The movie for the weekend is Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, the first full-length Wallace and Gromit movie produced by Aardman and distributed by Dreamworks.

I’m a great fan of Wallace and Gromit, in particular Close Shave and the brilliant Wrong Trousers, both of which won Academy Awards for Nick Parks, so I was looking forward to a full feature length dose of the man and his dog.

Sadly, I think the longer format doesn’t really help. It’s not a bad movie, but it really doesn’t seem to reach the level of their previous efforts. Both A Close Shave and Wrong Trousers achieve a certain degree of actual tension and excitement which Curse of the Were Rabbit never seems to reach. It might be just a matter of pacing, but I also think that perhaps the story isn’t as imaginative as his previous efforts.

It’s getting pretty good reviews, others seem to like it just fine, I merely thought it could have been better. I’d give it a B- or so.

There simply is no justice in the world.

We had a screening of the new Joss Whedon movie Serenity in our screening room at Pixar. I have been awaiting the movie ever since I first heard of it, and was not disappointed. This movie is great, with superb performances, acting, dialogue, plot and action. I’m not going to spoil a minute of the movie by describing the plot, but if you are a fan of the original television show or not, go to see this movie. It’s great stuff.

Last night’s movie was The Exorcism of Emily Rose, which appears to be getting the lion’s share of this weekend’s box office. Despite the trailers, this film turns out to largely be a courtroom drama which follows the trial of Father Moore, parish priest to the Moore family who was asked to perform an exorcism to rid young Emily of the demons which possess her. This is an adaptation of the story of Annaliese Michel, a girl born in 1952 who died in 1976 of malnutrition. Her parents as well as the two exorcists were charged and convicted of negligent homicide in the incident.

This story is a modern adaptation of this true story. Laura Linney plays Erin Bruner, a defenese attorney charged with defending Father Bruner (Tom Wilkinson) against the charge of negligent homicide in the death of young Emily Rose (Jennifer Carpenter). Attorney Bruner uses an unusual tactic: that the idea that young Emily could have been possessed by demons might in fact be true.

Unfortunately, despite some good performances, I think this movie is a bit of a non-starter. In trying to walk a fine line between a courtroom drama and a horror film, it actually doesn’t really work as either. If it were to work as a horror film, it would need to convince you that demon possession were really possible, at least for an hour and a half. It doesn’t. The family in particular come across as rubes who don’t know enough to adequately understand the epilepsy and psychosis which was destroying their daughter. The real life nature of the case bleeds through, and ultimately, you just feel pity for the individuals in that they contributed to the death of their daughter in some horribly misguided attempt to save her from demons.

This film isn’t bad, but I didn’t find it has much to recommend it either.

Addendum: We also saw the trailer for the new Doom movie. Oh my, does it just scream “rental!”.

Warning, there will be spoilers below, so if you haven’t seen the movie, don’t read further than this paragraph. I liked the movie, thought it was fun, but there are some things that I just have to rant about, and they will probably give away some of the plot elements (such as they are). You are warned.

Still with me? Okay.

Stealth has a premise which you could view as either promising or weak: three hot-shot jet pilots are joined by a cybernetic UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) that is struck by lightning and suddenly starts learning… TO KILL! If you have relatively low standards, you might think this would form the basis of a reasonable action film, and you’d be right. There are lots of pretty cool effects of jet planes moving around at high speed, blowing things up. I found it exciting.

And dreadfully, painfully stupid.

Honestly, this film would make a great demo reel if you were trying to get a job doing effects, but in terms of its writing and direction, it’s just all over the map. In no particular order:

• The UAV is struck by lightning, and supposedly becomes super intelligent. What does it do with this newfound knowledge? Flies around for a while. Accidently (more than anything else) manages to kill off Jamie Foxx. Pursues a completely fictitious mission it finds in its database, which it then abandons. And that’s about it. You’d think the UAV would be central to the story, but ultimately, it is just hardware that serves as a flimsy premise for…
• An incredibly weak love story between pilots Ben Gannon and Kara Wade (played by Josh Lucas and Jessica Biel). They are in love. Really. We can tell because at the end of the film they admit it to each other. After all, he rescued her as she…
• Fled to the DMZ from a crash landing in North Korea. Which she crosses. On foot. With only a couple of people shooting at her. Neatly avoiding any landmines.
• Oh yeah, you can’t make a neat stable ring of airplane fuel hang in mid air for minutes at a time.
• It’s nice that ground scenes are filmed in Thailand, but it appears the only reason for that plot point was to give the actors an excuse to lounge around in Thailand, or perhaps an excuse to see Ms. Biel in a bikini.
• Oh, the smart genius who invents the UAV? His name is Keith Orbit, played by Richard Roxburgh. Absolutely useless to the plot. Tells you nothing, shows you nothing. Richard must have slept with the writers to get a part in this film, because certainly he does nothing on the screen.
• Oh, there is some subplot about treachery. I’ve spoiled that subplot by telling you everything you are going to learn about it in the film.

Honestly, you’d think that a film nominally about a super-intelligent killer aircraft would feature a killer aircraft displaying some super-intelligence flying around killing things. Did they not read their own treatment?

It’s fun. It’s got explosions. Rent it, or see it in a matinee and be prepared to heckle.

Yesterday I went out and caught the newest Marvel movie release Fantastic Four, the story of four (well, five really) individuals who are, who guessed it bombarded with mysterious radiation and given superpowers.

I’m a big fan of the superhero genre, and will generally go out to see almost anything, regardless of what the critics are saying. According to Yahoo’s movie guide for the film, the critics are averaging a C rating, while people who are generally watching the film are giving it a B.

Having seen the film, I can understand why. It’s definitely an okay film. It has cool action sequences, nice effects cool superheros. But unfortunately, it has very little else. In the words of the critic from the Seattle Post Intelligencer, William Arnold:

instantly forgettable as it is momentarily enjoyable

It is movie snack food, not a meal. When one compares it to nobler entries in the genre such as Spiderman, there is simply no comparison at all. Spiderman granted us a rich background, full of characters that we understood and became invested in. We saw ordinary individuals become heros and villians, and conflicts between people become conflicts of, well, superhuman proportion. It was good stuff.

Fantastic 4 has nothing of this. You know who the villian is. He has no backstory. There is no conflict more than “I’m going to get Mr. Fantastic” and ultimately, you just cheer for the nice people and boo the bad people.

Go out and see it, but I suspect you won’t be looking back on this film very often in the future. It’s just not that good.

It’s a rather curious fact that both I and my charming wife have a thing for zombie movies. You name it, if it has a zombie theme, we are out there watching it on opening weekend. It was then with considerable anticipation that we trundled off to see George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead. After all, it was Romero’s 1968 film Night of the Living Dead which practically invented the genre. Other directors have gone in many directions, but Romero’s influence can be seen in literally every horror film since then.

His new film begins years after the first zombie attacks. Living humans exist only in isolated pockets surrounded by seas of the undead. The very rich have surrounded themselves with barbed wire and electrical fences, and live as the lords of the Dark Ages did, by exploiting the perpetually poor and downtrodden around them.

A band of mercenaries discover an interesting fact: the zombies are slowly becoming more intelligent. They are displaying a larger range of awareness, and are slowly unifying themselves into an army of the dead.

That’s where complication sets in. 🙂

This movie is a pure zombie film: it’s plot is somewhat thinner than some. It’s got a large variety of shuffling, decaying, flesh eating monsters, all bent on making a quick snack of our heros. It’s got very archetypal (some would say stereotypical) characters, but I’m inclined to be forgiving, since Romero invented the archetypes. It’s got some pretty serious gore effects, minor amounts of drug use and flashes of nudity, but you shouldn’t be going to a zombie film if you aren’t braced for that.

Both Carmen and I enjoyed the film a lot. I frankly think that 28 Days Later and Shaun of the Dead are two zombie films with greater originality, but Romero still has the touch. I give it 8.5 out of ten, a solid B performance.

You can also download the 1968 Night of the Living Dead in its entirety from archive.org.

Last night we had a screening of the new Dreamworks film Madagascar and I must say, it was one of the most enjoyable, light, fun, upbeat movies I’ve seen in a long time. I had a blast. It was colorful, it was fun, the voice talent was great, and it looked good.

The movie begins with a quartet of animals enjoying the good life in New York’s Central Park Zoo. Alex the Lion (Ben Stiller) is the king of the zoo, performing to the delight of New Yorkers. His friend is Marty the Zebra, who just celebrated his birthday, turning the big 1-0. Rounding out the foursome is Melman the Giraffe (David Schwimmer) and Gloria the Hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith). Marty is suffering a mid life crisis, and wonders what it would be like in The Wild.

And… well… hilarity ensued.

I really like this film. It was cute, fun, light and easy to watch. Lots of good animation. The style, which I thought looked a bit uneven in the previews, works when it is all stitched together. I’d give it an 8.5/10.

Well, once again, working for Pixar Animation has its perks: yesterday we had company screenings for the prerelease of George Lucas’ sixth installment in the Star Wars saga: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. I know you all will go see it anyway, so I won’t give any spoilers here.

It delivers on what you might expect: lots of gorgeous eye candy, and we learn how Anakin completes his slide to the dark side and becomes the evil Darth Vader. It is significantly dark when compared to other episodes, and there is a fair amount of swordplay, violence and treachery. The plotline is one straight out of Shakespeare, being a combination of Othello and Titus Andronicus.

I’d score it an eight out of then, with some caveats. Once again, George delivers on visuals, but leaves some dialogue which was absolutely cringe-worthy. On at least two occasions, actors are called upon to announce their feelings, rather than act their feelings. I mean ouch.

Natalie Portman is once again given very little to work with: almost all of her lines and all of her scenes with Hayden Christensen are just terrible. Amadala cannot accept that Anakin has gone wrong, but she has plenty of reason to believe that he has. Hello! Slaughtered all the Sand People? Doesn’t that count for something? Serial killers often begin by torturing animals? Didn’t any alarm bells go off in your head? The entire Amadala subplot (and to some extent that of Obi Wan) is based upon the absolute denial of these two characters that anything is wrong. I’m willing to buy denial, but you have to at least make it plausible.

Ironically, in the end you are perfectly comfortable accepting droids, The Force, space flight, Jedi’s, giant space fleets, but are let down (slightly) by the emotional subtext of the film.

Still, it is pretty good, and almost certainly better than Episodes I and II. Go out and see it for sure, and may the Force be with you.

Addendum: the security at our showing was considerably greater than any company screening we’ve ever had. They had security wand us all with metal detectors, no phones, no cameras. Pretty amazing.

I’ll be out to see Robots this weekend (hey, have to keep the demand for CG up somehow), but in my browsing with Google News, I ran across this movie review with a title that caused me to laugh out loud:

Robot meets world, world likes Pixar better

Ouch! Still, I’m looking forward to it.