Archive for the 'kid's & family' Category

OLD DOGS – Reviewed by David

After his turn in the delightfully dark World’s Greatest Dad, it’s a little disappointing to see Robin Williams go back to starring in a broad Hollywood comedy. Yet without him, or co-star John Travolta, the lazy and predictable Old Dogs would have little going for it.
The nearly 60-year-old stars play single childhood buddies and co-owners [...]

PONYO – Reviewed by Will

Anybody reading this who knows the name Hayao Miyazaki probably won’t need any convincing from me to check out his latest film Ponyo. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Japanese master animator, he is widely and ever-increasingly recognized as one of the greatest filmmakers working today, and you owe it to yourself [...]

CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS – Reviewed by David

I don’t know if anyone was exactly hungering for a film version of Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, but this one from directors Chris Miller (Shrek the Third) and Phil Lord is a well-rendered and fairly entertaining CGI effort that might literally make you hungry.

G-FORCE – Reviewed by David

Even before I took my three younger nephews (ages 4, 6, and 7) to see this somewhat frantic, effects-filled kid flick about super spy guinea pigs, they were quoting one-liners from its trailers. Especially funny to them was the sight and sound of one of the rodents farting inside a tricked-out, super-fast hamster ball.

HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE – Reviewed by Will

When the eminent Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron was brought on to direct the third (and still best) Harry Potter movie, The Prisoner of Azkaban, he proved that the franchise would be strongest when it  departed from a rote retelling of J.K. Rowling’s books and charted its own identity and style. As the books progressed, each [...]

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: BATTLE OF THE SMITHSONIAN – Reviewed by David

While this second entry in Ben Stiller’s family-friendly, Mannequin-inspired franchise is certainly calmer and more entertaining than its hyperactive predecessor, it earns points alone for featuring Darth Vader and Oscar the Grouch in the same scene.
It sees Stiller infiltrating the Smithsonian Institute to help his wax figure friends, who have been shipped there, along with [...]

UP – Reviewed by Will

Once while I was in the 5th Grade, I wrote a story about a pair of kleptomaniacal chimpanzees who escape from the San Diego zoo and, after a series of adventures, end up flying around in a raft kept aloft by two parachutes filled with wind. When Pixar made Up, a tale of an old [...]

ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS – Reviewed by David

That my interest in this CGI kid-flick franchise has even been mild is mainly thanks to the somewhat off-kilter casting of Ray Romano, Denis Leary and John Leguizamo, and so it’s to my pleasant surprise that their presence is not the only reason I enjoyed the third entry as much as I did.

RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN – Reviewed by David

Like Kindergarten Cop and Agent Cody Banks before it, this hyperactive reboot of the beloved ’70s Disney flicks was ostensibly made for kids to watch and enjoy but contains a mite too much menace and violence to really be appropriate for them.
It takes the original idea of two teen siblings (Alexander Ludwig and AnnaSophia Robb) [...]

CORALINE – Reviewed by Spook

Coraline is a collaboration between author Neil Gaiman and master animator Henry Selick. Big names in their respective fields, these stars come together here to create one of the most startlingly different pieces of animation I have seen in years.

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