Yearly Archives: 2010

An amusing animated family tale with the occasional chuckle.  It keeps your attention.

7/10

Lame, low budget and full of inconsistencies.  Five people get marooned on an uncharted island that is inhabited by a dozen mutant cavemen with superhuman strength.  They seem to speak a language that sounds like Latin, can jump a hundred feet in the air, and leap at least the same distance at a time, like to eat human hearts and can punch their little fists right through you without effort.  Oh ya, the lead monkey wears the skull of a Sabre Toothed Tiger as a hat.  That alone is amusing since they have been extinct for 10,000 years, but then again so have mutant superman apes I guess.   The only person to survive is a spoiled Barbie doll like chic who isn’t that scared of the monsters.

And they made massive use of one of my movie pet peeves, they filmed night time scenes during the day using a dark filter.  At least do it on a cloudy day so we don’t see all the high contrast shadows.  Beyond lame!

Does this sound like a good movie to you?

They could have easily taken their small budget, used the general plot, left out all the stupidity, added some suspense, and created a reasonably enjoyably scary movie with no more effort that would have hit the mark.

4/10 (PASS!)

It’s a documentary, it’s big, it’s space, it’s 3D, it’s Imax.  If you like anything to do with outer-space, and you enjoy 3D, you will love this.  Excellent videography and computer animation in 3D.

10/10 (all things considered)

A CGI animated story with a familiar general plot.  The last remains of the people from a dead and ravaged Earth (the US military of course, who else would it be) are in quest for a new planet to Terra-form.  They find a planet inhabited by a peaceful race, and decide to wipe the peaceful people out so they can make use the planet and resources for themselves.  Go figure.  The general plot is not unlike Avatar in many ways.  Certainly not original.  It’s well done, none the less, and very entertaining.

8/10

An obvious remake to the original movie and TV series by the same name.  But in my opinion, lacking the energy and heart of the original.  It’s a good remake, not terrible, but certainly not great.  It’s watch-able if this floats your boat.  But I wouldn’t care to see it again at any point.  If you like dance movies, then try “StepUp” 1 and 2.  You’ll likely enjoy them a lot more than this.

6/10 (is being generous for the sake of the original)

A CGI Computer Generated animated film.  An epic fantasy tale of an old predictable storey line.  Two kids from the opposite sides of the track fall in love and their people go to war over this.  And of course the villains take advantage of the situation.  This version takes place in a fantasy world where our lovers are differing species.  Very well done, entertaining, visually appealing, and you fall into the story as much as it being real actors portraying the characters.  Many well known actors perform the voice overs.  An excellent animated story.

9/10

The name alone nearly put me off from seeing this one.  It simply is not an attractive name for a movie.  The title makes you feel you’ll be watching a series of linked episodes from a bad TV series that made it to DVD.  But I was pleasantly surprised that this flick was far better that what I was expecting.  And it is a real motion picture, and not a redistributed TV series.

It’s a modernized version of some Greek myths, with a teenage hero, the son of the god Poseidon.  It’s a really well done, entertaining story, with excellent special effects, and some notable actors.  It’s an enjoyable 2 hours if you like remakes of Greek myths, even though this one bastardizes the true myths it is based on.  Still an excellent fantasy.

9/10