World Movies

I was able to catch a prescreening of Alice in Wonderland tonight on March 2nd. Despite some pretty nifty visuals, and jaw dropping set pieces, I found the movie to be incredibly dull, flat, and utterly full of itself. The film is merely a vehicle for Johnny Depp to showcase his talents, and he portrays the Mad Hatter as an actor who can't quite find the right shoes to fill in the role. He rotates from a Scottish brogue, to a feminine lisp, and staggers once in awhile as the unmistakable character of Captain Jack Sparrow. Where the visuals triumph, the story lacks. The proposed 'sequel' to Alice in Wonderland is literally a rehash of most of the finer points of the original, except a lot more Johnny Depp- a character who the audience is supposed to sympathize with and root for, but who i found a bit annoying and tiresome after awhile. The plot is fairly simple. Alice (the stone faced, newcomer Mia Wasisoska whose acting is limited to mildly concerned, mildly puzzled, and mildly agitated) flees from an arranged marriage proposal from a wealthy lord. She follows a curious white rabbit and tumbles down a hole into Underland, referred to as Wonderland by Alice. She then meets a variety of odd characters, most of them familiar from the original Alice. The plot is fairly simplistic, and a tad boneheaded. The Red Queen (Bonham Carter, slightly overdoing it, but arguably the best actor of the bunch) rules the land, but is pitted against the tiresome goodness and light of her sister, The White Queen (Hathaway doing an air-headed imitation of, you guessed it, Captain Jack Sparrow). Alice is destined by some ancient scroll to defeat the Jabberwocky and end The Red Queen's reign of terror. Alice boils down to mere eye candy-something that is visually pleasing, but is only a piece of fluff. If your a fan of Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, this movie is right up your ally. I prefer Burton at his best with movies that attempt to involve the audience like Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, and Big Fish. However, this bloated mess is sure to rank in hundreds of millions of dollars, but it tugs at our wallets rather than our hearts. It's a scary thought, but I hope that Burton's best work isn't behind him.

The overall premise of the film is a little silly yes, but it's incredibly original and it had so much potential.
The film suffers from a handful of serious flaws that ruin just about everything good that the film has going for it. The pacing is horrendous. The action scenes are few, far between and horribly rushed and the down time in between them slows to a crawl. This time is used for each of the uninteresting, two-dimensional characters to melodramatically shed out stories of their troubled pasts. We just don't care about ANY of them due to minuscule character development and a horrible script.

The whole film is terribly written with some questionable scenes that seemed to have been written only for the convenience of the characters. The plot is pretty simple but mostly unexplained and full of holes. SO much is left in the dark and the main point of the film isn't even explained so it's hard to care at all during the supposed dramatic moments.

Too much talking and not enough action for it to be a wicked B-movie and the overabundance of melodrama and terrible writing keep it from being a serious, dramatic epic.

There are slivers of a good film and some great ideas that occasionally appear and the few, brief action scenes are fairly entertaining, but everything else is so terribly executed that it isn't worth any kind of recommendation. Legion movie download 2010.

OK, so I was one of those people who actually enjoyed the first Alvin. I know it was predictable, terribly acted and lacking in substance, but I liked it nonetheless. The Squeakquel not so much. There's no effort to even mask the predictability in this one, the filmmakers just concede to the fact there are no surprises. The acting is noticeably worse, Jason Lee essentially being replaced by the far less appealing Zachary Levi is the main contributor to this problem. And worst of all the shallowness of the plot can't be redeemed by numerous hit songs getting 'munked', like achieved by its predecessor.

The major upside to the movie is still the song and dance numbers, which are turned up to eleven thanks to the arrival of The Chipettes. Brittany, Jeanette and Eleanor (voiced by Applegate, Faris and Poehler respectively) provide two things: firstly, a reason for more girls to watch, secondly, and most importantly, the chance for the film to include female tunes. Its these 'cute girl' routines which provide the bulk of the enjoyment as Alvin, Simon and Theodore's music acts become tired very fast.

Of particular annoyance to me is something that has become increasingly popular in Hollywood: big names being vocally unrecognisable. It occurred in the first Alvin and then again most recently in Planet 51. Why oh why would you use well-known actors if you can't tell it's them? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of having them at all? Any old person can have their voice synthesised digitally to sound like a chipmunk, is it purely so their names can be included on the poster and in the trailer? Well, it is a real shame, because if I lured in talent like Long, Poehler and Faris I would make more out of it than name-dropping. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel movie download

I felt like a little kid again seeing The Princess and the Frog; apparently so did most of the theater, as the crowd seemed to be generally from 8-30 years old. From the second I walked in, I realized this was a movie that was going to span groups(and it did, in the end). The other adults in line with me split almost evenly with tickets for this versus Invictus.

The animation is gorgeous, the characters are absolutely unique and took me by surprise, and even the parts in trailers that I thought were going to be awful turned out to be brilliant when put into the context of the rest of the film. I haven't enjoyed Disney this much since Mulan(and vaguely, Brother Bear). The music also seems to permeate the movie; many people that review and find something wrong, find so much song and dance to be odd- but what they don't realize is that the movie itself was always intending to play off of the Jazz era it is set in. If you love music, however, you'll love this even more. The music is what gives all the more charm to it, and it pays off.

The only reason that I am giving this a nine of ten is because I try to never give movies a ten unless it literally changed my life somehow. This came close, though- I was having so many flashbacks to my childhood during the Disney Renaissance. It was nostalgic for me, above all, and classic Disney animation that I will probably end up spending more money on when such moments roll around. I am most certainly going to find the soundtrack, because the music just made it so alive.

Don't be misled by the word cartoon- this is a movie for everyone.
The Princess and the Frog movie download

I was not looking forward to this film (another anti-military anti-war film) but this is none of that! It is a wonderful story of people and their relationships and emotions. The story is beautifully told and the cast is uniformly wonderful although it seemed at first the brothers might better have switched parts but as the plot unfolds the casting is perfect. The plot: In a family of a retired Marine Sgt (Sam Shepard) there are two sons (Toby Maguire) an active duty Captain and a Ex con wastrel (Jake Guillenhaal) who gets out of prison as his brother is about to return to the war in Afghanistan. When his brother is lost in Afghanistan the brother slowing steps up to support the wife and two girls. When Maguire Is found alive months later the dynamic of the family is greatly changed as the whole family works out the complications of their lives. This is one of the best pictures of the year, dramatic, involving, with good dialog and scene; and the actors and director play them to the hilt.