One Paragraph Review: Ratatouille

For the record, I did really enjoy this film. However there was something about it that irked me. For Pixar, I think it was a pretty ambitious endeavor. Usually in the films that mix the human world and the toy, bug, animal, or whatever world, there is an unequal balance. For example, humans were very peripheral characters in Toy Story and in Finding Nemo. In Ratatouille, they gave almost an equal share of character development to the main human and rat characters. While I liked this, I think it was much harder for me to get swept away in the plot. I loved the ideas of toys coming to life when humans aren't around, but I was just never sold and quite frankly creeped out by the idea of rats and humans hanging out together to prepare food.

One Paragraph Review: Eastern Promises

This is a really good and interesting movie. Given the director and the cast, I had really high expectations, but felt like they were met. Even surpassed. Eastern Promises uses the story of an orphaned baby to show you the dark underworld of the Russian mob in London. The movie is incredibly violent. It's also very enticing. It's easy to get sucked in as you're trying to understand the rules, language and code that these dark men live by. Definitely check this movie out.

One Paragraph Review: You Kill Me

I just finished watching this movie and I'm not really sure what it was about. I like the story idea of a alcoholic hitman who flees to California to make sense of things. The acting was good. Ben Kingsley is always great. Téa Leoni was solid too, and I usually can't stand her. It had some interesting characters but the movie sort of lacked a reason to exist. It couldn't decide if it was a dark comedy or a drama. It had some dramatic bits, but wasn't really funny enough to be a "comedy" by itself. And it had some flashes of action, or at least it teased some actions scenes but never really delivered.

One Paragraph Review: The Golden Compass

I think this is a great example of what happens when a small rodent eats ten to twenty pages of a movie script and the movie is made anyway. The Golden Compass has an amazing quality of inadequately explaining its character's motivations or decisions, the story elements or the plot structure. Visually and conceptually, I loved every second of this movie. I loved the vibrant steampunk theme combined with the way the world feels alien and different, yet is obviously a mirror image of earth (Scandinavian names for bears, similar continent structure, etc...). However, it feels almost flippantly paced, such that watching it too closely can make you ask an awful lot of questions and feel like you missed a scene or two. Lots of fun, just don't pay too much attention.

One Paragraph Review: Transformers

If you were to simply replace every one of the brilliantly executed action sequences in Transformers with a b-movie sex scene (without even changing the cast), you'd have yourself a movie which would pass unnoticed as another every day softcore porno flick. That is the real crime that Michael Bay has committed with this movie: Transformers didn't have to be the "mindless action movie" equivalent of a porno. In the eyes of a different creator, Transformers could have been a complete masterpiece like Lord of the Rings or Serenity, with characters that we care about. Instead, Bay dumps a shitheap of bad-acting (die, Megan Fox, die), personality-less characters (robots and humans alike), idiotic dialog and wasteful writing/directing onto a magnificent visual and auditory recreation of giant robots fucking blowing shit up. As much as I'd love to bemoan what Bay did with the great Transformers universe, the real pity is what he didn't do with it.

One Paragraph Review: Ratatouille

Ratatouille was a supremely enjoyable film. One of the best I've seen all year? I don't know but like a good soup or prepared meal, this film has just the right ingridients of everything. Humor, action, story, characters, animation. Pixar really excels at this stuff. I recommend making yourself a big serving of your favorite dinner-time food and sitting down and watching this movie. You won't be disappointed with the result!

One Paragraph Review: The Golden Compass

This was visually an amazing movie. Very well done. Beyond that, however, the movie felt like less than the sum of its parts. The world and lore is engaging, but the whole thing just doesn't seem to click. There were so many characters, landscapes and plot developments that you never really got much depth to any of it. I really could have done with 1/3 less the characters and without the feeling that the movie really wanted to be Lord of the Rings. I realize it's part of a trilogy, but I felt a bit cheated by having so much storyline but so little of it being resolved. All in all though, it was a good way to spend two hours. And it was sure pretty.

One Paragraph Review: Fantastic Four-Rise of the Silver Surfer

Thinking about it this morning, I wasn't really sure how to write this review. Don't get me wrong. This movie is absolutely terrible. While munching away on my cereal I was trying to think of how best to describe this flaming heap of crap known as the Fantastic Four sequel. And then it struck me: This movie is so bad that its title doesn't even describe it. Yes, the Fantastic Four are all in the movie. Yes, there is a Silver Surfer. But he doesn't rise. There is no Silver Surfer rising. He just sort of appears, along with this Galactus thing, and then...I don't know. Don't see this movie. It has one or two solid CGI-infused action sequences, but the story is inane, the characters shallow, and the dialogue makes you want to punch yourself. In the face.

One Paragraph Review: Beowulf

I saw Beowulf in 3D this weekend. If you decide to see that movie at all, please go see it in 3D. It's worth it for the novelty, the 3D tech seems to have been greatly improved since the old days of blue-and-red cardboard lenses. Also, please do not take your very young child to it. Holy crap, halfway through I pulled out my ticket to see what it was rated. I'm surprised it was rated PG-13 because there are some wildly violent and gory scenes in it. But, in 3D, it's worth the price of admission for some good animated action.