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nvarea
Reviews
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008)
"Not that great" says 3 kids and dad
I took three kids, a boy aged 8, a girl aged 8, and a girl age 5. I'll spare you the plot. The boy gave it three stars out of four, but then again, he is amazed by the smallest of things and is lucky to get outside. He laughed some, and then left his hat inside the theater. The 8 year old girl gave it one star. She's a little dour, but she was right when she said it was boring. Since when does an 8 year old think any G or PG animated movie is boring? When it is. "But you laughed at parts" I said. "That was during the previews, dad." The five year old give it two stars. She's the level-headed one. She got really bored in the middle part. She woke me up to go to the bathroom. I haven't fallen asleep at the movies since I brought a date to some Merchant-Ivory film fifteen years ago. As for me, I give it two stars. The movie takes all the funny characters from the first movie, the lemurs, the penguins, and even the grandma, and gives them all bigger parts. Trouble is, they were funny in the first movie because they were used sparingly. Now that you are hit over the head with them, they lose their humor quick, especially the over-used grandma. And the rest of the characters are tired. No memorable songs, no memorable lines. Maybe they were jammed packed in the middle when I was sawing wood. Doubt it though. Sorry, this one's a rainy-day rental.
How to Eat Fried Worms (2006)
Brought my kids age 6 and 3...
Let's keep it simple: My two kids were glued to this movie. It has its flaws from an adult perspective, but buy some jelly-worms and just enjoy it.
And the Pepsi girl was excellent!
And Kimberly Williams was pretty gosh-darned hot, although she's not in the film very much, so don't get too excited there.
Not that's it's really a bad thing, but it is the kind of movie you watch just once. Don't buy the DVD.
Enjoy!
Did I mention Kimberly Williams? (That was for the dads.)
Do Geese See God? (2004)
Take a chill pill, sheesh
This movie evidently gets a lot of people very angry. If you are easily frustrated or easily angered by something as simple as a little 10 minute movie, you're probably one of those people who orders stuff on amazon and then checks the order's status every 15 minutes. Relax. Yes, it repeats exactly, and a little editing might have helped. But that's the point - you are supposed to feel uneasy repeating everything exactly, and getting nowhere new. Seeing the same footage again, I looked out for other details - the movie is full of cool details that others have pointed out.
I'm not sure what to make of the bum sitting by the subway. My feeling is that he calls attention to his new shoes because he is not caught in the rat race, and hasn't worn them out. Or maybe Amazon needed another product placement. I couldn't make out much of what he said.
But take off that watch and relax.
The Code Conspiracy (2002)
So bad...it's great!
Hmm...where to start? Well, start by reading shayhugi's review of the movie. When you are done reading it you get this sense of confusion, like you should have understood it, but you just didn't. So you are tempted to read it again to see what you must have missed, however, you don't, because you come to your senses and don't want to waste your time. That's exactly the feeling you'll get while watching this movie. Try chugging a beer each time someone in the movie stiffly says "keyless encryption," and you'll feel much better. The acting is so poor the script reaches the level of self-parody, which is tough to do by mistake. However, writer/director/exec. producer Hank Whetstone has no problem. (See his other credits...oh, umm, there are none. This will remain his greatest achievement.) Yes, the cover has Apache helicopters, although none appear in the movie. Yes, ending the movie in the Bahamas was just an excuse to take the crew on vacation. Yes, when a plane gets blown up by a rocket, the entire sequence takes place off camera, saving the FX dept their whole budget. But it's the script that brings the real laughs. If I was running from someone w/a gun, would I run to an empty beach? What on earth went on with that beach scene? All of a sudden there are two-discs? Am I missing something? Ahh, someone just said "keyless encryption." Another cold one downed. I was tempted to rewind it, but came to my senses.
Upon reading some of the newer high praise for this movie, it have recognized that: A. Almost all were written in the first few months of 2005, many in March. B. Almost all have overseas cities listed. C. Almost all of the glowing reviews look they were written by dweebs on shrooms.
From this I can only gather either that: 1. This movie has authentically reached cult-status for its poor quality. Or 2. A bunch of nerds got together and watched the movie on the TV in the back of one of their mom's garage, and the one girl invited there who was not half good looking but the rest wanted to make out with in the back of their '97 Neon anyway said something remotely positive about the movie and they wanted to impress her with incoherent dribble posted online. We can only be so lucky as to read their endless wretched blogs. But no amount of intercontinental praise will improve this waste of film.