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Reviews
The Village (2004)
Just ok for me (spoilers)
6/10. Now, I'm a person that doesn't go out to haunted houses or see scary movies at midnight with the full moon out and the sounds from the movie playing full blast, and I really don't want to see scary movies. I've seen Signs and it wasn't too bad for me. I read some imdb.com posts and read there was a big twist at the end. I just wasn't sure what was going to happen.
Adrien Brody was sort of funny throughout the movie because his character is mentally retarded. It's his character that brings some comic relief to the film. Bryce Dallas Howard as Ivy sort of confused me a bit because I wasn't sure if her character was blind or not. It finally came together after awhile, but you really had to sit there and watch it. Joaquin Phoenix as Lucius was fine, but nothing too spectacular. His character was just there.
All in all, the movie was fine and there weren't too many scary scenes at all.
SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What I don't understand is how Lucius could survive a knife being sliced into his stomach and his heart. How is that really possible? And What about a blind girl finding her way through the woods by herself, getting to her destination, and getting back safely. One last point. The plot twist, I would be sad that I was being lied to when there was real civilization outside their sanctuary, and it was a better life than the one I was living
Good Boy! (2003)
A really bad movie. 4/10
*Spoilers*
I almost feel really bad for this movie because it seemed so promising on previews. I actually think this went down the toilet.
The acting is fine, but nothing really to good. Liam Aiken, (who named him that?), seemed too childish. Let's think here. The kid is 13. In the previews he looked about 6 maybe 7. Here, I wasn't expecting a 13 year old! It probably would have worked much better with a 6 or 7 year old. Already, the movie Buddy is being cliched, and it hasn't been out for too long yet. Then again the Buddy movies keep cliching themselves. Brittany, who plays Connie, seemed kind of stiff, I guess. She didn't do a whole lot except, "I grew up with them", *Mouth Open*, and that's really about it. The rest of the cast is mish mosh, nothing to say about them.
The only really thing that this movie has good things of is the special effects. That's about it. MGM or 20th Century Fox, or whomever, must have used the same people that did Cats & Dogs. The dogs looked like they were talking, and everything else looked pretty real. Though, the flying saucer scenes in the sky were one of the hokiest things I've ever seen. Plenty of people have to be looking at the sky, and none of them notice it's being distorted or there's a UFO flying?
The last thing I have to complain about is the really sappy ending. I'm sorry but I have to ruin it for you. Dog comes back, says I love you (basically), and is not able to talk anymore. The kid is like, "but why? I have so many questions." Then the end of the movie happens. What the heck went wrong here? He's not crying or anything. I guess all he wanted was a dog, but it's still rather stupid.
All in all, take a 7 year old and they'll probably enjoy it. I was with a 10 year old and she was like ok...
Maricela (1986)
Cruddy movie that I had to watch in spanish Class
*May include spoliers*
4/10. Maricela and her mother Eugenia have fled El Salvador for the US with hopes of building a better life. Unable to find work in her profession as a school teacher, Eugenia becomes a live-in housekeeper to the affluent Gannett family. Conflict occurs when Maricela clashes with teenage Stacy Gannett, who resents her presence at home and at school. Can Maricela win Stacy's friendship and still remain true to her own ideals and values?
This movie should have the words cliché writtena all over it. I was forced to watch this film in my Spanish class. It wasn't the best movie I have watched in any class. Our teacher decided to play hooky that day, so we watched this...
I really felt bored during the movie. There was no suspense, nothing really to keep me interested. Most of the people in my class were bored out of their minds and couldn't keep their attention on the T.V. The only other time I've seen this is in my biology class where almost everyone can't pay attention to the teacher.
I was trying to look up this movie on imdb.com, and I couldn't find it. Now, if you were trying to sell your movie to someone, wouldn't you at least spell the movie more easily?
I swear that I don't remember what the characters names were in this. None of them at all. The only one besides Maricela was Stacy. And geeze, she had a bad hair do. Reminded me of the woman in The Terminator except maybe worse.
All in all, don't spend your money or your life watching this movie. It was really a good waste of an hour of my life.
Spy Kids 3: Game Over (2003)
Part of Sequel Burnout Summer
*May be Spoilers*
4/10. As usual, with sequels, they start getting worse. The first one was great, interesting, something new. The 2nd one was ok, getting a little worse, and as the tagline says, "Slightly Bigger Spies." This was just plain out stupid for several reasons. The really only person that came from the last 2 throughout the whole movie was Daryl Sabara aka Juni Cortez. Alexa Vega aka Carmen Cortez was in the last 20 minutes or so, and was sleeping most of the movie away. Ricardo Montalban aka Grandfather was in the last one and probably had the 2nd most screen time.
The idea of Spy Kids is starting to really unoriginal and not new especially since they keep pumping a movie out once a year. Think about Star Wars, their movies come out once every 3 years, James Bond, once every 2 or 3 years. As Rater #2 says perfectly, they're preteens now or in Alexa's case, she is a teen.
The 3-D aspect of the film bothered me. I didn't like wearing the glasses because a) They're not like the ones at Disney World and Universal being the same color, and b) They were blue and red, which distorted my field of vision. I don't have glasses (contacts instead), so that didn't really bother me. The thing was I couldn't see any 3-D effects. Maybe there's something wrong with my vision, but 3/4 people I was with said they couldn't see any effects at all. Most of the stuff flying at us were nuts and bolts. I didn't hear anyone gasp when something was flying at me.
Daryl did an ok job as his part. I think he was better in the first movie, but this movie was directed more around him. Alexa didn't really do much, as she was sleeping most of the movie. I loved Stallone's Rocky movies, but I swear that I didn't recognize him at all in this one. The rest of the cast was put it for 2 seconds worth and it was a rather waste of money and time. They were on for 2 seconds. Just 1 dumb question, why was Elijah Wood in here serving up 2 minutes of screen time? Why? Though I thought it was funny when he got killed. I'm the Guy, zap! 99 lives down to .5, uh oh, 0. Bye bye. I didn't really recognize George Clooney either...
1 last thing. Why were all the bad guys good in this one? I thought they all went to jail or something.
Well, besides blowing $8.50 on a movie that I really didn't exactly want to see, I think it was probably, for the most part wasted. 6/10's of it was at least.
Air Bud: Spikes Back (2003)
What a bad movie suitable for kids not for adults
*may include spoilers but depends on your viewpoint*
3/10. Whooe. This stunk. I don't know if there was a plot, but here goes. Buddy does volleyball, is caught, and is used to steal a diamond, and then play volleyball. That's it. Now. Let's talk about the characters that can't seem to stay from movie to movie. There's even different directors for each of the 5 movies! Why couldn't Josh Framm be in this one? Maybe because he knew that it was going to be a flop, none of the characters were the same, and he was off doing something better than a straight to video movie. I could have sworn that Buddy had a new family cause no one looked a like. I was like what happened here? Then Kajita, or whatever her name is who plays the main character, wasn't even in the last movie. So, it gets hard to follow. The Tammy gal was in the last 2, so I thought I saw her from somewhere. The parents and gram gram are kind of clueless. The parents went on a veterinary clinic convention, and they were gone for most of the movie. Aren't conventions just a couple of days, not weeks? Now, what about a boy that likes to skate and play volleyball? Is that a weird combination or what? The Robbers were idiots, and were just plain out a worthless piece of time.
Well, now that the character follies are out of the way. Time for some technical follies. If you read license plates, it said Washington. Well, Andrea (that's the Kajita girl, the main character) said she would raise half of the money to go on a trip to visit her friend that moved away (Tammy). Yet, she is raising $600 by herself, thus making a trip like that $1200. I can understand from the East Coast but from Washington!?!?!? What happened to Buddy's children? They were in the last one. I guess it took up too much of their time to train 5 or more dogs again. Want me to keep going, cause I will anyway. Let's jump to the last game. You seem them constantly losing, and their morale is low because Buddy isn't there. Once Buddy comes, they're all happy and can beat the other team, but once you see a point played, they show you the score, and they're almost tied! So, if we see them constantly losing, how can we know that they were actually tied? Once again, this was a dumb storyline, and was probably made on a $5 million budget. Obviously, this was a cliche as the other 3 movies are too. The storyline was dumb, but hey, this is geared toward younger kids, not adults. Why do we need more Air Bud movies? The original ones is dead.They seriously need to stop doing these movies, but if they continue, here is a couple of ideas:
Air Bud Six is likely to be "Air Bud: On the Mat" where he becomes a wrestler. Air Bud: Bowling for Doggy Treats.
Air Bud : Pump the Gas (Car Racing - description : Buddy Team Up with his son (the one owning a gas station) to win the Indy 500)
Air Bud : En Passant (Chessmaster - description : became chessmaster and at the end beat the World Champ in 6 moves! to rescue Tammy)
Air Bud : Up In The Sky (Skydiving - description : he got to rescue Tammy by jumping from a plane to another)
Air Bud : On the Greens (Golf - descrption : beat Tiger, win the World Cup and save Tammy)
Air Bud : Vs MVP (Hockey - description : End Rivality with MVP and team up with the monkey to save the world(or Tammy))
Air Bud : Walk the dog (Yo-yo - description : play yo-yo at the same time stop mad scientist to clone Tammy)
Air Bud : With Poker Face (Poker - description : Buddy go to Vegas playing poker and he had to win to rescue his owner from the debt)
Coming next week to fox! All of these ideas came from IMDB.com. So thanks from there. Anyway, see the movie if you have a younger child but don't watch it yourself.
Finding Nemo (2003)
Once again, Pixar has outdone itself.
*May include spoilers but it depends on your outtake of the movie*
8/10. A wonderful tale about a father fish trying to find his son by traveling all the way across the ocean. Nemo, the son, wants to go to school, but his dad, Marlin, is afraid of Nemo being out of his sight. Marlin had a bad experience when a shark came several years earlier, ate his wife, and 399 of his eggs. Though 1 remained, and he promised that he would never let anything happen to Nemo. Back to the present, Nemo gets on a "bus" (stingray) and they go to the drop off point where the open water is. Marlin tracks them, and Nemo gets mad. Then Nemo disobeys his dad by going to this fishing boat, and touching it. Nemo starts back, but he is caught by a diver. Marlin swims after the diver, and then the boat, and then meets this forgetful fish named Dory. Dory is Marlin's companion all the way to Australia, where mishaps occur.
When I first watched the preview of this, I was thinking that this was going to me a horrible, and stupid movie, but was I wrong. The characters were altogether funny, and the actors that played them. Albert Brooks played Marlin, the father of Nemo. He was pretty funny, and was very overprotective of his son. Though the 2 biggest voices that I heard were Ellen who played Dory, and Brad Garrett who played Bloat. First Ellen. She seemed to fit the fish very well because she was altogether funny. It was the script that helped her along, but nevertheless. I think any other voice would have been bad. Now Bloat. I've watched Everybody Loves Raymond only a couple of times, but I recognized Brad Garrett's voice right on the button. He was pretty funny, and especially at the end when the fish from the tank are trying to esacape, and he says, "Now what?"
In the 4 movies that I've watched from Pixar, I've never been disappointed. They have a similar theme, friendship, but it works very well for them. Though their next 2 movies, The Incredibles (2004) and Cars (2005) seem like they will veer off from that current theme. I tried to keep my eyes open for hidden gags and I found one. If you look closely in the Dentist office, on the ground, you'll spot a Buzz Lightyear toy.
I think all ages of people will find this movie enjoying. Once again, Pixar has outdone itself in producing a great movie