Ice Age:The Meltdown:movie review

***/*****
Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006) / Animation-Comedy

MPAA Rated: PG for some mild language and innuendo
Running Time: 90 min.

Cast (voices): Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Queen Latifah, Seann William Scott, Josh Peck, Will Arnett, Jay Leno, Joseph Bologna, Alan Tudyk
Director: Carlos Saldanha
Screenplay: Peter Gaulke, Gerry Swallow

It's rare for a sequel to be on par with the original film, but Ice Age: The Meltdown is, thankfully, not a letdown. It's also less dark than the first entry, and doesn't carry the baggage of having to introduce the characters and scenario, which allows for a more free-flowing and buoyant effort. This one's an easy recommendation: if you liked Ice Age, you'll probably like this one, and if you didn't, you probably won't. I liked the original modestly, and came away with the same feeling here, although both have their share of weaknesses and lulls.

At the very least, at least you can't say that this film is bogged down by excessive plotting. As the ice of the dam surrounding the valley where our protagonists live begins to melt and break down, it becomes apparent that a flood of cataclysmic proportion threatens all life there. As the creatures begin their mass exodus to get to the other side, Manny (voiced by Ray Romano, Eulogy), the hapless mammoth, begins to lament the fact that he maybe the last surviving member of his species. His fears are allayed somewhat when he encounters a female mammoth named Ellie (Latifah, Beauty Shop), although he has a hard time convincing her that they need to keep their kind alive, especially as she believes herself to be a possum.

Ice Age: The Meltdown will probably fit the bill for the intended audience of young children, most of whom just enjoy seeing funny talking animals and lots of silly, high-energy slapstick. Adults will probably be mixed in their enjoyment, but if it keeps the young ones quiet for 90 minutes, at least they will have a pleasant experience outside of the movie itself. As with most current animated fare, there is an emphasis on fast-paced, frenetic action, which can be a bit hard to take for those that don't enjoyed frenzied, noisy films.

There are plenty of sight gags, and the usual mirth and mayhem, although they are mild in humor value, as the Ice Age series has run mostly on charm and affability, rather than on catchy zingers and genuine wit. Although many of the scenes are aimed at children, there is some mild innuendo that will keep the adults in the audience tuned in. This is the kind of film you go to for some escapism and a pleasant time, and along those lines, I suppose one can call The Meltdown a successful venture.

While this isn't nearly the caliber we might expect from a Pixar release, it's better than other recent 3D animated efforts, strictly for audiences that like these sorts of cutesy, computer-generated comedies. Top-notch production values help.

Source:http://www.qwipster.net/iceage2.htm

Scary Movie 4:movie review

SCARY MOVIE 4
RATING 2.5
(Director: David Zucker, PG-13, 88 min)


The scariest thing about this is that they’re still making these sequels (even if they promise this 4th edition is the final chapter of the "trilogy"). But as long as there is an audience who’ll pay money to go see these spoofs, we’ll continue to get a new version every couple of years. The good thing is that this is an improvement over the last couple of installments; the bad thing is that wouldn’t take much.

In this go round, the movie opens with Shaquille O'Neal and Dr. Phil having a Saw moment. Then the story settles down into a combination of The Grudge meets War of the Worlds – Cindy (Anna Faris) returns as a home caregiver for the nearly comatose Cloris Leachman and the ghost-kid hanging around the house. She lives right next door to Tom Ryan (Craig Bierko) who is trying to reconnect with his kids, hook up with Cindy, and save the world from invading aliens – when he’s not busy visiting Oprah (Debra Wilson) to dance on her couch and proclaim his love for Cindy.

This franchise doesn’t just spoof the horror films (probably because they need more material). To incorporate more movies into the mix, Cindy has a Million Dollar Baby flashback, while Tom’s friend Mahalik (Anthony Anderson) fondly remember his fishing trip a la Brokeback Mountain. Then Cindy learns she can get the answer to the alien problem if she and her old friend Brenda (Regina Hall) go to visit the set of The Village and speak to the one with the answers (Bill Pullman).

Some old characters return for a brief cameo (and a paycheck) including Carmen Electra (who gets to have the embarrassing toilet humor moment), Leslie Nielsen as President Harris, and Charlie Sheen as Tom Logan.

Scary Movie 4 starts with some promise – sure, it’s like sketch TV, but at least it’s SNL in the good years. Unfortunately, when it starts to fall apart, it takes a dive, then falls so fast the g-forces shock the audience into silence (no wait, they just got quiet because it stopped being funny). There aren’t even outtakes or any fun stuff during the credits to leave on a good note.

source:http://www.themoviechicks.com/early2006/mcrscarymovie4.html

V FOR VENDETTA:Movie reviews

***1/2/*****
V FOR VENDETTA

by Pete Vonder Haar
(2006-03-18)
2006, Rated R, 132 minutes, Warner Bros.

Famously disowned by creator Alan Moore (who, it should be noted, behaves towards every film adaptation of his works in the same way) and held back from release following 2005’s London subway bombings (for more “tweaking,” according to producer Joel Silver), this 20-year old story of a masked terrorist who does battle with the government of a fascist future Britain finally comes to theaters. Written by the Wachowski brothers and directed by Wachowski crony James McTeigue, it’s understandable that people might fear more of the same ridiculousness that permeated the “Matrix” sequels.



Happily, that’s not entirely the case. The core of Moore’s original tale – England as a security state, where news is generated by the government and undesirables (be they sexually, racially, or politically so) have long since been “removed,” their disappearance blamed on external forces. The lone challenger to the regime is a strange man in a mask with a penchant for quoting Shakespeare.




In this pleasant setting we’re introduced to young Evey Hammond (Natalie Portman) just as she is about to be assaulted by several of the government’s internal security agents (unfortunately referred to as “Fingermen”). However, before anything untoward takes place, a mysterious fellow in a Guy Fawkes mask appears. He explains, in a lengthy and obnoxiously alliterative soliloquy, that his name is “V,” right before he kills the three men and spirits Evey to the rooftops so she can watch while he blows up the Old Bailey.




V, in a happy coincidence, also temporarily takes over the TV station where Evey works, announcing his presence and telling everyone he’ll be blowing up Parliament as well in a year’s time. Evey is implicated in the incident and goes into hiding as well, learning more and more about V’s motivations and goals. Finally – in one of the larger plot developments retained from the comic – she is forced to choose between giving up her life and protecting his. Meanwhile, the police (led by a suitably bedraggled Stephen Rea) attempt to track V down before he can make good on his promise.




Although the marketing for “V for Vendetta” relies heavily on the fact that this is from “the creators of ‘The Matrix’ trilogy,’ there’s surprisingly little of the expected wire fu and CGI shenanigans that helped make the second and third “Matrix” movies nigh unwatchable. Aside from a handful of fight scenes (only one of which evokes any serious eye-rolling), the Wachowskis actually seem to have given serious effort to telling a story, and not taking three movies to do it.




Of course, this is still a 2-hour adaptation of a wordy, 300-page comic book. Much of the subtlety and ambiguity of Moore’s original work had to be abandoned in favor of unlikely coincidences and plot conveniences. And, as with any Hollywood version of revolution, the film makes the assumption that every oppressed citizen is actively skeptical of their own government, can see through its propaganda, and is eager to take up active resistance. Quaint, but depressingly unrealistic.




Despite the fact that “V for Vendetta” has been bouncing around with different studios for some time, there’s no denying that the finished product was created with the war in Iraq and the ongoing domestic debate concerning wiretaps and shrinking civil liberties in mind. In that respect, it’s one of the first major Hollywood films to take such an overt anti-Bush stance. Certainly there have been a number of documentaries and subdued flicks like “Good Night and Good Luck” casting their stones at the Bush Administration, but the parallels between the Orwellian future onscreen and today’s chilly domestic political climate can’t be denied, and the Wachowskis are far from delicate in their rhetoric.




Finally, when I reviewed the movie “Constantine” (about another Alan Moore creation, humorously enough), I did a version for fans of the comic as well as those seeing the movie cold. This was mostly because I’m a huge fan of that character, and the tactic won’t be repeated here. While I can see the places where the Wachowskis kept Moore’s story and the (many) places where they just ignored it, I think they’ve done as decent a job as can be expected in making the story accessible to a wider audience. With its emphasis on dialogue and political machinations over explosions and kung fu fighting, it remains to be see whether or not “V for Vendetta” will actually find one.


Source:http://www.filmthreat.com/index.php?section=reviews&Id=8807

Silent Hill:Movie Review

***/*****

SILENT HILL
Director: Christophe Gans
Cast: Radha Mitchell, Laurie Holden, Sean Bean, Deborah Kara Unger, Tanya Allen, Jodelle Ferland, Kim Coates, Alice Krige
(TriStar, 2006) Rated: R
Release date: 21 April 20

by Cynthia Fuchs
PopMatters Film and TV Editor

It's Close to Midnight

Rose (Radha Mitchell) loves her little girl more than words can say. And more often than not, she's reduced to base expressions of that affection. Take the start of Silent Hill, where Rose appears in mid-panic, running after Sharon (Jodelle Ferland), a longtime sleepwalker who has wandered off into the night, leading her mom on a wild chase across the highway through a nearby stretch of scary woods, and finally to the edge of a cliff that features an odious waterfall. Rose yells "Sharon!" and "Wait for mommy!" repeatedly as she scurries over this bizarre terrain while dressed in her sleepwear -- short shorts and skimpy undershirt -- bounding in front of oncoming traffic and leaping across ridiculous heights, and reaching the girl just in time to save her from plunging into the thrashing water below.

Phew. Or... maybe not so phew. This opening scene sets up the film's fundamental troubles. Long on atmosphere, it's way short on cunning or beguiling. It's also short on sense, which may be a function of a submerged plot point, that everyone is dead and all that you see here is a series of unattributed hallucinations. Perhaps the simultaneously obscure and derivative plot (screenplay credited to the usually smart Roger Avary) has to do with its basis in a video game. And maybe its lumbering pace and awkward editing -- which hardly match up with director Christophe Gans and editor Sébastien Prangère's previous, strangely elegant collaboration (Brotherhood of the Wolf) -- result from some other, unknown influence (whether studio or otherworldly, the effect is the same).

Following its moody, unfathomable start (why are Rose and her husband Chris [Sean Bean] living near a cliff if they know Sharon sleepwalks? Why are doors unlocked?), Silent Hill offers a briefly incoherent sunshiney-idealy respite: sitting beneath a tree in a lovely open field, Rose tells Sharon they'll be on the road, looking for Silent Hill, the name a town in West Virginia Sharon pronounces during her sleepwalking adventures. Somehow, Rose imagines, going to this place will solve her adopted daughter's trauma. They both close their eyes and maybe they fall asleep, to suggest that what follows is a dream; or they're both already dead from the first scene, and what follows is set in some terrible purgatory.

The drive to Silent Hill is utterly ooky, punctuated by Chris' frantic phone calls to Rose, imploring her not to go -- as he looks up on the town's history on the net and discovers it's actually closed down, owing to an ongoing coal mine fire beneath the ground. (Somehow, Rose missed this tidbit during what you might presume was her own research.) En route, Rose draws the interest of motorcycle cop named Cybil (Laurie Holden), who wears one serious pair of skintight shiny britches and black knee-high boots, not to mention her helmet and large handgun. Cybil seems equipped to deal with whatever comes her way, but of course, she's not, because what does come her way makes no sense. To start, when she tries to pull Rose over on the highway, Rose guns her Jeep and heads off down a dark and windy road marked "Silent Hill," crashing through a large metal fence while instructing her understandably screaming daughter to hang on.

The town itself is as creepy and confused as any of this lead-up intimates (and it's actually full of noise, as opposed to silence), with weather ranging from dreadful downpours to pervasive ash-in-the-air, sometimes night, sometimes day. As Rose has been knocked out by her car crash, and wakes to find Sharon missing from the car, she spends the rest of the film trying to find her daughter, wandering desolate streets and occasionally running into dread-headed Dahlia (Deborah Kara Unger), another mother of a missing daughter. (Again, the waking in this perverse place suggests Rose might not actually be awake, but again, it doesn't much matter.)

While Rose persists in her pursuit of resolution (or something), Chris heads toward Silent Hill as well, where he's stopped by a police inspector, Gucci (Kim Coates), who has found the wife's Jeep and agrees to bring Chris along to search for her. Gucci tells some spastic story about the town's coal fire, the "hellish" day in 1974, when "people were dying and disappearing." (You might think that weirdly poetic and unspecific description, coming from a cop, would worry Chris, but no.) Gucci's dad died that day, but that doesn't quite explain his efforts to keep Chris in the dark. Then gain, "the darkness" is pretty much a character here, literally "coming" at certain times and scaring the occasionally-appearing inhabitants into a church, where they gather to "pray," which means chant and moan and hate on everyone outside.

Sharon also appears intermittently, running through hallways or leading Rose on lengthy chases down dark alleys and into grim basements (at points the music soundtrack turns grindy industrial, at other times bland metal). Conveniently discovering a lighter in her pocket and a series of flashlights that always light up, Rose comes on a number of oddballs, some with miners' gear and a canary in a cage, some seeming boneless or reminiscent of the scary screamer in Aphex Twin's "Come to Daddy," others marching in jaunty-out-of-joint step as if they've emerged from "Thriller" (If only Vincent Price might have provided voiceover explanations). Sometimes their skin flies off like its burning, sometimes they spew bloody-seeming goo. One particular victim-monster has his head tied to his feet, and kind of scoots along the floor as if menacing Rose, who screams bloody murder while standing still and holding her flashlight -- again, miraculously working -- on her ostensible assailant, who actually never quite makes it very far, seeing as he's all tied up and bent.

Even if you decide to go with Silent Hill's not-making-sense premise (which is, really, fine, as the mindscape here is plainly nightmarish and so not bound by physical or emotional logics), the film slips another mickey into its narrative cocktail. And that would be Christabella (Alice Krige, still looking a lot like the Borg Queen), leader of a kind-of cult inhabiting Silent Hill. Self-identified witch-burners, they announce to Rose that she, Sharon, and Dahlia's missing girl are all witches and must be burned in order to maintain their own "purity," whatever that can possibly mean, as they do all resemble ghouls and corpses.

The hordes of folks reciting and grabbing at Rose and Sybil (who shows up to do some ineffective shooting with her big gun) make for a familiar nightmare image, as do Christabella's invectives: "We fight the demon," and "We drew a line in the sand." Barbed wire grows up from a hell-hole below the church floor (it's as if the Big Bad was re-making its appearance in Buffy), a previous victim appears looking burnt, bloody, and gooey, they burn a designated witch (whose skin yuckily melts and falls off). All the while, Rose keeps telling Sharon, "It'll be okay, baby." Er. No.

Eventually Christabella starts to sound a little too familiar, especially as Rose interprets her. Trying to win over the corpsey folks, Rose describes herself as coming from "a world outside," then explains, "This woman uses your fear to control you." This comes very late in the proceedings (which run 127 minutes), when your eyes are well-glazed over, and you might be forgiven for thinking maybe the movie has suddenly turned into a critique of the war on terror. Or maybe not.

source:http://popmatters.com/film/reviews/s/silent-hill-2006.shtml