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Reviews
Chicken Run (2000)
New Aardman flick over easy
Fans who wonder if Aardman can sustain the quality of Wallace and Grommet over 90 minutes will not be disappointed. Plenty of brilliant puns, solid plot and outstanding character animation. The references to "The Great Escape" are genius. However, this movie doesn't break any new ground and covers the same general themes as "Close Shave" - triumph of innocents over evil mechanical scheme. Don't expect to be blown away but you'd be pecking yourself if you miss this one.
The War Zone (1999)
A truly horrible movie.
It's hard to understand why anyone would want to make this film. It fails to deliver any message (unless you happen to be a child sex abuser yourself) and does not offer any kind of cinematic experience other than discomfort and boredom and there is no intellectual challenge. The characters say very little to each other, which isolates them from any way appearing as "real" characters. There are a number of scenes designed purely to shock. The plot line is too simple to maintain interest (several of the threads just disappear) and many scenes hang on the tension of not ending when they should. The cinematography is uninspired considering the location, and the music is dire. The main actors have no prior acting experience and it shows. I hated every minute of this movie. I have never ever walked out of a theater before the end of a movie, but this was the closest I've ever been.
La patinoire (1998)
Slapshot slapstick fails to take a pratfall
A moderately amusing French comedy about an ice hockey movie being made on an ice rink. Most of the humor is of the falling-over variety and the characters are all stereotypes. There are far too many jokes about slipping on ice. Toussaint tries hard to work the film-within-a-film idea (the film crew also has a TV crew making a documentary of the movie at the same time). There is one totally gratuitous sex scene thrown in for good measure. It has a few inspired moments but on the whole it's a good idea stretched out too long.