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Reviews
A for Andromeda (2006)
An uninspired remake
** Contains minor spoiler**
Despite being a remake of the 1960s BBC series, this comes across as an uninspired cross between Contact and Species. It is filmed using the typical cheap BBC Sci-Fi manner i.e. dull, grey, overcast and in a quarry. They spend the budget on the one "special effect", which is, of course, destroyed at the end. The story is unconvincing and the basic science is badly flawed (real time communication to Andromeda anyone?)
It tries to pad out a thin story line with the addition of a few extraneous few subplots, namely a love triangle, some espionage and the oh so stereotypical "government subverting science for evil" thing. Even Jane Asher can't drag this up from being a long, slow, and predictable hour and a half.
Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie (2002)
A view from the other side of the pond.
My family and I are big VeggieTales fan from the UK. The movie wasn't released over here, so I had to get a Region 1 DVD and a Multi-region player just to see it.
To be honest, the film, while good, was slightly disappointing. However the DVD extras were fantastic and also explained the reason for my initial disappointment.
One of the DVD extras tries to justify what I consider the movies two biggest faults. These are the choice of story and the choice of characters from the VeggieTale universe.
The problem with the story is that they stick to the well-known Bible Story TOO WELL. They carry on past the 'famous bit' and show the end of the story, which shows that actually Jonah is a bit mean and was disappointed that God didn't kill everyone! This means the main story ends on a bit of a down, and the tacked on `big finale' seems out of place to me.
The fact that the main character turns out to be not so nice partially explains the "casting".
If you're a big VeggieTale fan, you'll be left wondering why both the stars `Bob and Larry' have such a small part. If you're not a fan, you'll be wondering who all these characters are, especially "The Pirates who don't do anything!"
As a VeggieTale fan, I was also disappointed by a) The introduction of a major non-vegetable character!!! b) The fact that they continue to move away from the original joke' that vegetables can't hold anything (due to lack of arms). The movie has object's being held by invisible' hands and that just doesn't seem right to me.
All that aside, the movie is pretty good. Bright, fun, silly, and a good `moral' Bible story without `morality' being laid on too thickly.
The DVD extras disk was full of VERY funny stuff, and made up for the aggravation of having to send across the pond for a DVD.
P.S. It took me a while to realise that while the Outtakes appear in Spanish (!?!) the English version is available as an alternative' language.
Pollux et le chat bleu (1970)
Dougal gets a rival
If you never saw the five minutes long children's program "The Magic Roundabout" from the late sixties and early seventies, which appeared on TV every night just before the news, this will be completely lost on you.
If you know and love the characters, then you'll love this longer, darker movie. When Buxton the Blue Cat arrives in the magic garden, Dougal is no longer the centre of attention. Suspicious, Dougal does some investigating and is horrified by what he finds.
Full of topical (for the seventies) references, sarcasm and subtle drug references, no wonder this is a cult classic amongst students. It's great to hear the original voices from Eric Thompson (none of that disappointing 1980's remake stuff). Fenella Fielding is wonderfully cast as ....., well that would be telling !
Thomas and the Magic Railroad (2000)
Even my six year old son said "They seemed to miss bits of the story out"
Both my six year old son and I like Thomas. We have all the original books, many of the 'new' books and all the videos. We knew the movie would be a little different. Indeed the new characters were funny. The linking of the 'real' world with the Island of Sodor along with the mix of live action people in Thomas's world worked well. We could even put up with Thomas speaking with an American accent, but as for the overall movie
.
I've seen a lot of children's movies in my time, but never have I seen such a mess as this. The story was horrendously complicated. Loads of scenes or bits of dialogue served no purpose but to confuse the viewer. A crude voice over narration tried to link together the pieces of an astonishingly fragmented plot. Big name stars Peter Fonda and Mike Baldwin were completely out of place, clearly not knowing what they were doing. And worst of all, it was nearly all 'human' action with disappointingly few shots of Thomas and his friends.
I could on with hundreds of illustrations about how fragmented the plot was, but I'd spoil what little plot there is. Your children have probably already decided for you whether you're going on not. But I warn you, even my six year old said "They seemed to miss bits of the story out".
Gladiator (2000)
Disappointed by this 'Epic', but liked the human interest.
I went expecting this movie to 'bring back the epic' to the cinemas. I was disappointed.
Am I along in thinking the CGI work was poor. The CGI snow looked like soap flakes poured down in front of the screen. Why didn't any settle on the actors? The 'long shots' and 'aerial fly-bys' of the city seem straight out of the remade Star Wars movies. The CGI tigers in the Coliseum seemed blurred.
The plot is so clichéd it's breathtaking! We've all seen Ben Hur, we want something different! And the number of times the emperor could have killed Maximus off, it was like a 60's Batman episode when the baddy always want's Batman to die in an interesting way.
I won't list the continuity errors.
However I did like the highly stylised fight scenes. The portrayed the violence without too much gore.
I also liked the explosive tension in the relationships between the three main characters. Portraying a mad emperor is hard, but Joaquin Phoenix managed astonishingly it well.