" There is nothing more relaxing than knowing that the world is crazier than you are."

When Disney Studios bought the Marvel line, what they were buying was really a printing press that printed freshly-minted money. That doesn't mean it was automatic, however. It was done right. Starting with the first two Iron Man films, the franchise that would lead to Joss Whedon's superior Avengers film was one of creating a universe. God made the universe in seven days. It took Marvel five movies. What we end up with is not just a fine collection of treats for the geeks and fanboys. We're left with an entire world, a world that we are all invited at about the pace of two films a year to come and play within. No one is pretending that they're making serious cinema here. What they're doing is making serious cash. To do that there is only one order of the day. Thou shalt entertain. After two hours visiting with Thor: The Dark World -- I'm entertained.

“For me, it was always going to be about love.”

The best time travel stories don’t endure because people really like thinking about wormholes and paradoxes. No, it’s the idea of reliving the past or getting a peek at what’s next — before realizing we’re better off just living each day to the fullest — that captures our imagination. That’s why a filmmaker like Richard Curtis, best known for writing and directing romantic comedies like Love Actually, as well as his Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill screenplays, can take on a fantastical concept like time travel so naturally. Based on Curtis’ filmography, you’d expect his take on the subject to be about a boy…standing in front of a girl…asking her to love him…by traveling back in time and finding out all the stuff she likes. But you’d only be mostly right.

Douglas, Freeman, Kline, and De Niro: four legendary actors band together in a single film and it’s a comedy no less; it’s not the first time that this has been heard of; however, not sure that it has ever been done with such style. It’s good to see four actors who you would normally see doing serious movies goof off and have a little fun, and by the looks of it, they had plenty of fun doing it. The Flatbush Four, Billy (Michael Douglas), Patty (Robert De Niro), Archie (Morgan Freeman), and Sammy (Kevin Kline) are four friends from Brooklyn who grew up together. Their bond was unshakable, and only they were allowed to make fun of one another, a rule that was enforced by Patty on several occasions. Growing up, it was these four against the world, and eventually they would take the world by storm.

Almost sixty years later, the Flatbush Four are no more in a sense. Now all old men, the group has long since disbanded and they are separated all over the U.S: Billy is out in Malibu, living with a woman half his age, Patty lives a solitary life of misery after the death of his wife, Sammy is equally miserable and bored living in Florida with his wife, and Archie after a mild stroke is relegated to living with his son and family where he is treated like an invalid. But when Billy calls with news of his upcoming wedding to his child bride (as the others refer to her), these four reunite for the first time in years in the only place suitable to house a wedding as well as a bachelor party: Vegas, and what a legendary weekend it turned into.