Category: Movie Reviews

Fresh off the heels of the Lord of the Ring’s Trilogy Peter Jackson remakes a movie classic of the famous giant gorilla. Similar to his LotR films ‘King Kong’ is equal in feature length of about 3 hours. Kong falls short of expectations. The movie has it’s moments, but fails to delivery consistant quality story-telling. Probably due to the a horrible cast and lack of character development. The only thing going for this movie is the special effects of Kong and the fight scenes with the dinosaurs. Naomi Watts plays, Ann Darrow, a down and out actress who is convinced by the director, played by Jack Black, to travel to an exotic location to shoot a film where they land on Skull Island and find Kong. Even with big star actors and actress there are scenes where it was just simply corny. Maybe if this movie was released about 5 years earlier it would have done much better.

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I’ve never read the books, but I have heard about them. But when I saw the previews for this movie I thought it would just be something along the lines of Harry Potter meets Lord of the Rings. In a sense, the movies does tie in to many of the fantasy movies that we’ve seen, but nonetheless The Chronicles of Narnia holds it’s own.

Four siblings, two boys and two girls, find themselves in the world of Narnia when entering a closet, hence the wardrobe. In the midst of a war between the White Witch and her underlings against the creatures of Narnia the siblings must fight to win. In short, a battle of Good and Evil. Don’t avoid seeing this movie because it’s gear towards children and it’s MPAA rating of PG. It’s definately worth watching. Unlike the other epic fantasy movies, The Chronicles of Narnia doesn’t drag on.

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Zathura is one of those movies that should of been one of the straight-to-video movies, but somehow ended up on the big screen. I’m not taking anything away from it. It’s a decent fun family movie. Zathura takes a page out of “Jumanji” which shouldn’t be a suprise since its from the same writer and producer. The movie pits two young brothers who aren’t fond of each other. They find a board-like game, Zathura, which transport them into outer space where they must work together to finish it all while evading aliens, meteor showers, and a killer robot just to get back home.

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This is the fourth movie installment of the Harry Potter movies. Compared to the first film the trio are physically much older and Harry is finally starting to notice girls. It’s about time, I was getting a little worried with him hanging out with Ron a bit too much with Hermione being around and all. This movie is the darkest movie yet and the first one in the series to be rated PG13. In his fourth year at Hogwarts, Harry enters into a wizard competition that is suppose to be reserved for older and more experienced students. There are three deadly tests the compeitiors must face. The competition is not only the thing taking place but instead there is a sinister plot taking place and Harry’s only clue are the dreams he is having in his sleep.

I definately enjoyed the movie, and I feel it is much better than the last one, Prisoner of Azkaban. The big question is how long can the actors play their parts and how many Potter movies will be made? The next in line should be ‘The order of the Phoenix’. According the IMDB.com the next one should be out by 2007 and it’s follow-up of the latest Potter novel to-date should be out in 2008.

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Another zombie movie…? Yep. This movie was released in Australia in 2003 and is now re-release for the US market. This zombie flick takes a slightly different approach to the typical zombie storyline; zombies invades and small group of survivors seek refuge. In Undead, the dead are re-animated when a meteor shower falls upon a small town of Berkely. Again, there are survivors that are looking for refuge. The difference in this plot is that aliens are involved with this zombie infection.

The production value of this movie is decent. One of the character is an over-the-top hero that necessarily doesn’t look the part. The story is a bit different from other zombie movies but definately not original, but zombie fans will definately enjoy.

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Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst seems to be at the height of there popularity. What better than to have them star in the same movie? Elizabethtown plays out more to be a drama/romantic movie with some funny moments. Bloom plays Drew Baylor, a failed shoe designer, that is about to kill himself but suddenly gets a call informing him that his father has just died while visiting his hometown. Now, Drew has to go to his father’s hometown, which he has very little affiliation with, to pick up the body and bring it home. During his journey to Elizabethtown he meets a very awkwardly-outgoing-extrovertive girl, Claire (Dunst). I’m going pretty much stop describing the movie here since its very much linear and predictive.

Camereon Crowe is a great director and he tells this story in a way that won’t make you fall alseep. This is one of those movies you go on a date with to watch, other than that just wait till its release on video.

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Flightplan is a thriller starring Jodie Foster. I’m a fan of many of her movies including Silence of the Lambs and Panic Room. In this movie Jodie plays Kyle Pratt, a recently widowed mother, who is flying back to the United States from Berlin with her daughter. Her husband has died in an accident, and she is taking her husband back to the states to be buried. During the flight Pratt wakes up unable to find her daughter and everyone on the plane, passengers and flight attendents, don’t remember seeing her daughter or seeing Pratt come aboard with anyone. Is she going crazy or is it some conspiracy plot involving her? Some moments are tense and will keep you guessing what is actually going on.

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I’m a huge fan of Family Guy and have watched seasons 1-3 over and over. Now Seth McFarlane, the creator of Family Guy, has released a 128 minute movie of the cartoon. Just like it’s TV show on Fox. The movie has its random hilarious scenes and politically incorrect dialogues. It’s basically a Family Guy episode that is about six times longer.

The movie revolves mainly around Stewie where he seeks to find his real father then ends up going to future, but has to go back to the past to change the events that leads to the present. If you’re a Family Guy fan get the DVD now. Otherwise, don’t and watch seasons 1-3 before you do.

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I’m a huge fan of zombie movies. Dead Meat is an independent movie that does not have a big budget as other recent ones that have been released. In terms of its film style Dead Meat feels much like a low budget version of 28 Days Later. Instead of zombies being spawned from a human-created virus the infection comes from a mutated version of Mad Cow disease. Taking place in the rural country side somewhere in Europe two survivors seek refuge. They soon find other survivors and they all try to escape the country side.

Beside its low budget and difficult-to-understand British/Irish accent the movie is a treat for zombie fans.

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The preview is scary, and I just had to see movie and it being based on a true story just made it more compelling. Good horror movies nowadays are rare. Today, horror-thriller movies ride on the curtails of movies such as The Ring and Sixth Sense raking in money on it’s popularity of the genre. Exorcism of Emily Rose takes a page or two out of a John Grisham’s novel. The plot describes Emily Rose’s experience through court room testimonials because the priest who performed Emily’s exorcism is being prosecuted for her death.

I can’t say this is as scary as what I saw in the previews, but it does keeps you on the edge of your seat at times. If you’re looking for some hardcore horror blood and guts or even something as scary as the original Exorcist then you’ll better off waiting for a rental. The story is excellent and the court room drama is exceptional but not great.