Reviews

*May contain spoilers*

The Panic Room is an excellent movie, with wonderful actors. Though I definitely cannot compare it to movies such as Lord of the Rings (completely different categories), it ranks up high on my list.

The plot is like this: Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) and her daughter, Sarah (Kristen Stewart), decide to move to a new house. The first thing they notice, which was not in their other homes, is something called a "Panic Room" (hence the name of the film). A Panic Room is designed for a person to hide in there if someone were to break into their house. Surprise, surprise; they get some use out of it.

The first night in their new home, someone breaks in. Three men, Burnham (Forest Whitaker), Raoul (Dwight Yoakam), and Junior (Jared Leto), have come to steal some money (approximately three million dollars). The problem is, it's in the Panic Room.

Meg and Sarah have locked themselves in there; unfortunately, Sarah is a diabetic, and her medicine is still outside of the Panic Room. To add on to things, Meg is a bit claustrophobic (afraid of small places). They can't call 9-1-1 (the phone in there isn't connected). One thing leads to another.

I leave the rest for you to find out.

Overall, I give it four out of five stars.

**SPOILERS**

Wow. If you thought 'The Fellowship of the Ring' was the best movie you'd ever seen, you're about to change your mind!

As the second installment of both the books and the movies, 'Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers' is an incredible cinematic achievement. It follows the journey of the Ring-bearer, Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood), and his companion, Samwise 'Sam' Gamgee (Sean Astin). They are on their way to Mordor, the only place where the one Ring can be destroyed. The ring has proceeded to take over Frodo's mind, and he is always feeling it getting heavier and wanting to slip it on.

As Aragorn/Strider, a ranger, Viggo Mortensen gives an amazing performance definitely deserving of an Academy Award. He, Legolas Greenleef (Orlando Bloom), and Gimli son of Gloin (John Rhys-Davies) are on a path to find two young hobbits, Peregrin 'Pippin' Took (Billy Boyd) and Meriadoc 'Merry' Brandybuck (Dominic Monaghan), who have been captured by orcs.

For those of you who have wanted to see a girl have at least a marginal amount of combat skills in a Lord of the Rings movie, your wish has come true. Éowyn (Miranda Otto) has a role of which shows girls can be fighters, too.

Overall, the best movie I've seen as yet. I highly recommend it to all of you, whether you are LOTR fans or not.

Gee, and I thought I liked the last movie...

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is the second installment of both the books by J.K. Rowling, and the movies directed by the very talented Chris Columbus.

I warn you, the following may be thought of as spoilers; if you do not wish to hear such things, leave now.

Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), along with friends Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) are to begin their second year at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Much like the beginning of the last film, the Dursleys are mistreating Harry, complaining about the noise caused by Hedwig (his snowy owl) amongst others.

Dobby, a house-elf, comes into Harry's room one evening and says that he cannot return to Hogwarts, for there is a great evil amongst the grounds.

The Weasley brothers (Fred, George, and Ron) come to rescue Harry from the Dursleys, and bring them home to their house, The Burrow.

As always, Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) is Harry's arch-nemesis (aside from Lord Voldemort, of course). Felton is probably one of the better actors out of the students at Hogwarts, in my opinion, and Jason Isaacs, who is Luscious Malfoy, his Father, gives an Oscar-worthy performance. You can definitely tell that they're Father and Son in the film.

Harry is accused of killing Filch's cat, Mrs. Norris, when he is found at the scene of the crime, along with other victims.

This means the Chamber of Secrets has been opened, unveiling a great new evil.

Cristian Coulson plays the new evil in this film.

As the plot unravels, the audience will become more and more intrigued and engrossed by what is happening.

If I had a choice out of five stars (the Canadian rating of films; may not be in other countries), I would definitely give it that. I highly recommend this to those who may, and even who may not have, seen Harry Potter and the Philosopher's (Sorceror's) Stone.

*May be considered as a spoiler to some* Abandon starts off strongly enough within the first half hour, when you figure out Katie Holmes' ex-boyfriend is missing. That is the main plot, thickened by a cop (Benjamin Bratt) who's fallen for Holmes. The side-story is that every boy seems to fall in love with her, which never really gets thoroughly explained at all.

Holmes and Bratt portrayed familiar characters; Bratt is a cop with an alcoholic past. Holmes, once again, is the young, vulnerable teen who is easy on the eyes for any boy.

Charlie Hunnam plays Embry, her ex, and is probably the better actor of the bunch. Some of you may recognize him from Queer as Folk.

The script fails almost right from the off, though there are just a few appealing moments delivered by Holmes, who has these weird dreams when she drifts off in slumber.

The movie is quite predictable, but the ending is cut off kind of abruptly. Over all, I don't recommend this movie to anyone.