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Eric_in_Cincinnati
Reviews
The Polar Express (2004)
G Rating? Did anyone else notice the exploding hobo?
I am not kidding: there's a scene in this movie where a hobo hits his head on a tunnel keystone and explodes (with no fireball, though) into a million pieces! It made some kid in front of me scream in terror! ...In a G-rated film!
This film might serve to convince children that Santa Clause is EVIL! His helpers are ugly, misanthropic, over-the-top and mean! When Santa (here an anagram of Satan!) appears, all 200,000 elves begin singing "Santa Clause is Coming to Town" as though it were a Druid war chant. Then, in the reflection of this movie's "Rosebud" object (a jingle bell that whispers hints of why you can't hear it ringing: "doubt....doubt...)), old Saint Nick appears, looking like a stoic Donald Sutherland, his face glowing like Moses' from "K10C". When we hear him speak, his thundering voice sounds less like a jolly old elf, and more like James Earl Jones' voice slowed-down about 20%. Frightening!
The syrupy music is out-of-place, boring and repetitive. It doesn't follow any emotional threads (as in "Titanic's" very effective score). It just seems thrown in at certain points in order to generate feelings of warmth and magic. It fails to stir, partly because it doesn't match the imagery of the film. There are some musical train wrecks (no pun intended) where, out of nowhere, the eerie, symphonic score slams abruptly into happy, child-voiced POLKA about the title locomotive. It just makes the whole movie sound like it was rushed into production!
Finally, I agree with some other reviewers about how, well... "dead" everyone looks. It does seem a little macabre at times. The motion-capture technique is good for allowing the Kings Island-like roller-coaster train sequences to look convincing from a distance, but up close, "real" actors should have been used. Overall, nice eye-candy for killing time in front of the TV, but not much else here.
Category 7: The End of the World (2005)
The Return of Y2K (Remember that one?)
Here are my reasons for giving this schlock-fest only one star: 1. The actors mailed in their performances (or overacted, depending on their level of experience, causing a complete lack of verisimilitude); 2. The hurried special effects are unbelievable, cartoonish and over-the-top, especially the cliché, way-overdone Statue of Liberty scene; 3. Brolin's preaching sounds more like the recently over-pushed Streissand Doctrine; 4. (Sigh) more (albeit more subtle and passive than its theatrical, bigger-budget predecessor,"Day After Tomorrow")... Bush-bashing...how original. (I think I like the president a lot more, now); and 5. It was pretentiously hyped as the "Movie Event of the Year". I'm afraid that, even the intended audience is more sophisticated than what the producers of this movie expected. The trailer-park set has begun to evolve into a higher level of cinema enjoyment, no longer buying in to effects-only show pieces, opting for story and intelligence. If this was CBS' Movie Event of the Year, then 1988's "Tarzan in Manhattan" should have been as memorable as "Titanic!"
Shadow Glories (2001)
Where'd they get that Ref?
The most intense part of this great independent film is when the Referee with the weird, almost overdubbed voice instructs the fighters to fight fair. It's bittersweet, like the performance turned in by Brando in "Waterfront". He looks like a Scotch Charlie Sheen, and is so into his performance that it transitions the scene with an almost Van-Damme-like smoothness. Unlike other 'fight' films, this one seems to have been made with every scene played with fullest heart (maximum return on the indie-budget investment, no doubt). Some films feature such background characters that seem to glow forth from the rest of the picture, as does this referee character. It's hard to overlook such amazing talent, especially when he's given such a pivotal role. His counterpart (another Ref, played by the former mayor of Lewiston, Maine, where this movie was filmed) seems over-the-top in comparison. This films beauty is in how the McLean referee internalizes--keeping his acting to a level of realism very similar to Hopkins' "Lambs" role in 1991. If only this piece of genuine cinema been offered to wider audiences, we might have seen the beginning of a new era of such fight-genre films. Perhaps it will re-emerge. Ten stars.
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002)
Bryan Adams Video, sponsored by the Sierra Club?
Spirit is so spirited, that even when he drinks his mother's milk, he does it with vigor, and he licks his milk mustache with horse-like vigor thats vigorous and equine! He looks like such a strong and happy little horse, all full of vim and vigor! We get it, he's a spirited, vigorous horse! Geez! That was uncomfortable to watch!
I'm glad to see that Bryan Adams has a new outlet for his music. Joan Baez could have lent some balance to the soundtrack, though.
Extreme left-wing (or even right-wing) morality plays don't make for good entertainment, no matter how well presented. Propaganda has its place in global warfare, not in cartoon cinema. At least "Fahrenheit 911" and "Primary Colors" were up-front about being message movies, and Joseph Goebels was more subtle in his delivery! This is kind of confrontational in its portrayal of Union soldiers as evil, horse-abusing Indian killers. It's uncomfortable, bigoted and racist on many fronts. We get it, comrades. Revolution! Blah blah blah!
The animation was breakthrough and very pleasant, but wasted on the "America Sucks" message that does nothing but offend a lot of the audience. We know that people and horses suffered during the founding of this nation. (Show me a nation that didn't.) This film could easily be applied to any other country in the world, however.
Four stars. Sorry, horses.
Finding Nemo (2003)
This was a Children's Movie???
This review contains spoilers!
For everything that is visually brilliant and realistic in "Finding Nemo", there is so much wrong with this Pixar effort. So, where do I start? Okay, I'll start where the movie starts: with the violent death of "Coral" and 399 baby fish (no joke--a very scary-looking barracuda attacks the family less than four minutes into the film!). I'm not sure if the title should have been "Did Coral Really Die?", because I spent the whole movie waiting for the happy reunion. Sadly, there was none. Poignant and original, but way too intense for kids.
(The anemone they chose to raise their expected family of 400 was too small, anyway!)
This movie starts off cute (after the opening pathos, of course), with lovable characters (the young sea creatures at the reef), and the tone-deaf stingray teacher is somewhat original and funny. After this, however, the whole thing goes off into one nonsense scene after another. Granted: Fish don't talk, but better movies than this have talking fish.
To start, this movie has its own version of "Jar-Jar Binks" (an annoying character from Lucasfilm's "Star Wars" who is credited with utterly destroying the verisimilitude of that franchise), and her name is "Dory". Annoying, because her one, well-overextended joke is that she has "short-term memory loss". This can be taken as either cute or disturbing, depending on how you choose to enjoy the film. I chose disturbing, because I kept anticipating that she would just snap, forget everything, and abandon poor "Marlin" forever. Every time her memory lapses, its as if she's met Marlin for the first time. That distracts from the thread of the story and makes her a very tenuous ally at best. (Not to mention, this borders on making fun of serious memory-loss diseases in the name of entertainment. That in itself is an uncomfortable distraction.)
Next, for those who dislike Pauly Shore-speak, there's "Crush" (voiced by the movie's director), a sea turtle, who couldn't be a more stereotypical ripoff of Sean Penn's "Spicoli" character in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High". His hybrid, Muscle Beach-meets-Valley Girl on Valium lingo is so passé as to make him look like more of a dork than the "cool dude" that the filmmakers seem to be trying to pull off. He'd be a little more likable if they hadn't tried so hard to make him "hip". He's friendly, but over-the-top.
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, there's a dubious, wildly inappropriate scene built around the very unfunny topic of alcoholics anonymous in this "family" effort, and it involves vegetarian(!) sharks, who sputter support-group catch phrases such as "Remember the steps!", "Intervention!", that kids just won't understand (or care about). If this was meant to be humor for the adults in the audience, it fails miserably, because the subject is based on an issue of human suffering and misery! This is Rush Limbaugh humor, and is out of place in a Disney picture. The premise is unbelievable as well as unnecessary for the flow of the story (which gets more and more inane throughout). All of this leads up to the most desperate, if not clichéd, "oldest trick in the book": A fart gag involving anti-ship mines!!!
Midway through, there is a bunch of confusing jibber-jabber that only people who work in dentist's offices will appreciate. This makes for some chuckles.
A major flaw is the inclusion of the bizarre, out-of-place nighttime initiation ceremony for "Nemo" in the fish tank. It seems to be another attempt at a more mature level of humor, but there's no suspense at all, and I found myself joining the lot of whispers of "this is stupid" when Nemo swims through the "Ring of Fire", (which is nothing more than a Fountain of Bubbles). Moreover, if this was the initiation for all of the other tank-mates, how did "Peach", the sea star, make it into the club? (I digress). This scene looks like something out of a "deleted Scenes" menu on a DVD.
Finally, "Darla". Every movie has to have a "countdown" to some anticipated confrontation with an adversary. This one is an apparently disturbed 7-year-old who looks all too deliberately twisted and grotesque. Okay, we get it. She might kill Nemo! (You see, because the owner of the fish tank puts a picture of the little girl HOLDING A DEAD FISH in plain, direct view of the tank-mates.)
Despite looking spectacular, this movie does not have the sense of adventure of other Disney/Pixar films. Much of what is supposed to be funny isn't; much of what is supposed to be climactic isn't as well. Some content might be questionable. Still, it's a work of art, into which much effort was put. It's not the greatest film, but there are, after all, other fish in the sea.
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
The Star Wars Holiday Special Comes to the Big Screen!
Well, so Luke: This whiny dork is your father? Now I understand why Luke Skywalker screams "No! No! That's impossible!" so dramatically in 'The Empire Strikes Back'. I'd jump into a chasm too, if I knew my dad was this adolescent, miscast, Scott Stapp-lookin' wimp. (Casting Hugh Jackman or Alan Rickman would have made a lot more sense!) Whew! Well, George, thanks. It's been fun. Go write for Sesame Street now.
Everybody keeps hyping the battle scenes. Why? It's the battle of Naboo all over again, only in space. Yeah, the fire trucks were a nice touch; but who was who? And what the hell was all this fighting about to begin with? ...And who killed all the good writers, anyhow?
Annoying to the point of self-mutilation, Yoda has become! Backwards every one of his lines is. Jeopardy it is like watching. Get it, we all do! Stop, now you can! Older than your 900-year-old butt, it is getting. Enough about that, that is! At least 'Jar-Jar Binks' keeps his cake-hole shut in this one. That's about the only saving grace.
***Spoiler Alert*** The opening credits are yellow, and they slowly crawl away from the viewer in an almost pyramid-like fashion. Pretty cool!