Movie Review: Baby Mama

Title:	Baby Mama (2008)
Rating:	4/10

On one of these laundry/movie nights that Kristy and I do, we'll stumble on a movie that is actually riveting enough that we won't be able to multi-task and will be forced to devote our time wholly to the task of watching the movie. The light and fluffy Baby Mama is not a movie that demands attention. Kate (Tina Fey, a former SNL regular) is an executive VP at her company and has been hard at work for a decade or more climbing the corporate ladder. However, she realizes that she is just a few cycles away from turning 40 and so she decides to put her personal life as first priority. She attempts to have a baby (via insemination and adoption) but it doesn't work out. So she decides to use a surrogate mother instead. After an exhaustive search of one candidate, the surrogate mother (Amy Pohler, another SNL alum) she chooses is *ahem* much less refined than she is. And the gags/movie falls from there; much of which includes Pohler and Fey sharing the screen with each other doing "expectant-mother" things. Oh, and Greg Kinear shows up with a smoothie store and romantic interests. Ho hum.

This is the third romantic comedy in a row we have watched in the last 10 days and this was probably the worst of the bunch. The movie is not typical SNL-awful (it could have been a whole lot worse), but it is still unimpressive - mediocre at best.

Movie Review: 27 Dresses

Title:	27 Dresses (2008)
Rating:	5/10

Earlier this year, my wife saw 27 Dresses in the theater (with her sisters); she humored me and she watched it again (with me) tonight. The film is a romantic comedy based on the the expression "always a bridesmaid but never a bride". The main character, Jane, has been a bridesmaid 27 times but never a bride. She is a part-time wedding planning and a full-time executive assistant. She has a secret crush on her boss, and has done nothing about it for some time (like a decade I think). When Jane's sister arrives unexpectedly in town and successfully woos/seduces Jane's boss, becoming engaged in the process. Jane's staid and conservative take-one-for-the-team demeanor is pushed to the breaking point.

Meanwhile, Jane is being chased by a reporter on the local wedding circuit seeking a story documenting Jane's sad tale of bridesmaid-dom. Jane is repulsed at first, but then (of course) Jane and the reporter end up falling in love, split up over a misunderstanding, reunite, and then live happily ever after. The End.

Summary: As one reviewer appropriately noted... "If there's a romantic comedy cliché missed in 27 Dresses, I'm not sure what it is." Indeed.

Movie Review: What Happens in Vegas

Title:	What Happens in Vegas (2008)
Rating:	4/10

It's laundry night... time for another movie. This time it was What Happens in Vegas, a movie about a couple of polar opposite personalities (Ashton Kutchner and Cameron Diaz), that mistakenly get married (in Vegas), win a $3 millon jackpot, are are then forced to live with each other (rather than get divorced) using one of the lamest plot devices I've seen in a long time. Instead of making the best of a bad situation, the two relentlessly antagonize each other, finally split apart, and then (of course) figure out they are soulmates. The fact that Diaz is starring in this movie made me think that the movie is very similar (in plot) to Shrek I guess, in that they are both movies about two primary characters that despise each other but eventually end up living happily ever after. However, Shrek is infinitely more clever.

The movie is not completely stupid (and does have a few laughs), but this isn't material that doesn't rise above TV sitcom type of stuff... e.g. it is forgettable. I'm sure I'll not be able to remember most of the movie by this time next week.

Movie Review: 21

Title:	21 (2008)
Rating:	5/10

Unfolded laundry is stacking up... time for another movie. Tonight we watched 21; a movie inspired by the real-life events of a group of MIT students that used a card counting system to beat Las Vegas casinos by playing the card game blackjack. For me the best part of the movie was the exploration of the system from a purely mathematical point of view. The rest of the movie is just formulaic layers of plot, acting, romantic interest, and your typical revenge "twist" laid on top of an interesting premise. One such example of mathematics included in the movie is the discussion of a mathematical paradox which is used in a key sequence to test a prospective member of the gaming team before an invitation is made to join:

Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?"

Is it to your advantage to switch your choice? Why?

The right answer is that it is advantageous to switch because you double your probability of winning from one-third to two-thirds. This is known as the Monty Hall problem (or Monty Hall paradox). From the wiki article: "... no other statistical puzzle comes so close to fooling all the people all the time". I didn't understand the solution either, so I had to look it up just now.

Summary: A decent run-of-the-mill movie.

Movie Review: The Dark Knight

Title:	The Dark Knight (2008)
Rating:	7/10

Kristy and I have not felt compelled enough to arrange a babysitter and take a night off to go see The Dark Knight, despite its universal rave reviews. I procrastinated seeing it until tonight, the last night it will be shown at the 90-foot-long, 30-foot-high screen at Cinerama Theater in downtown Seattle. So I organized an impromptu EQ Night at the Movies tonight and carpooled down with three of my church compatriots to see it. The trade-off is that Kristy is planning on going with a bunch of her lady friends to see the theatrical version of Mamma Mia one week from today. It's a win-win because Kristy isn't really chomping at the bit to see the newest Batman flick, and I would rather catch Mamma Mia on rental after having suffered through the on-stage musical production a couple of years ago.

The Dark Knight is currently ranked #3 in the IMDb Top 250. And reviews across the board are filled with high praise; Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 95% Fresh rating. Not only that, but the film has grossed about a half billion dollars at the box office (yes... 500 million!) and is currently only exceeded in all time gross box-office receipts by the epic Titanic (although if adjusted for inflation, then Dark Knight just barely makes the top 30). So anyway, I saw the new Batman film tonight with somewhat high expectations... I was prepared to be blown away.

Well, I wasn't.

It's a good film, yes... a great one? No. And certainly not better than the first installment - Batman Begins. There are many good things to say about the film. The action sequences and stunts are well choreographed. The special effects are top rate. The acting is solid, specifically that of the late Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker. However, the vehicle for all these fine elements of the movie - the storyline itself - was rather ho-hum: Batman good, Joker bad, Joker does bad things, Batman stops joker, The End. Noticeably lacking is the excellent character development that existed in the first movie.

Now, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie. I give it 7 stars out of 10 (see above). It just isn't as great as I thought it would be and it wasn't as good as its predecessor, which I gave 8 out of 10 stars. By contrast, the average IMDb rating for Dark Knight is 9 out 10 stars(!). I was just looking at my IMDb profile. Of the 750 movies I have rated there, I've only given three movies a perfect 10 and a rather tight group of nineteen movies a score of a 9. I'm looking over the list (Raising Arizona, Shawshank, Fiddler on the Roof, Gattaca, The Incredibles, It's a Wonderful Life, Empire of the Sun, A Christmas Story, etc) and I just can't put Dark Knight in that group.

Summary: Good enough.

Movie Review: I, Robot

Title:	I, Robot (2004)
Rating:	7/10

Kristy and I watched Will's Smith's I, Robot tonight and both of us thoroughly enjoyed it. The movie is loosely based on Isaac Asimov's written work and is centered around Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics: 1) a robot may not injure a human, 2) a robot must obey orders from humans, except where such orders would violate Law #1, and 3) a robot must protect it's own existence insofar as it does not violate Laws #1 and #2. The theme of the movie explores the somewhat common science fiction meme of machines turning against their human inventors (a la 2001, The Matrix trilogy, etc).

The movie production is very good. The futuristic city of Chicago, circa 2035, looks great and the cars 30 years from now look pretty sweet (kudos to Audi for the eye-catching product placement). And I must say, the computer generated aspects of the movie integrated very well into the flow of the movie. I was never distracted by a "that looks so fake" moment. Looks fabulous on Blu-Ray.

Summary: First time I had seen it, but if it's been awhile. Grab it on the Blu-Ray and watch it again.

Movie Review: Fly Me to the Moon

Title:	Fly Me to the Moon (2008)
Rating:	4/10

We spent part of our Labor Day seeing the 3D IMAX movie Fly Me to the Moon today. I'm not sure if the goal of the film was to be an entertaining kids movie or an educational documentary about the Apollo missions. Since this movie is only available in 3D IMAX, I kind of presumed that the film fits more in the mold of the latter rather than the former. As a kids movie it was just OK. Much of the non-space-mission stuff seemed like it was included to show just off the 3D aspect of the movie; which was actually pretty neat. If the goal of the film was to be an educational documentary then it did a very good job of showing/describing each part and phase of the first Apollo moon landing including an account of man's first steps on the moon.

Movie Review: 十面埋伏 (House of Flying Daggers)

Title:	House of Flying Daggers (2004)
Rating:	8/10

Back when I was researching Hi-def DVD options (this was before HD-DVD went kaput), reviews would invariably refer to scenes or sequences in what I would call "demonstration-quality" movies used for the benefit of comparing different products. Titles such as Pirates of the Caribbean, The Fifth Element, and The Phantom of the Opera, and (of course) Planet Earth - The Complete BBC Series would very often be used. I do not recall seeing 十面埋伏 (House of Flying Daggers) ever used, but oh my is this a beautiful movie on the BluRay... just absolutely stunning! The cinematography is gorgeous... and every element of the movie - the color of the costumes used, the rich ornate building interiors, and the sweeping landscapes - have been carefully staged to create wonderfully rich and sumptious scenes.

The movie itself is quite good too. It is about a young 9th century military captain assigned to find and capture the new leader of a resistance group that call themselves "The House of the Flying Daggers". He and another captain create a scheme to free a known member of the Flying Daggers, befriend her, and then (hopefully) use her to find the new leader of the group. While the captain and the fugitive woman flee from their pursuers, they fall in love and a Shakespearean tragedy ensues. I won't say much more as I don't want to spoil it. Oh and... the movie is in Mandarin Chinese with English subtitles (just fyi).

Summary: Highly recommended... especially on BluRay!

Movie Review: Bucket List

Title:	Bucket List (2007)
Rating:	6/10

My brother and sister-in-law recently recommended that we rent and see The Bucket List. It is a show about two gentlemen which are advanced in years that are each diagnosed with terminal cancer. One man (played by Morgan Freeman) is a blue collar worker that worked repairing taxis up until the day he was diagnosed. The other man (Jack Nicholson) is a wealthy billionaire that owns a chain of hospitals, even the one where the two men meet and share a hospital room. After sharing a room with one another for some weeks time, they construct a "bucket list" - things to do before they die - and travel the world (on the billionaire's dime of course) crossing off items on their list.

Nicholson's character has a seemingly infinite supply of free time and money and leaves behind a sterile life that has no close associations whatsoever. However, Freeman's character leaves behind his wife and family to join Nicholson. Freedman's wife is especially bewildered by his actions and eventually this bewilderment gives way to frustration and anger. And really, who can blame her?! The whole notion of spending the last moments of life with a complete stranger rather than family and friends is a very curious notion and one that I could not empathize with the least. This left me completely disconnected from the Freeman character and the story itself for much of the duration of the movie.

But a few weeks into their "bucket list" journey, both men come to realize that the errand they are running is empty and wholly insignificant, especially compared to the value of the families they have left behind unattended. Freeman's character returns to his family and enjoys his last days surrounded by them. And Nicholson's character reconciles with a daughter and meets his grand-daughter for the first time.

Summary: Touching story; worthwhile message. But the setup is a bit contrived.

Movie Review: Fool's Gold

Title:	Fool's Gold (2008)
Rating:	5/10

Kristy and I watched Fool's Gold tonight with very low expectations. We were both surprised that it wasn't as bad as we thought it would be. It's kind of a cute romantic comedic adventure that really is nothing much more than a fist full of air. But it's fun enough that I didn't really mind too much (though the dumb McConaughey assistant and dumber millionaire daughter did get annoying). Matthew McConaughey plays a treasure seeker trying to find a lost Spanish treasure trove of gold. Kate Hudson plays his ex-wife and former partner in the now-decades old (and heretofore fruitless) treasure hunt. However, near the beginning of the film off the coast of an island in the Bahamas, McConaughey uncovers a piece of china that supposedly belonged to the ship that was last known to have had the Spanish gold. But he is so deeply in debt (and accidentally destroys his boat) that he no way to continue his search. So he enlists the help of a local millionaire who also happens to be his ex-wife's current employer. The rest of the movie falls from there. The mysteries of the treasure... once locked and impenetrable for centuries, unfold and are solved in minutes, etc, etc.

Summary: Deserves a look.

(Update Sat Sep 6 07:16:49 PDT 2008 // corrected spelling)

Movie Review: Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Title:	Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
Rating:	7/10

We didn't complete all of our laundry folding last night, so we finished it today while watching the movie, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (on BluRay of course!). It reunites the two main characters from another show I quite liked - A Beautiful Mind with Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany. Master and Commander is a fine film; very good in fact. I found the treatment of the rigors of the high sea completely fascinating. Despite the fictional narrative, the film seemed to go to great lengths to be an historically accurate portrayal of the daily life on a British naval war ship. I just read that there were 20 novels written around the the adventures of the fictional Captain Jack Aubry (Russell Crowe), so it sounds like there was a lot of material from which to make the film. The result is a film that is rich in detail and compelling to watch.

Movie Review: The Importance of Being Earnest (2002)

Title:	The Importance of Being Earnest (2002)
Rating:	6/10

Kristy rented and watched The Importance of Being Earnest last Friday night while I was camping with the kids. We watched it again tonight while doing laundry (laundry is never ending!). The writing is very sharp in this situational comedy (which I understand is faithful to the original play by Oscar Wilde). The movie is not gut-busting funny, but is quietly amusing. The film is less about the characters and how they came to be placed in such a situation and more about the dialog. For example, how do Jack and Algy become such fast friends and then *spoiler alert* coincidentally discover that they are actually brothers? The coincidence is so outrageous that it begs to be explained, but it never is. In this way, the movie is kind of like a TV sitcom comedy, silly... but a bit more refined (e.g. no laugh track).

Movie Review: Vantage Point

Title:	Vantage Point (2008)
Rating:	7/10

The film, Vantage Point, is about the attempted assassination of a US President. The plot is unveiled slowly by using a non-linear storytelling method that is engaging and fresh. Specifically, the same period of time (the time from about 5 minutes before to 4 minutes after the assassination attempt) is retold from several different vantage points... back to back to back. Each version of the story opens new aspects of the mystery until the final vantage point (from the point of view of the President) is given and the movie proceeds along ahead to the climax and conclusion. I enjoyed the movie very much (even if you overlook the plot similarities to Air Force One).

Summary: Recommended

Movie Review: Wild Hogs

Title:	Wild Hogs (2007)
Rating:	4/10

We have been incredibly busy lately with party preparations (one down, two to go)... but we decided to take a bit of time to unwind tonight and watch the completely brainless Wild Hogs. The movie has very little to offer other than a few laughs. The predictable plot, manufactured drama, as well as the inane ending (not to mention the melodramatic acting *cough*Ray Liotta*cough*) would be quite suitable for an hour-long TV sitcom (a la Tim Allen's Home Improvement), but this definitely wasn't good movie material. But whatever, I wasn't expecting much.

Movie Review: National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets

Title:	National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets (2007)
Rating:	3/10

National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets provides little more than a threadbare plot and inane, meaningless, "ho-hum" non-stop action. Nicky Cage has returned to reprise his role in a movie (which like its predecessor) is pretty much a ripoff of Indiana Jones and The Da Vinci Code. The plot is so pathetic that it hardly deserves mention. Cage and Cage's dad (Jon Voight) must prove that their great grandfather was not in league with President Lincoln's assassin as alleged by a good 'ol southern boy, Ed Harris, and some halfway burned up piece of paper. Though it doesn't really make sense, Cage and Voight decide they must find a legendary "City of Gold" that the now-ignominious grandfather supposedly died trying to protect from Confederate spies. Yet, finding the City of Gold doesn't prove any such thing, the grandfather still could have been in league with the South... but hey, look over there... an explosion!

Summary: Absolutely preposterous; almost insultingly so.

(Update Thu Jul 31 07:09:48 PDT 2008 // added link to first review)

Movie Review: The Notebook

Title:	The Notebook (2004)
Rating:	7/10

At the beginning of The Notebook, an old man (James Garner) in failing health enters a room in a rest home where he meets and greets a silver-haired woman (Gena Rowlands)... seemingly for the first time. He is there, he tells her, to read her a story out of a notebook - a love story - about a young man and young woman who meet and fall in love during one summer, are then separated by class (and by WWII), undergo a lengthy separation (where the young woman becomes engaged to another man), and then reunite. We find out that the old man and woman are the young couple in the story, and have been married for quite some time. However, the woman is now suffering from Alzheimer's disease and can no longer recognize her husband or her family. The man reads their love story to his beloved wife every day only for the hope that she will "remember" and come back to him... even if it is for only a few moments during the day.

It is a touching story and hits close to home (for me), since I'm very much in love with my wife and would be hurt tremendously if she were to fall into such a state. The acting in the film, especially by Garner, really drives home the emotional impact of the material... particularly when the wife "remembers" at the end of the story and then relapses just minutes later.

The end of the movie lays it on a bit thick. I thought the climax of the love story, which coincided with the wife's re-emergence would have been a fine place to end. But the movie continues and offers a denouement that seemed a bit too contrived for me (albeit it did provide a happy resolution for the couple).

Summary: Worth a look.

Movie Review: Wall·E

Title:	Wall·E (2008)
Rating:	7/10

We traveled as a family downtown this afternoon to catch the 4:45pm showing of Wall·E at the magnificent Seattle Cinerama. The kids have been looking forward to seeing the movie for a few months (I downloaded the Wall·E trailers off the PlayStation Store as soon as they were posted and the kids have been watching them ever since... imitating the robot's unique pronunciation of his own name).

The movie is very good, not Pixar's best (The Incredibles still tops my Pixar list), but far better than last year's Ratatouille (which I just noticed I never bothered to even provide a review for... and I'm usually very thorough about such things). For comparison, this might help:

The Incredibles... 9.01/10
Monsters Inc...... 9/10
Toy Story......... 8/10
Toy Story 2....... 8/10
Wall·E............ 7/10
Cars.............. 6/10
Finding Nemo...... 6/10
Ratatouille....... 5/10
A Bug's Life...... 5/10


Wall·E is a robot, the sole inhabitant remaining on a future planet Earth. Earth has been abandoned because of its filthy state and a legion of Wall·E trash compacting robots were left behind to clean up the joint. Only one Wall·E robot remains operational. Wall·E is joined by a visiting robot "EVE" who is investigating Earth's re-inhabitability. Wall·E is instantly smitten and stows away on EVE's spaceship back to the "Axiom", a space-bound cruise ship where the remainder of the human race now lives. At the center of the movie is a plant seedling that Wall·E finds during his trash cleanup duties on Earth and then gives to EVE as a token of his affection.

There isn't much to the plot and very little dialog to speak of (pun intended). Yet, Wall·E accomplishes quite a bit with very little. The character Wall·E has an "ET"-like charm that endears himself to the audience. The interaction and playfulness between Wall·E and EVE is quite touching at times. When the movie is developing the relationship between the two robots, the film works very well. The "human" characters and plot didn't work as well and although the two plot lines were necessarily symbiotic (to advance each other), they didn't enmesh particularly well. In other words, Wall·E feels like two movies... one that was really good (the robot love story), and one that was just so-so (the humans returning to Earth).

Summary: Worth the dollars to see it on the big screen.

Movie Review: The Other Boleyn Girl

Title:	The Other Boleyn Girl (2008)
Rating:	6/10

The first thing I must say about The Other Boleyn Girl is this: cool costumes! I'm a moderate fan of English period pieces (see Remains of the Day, Howard's End, Sense and Sensibility, etc), so this film about Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn, struck my fancy. At almost 2 hours in length, it is a longer film than most... but considering how much ground it covers, the film's pace is very fast and there are more than a dozen key players which forces the historically challenged (e.g. me) to strain my old brain to keep everything straight. In fact after the film ended, I hit wikipedia to fill in the historical context of the story so that all the pieces fit together just so.

But much of the film does not require any historical knowledge really. The story is that of two sisters, Anne Boleyn and Mary Boleyn and their (supposed) rivalry between each other to catch a king (Henry VIII). Mary Boleyn is a reluctant participant at first, and would rather leave the business of seducing the king to her sister Anne. However, the king is smitten by Mary first (despite Anne's overt advances), a fact that leaves Anne quite annoyed. Despite Mary's recent marriage, her family forces her to be the king's lover. Mary slowly replaces her emotional attachment to her recently wed husband to that of the king. Mary soon bears his child (a son), only to be ostracized by the king and his court at the behest of Anne. The sisters play against each other but at last reconcile just before Anne loses her head (by court order on charges of treason). Mary takes Anne's daughter (Elizabeth) and raises the baby as her own (Elizabeth eventually becomes Queen of England).

Summary: Entertaining. Pay special note to the costumes.

Movie Review: The Golden Compass

Title:	The Golden Compass (2007)
Rating:	5/10

I have wondered what someone not familiar with the Harry Potter written material would think of the film adaptations. There is so much background material omitted that it would seem somewhat bewildering to watch the Potter films without having first read the books. I need not wonder any longer, because I experienced a strong sense of bewilderment while watching The Golden Compass this evening.

The story (if I got it straight) takes place in a world where the characters do not have souls in a traditional sense, but instead are accompanied by animal "daemons" that are living, breathing, talking companions. If the daemon feels pain, then so does the person... if the person dies, so does the daemon, etc. Another key element of the movie is the existence of some sort of magic dust that makes space travel possible (a la the spice "melange" in Dune).

The authoritarian Magisterium seeks to control all persons (and their daemons) and squash out the discussion of the magical "dust". In their quest to control the population, the Magisterium kidnaps children and sends them out to a frozen wasteland to conduct experiments on them. I have no idea why, but they just do. One such child is kidnapped, and so his friend Lyra - the main character in the movie - sets out to rescue him, befriending a whole host of characters during her journey. Eventually, Lyra finds him and rescues him... with the help of a polar bear king, a Texas-style cowboy-pilot, some gypsies, and a handful of witches.

During the last few minutes of the film we learn that Lyra's father is going to be assassinated for "dust" discovery (or something) by the Magisterium (which had already failed to eliminate him once thanks to Lyra's intervention). The presumption is that there will be a sequel to the movie in order to resolve the disclosure of the assassination plot. Ho hum.

Summary: Uninspiring and confusing.

Movie Review: Jumper

Title:	Jumper (2007)
Rating:	5/10

The movie Jumper starts with a scene of an unsure adolescent boy (read "geek") on a snow-covered school ground (at a school bus stop presumably) awkwardly giving a token of his affection to a girl (a snow globe). An antagonistic male classmate intervenes, steals the snow globe, mocks the gift, and then throws it onto the thin ice of a nearby river. While attempting to retrieve the gift, the young boy falls through the ice and the river current sweeps him downstream away from the opening. He seems doomed to drown, but suddenly teleports himself to the town library. Thus begins the mythology of the "jumper".

With his new-found power, the young "jumper" decides to leave his abusive (motherless) home and set out to make a life of his own. To make ends meet, he discovers a new found talent for robbing banks by teleporting inside the safe (he must first see the inside of the safe before he can teleport there). After a few years, the young boy grows up into Hayden Christensen (aka Anakin Skywalker). He soon discovers that his way of life is not welcomed by a group of "paladins" (led by Samuel L. Jackson) that hunt down jumpers and kill them. The paladins have found out his hideout and a world-wide chase ensues. He is captured and then freed by his long-lost mother, a paladin herself. After regaining his freedom, he teams up with another jumper and fights a handful of paladins (including Jackson). After he defeats them, he find his long-lost mother and has a little visit with her. And then the movie pretty much ends without resolving anything. Very lame.

Summary: A movie much like Highlander but without the rich exploration of the historical mythology and a very lame ending. There was a lot of potential here for a much better movie.

Movie Review: Invincible

Title:	Invincible (2006)
Rating:	7/10

Kristy and I saw the trailer for Invincible during our screenings of the Pirates 2 and Pirates 3 movies. It look interesting enough to both of us that we decided to bubble it up to the top of our on-line Blockbuster queue. We watched the movie tonight. It was quite good, we both enjoyed it very much.

The movie is based on the true story of Vincent Papale (played by Mark Wahlberg), a former professional football player for the Philadelphia Eagles. Despite not having played any college football, then 30-yr-old Papale tried out for the Eagles during an open workout and made the team. It's a movie made in the same vein as The Rookie and Rocky... about a local down-on-his-luck nobody that makes it to the big time. Even if the story was embellished somewhat, it was still pleasing to watch and fun to root for Papale to succeed.

Movie Review: Kung Fu Panda

Title:	Kung Fu Panda (2008)
Rating:	6/10

We took the kids to see Kung Fu Panda today. It is a fun little film... nothing too serious... very formulaic... and a feel good ending. Perfect for the kids. Berkeley and Eliana were quoting it all the way home and into the evening ("Skadoosh!").

The story is pretty straightforward. Jack Black voices a panda that works in a family noodle shop run by his Dad.. The panda's Dad is a stork (an explanation of this is never given). But the panda is a big-time kung-fu fan and really isn't interested in taking over the noodle shop from his Dad. Instead he dreams of becoming a kung-fu master. And as luck would have it, he is selected somewhat accidentally (but wait, "there are no accidents") to be the "dragon warrior" that will save the village from a villain that has recently escaped from prison. The panda, woefully out-of-shape, must train and master kung-fu in order to save the nearby villages.

Movie Review: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

Title:	Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)
Rating:	2/10

At about the half-hour mark into Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End I hit the "Display" button on the PS3 to see how much longer I had to endure this incredibly insipid movie... just a mere 2½ more hours! I was pretty tempted to turn it off right there... really tempted in fact. But I figured if I added the half hour I had already wasted to the 2½ hours of Pirates 2, that I was already more than halfway through the thing and I may as well slug on ahead. It now seems obvious to anyone that watched this movie and Pirates 2, that the Pirates franchise has now descended into nothing more than an epic exercise by the Disney studio heads to make a gob of easy money without delivering much by way of a product to the consumer (and there is a hint of a Pirates 4 at the end of this movie!).

Where should I begin? The fact that the movie is too long and tedious? That the undecipherable fluff plot is pretty much a voyage to boredom? Or that much of the clever slapstick that made the first movie so enjoyable is watered down in Pirates 2 and non-existent in this installment? Wow. So disappointing.

Movie Review: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Title:	Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
Rating:	3/10

I'm not sure what to say about Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. I really liked the predecessor Curse of the Black Pearl; it was light-hearted (primarily because of Johnny Depp's Chaplin-esque Jack Sparrow), of was of reasonable length, had an undertone of romance (that didn't get in the way), and had enough action keep a lively pace. Dead Man's Chest tries to recreate the magic of the first, but using a plot vehicle that spins its wheels and goes nowhere. Thankfully, there is enough screen time for Johnny Depp that the movie doesn't completely drag on (e.g. suck completely). Here is one such moment where Jack Sparrow celebrates his irresponsibility:

Elizabeth Swann: "There will come a time when you have a chance to do the right thing."

Jack Sparrow: "I love those moments. I like to wave at them as they pass by."

Too funny.

Summary: Not nearly as good as the original.

Movie Review: Mr. & Mrs. Smith

Title:	Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)
Rating:	6/10

Mr. and Mrs. Smith is a story of a man and a woman married "about 5-6 years" that are slowly drifting away from each other (the movie opens with a scene of them in a joint marriage therapy session). The spark has gone; they barely look at each other, let alone speak to each other. Well, that is until they find out that each of them is hiding a secret: they are both undercover assassins working for competing agencies. Once they discover each others true identities, they must kill the other person in 48 hours or their agencies will kill them both.

So, yes... this is not a movie that seriously explores what it takes to re-ignite the spark in a lifeless marriage. It's an action flick when all is said and done: car chases, shooting, blowing things up. But not only is there a capable bad-arse hero (Mr. Smith played by Brad Pitt) doing all the shooting, killing, blowing things up, etc... but there is a heroine (Mrs. Smith played by Angelina Jolie) that is one-upping the hero at every turn. It is easy to see that both Pitt and Jolie had a lot of fun with the roles; the one-liners, the sarcastic retorts, and the double-entendres were all played very well and generated a lot of chemistry on the screen. This part of the movie was a real hoot and thoroughly enjoyable.

I have but one complaint: the ending was just, well, utterly pathetic! Imagine this. Pitt and Jolie are holed up Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid style... last bit of ammo, both are injured, outnumbered 20 to 1, and completely surrounded. But instead of going up against South American lawmen armed with pistoles a la Newman and Redford, Pitt and Jolie are going up against (supposedly) well-trained hit-men with automatic machine guns and RPGs. Yet somehow (unlike Newman and Redford), Pitt and Jolie manage to mow down all the baddies whilst dodging RPGs and automatic machine gun fire... in the middle of a warehouse with little to no cover! Did I say the ending was extremely pathetic?! Yeah, I thought I did. Give me a break.

Summary: Very good (until the end)... recommended. Watch carefully for the Fight Club homage. And don't miss the subtle minivan humor.