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Avatar

Rating:

Movie: Avatar(2009)

Studio : Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Info : Click Here

Runtime : 162 min

Website : Avatar

Trailer :http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xa8i7b

Review:

Avatar is a great movie with astonishing visual effects. The graphic features of the movie are awesome but the movie is not free from being flawless.

The story is based on Jake Sully who has been transferred to another planet known as Pandora. He is there to replace his brother after his death and if he succeeds to accomplish the mission the government will then restore his legs. Pandora is a place which is occupied by the race known as Na’vi and it is Jake’s task to get used to their way of living and subsequently remove them somewhere else. When this happens the humans would come and rule the planet. The planet of Pandora is a land filled with rich material and this is what Parker Selfridge is after.

Jake has the task to gain access to the Na’vi people while using the identity of an “avatar”. In the process to create his bond between the race and himself he meets Neytiri and falls in love with the attractive alien. At the same time the merciless Colonel tries extreme tricks and techniques with his military unit to drive the race out and calls for a battle with the aliens of Pandora.

The visual effects of the picture are really unbelievable. Avatar is about a new world and when you watch the movie you feel you enter their world for a short period of time. The actors have worked remarkably well and have portrayed their emotions on to the viewers. Zoe Saldanas depicts a great emotional character and for some reason Sam Worthington parades around with many different hairstyles throughout the movie.

The movie is not an original and unique story, it is not much different from what we have been seen in the past. Although the director has done a great job in putting the movie together the story is nothing special.

You can enjoy ‘Avatar’ if you have a great liking for artistic and heavy visual effects. If not then this movie is not made for you and you are better off doing things outside the theater. However if you decide to go for the movie turn off your mind and just keep your eyes open to watch the creativity in the making of Avatar and you will then certainly enjoy it.

Action, Adventure, In Theaters, Sci-Fi, Thriller avatar, avatar movie

Where the Wild Things Are

Rating:

Movie: Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

Studio : Village Roadshow Pictures

Info : Click Here

Runtime : 101 min

Website : Where the Wild Things Are

Trailer :http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8um1a

Review:

Returning to childhood is never as good as we may remember it. Spike Jonze brings us back to those days in his adaptation of a popular children’s book that probably has lost most of its original meaning in the process. I say “probably” because it has been so long since I have read it that I only remember the core pieces of the plot, which I’m sure Spike Jonze assumes of his audience as this movie is not really as much a family film as much as a painful return to nostalgic times perhaps best left in nostalgia.

If you plan on bringing a child with you to this film, I emphasize that this movie is sometimes wince-inducing, and even downright graphic. The monsters in the original story have become personal aspects of the boy, bringing with them the sing-song logic of children seen in tales like Alice in Wonderland rather than, say, the modern children’s films of the 90’s featuring a wisecracking child capable of outwitting and conquering adults in the real world.

In the end, this film feels like the end result of Calvin and Hobbes mixed with Lord of the Flies. Granted, while the film paints a bleak picture of a child’s fantasy gone wrong, it also makes it that much more powerful seeing the tenderness and pure love that can be found between the unintentional violence of this fantasy world and the real one.

I suppose if there is anything I could gripe about, it’s how incomplete the ending feels with loose strings and unresolved issues. But, in a way, it’s that incomplete nature that just reminds me of how much reality is like that, and I guess I have to credit Jonze in the end for it rather than criticize him.

-Donald Lee-

Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, In Theaters Where the Wild Things Are

9

Rating:

Movie: 9 (2009)

Studio : Relativity Media

Info : Click Here

Runtime : 81 min

Website : Official 9 Site

Trailer :http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7ty3i

Review:

I’ve seen burnt-out radioactive wastelands, cities crumpled to ashes from the lasers of flying saucers, jungle-clad skyscrapers of dead cities, and giant biblical meteors/volcanoes/global warming ready to take out 95% of the human population. Out of all the end-of-the-world scenarios I have seen, I did not expect to find a film that would center on a dead 30’s-era fascist empire, let alone one that was animated and has no steampunk elements in it.

Shane Acker’s vision is quite intricate right down to the very aperture blades of his protagonists’ eyes. Character designs for the film are fantastic and I spent a fair amount of time fascinated looking at the character models and the way they interacted with a lightly stylized but palpable end of the world. 9, as well as his eight aptly named automaton brothers and sisters, are the last known forms of sentient “life” in the world. When an arcane device reawakens what destroyed the world (no spoilers!), it is up to them to decide the fate of the world.

As you may tell, the plot is where you will probably find yourself underwhelmed. The acting is not great; that’s not to say it’s not bad either, it just feels very samey: like you’ve seen these character templates before in the same sort of film, complete with a few rehashed one-liners. I do admit to thinking that some characters were more memorable than others, like Martin Landau’s wise but inquisitive #2, but there was nothing really there to keep me interested in their roles.

Perhaps I’m jaded from these sort of movies, or I followed the hype more than I should have. This movie does fulfill a sweet tooth for the person with a taste for eye candy, but I could not really tell you much else that drew me to the film. In short: it’s this year’s Hellboy 2.

-Donald Lee

Adventure, Animation, Fantasy, In Theaters, Sci-Fi 9, Adventure, Animation, sci-fi, tim burton

Ponyo

Rating:

Movie: Ponyo (2009)

Studio : Studio Ghibli

Info : Click Here

Runtime : 103min

Website : disney.go.com/disneypictures/ponyo

Trailer :http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9nxls

Review:

Ponyo is the name of a fish that escapes to the world of men and befriends a young boy, Sosuke, who lives in a harbor town. Ponyo’s father disagrees with her interacting with the world of man and tries to stop her, and what results is a sort of modern fairy tale of young love.

It seems that after Studio Gibli mastered the use of integrating cgi into animation, Ponyo returns to an emphasis on hand-drawn cel animation. You can tell the difference from the unpolished feel of the art that makes it feel more homey and even enhances the storybook feel in certain parts.

I applaud the effort, but at the same time it feels like the animators have been out of touch with this medium for quite some time. While there are some amazing scenes that I am impressed at, a lot of the basic animation is, well… really basic! There is almost no consideration for integrating the characters with their backgrounds, and this difference becomes distracting. I may sound like I am being harsh on Miyazaki’s vision here, but compare this film to his earlier work like, say, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and you can tell that the same crack team that made such a detailed and interactive world is not there this time around.

For a story there really is not much of a tale here, either. There is a dramatic push in the film for some sort of climax, and it never really gets there. That’s fine that a film of this nature should have no sense of emergency, but the “danger” inherent in the story seems tacked on. Add this with an ending that feels rushed and you have one of the weaker films of the Miyazaki legacy.

Still, this may just be a stepping stone for him to return to those days in the past. His approach may have even been the encouragement behind Disney’s work on their newly anticipated film The Frog Princess, which touts a return to hand-drawn cel animation and so far looks visually stunning. In the meantime, I look forward to seeing Miyazaki’s next project in the hopes that he really pushes his vision back into this old medium.

-Donald Lee

Adventure, Animation, Family, Fantasy Adventure, Animation, Family, Fantasy, Hayao Miyazaki, ponyo