younger half sister (the daughter of Laura and Neil), about him being Santa Claus so she is now in on the secret.

The Santa Clause 3 (2006): Scott Calvin/Santa Claus, is having difficulties managing Christmas this year. His wife, Carol, is expecting their first child which is due on Christmas Eve and is afraid that he will be making his deliveries while she is making hers. Wanting her to feel more comfortable, he invites his in-laws, Silvia and Bud Newman, up to the North Pole, along with his ex-wife, Laura, her husband, Neil, and their daughter, Lucy, to keep Mrs. Claus company. Meanwhile, he is summoned to a meeting of the Council of Legendary Figures consisting of Mother Nature,  Father Time , the Easter Bunny, Cupid, the Tooth Fairy, and the Sandman. They show him a cardboard cutout of Jack Frost that reads "Merry Frostmas" as he himself arrives. Besides Father Time reminding him that he heralds the season and not a holiday, Mother Nature accuses him of attempting to upstage Santa by freezing a volcano in Hawaii, making it snow in the Amazon, and making it cold in Mexico thus sending the geese back up north for the winter. All the other Legendary Figures agree that a punishment needs to be invoked against him with the idea to suspend him. He manages to convince them to put him into community service at the North Pole. When Scott brings up the part with the in-laws during an argument with him, Cupid recommends the "Escape Clause" which he declines. When Jack asks what it is, Father Time tells him that he would know more about it if he attended the meetings more often. Scott reluctantly agrees with a warning to him if he does anything wrong on his watch. He helps to disguise the North Pole as Canada for the arrival of the in-laws. Scott manages to get them to "Canada" with the help of the Sandman.

However, Jack, who wants to have the power and influence of Santa, goes around the North Pole and uses his powers to create technical problems with some of the equipment. The shop flies into chaos and many gifts are destroyed, and Scott is faced with the possibility that there will not be enough toys for all the children in time for Christmas.

Jack talks to Head Elf Curtis about the Hall of Snow Globes, and discovers that Scott's can be used to activate the Escape Clause, the most powerful one of all. This one can help the current Santa escape from his job as Santa; if he holds his snow globe and says, "I wish I had never become Santa at all", the Clause is triggered, and he can return to the point where he became Santa and prevent the event from occurring. Scott takes a quick break to show Lucy the Hall of Snow Globes, and gives her a magical one that shows her hugging a snowman, which turns pink because her hugs are so filled with love and warmth. As they leave, Jack sneaks into there and steals Scott's, freezing Lucy's parents when they catch him. After further attempts at sabotage, he manages to enrage the in-laws, and gives Scott a gift as he talks about his frustrations. Not realizing what he is doing, he is persuaded into uttering the Escape Clause while opening his gift and taking out his snow globe. He and Jack are sent back in time to his front yard, where, twelve years earlier, he caused Santa to fall off the roof and donned his coat to become the new Santa. Jack reaches the coat because the past Scott does not due to the snow globe's power and puts it on to become Santa.

Scott is sent back to the present, where he has been the CEO for his old company for the last twelve years, and works even on Christmas Eve. He drives over to Laura's house. She treats him very coldy. She then reveals that she and Neil also divorced after having Lucy, as without Scott around Neil tried and failed to fill his role to Charlie. He frantically asks where Carol is and Laura says she "left town years ago because there were not enough local kids to terrorize or something." She gives him a magazine that shows the North Pole; it is now a tourist attraction, where wealthy parents take their kids and pay for them to be on the nice list. He assures her that he will fix everything and it will all go back to normal. He, wanting his old job back, returns to the North Pole where the elves are miserable and Christmas has become highly merchandised. Lucy and Neil are there as well, although they too are not happy to see him. He confronts Jack with what he has done and claims his vision of Christmas is not what the holiday is about, but he reminds him that he was the one who said "I wish I had never become Santa at all".

Scott convinces Lucy to sneak into the Hall of Snow Globes, and bring Jack's to him. He interrupts a musical performance by Jack, when Lucy tosses him his snow globe. He mocks that Scott will never convince him to invoke the Escape Clause, but Scott plays a recording of him saying "I wish I had never become Santa at all", when he said it to him earlier. Whisked back to the past, he holds him down while his past self finds the suit and puts it on, restoring events to the way they were.

Back in the present, Scott reunites with Carol, even though no time has passed since he left, and he promises to make her life better. He then shows his in-laws the truth about his workshop, where despite Jack's sabotage, gifts are being manufactured and will be ready on time for his deliveries. To his surprise, his son, Charlie, arrives and helps the elves.

It seems things are going perfectly until Curtis and Lucy appear, and Neil and Laura are wheeled in, frozen solid. Jack is also dragged in by the "Elficers" and he refuses to undo his spell on them. By unfreezing them, he would have to "unfreeze himself" and so they will be frozen forever. When Scott asks for Mother Nature to help him out, she reminds him that the abilities of a Legendary Figure will not work on others. However, he has an idea. He tells Lucy to give Jack one of her heartwarming hugs. Full of love and warmth, her hug changes him, melting his clothes and hair from icy to normal and breaking the spell around Neil and Laura. Everyone, including the defrosted and reformed Jack, celebrates with a hug and Carol suddenly announces that her baby is coming. She gives birth to a boy and names him Buddy Claus.

95. Knowing

Title: Knowing
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi
Year: 2009

Summary: In 1959, Lucinda Embry stands in her school's playground staring at the sun, hearing whispers. The school makes a time capsule to be opened fifty years later. Lucinda writes a page of seemingly random numbers. She is later found in a closet, scratching numbers into the door.

Fifty years later, the time capsule is opened. Caleb Koestler, son of Jonathan Koestler, a widower and professor of astrophysics at MIT, receives Lucinda's page of numbers. He sees a mysterious stranger in the nearby trees and hears whispers. Jonathan sees the numbers, notices the sequence 911012996 and realizes it is a reference to the date and number of deaths from the September 11th attacks (9/11/01/2996). Jonathan finds similar information based on other numbers on Caleb's sheet. The last three dates on the page are in the near future. There are numbers between the dates that he cannot reconcile.

While researching, Jonathan learns that Lucinda died from a drug overdose, and Caleb receives more visits from mysterious strangers who give him a small smooth stone, and show him visions of the world on fire. On his way to pick up Caleb from school, Jonathan witnesses a major airplane crash. It is the date that the numbers predicted for the next disaster; the unexplained numbers are the locations of the events.

Jonathan then goes after Lucinda's daughter, Diana, and her daughter Abby, but scares them away when he reveals his interest in Lucinda's predictions. Jonathan pinpoints the next disaster to Worth Street in lower Manhattan. With news of terror-threats, Jonathan suspects the next cataclysm will be a terror attack. He pursues a man into a subway station suspecting him to be a terrorist, but he is only a shoplifter. At that same moment an approaching train derails, smashing into the station and destroying much of Jonathan's train.

Shocked to see the train fit the predictions, Diana decides to help Jonathan. She says that her mother used to hear voices, and that the next date, October 19, is the day said she would die. The two search Lucinda's mobile home in the woods, where they find pictures of the disasters she predicted, a copy of Matthäus Merian's engraving of Ezekiel's "chariot vision", and a pile of small smooth stones near Lucinda's bed. As Diana thinks the last number is not "33" but "EE" written backwards, John flips the bed over to find the underside covered with the words, "Everyone Else", representing a cataclysm that no one will escape. Outside, the Strangers appear around the car carrying the children. John drives them away only to hear from Abby that the "whisper people" want her and Caleb to go with them.

The next day, Abby colors the "Likeness of a Man" in the engraving and says it is the sun. John has a sudden revelation and rushes them to the MIT observatory, where he discovers that a massive solar flare will soon reach Earth, incinerating the ozone layer.

Diana wants to hide in some caves - and despite knowing it would not save them, John agrees. After seeing Caleb writing numbers, John decides to return to Lucinda's school and uncover the numbers on the old door. But before he manages to find them - which he thinks are coordinates of a safe place, at Lucinda's mobile home - Diana takes the children and heads for the caves. When Diana stops for gas, the Strangers drive off with Caleb and Abby. Diana pursues them but is broadsided by a truck.

John arrives just as Diana dies, finding the small stone in Diana's hand. He continues to Lucinda's mobile home, finding the children and the Strangers in a dry river bed covered with the stones. A vessel similar to the wheels in the engraving descends from the sky. As John is refused entry because "only the chosen must go", he decides to let his son leave, as the Strangers dissolve into translucent figures resembling aliens. The vessel departs with the children and a pair of rabbits, and a distant shot shows many similar vessels leaving earth. John collapses in grief, waking the next morning to find the sky full of smoke and heat. John makes it to Boston, finding the streets full of rioters. He arrives at his father's home to spend his last moments with his family. They embrace as the solar flare burns away the atmosphere and incinerates the Earth.

The film ends as Caleb and Abby in white linen clothing arrive at an otherworldly valley, then run across a field of golden grass towards a large tree.

94. The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Title: The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Genre: Action, Adventure, Comedy
Year: 2010

Summary: In AD 740, one of the three apprentices of Merlin, Maxim Horvath, betrays him by joining forces with the evil sorceress Morgana le Fay. Morgana mortally wounds Merlin before another apprentice, Veronica Gorloisen, absorbs Morgana's soul into her own body. As Morgana tries to kill Veronica from within, the final apprentice, Balthazar Blake stops her by imprisoning Morgana and Veronica in the Grimhold, a magic prison in the shape of a nesting doll. Before dying, Merlin gives Baltazhar a dragon ring that will identify the Prime Merlinean, Merlin's successor who will be the only one able to defeat Morgana. Throughout history Balthazar imprisons Morganians, sorcerers who try to release Morgana, including Horvath, into successive layers on the Grimhold while he searches for the successor.

In 2000, 10-year-old Dave Stutler, encounters Balthazar in a Manhattan antique store. Hoping he is the successor, Balthazar gives him the dragon ring, which comes alive and wraps itself around Dave's finger. Dave accidentally opens the Grimhold, releasing Horvath. While battling for possession of the Grimhold, Balthazar and Horvath are imprisoned in an ancient Chinese urn with a ten-year lock. Dave is humiliated as he is discovered by his teacher and classmates with his pants wet due to a vase that broke in his lap, and as everyone enters the store, there is no trace of the battle, so it is believed Dave made it up.

Ten years later, Dave is a physics student at New York University and has made the reacquaintance of a childhood crush, Becky. The mystical urn opens, releasing Horvath and Balthazar. Horvath goes after Dave in search for the Grimhold, and Dave is eventually rescued by Balthazar, riding an animated steel eagle created out of a Chrysler Building gargoyle.

Dave initially refuses to help Balthazar, but agrees to help as long as he is left alone once the Grimhold is found. They track the Grimhold to Chinatown, where Horvath has released the next Morganian, Sun Lok (Gregory Woo). Dave defeats Sun Lok, and Balthazar retrieves the Grimhold. Dave finds that he wants to learn to use magic after all, and agrees to become Balthazar's apprentice. He also becomes romantically involved with Becky against Balthazar's wishes.

Horvath enlists celebrity magician Drake Stone (Toby Kebbell) to help him retrieve the Grimhold. They attempt to kill Dave, but Balthazar saves him. Cued by Horvath, Dave demands to know the truth about Balthazar's quest. Balthazar reveals that Morgana is trapped in the Grimhold, as well as Veronica; if Morgana escapes she will attempt "The Rising", a spell that will raise sorcerers from the dead and use them to enslave mankind. Dave, as the Prime Merlinian, is the only one who can stop her.

After an incident involving out of control animated mops, Dave decides to give up on magic, but changes his mind when he meets Becky again. He returns to his laboratory just as Drake and Horvath try to kill Balthazar after stealing the Grimhold. Once that is done, Horvath uses the "parasite spell" to steal Drake's energy, and takes his magic ring. He releases the witch Abigail Williams (Nicole Ehinger) and uses her to kidnap Becky. Once Abigail completes that, Horvath steals her energy and pendant as well. Horvath threatens to kill Becky, forcing Dave to surrender the Grimhold and his ring. Balthazar then goes after Horvath in Battery Park, knowing that without the ring Dave will be killed.

Horvath releases Morgana, who still possesses Veronica's body, and she begins the spell as Horvath animates the Charging Bull sculpture to attack Balthazar. With Becky's help, Dave reaches them in time to try to defeat Horvath and stop Morgana from completing the Rising, and Balthazar's eagle flies away with the bull.

Balthazar takes Morgana's soul from Veronica's body into his own, and then Morgana's spirit escapes his body. Morgana tries to incinerate them, but Dave stops her - proving he is the Prime Merlinian by using magic without the ring. The ethereal projection then shoots energy bolts that kill Balthazar before battling Dave, who destroys her after creating a Tesla coil with the square's lamp posts. Balthazar is then revived after Dave jump-starts his heart, and reunites with Veronica. Dave and Becky kiss, and fly to France on Balthazar's eagle.

After the end credits, Horvath takes his hat from Balthazar's shop.

93. Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (01)

Title: Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (01)
Genre: Adventure, Fantasy, Mystery
Year: 2010

Summary: Percy Jackson is a twelve-year-old boy, diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, who has been expelled from six schools, the latest being Yancy Academy. During a school field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, his pre-algebra teacher, Mrs. Dodds, attacks Percy, revealing that she is one of the three Furies. Percy's mother Sally allows his stepfather Gabe Ugliano to mistreat them both because Gabe "takes care of them" economically. To get away from Gabe, Sally takes Percy on a trip to Long Island for a three day vacation.

In the middle of the first night, Percy's closest friend and former classmate at Yancy Academy, Grover Underwood, who is revealed to be a satyr, warns him that the "Kindly Ones" (The Furies) are trying to kill him. Sally drives them both to Camp Half-Blood, a camp for demigods where they can train. On the way there, they are attacked by a Minotaur, which grabs Percy's mother by her throat. She dissolves into a golden shower of light, while Grover and Percy narrowly escape and enter the camp. There, Percy passes out and is taken care of for a few days.

Percy is moved into the Hermes cabin (each of the 12 Olympian gods have a cabin) under the care of Luke Castellan, the cabin's counselor. The Hermes cabin is established to be the place where all demigods with unknown parentage are placed. Clarisse, a daughter of Ares, says newbies at camp have to have their heads dunked into a filthy toilet and tries to dunk Percy's head into a toilet with her friends. However, the water responds to Percy and Clarisse, her buddies, and Annabeth are drenched instead. For revenge, during a camp game of Capture the Flag, Clarisse and her siblings attack Percy. He steps into the adjoining river and is healed by the waters while Poseidon's trident appears above his head, revealing him to be the son of Poseidon. Unfortunately, it also means that Poseidon has broken an oath that he, Hades and Zeus took after the Second World War to refrain from having any more children with mortal women, as the children can become too powerful and become a threat. Such an example is demonstrated when Chiron mentions the story of Thalia Grace, an unfortunate daughter of Zeus. Percy is granted a quest to find Zeus's master bolt which Chiron, one of Percy's tutors at the camp, believes Hades has stolen. Zeus however, believes Poseidon had Percy steal the bolt.

Percy has ten days before the summer solstice to find the bolt and is given magic flying shoes by Luke before leaving on the quest with Annabeth and Grover. Percy decides to travel west to reach the entrance to the Underworld in Hollywood, Los Angeles.

The trip is not uneventful, instead turning out to be one with a large number of encounters with Greek monsters. A fight with the Furies on board a Greyhound bus causes an explosion inside the Lincoln Tunnel. Trying to find a place to eat, they visit a roadside curio shop some ways away, but the owner turns out to be Medusa. After an attack that nearly kills them, Percy cuts off Medusa's head, which he mails to the gods. Percy, Annabeth and Grover eventually find a lost poodle while camping out in the woods nearby. They turn the puppy in for reward money, which allows them to buy train tickets that get them as far as Denver. During a stopover in St. Louis, they visit the St. Louis Arch, where the Echidna attacks them, also blowtorching a hole in the side of the arch. When they stop over in Denver, they have a run-in with Ares, the god of war, who tells Percy that his mother is alive and also requests that they retrieve his shield from an abandoned water park. When Percy, Annabeth and Grover visit said water park, they nearly get consumed by Hephaestus's robotic spiders and their activities broadcasted to Olympus on TV. That night, they stow away on an animal transport that takes them to Las Vegas, Nevada. After Grover releases all of the underfed and mistreated animals in the back of the truck, they start looking around, and wander into the Lotus Hotel and Casino. They nearly end up forgetting completely about their quest but are saved when Percy finds people who think they are in the 1970s. They also find out that they have spent five days in the casino due to the fact that time passes quickly inside the building. After taking a taxi to Los Angeles, they nearly get stretched out by Procrustes on waterbeds. They go to a place called "DOA Recording Studios" and find that it is an entrance to the Underworld where dead people wait to be transported to the Underworld. Despite the fact that they are not dead, they manage to bribe the person in charge, Charon, with drachma. They are transported across the river Styx and enter the Underworld, where they enter the Fields of Asphodel.

As they approach Hades' palace, Luke’s shoes try to drag Grover over the edge of the Pit of Tartarus, but he manages to slip his hooves free. Percy confronts Hades, who also believes Percy has stolen his helm, an object that allows him to become a shadow. Percy discovers that the bolt had appeared in his backpack and flees from the Underworld with his friends using the three pearls he had received from a water spirit, forced to leave his mother behind. He then fights and defeats Ares by stabbing the god's heel.

Percy fights Ares, the God of War and wins, getting the helm in return which he asks the Furies, who witnessed everything, to return and give it to Hades. Percy flies to New York, risking getting blasted by going into the sky, the realm of Zeus. He arrives in New York City to give the master bolt to Zeus at level 600 of the Empire State Building, where Olympus is now located. Zeus accepts the master bolt and Percy returns to camp. Luke reveals that he stole the bolt for Kronos and summons a poisonous scorpion which stings and nearly kills Percy. Chiron cures him and Percy leaves to attend another school that his mother has found. Annabeth returns to live with her mortal father and Grover embarks on a journey as a "seeker" to try and find the great god Pan. Percy heads home and gives his mom Medusa's head, which she presumably uses to turn Gabe into a stone statue that she sells in order to make enough money to buy a new apartment. It is revealed that the only reason Percy's mother married Gabe is to disguise Percy's demigod stench with Gabe's filthy smell.

92. In Time

Title: In Time
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Year: 2011

Summary: By 2161, genetic alteration has allowed humanity to stop aging at 25 but people are required to earn more time after turning 25 or die within a year. Individual 'Living time', which can be transferred among individuals, has replaced money and is displayed on an implant on everybody's lower arm. When that clock reaches zero, one will die instantly. Society is divided by social class living in 'Time Zones'. The poor live in the ghettos of Dayton and work each day to earn a few more hours of life which they must also use to pay for everyday necessities. The rich live in the luxurious New Greenwich, drive fast electric cars, and can live forever.

28-year-old factory worker Will Salas lives with his 50-year old mother Rachel in the ghettos. One day, Will and his 29-year old best friend Borel save rich 105-year-old Henry Hamilton from suffering a time-robbery assault in a bar where he flaunts his time around buying people drinks. Hamilton is attacked by Fortis ,  the 75-year old Briton mobster boss of a gang called the Minutemen. Will leads Hamilton to safety, where Hamilton says to Will, "For few to be immortal many must die", as there is essentially enough time for everyone to live a full life, but it is stockpiled for the rich to become immortal. An upset Will argues that no one should die before their time naturally ends so that others may live, upon which Hamilton describes how he no longer even desires life, in saying "though your body may not be worn out, your mind is. We want, we need, to die."

Later that night, Hamilton transfers all (116 years) but five minutes of his remaining time to the sleeping Will and starts climbing a bridge. As his time expires, he falls into the river below. Will arrives too late to save him, realizes he has been filmed by a nearby surveillance camera, and flees the area. Resident police force, the Timekeepers, have various theories as to his death. A young timekeeper, correctly assumes Hamilton had "timed out', a.k.a. killed himself, but 60-year old veteran Timekeeper Raymond Leon is convinced he was murdered by a Dayton resident. Will then visits Borel and gives him a decade's worth of time, as they have been friends for ten years.

Will awaits his mother at a bus station, only to discover that she didn't have enough time to pay for her usual bus ride after the price suddenly increased. He rushes down the street to find her. They encounter each other on foot, and as she runs and leaps into his arms, her time expires before her son can help her and she dies in his arms. Remembering what Hamilton told him about the inequity of the time system, Will decides to seek revenge, and leaves for New Greenwich, the wealthy time zone, with over a century on his clock. Upon arrival, he enters a casino, where he meets a 90-year old millionaire, time-loaning businessman Philippe Weis and his 27-year-old daughter Sylvia Weis. Sylvia becomes interested in Will after a tense gambling table showdown where Will beats her father in poker with only seconds to spare on his clock, and she invites Will to a party at her father's mansion.

At the mansion, Will is apprehended by Leon, who confiscates most of his time, but Will then escapes taking Sylvia hostage. Returning to the ghetto with her, he drives into an ambush of Fortis', who, in disappointment to find that the unconscious Will was in possession of Hamilton's time but lost it, steals most of Sylvia's, only failing to take the last half hour as the approach of the Timekeepers forces him to leave the scene. Will returns to consciousness and gives Sylvia some of his remaining time so they can return to his old neighborhood. They first visit Borel to retrieve some time Will gave him earlier as their time is running out soon, only to find out from Borel's grief-stricken wife that he has drunk himself to death with 9 years on his clock. Sylvia pawns her jewelry for a meager price of 2 days. Finding themselves shelter later, Will makes a call to Weis demanding a 1,000 years' ransom for Sylvia, to be distributed to the people of the ghetto. Leon traces Will's location from his phone call, and heads to Dayton in pursuit.

The following day, as Will prepares to release Sylvia, he discovers that Weis did not pay the ransom, but Will decides to let Sylvia go regardless. Leon appears and almost kills Will, but is shot in the shoulder by Sylvia. Will then transfers four hours of time to the disarmed Leon so that he is able to walk out of Dayton before he "clocks out". Will and Sylvia escape in Leon's car. Later, Will tells her that she still has a chance to walk away from the situation, but she decides to remain by his side, saying there is no purpose to the life she once had in New Greenwich. They begin a series of Time Bank robberies, stealing the Time Capsules which store time equivalents and distributing them to the poor, with a bounty of 10 years on their heads. Fortis eventually tracks down Will and Sylvia a second time, and challenges Will to a Time Fight. Will dominates the fight by using the technique he learned from his late father, then shoots the remaining Minutemen while Fortis dies in the time fight, his time transferred to Will.

Will and Sylvia realize their previous efforts were futile, as the rich have the power to simply increase the cost of living in the ghettos to maintain the status quo. They succeed in stealing a million years from Weis' private headquarters in a Time Capsule, escaping all resistance on their way out and reaching Dayton. Upon arrival, Leon crashes his car into Will's, but Will is able to hand the Time Capsule to a young girl who then distributes the time among the people. Leon eventually catches up with Will and Sylvia outside the city, holding them at gunpoint. Will jokingly asks Leon to return some of the time he previously loaned him so that they can survive till their executions, but Leon realizes that he had neglected to replenish his own time before going after them (only 5 seconds left), and dies. Will and Sylvia are left with seconds to live, but Will runs to Leon's car and takes his allotted time, and transfers it to Sylvia seconds before she is about to die, a scene mirroring his mother's death. When Will completed transfering his time to Sylvia, He has 1 days remaining time.

Will and Sylvia continue robbing banks as part of their efforts to crash the system, now with a bounty of 100 years on their heads, while the rich attempt to cope with the sudden surge of people who now have enough time to change zones arriving from the ghettos. A news broadcast shows as the the factories, in which also Will once worked, are no longer in action.