Zathura

Zathura is "a new adventure from the world of Jumanji". But really this movie is "a poor sci-fi twisted retelling of Jumanji." Jumanji was great. I loved it. But Zathura lacks almost all of the elements that made Jumanji great.

The plot is not original. In fact you can barely tell it isn't Jumanji. Jumanji had an amazing cast with Robin Williams, Kirsten Dunst, Bonnie Hunt, et al. But Zathura comes up with Tim Robbins all by himself and not even playing a major role. The actors that are left are pretty flat. No one does a terrible job but there isn't anyone there to carry everyone either. The sci-fi twist was nice but predictable. If you saw the trailer then you pretty much got the whole movie.

The big "plot twist" is introduced right about at the end but the writers fail to ever explain how the plot twist actually works and, if you really stop and think about it, it doesn't. At all. Whatsoever. So the movie ends up not making any sense at all. Often I am the only person to pick up on these things but in this case I was not even the person to mention it so you know that it has to be bad.

After all of this I don't want to come out and say that Zathura was a bad movie. But Jumanji left it with a lot to live up to and, quite frankly, it just doesn't. The movie is basically entertaining but shallow and frustrating at times. Zathura commits one of the cardinal sins of movie making: failing to make a protagonist. This isn't to say that there isn't a "star" of the movie. The two brothers who play the game are clearly intended to be our protagonist. But the children are both so mean, rotten and dumb that you find yourself not caring whether or not they live and leaning more and more towards not. Not caring for the fates of the lead characters is a sure indicator of pending boredom.

If you have the movie close at hand and there is nothing on then you will likely have a much better time than you would surfing from channel to channel. But you have access to a decent collection I suggest looking a little further for something that will be more enjoyable.

Roxanne

Roxanne began Steve Martin's great movie period running from 1987 and ending in 1992 with HouseSitter, arguably his best movie. Roxanne is one of the first films that gives Steve Martin the space to really spread his wings and show his comedic genius as well as his acting ability. Steve Martin is one of the most talented men in Hollywood or anywhere for that matter. He has such a broad range of skills and interests. It is always something to see him work.

This movie falls squarely into the light romantic comedy genre with the twist being that Charlie, played by Martin, has an extremely large nose. The movie goes through the usual this and that of movie romances. The misunderstandings, the triangles, the mistaken identities. But Martin's wit and the movie's light style makes this one a standout. This movie is also my favourite performance by Darryl Hannah with the possible exception of Grumpy Old Men.

If you are a Steve Martin fan or if you are simply looking for a great, light, romantic comedy then be sure to check out Roxanne - this movie is a sure entertainer for everyone. A real well-rounded crowd pleaser.

Herbie Fully Loaded

Herbie is back and ready for another adventure. The Herbie movies have always been about being dumb and silly and this movie is no exception. This latest movie in the series takes a different approach to the little car. This movie gives the little car to a teenage girl (they try to act like she is a college graduate but she is clearly a high school student) instead of a middle ages has-been race car driver. This gives the movie quite a different flavour.

The big mistake, in my opinion, of this movie was to change the character of Herbie himself. Instead of being an actual Volkswagon Beetle this time they used a modified car with lots of bizarre movie parts like headlights that look around and blink. And even worse, the car signs, moans and grunts. The bumper even bends so that the car can smile. It is really corny and departs from the feel of the original films. It doesn't feel like the same car anymore. I realize that the original movies were super corny. No getting around that. But this one is corny in a different way and I just don't feel that it lives up to the older cars.

Like the original movies this latest installment has a strong cast with Lindsay Lohan playing the youngest and most attractice of Herbie's drivers. Lindsay has a long tradition with Disney and it is good to see her joining another classic Disney franchise (she started her film career kicking butt in the remake of The Parent Trap.) The rest of the cast is very good as well. Definitely as strong as the original film.

Overall, the movie is fun and enjoyable. The feel is completely different than Herbie fans will remember but that isn't always bad. Personally I prefer the original but this one isn't bad. Disney's track record of late hasn't been the best and I am happy that they snuck this one through.

Ice Princess

If anyone has any doubts that Disney can still turn out some serious crap then they should definitely check out this film. This is a horribly written movie about a bunch of rotten, mean people. Even the "heroine" of this movie is rude, stupid, annoying and really rotten to people. When things go bad for her it is very difficult to care because she just isn't a nice person. When an older person who drives a Zamboni knows what inertia is the heroine asks how he could possibly knows that because she thinks that blue collar workers are stupid, apparently.

Writters at Disney attempting to display "physics students" as people who state the incredibly obvious in bizarre terms. Like... sliding down a rope that leads to a windows will result in that person going out a window. But the writters of the film act as if everyone watching the movie didn't already know that and have the heroine state this fact as an equation and have every character in the movie act as if it revealed information that they could not have known otherwise.

To make matters worse, Disney goes out on a limb to insult figure skaters everywhere. I feel offended for all of those who work so hard at a very difficult sport just to have Disney make a movie where they act as if a high school idiot watching a slow motion video and telling skaters that pushing harder makes them go higher or that tucking tighter will make them spin faster is going to fundamentally change the sport. Apparently Disney thinks that skaters are stupid. They definitely think that their audience is.

This is not a good movie. This is an awful movie. This is a movie that makes me sorry for having wasted away two hours of my life. This is a movie that makes me consider avoiding movies just because Disney put their stamp on it. Disney should be embarrassed to have turned this out of their studios even if it had been destined for television instead of the big screen.

Explorers, The

Made in 1985, this low budget pre-teen sci-fi is mostly a poor attempt to make a few bucks off of the "teen adventure" genre that was so popular after "Goonies". But "Explorers" doesn't manage to pull it off. Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix deliver horrible performances and Industrial Light and Magic should be ashamed to have worked on this film.

The premise of the film is that a boy has a dream of flying over a circuit board and when he wakes up he draws two resistors on a piece of paper and convinces his nerdy friend to build the "circuit." Once they build the circuit they realize that they have created a "force field" that they can control by hooking the circuit to an Apple IIc computer. Then, aliens take over the two resistors and send the kids off into space. Uh-huh. No I am not kidding.

The movie lacks in many ways. It makes no attempt to be realistic, believable or to draw you into the story in anyway. The acting is flat and pathetic. There is no emotion at all in the film and the characters have no natural interaction at all. Unless you have some nostalgic reason for watching this film or are on some mission to see every movie ever that includes Robert Picardo who played the hologramatic doctor on Star Trek Voyager, skip this movie.

Nine To Five

"Working 9 to 5, what a way to make a living. Barely getting by..." Now there is a song that everyone who went to work anytime after 1980 knew very, very well. One of Dolly Parton's biggest hits ever and the title song to this 1980 film featuring film greats Dolly Parton herself, Lili Tomlin, Jane Fonda and Dabney Coleman. This movie totally looks like the late 70's and has a lot of familiarity to viewers of the classic "Mary Tyler Moore Show".

The premise of the movie is pretty simple: evil boss is ruining the life of his poor, hard working female staff and finally they decide that they have had enough and aren't going to take it anymore. Simple enough story but the actual evolution of the tale plays out to be more complex than one would expect and is quite enjoyable. Parton, Tomlin and Coleman are masters of the 70's comedy and carry it off magnificently in this last hurrah.

The comedy is a little slap-stick, some situational and a lot of sight gags. Nothing overly complex. The language is pretty clean. There is a little adult humour but not too much. There is some drug references that are a bit surprising for the time period and the cast that might catch some parents by surprise. But overall, the film is pretty family friendly.

Nine to Five is a good laugh and a fun watch. Good for some casual viewing when you just need to relax.

Space Camp

Every kid growing up in the 1980's wanted to spend his or her summers at NASA's Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama. Space and astronauts were super cool in the 80's and the closer you could get to the space program the better. Space Camp played on the fantasies of 80's kids who dreamed of getting to go to this illustrious summer camp and the improbably idea of somehow getting stuck on a shuttle that actually launches into space.

The premise is simple: little kid gets to go to Space Camp because his aunt is an astronaut, kid befriends robot, robots wants to let kid go to space because they are "friends forever", robot fixes it so kid and friends can be inside space shuttle during a routine engine test, robot fixes it so there is a problem and NASA has to launch the shuttle into space. Yup, it is silly. But wouldn't it have been cool if...

Space Camp is a lot of fun and was a total classic in its time. Watching it today it really shows its age. The effects are aweful. But the cast was pretty good with some really strong 80's personalities. The movies has a lot of corny stuff going on but it manages to be a fun movie. Definitely worth checking out.

Iron Eagle

Growing up in Cold War era America gives one a certain perspective on life that allows one to appreciate a genre of movies that probably make little sense to younger generations. Iron Eagle is one of these movies. Taking place at a time when all Americans were feeling decently confident about our place in world politics but still concerned about the USSR suddenly deciding to nuke us or the Middle East erupting into total chaos (fortunately for us the former didn't happen.) Iron Eagle plays on these feelings giving us a campy 80's flick about a teenage kid who is turned down for the Air Force Academy but ends up having to steal a USAF F-16 and fly into a hostile Middle Eastern country to rescue his father who was shot down there. Now if that isn't just an age old tale.

To beef up the movie they decided on an absolutely horrible cast headed by the no longer respectable Louis Gosset Jr. who decided after ending his serious acting career with this film to just toss in the towl and wind down with Iron Eagle II, Iron Eagle III and yes, believe it or not, in 1995 Iron Eagle IV! The only professional actor in the entire film is the ever venerable David Suchet who can do no wrong. (For those who don't know David, check him out in such greats as Agatha Christie's Poirot and Harry and the Hendersons.)

Despite its pathetic story line and terrible cast Iron Eagle is actually an enjoyable film. It is silly and juvenile but it harkens back to a simpler time and it just feels good to watch. Don't try to take the movie seriously or you will be seriously disappointed. But take it for what it is and you might actually have a good time. For me this film takes me back to 1985 and wanted to be a USAF pilot myself (boy do we laugh about that now!)

So if you are looking for some light entertainment or just a chance to relive the 1980's, take a look at Iron Eagle.

De-Lovely

If you love Cole Porter, and who does, then this film will probably not make you all that happy. Kevin Kline does an outstanding job of playing both the old and the young Cole Porter in a film that shows you just how little there was to the famous song writer.

Like Porter's pathetic Broadway shows, the movie uses every excuse to have someone in the background singing a Porter tune. The songs are the movie's showpieces, just like the musicals that they come from, and are awkward and out of place most of the time. And to really drive home how boring and uninspiring Cole Porter's songs often were we get to hear them rendered by the likes of Sheryl Crow and Alanis Morisette. Gag me. The reality was that Porter's music was never very special and even the best of it is just Broadway fodder.

The movies highlight is definitely the incredible acting of Kevin Kline who should not have to lower himself to this kind of film. I don't want to say that the film was awful, but he is excellent the film didn't live up to him. The biggest problem with De-Lovely is that Cole Porter just doesn't seem to be a film worthy subject. He did little that is impressive, he wasn't a nice person, he wasn't incredibly evil. He was just a nobody that wrote decent music that didn't fit into any musical but had no purpose without one that somehow became famous when almost none of his work ever did. Everyone is familiar with "Anything Goes" but who has bothered to see it? I have never heard of a person who was happy after seeing a Porter show regardless of their opinion of his music.

That being said, the movie was well done, except for the bizarre musically performances, and did a good job portraying Porter's unexceptional life. The only truly amazing performance of the film is Kline himself.

Overall the movie was fine but slow and basically boring. There was little to really hold your interest as the characters of Porter's life were generally less interesting than he was himself.

Closer

The first and most important thing that I should mention about this film is that it is absolutely inappropriate for children. This is definitely an adult film. For once you can feel confident in taking the "R" rating seriously. The entire film focusing around the lives of four young adults living in London and cheating on their significant others. Other than that, the film doesn't really have any significant plot. The actors involved, all very fine in their own rights, include Clive Ownes, Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman and Jude Law. And considering that the film garnered two Golden Globes and was nominated for two Oscars (but who really cares, like the Oscar committee has ever watched a film - I mean really, who are we kidding here?) you should expect some good performances. But the film lacked substance. You don't come away feeling anything, really, other than relatively disgusted by the people in the film.

This falls into the category of what I call a "feel bad" movie. You can't really connect with anyone in the film. You end up disliking or possibly hating them all. There are no ups or downs or climax or resolution since you wind up just not caring about anyone in the movie. It makes it hard to stay interested.

If you are bored and it is all that is around, you could do a lot worse than Closer, but if you spend any amount of money on it, like I did, then you are losing just about every penny.

Sin City

Sin City is a very difficult movie to describe. After having seen it, I find it difficult to determine exactly what the creators where attempting to make. The movie did some really interesting things with backgrounds, perspective, black and white with "hand colouring", etc. But in the end, I came away wondering "Why?" What was the point of this movie. Was it an action flick? No, it didn't pull that off. Comedy? No, definitely not. Drama? Maybe just a little, but it wasn't deep enough to be a drama. It wasn't a period piece - nothing seem to fit into any particular period. It was surreal and all over the place.

I really like the black and white with hand colouring. It was really effective without letting a very over the top violent movie get too gruesome (it was pretty gruesome as it was.) I don't think that I liked the super-surreal strange computer graphics everywhere. It wasn't an accident, the effect was intentional but I don't think that I liked it. I am not much of a fan of comic books and it was very much a comic book come to life effect. There was way too much gratuitous nudity, sex, blood, gore, violence, etc. I realize that the theme of the movie was "Sin City" but that leads most people to think of Las Vegas (which IS sin city) not just a commentary on corruption in a surreal world.

Am I trying to say that the movie was bad? No. It was, cautiously good. It falls into that "I am glad that I watched it but am really glad that I didn't end up buying it" category. This movie is definitely not a classic. It didn't break any ground. Nothing in it was extrordinary. It wasn't even all that interesting to watch. It had a lot of good people in it all doing very good jobs. The directing was good but not great. Effects left a lot to be desired but it will probably do well in the effect award categories since it is so cheesy.

Bottom line: It is a mediocre adult film.