Like Borat before it, Bruno can be offensive, funny, and absurd.  What the former had that the latter doesn’t, however, is a kind of social commentary effect.  Cohen has created a very funny character, to be sure, and he is extremely talented.  He wrote, starred, directed, and produced these films.  It’s no wonder that we at least pay some attention to this eccentric, bold, ridiculous human being.

The problem that this movie has is that it doesn’t do what its predecessor did so well, an exposing of stereotypes that allows us to see Americans as people who have a long way to go in terms of civil rights, discrimination, etc.  Bruno, a homosexual, goes around the world in hopes of becoming famous.  He never really succeeds, but that’s not really the point, it’s just the “plot” that he needs to make a movie ostensibly about homophobia and the sources of anti-homosexuality.  He shows us a lot of what we already know, and a lot of what Borat already showed us.

If you’re going to make a film meant to comment on social mores, you have to be careful, subtle, self-conscious even; there are so many wrong ways of going about it.  Bruno is one of those.  There are some laughs, sure, but it doesn’t reveal much about America we didn’t already know, or much about anyone that we didn’t already know.  If you find fundamentalists in any camp, the unintelligent in any area of the world, the naive, the predisposed, uninformed, or anyone with a severe disadvantage to play in your game, we are going to get some funny moments, but that’s about it.  Bruno is just funny, and at that, not even very often.  It fails on so many levels; I don’t recommend to this anyone.  Save your time and money.  If you must, Netflix it.  Otherwise, leave well enough alone.

Rating: 1.5/4 Stars

So many movies now come in threes. Too many movies now come in threes.  The Ice Age saga should have stayed put at two.  Nonetheless, they did not, and here are we are to suffer the consequences.  This film can’t decide who it wants to enjoy it, and for that reason not many will.  Or no one will enjoy it very much.  Bad writing, second-rate animation, and a misguided approach to the animated genre film.  Funny at times, but on the whole, a bad attempt to fulfill the difficult task of making a trilogy.

One of the only good things about this film is the voice acting, which is pretty much spot-on.  The regular cast of Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Queen Latifah, and Dennis Leary, gets new addition Simon Pegg as the character Buck, and he is hilarious, and by far one of the best things that this film has to offer.  Sadly, the writing is just not great.  They stretch out the film with the extended chronicle of the scrawny, furry little creature looking for his nut.  In this one, he discovers a love-interest, and it gives that little ditty a new look and a little bit more fun.  But it doesn’t really add a whole lot to the film.  It doesn’t take away, I guess, but it shows that they are really hurting for ideas to continue these lovable characters’ story for loving fans.  I appreciate the attempt, but I don’t have to like it.

Carlos Saldanha and Mike Thurmeier co-direct this one, like they did the previous two, which, for the sake of flow, of continuity, and, for lack of better term, same-ness, does help.  But it doesn’t make the movie any better.  As a matter of fact, it’s hard to find things in this film that do make it any better.  The voice-acting, of course, was fantastic; it’s hard to find better comedic actors than Simon Pegg.  But beyond that, and the slapstick gags that are pulled on Sid the Sloth, who, in this one, is not nearly as funny as before and lacks any real redeemable qualities.  Sure, he cares.  But he’s so stupid that it makes it hard to care about him.  He never does anything right, and he doesn’t seem to know or care to improve himself.  I haven’t even spoken about the plot yet, which, to call it a stretch, is a stretch.  It’s pretty awful.  ”How do we make the dinosaurs reappear?  We put them under the earth!”  Um.  What?  Moving on.

The theme of the movie, if there is one, is the importance of family, friends, and the desire to fit in with some group, no matter how unconventional that group may be.  But for all practical purposes, is this any different than the theme of the first two, on the whole?  Probably not.  At least not by much.  So, is this film worth seeing?  If you absolutely love these characters, then yes, it is, because there are some genuinely funny moments, and the characters are essentially the same ones you fell in love with.  If you’re liable to swing one way or the other, then just let this one pass.

Rating: 1.5/4 Stars

Not having been a fan of anything Land of the Lost before, this movie didn’t do much for me.  The Will Ferrell era of comedy ended a few years ago in my book, and, though he is hilarious, Danny McBride plays the exact same character in every movie he is in.  Ferrell and McBride play tag-team stock characters (which happen to be themselves, mostly), and the rest is not much better: a few laughs, a ridiculous and predictable storyline, and the whole thing is mostly shambles.

Ferrell plays Dr. Rick Marshall, a quantum-paleontologist, which makes about as much sense as the rest of the movie (that being none at all).  Though it’s funny, it’s really one of the only genuine laughs I had throughout the duration of the movie, thinking of what the heck a “quantum-paleontologist” actually is.  That aside, you need to know that Dr. Marshall is a real prick, that he has one faithful (and attractive) follower, and that McBride plays himself as the against-his-will-tag-along.  They travel “in time and space” to a land filled with dinosaurs, aliens, gas station signs, and other accoutrement that might also work as product-placement.  They discover an alien who says he needs the help of the famous Dr. Rick Marshall.  And therein lies most of the events, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum.

Other than that, your guess is as good as mine as to what the point of this movie was.  It isn’t funny, has no real moral or theme, and both the writing and the acting are, while not bad per se, are very second-rate, and what you might call, a “monumental waste of time.”  I probably knew most of this before watching it, but I had to know for sure.  And now that I do, just take my word for it, so you don’t sit through it like I did, wondering “if it will get any better if I just wait it out.”  Let me spoil it for you: it doesn’t ever get any better.

Rating: 1.5/4 Stars

This movie doesn’t have any idea what it wants to be.  It tries to pull a Spiderman and ends up pulling all punches.  There isn’t much here to see, except what might possibly happen if Jerry Bruckheimer ever gets his greedy paws on Ghostbusters 3 (planned for 2010, by the way).  The movie plays like a George Lucas catastrophe, without a thread to hold it together or a shred of a hope of being interesting.  It falls pretty hard on its face early on, and I lost almost all interest.

There are a few good points amidst the rubble.  Jeffrey Tambor is a fine actor, and he saves every scene he can, but even he isn’t enough to save this from becoming just another bad superhero movie.  It’s bad in the way the first Hulk was bad: even the graphics don’t hold your interest.  They aren’t bad graphics…for 1994.  But this 2008 movie should have known better than to try and pull out a sequel from this relatively obscure superhero.  The public likes Bruce and Clark and Peter, because they know them.  They grew up with them, and these characters are part of their psyche.  Hellboy, for all he may be worth, isn’t.  This is really only one of the endless reasons this movie doesn’t work, though.  On a positive note, the makeup is great.  But I don’t remember ever loving a movie because “the makeup is great.”  This one’s no different.

The plot is contrived, predictable in a bad way right down to the last drop, including the role of the infamous Golden Army, and the script plays like a bad undergrad student project.  They clearly had quite a large budget for this movie, but nothing to show for it.  I didn’t really care about the characters, most of which are bad imitations of Star Wars characters, and the suspense which is supposedly built up throughout the movie is unaffectingly affecting, like stale popcorn.

I don’t think 2008 would have been much the worse if this hadn’t been made.  I think Tambor did this movie to make a few extra bucks, and in this economy no one can blame him.  But I hold someone like Guillermo del Toro to a little bit of a higher standard, coming off of his previous work such as Pan’s Labyrinth, one of the best foreign films that I’ve seen.  If nothing else, his effort level is transparent: Pan is great, Hellboy is everything but.  It’s not a good movie, and I don’t recommend it.  Stay away.  Especially if you like del Toro.  (And maybe even if you like Hellboy.)

Rating: 1.5/4 Stars

God can only descend from the flies so many times in a polar bear outfit before one begins to question the quality of the story.  So, from the writer of such classics as Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, we see an attempt to produce a quality fantasy film to rival the Narnia films.  What we get, though, is another story, and one which will bring tears to most fantasy-loving eyes.

The movie begins with a narrator telling us the background for the story, what the golden compass really is, why it’s important, why the story itself is worth telling.  I bought it.  The graphics were good, the narration simple and unadorned, and the concept intriguing and fantastical, exactly what I wanted out of this movie.  But that’s where the simple, unadorned, intriguing, and fantastical elements seem to stop.  At least with any positively insightful, creative, or entertaining outcome.

For one thing, the quality of the writing (read ‘storytelling’) is unashamedly poor, and the acting doesn’t help.  The only really good acting this movie offers is from Daniel Craig and Sam Elliot – the former’s character is ostensibly large, but ends up having less than twenty minutes of screen time, which is a shame really, because no one else in the film seems to remember that they are actually in a film, and need to act accordingly.  Pun very much intended.  The only small exceptions would be Dakota Blue Richards, in her good moments, and the voice acting of the Ian McClan: Ian McKellan and Ian McShane.  I don’t even know how that happened.  To make matters worse, Nicole Kidman has gone from mediocre to dreadful.  Australia was a pathetic, self-absorbed style of acting, which is both inartistic and full of loathing, on both sides of the screen.

If that wasn’t bad enough, we realize that this story, however great it might be in novel form, has not translated well to the silver screen, or at least not nearly as well as all the other fantasy series that have made the same transition, such as Narnia (well, half of this series at least) or Harry Potter (they’re all good and seem to keep getting better, like the books).  A very large and daunting aspect of these films is their CG abilities, and this movie, for all it lacks, does not lack incredible CG.  The polar bears, the flying ship, everything looks very well constructed and verisimilitudinous.  The drawback is in the execution of the storytelling itself, which lays waste to the fantastic graphics’ ability to intrigue or entertain us.

Like a lot of movies, this one is not without its social commentary, and we hear it loud and clear.  The atheistic community wants everyone to know they don’t like religion and are in favor of free thought.  We get it.  The Magisterium is religion painted black and blue, so don’t miss it.  It is, in matter of fact, very difficult to miss it.  If you do, it was probably only because you were asleep or throwing up.  Both are acceptable responses to this film.

It has great CG, a handful of good acting (but mostly just mediocre or bad), laughable writing, overt social commentary, and God in a polar bear outfit.  What more could you ask for?  A good movie is one possible suggestion.  Philip Pullman did all he could, I imagine, and it was taken and ripped asunder by the filmmakers.  Skip this one.  And any that might attempt to follow suit.

Rating: 1.5/4 Stars

It’s conventional in pretty much every way, except that this Kevin Smith film also has porn in it, so it’ll probably bring in a few more guys.  Smith wrote and directed Zack and Miri, and I think the only thing he wanted to do was make people laugh.  I don’t think he’s actually trying to say anything with this one, or if he is, I completely missed it (maybe, porn stars are people, too…I don’t know).

Here’s Seth Rogen again in that same role he’s been playing for awhile now, and Elizabeth Banks plays a similar role, only female.  That’s just about the only difference in the two until about three-fourths of the way through the movie, when, having reached dire straits, they are making a porn flick to make ends meet, they discover they have more feelings for each other than they thought previously.  This is when we the audience find out what the movie has to be about.  It can’t really be about making a porno, so the title must belie its true intentions.  It’s really a romantic comedy.  Now, it isn’t the kind of romantic comedy you’ve probably ever seen before, because the language is going to be, to many people, repulsive, with just about every word used for the female genitalia possible, for one thing.  However, it is still a romantic comedy.  And like all romantic comedies, the ending is a foregone conclusion, so it’s not really the ending you’re going to see, but how we get to the ending, and that’s why we keep watching this one.  Well, that…and the laughs…and the porn.

There are plenty of laughs here, a handful of endearing moments, and lots of boobies.  This film is pretty much just those three things.  It has at least one good supporting cast member (Craig Robinson from The Office, who also joined Rogen in Pineapple Express), which is really enough, considering it only needs a sprinkling of good acting to juxtapose with the boobs.  That being said though, I honestly expected even more nudity.  With “porno” in the title, I expected it to be overflowing with it, but it really wasn’t.  Of course, there is a ton of nudity, but there isn’t so much that the movie becomes about the nudity entirely, or at least I didn’t think so.  So, it actually may leave some concupiscent males wanting more.  But then there’s the internet for all that.

There were times in this movie I couldn’t stop laughing, like when Zack and Miri spend a good five minute montage trying to come up with the name for their porno, with such classic titles as won’t be mentioned here.  But some of them are hilarious.  Besides that and a few endearing situations between the title characters, it isn’t a very good movie.  It’s fun sometimes, crude most of the time, and naked a little bit too, but this movie is really a renter if I’ve ever seen one, and it may not even be that.

Rating: 1.5/4 Stars

For fans of the book, Twilight will be just what you wanted.  For vampire fans, this probably isn’t your film.  For the general movie-going public, it’s hard to say, but I’ll do my best.  As for me…well…here we go.

Twilight mixes vampires and romance.  Pretty good idea.  And the story itself is actually pretty good, too.  Stephenie Meyer is the author of the novel on which the movie is based, and it is with her writing that many have found fault.  The problem is that it’s piss-poor.  The writing is like The Da Vinci Code, only worse.  She takes what is probably an indestructible idea (just look at how long it’s been around) and delivers a third-grade reading level paperback.  Good thing the idea is indestructible, or no one would read it.

The movie suffers the same fate.  The story is pretty interesting, especially if you’ve read the book.  Mainly, the script isn’t very good; the direction is somewhat simplistic, to be kind; and the CGI looks like it was done by me; thankfully, the acting is at times pretty good, and honestly, that’s because it sticks to its purpose, and I can tell what they’re trying to do: they want to mimic the book’s descriptions.  It’s obvious.  The only problem with that is that Meyer’s descriptions are quite lofty goals for us mere mortals.  They can only work in the printed form or the animated, because Edward Cullen has to be a demi-god, a work of nature the likes of which no girl has ever seen.  Robert Pattinson does his best as Edward, but it would take Michael (the angel) to pull this one off.  There were times when I kind of enjoyed it, like when it ended.  To be fair, though, I did like the elongation of the fight scene.  It was enjoyable and added a good bit of catharsis for the audience.

Here’s the deal: if you liked the book, you’ll like the movie.  If you loved the book, you’ll probably see the movie multiple times and buy it the first day you can pre-order on Amazon.  If you’re like me and liked the story a bit, but recognize “the reality of the kitschy,” as I am going to call it, then you’d probably be best leaving this one alone.

Rating: 1.5/4 Stars

I’ll keep this short and sweet (well, sweet-ish), because it doesn’t deserve much more than that.  It’s not a bad film, it just could have been so much better.  At almost every moment where it might make some statement, or develop its own fledgling voice, it hushes itself and carries on as if nothing really happened, which just gets annoying over some two hours.

Kiera Knightly and Ralph Fiennes perform pretty well together, despite Fiennes uncharacteristic one-note (maybe two) performance, and thank goodness the plot takes no time to get going early in the movie, because the next few hours take their precious time. In fact, the acting on the whole is pretty good, with the best performance not really coming from anyone in particular – which is disheartening, because Knightly could have been fantastic, as she was in Pride and Prejudice or Atonement.  Here, she has shining moments, but they aren’t really anything to write home about, because the script itself is so mediocre.  It’s the kind of movie they show in purgatory: not good or bad, just so-so, neither here nor there.  It never says anything.

And on that note, it should be noted that there are several clever directorial choices, but most of them go unrealized.  There is the refrain throughout of the mirror that art and life hold to one another, with royal artists capturing royal moments with pencil and sketchpad.  There is also the play which The Duchess herself goes to see, The School for Scandal, a famous Restoration comedy in the theatre world, which speaks volumes about self-commentary in this particular movie.

The design aspects of the film were very aesthetically pleasing to me, especially Knightly’s costumes and the mansions where the action takes place for most of the film.  The score is conventional and actually not very oft-employed, but still very nice.

Don’t get me wrong, here: it isn’t a bad movie.  It just isn’t very good.  And it is that limbo between saying something about feminism or women’s rights or freedom or sexuality and not saying anything at all that this movie treads so overtly as to be frustrating to the audience, like the following exchange between the Duke and the Duchess:

Duke: For the life of me, I could never understand, why women’s clothes must be so damn complicated.

Duchess: It’s just our way of expressing ourselves, I suppose.

Duke: Whatever do you mean?

Duchess: Well, you have so many ways to express yourselves, but we must make do with our hats, and our dresses.

These, and so many like them, begin a cinematic conversation about something, but then gloss over as if it didn’t occur.  In addition, there are also political undertones that never really surface completely, like the struggle between the Whigs and the Tories in 18th century England.  I guess I didn’t follow through on my short-and-sweet promise, but I will stop here anyway.  I do not recommend this movie unless it’s Girls Night Out or something similar, because otherwise (and maybe even then), you will probably be disappointed.

Rating: 1.5/4 Stars

It’s pretty juvenile, but it also has a few fun moments.  Horton Hears a Hoo! (Jim Carrey, Steve Carell) is a movie for children, plain and simple.  In fact, nearly everything about the movie is plain and simple, even down to color-coding the bad guys (they’re all purple – monkeys, vultures, and kangaroos alike).  The simplicity of the movie might be endearing if it weren’t for the constant reminder that it is, in fact…simple.  To the point of simplistic.

The characters are very one dimensional (maybe two if I’m feeling generous), and the plot line is really just that: a plot line.  There are no real sub-plots.  Which of course means that there are not many overtly tangential, unrelated-to-the-plot kind of story lines.  The one story within the meta-narrative that is a true sub-plot is that of the relationship between the Mayor of Hooville and his only son (he has 96 daughters).  So, besides this, the whole shabang is the journey of Horton and his Hooville friends on the “speck,” which is on the “clover,” which is in his “hand” (a tribute to Dave Barry) to the mountain that will be their safe haven .

But the one-dimensionality to the whole script is not the only thing that makes it juvenile to the point of jejune.  The content of the dialogue is also very childish, with few, if any, jokes thrown in that anyone under the age of 15 just probably won’t get.  Which is why this is a movie for the kids when parents are having dinner.  Not to be see with the children.  Kind of like Space Chimps.  In addition to the dialogue, there is a short anime parody with Horton as the hero, of course, which comes out of nowhere and goes into nowhere, with no explanation or justification, except for a small tribute to the original illustrations from the Dr. Seuss book early on in the movie.  Just another facet of a puerile film which makes it not really worth seeing.

All that being said, this Hot Fuzz meets The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail meets religious commentary meets children’s animated film does have some redeeming qualities.  It says a good deal on the notion of belief, what it means to believe something, where it comes from, and also what it means to have faith in one’s belief despite the naysayers (which reminds me of another Carell film no one should see, Evan Almighty).  There are several religious elements in the movie that are worth noting, I think.  For starters, Horton is an elephant, and this elephant holds the speck in his giant hand, or one might say, on his shoulders, since it is his responsibility to take good care of the miniature world and find it a safe home in which to exist.  There are several levels of religiosity to this, not the least of which is the idea that humanity is a small “speck,” too, which the last shot in the movie indicates is well known to the directors, and it’s also a “just in case you missed the point” kind of image, too.  For the kids.  Hopefully.  But there is also the lesser known idea (in the Western world, anyway) of the Hindu elephant (or elephants) on whose back the world is upheld.  [See image here.]

The religious tones of the movie are one aspect that might make it enjoyable for adults, I think.  Any thinking person will see what is meant to be seen, as Dr. Seuss, I think, intended it to be: plain and simple – in a word, obvious.  It was obvious to Seuss that the world we live in is precious, and that we, by necessity, are precious in it.  He thought it obvious that we should take care to think of life as a sacred journey, with belief systems which we should hold to, so that we can find our way in this mess of a world.  We don’t understand it all, but we know that we must cherish what we do understand, and live in the moments we have.  So, despite the fact that this movie is juvenile and over(t)ly simplistic, it still has a message, a meaning in it all.  And for that, we can thank Dr. Seuss.  Not Hollywood.