Ed's Review Dot Com

Blue Yonder Films, GRF Productions, Jon Shestack Productions,

Brendan Fraser, Sarah Jessica Parker, Jessica Alba, Jane Lynch, Craig Robinson, William Shatner, Sofía Vergara, Rob Corddry, Ricky Gervais, Jonathan Morgan Heit, Chris Parnell, George Lopez, Steve Zahn

Far away in outer space is Planet Baab, where a population of blue aliens crave excitement and adventure. Their hero is Scorch Supernova (Brendan Fraser) who heads out into danger time after time, and is rescued by his nerdy brother Gary (Rob Corddry). But when Scorch decides to head out to the “dark planet” Planet Earth, Gary wants nothing to do with it. Earth has a history of ships that have gone in to explore and never returning, and no one has ever escaped the planet. Scorch insists to the brothers break up their team, and Scorch heads out on his only into a giant trap. Now Gary will have to head out to try to save Scorch or die trying.

This animated space adventure is a lot like many other of the same genre with either earthlings going into outer space to be captured by aliens or aliens coming to earth and getting trapped here. In fact, this is not far off a feature length “Marvin the Martian” cartoon from vintage Warner Bros. But it’s charming and funny, and does a few twists and turns that keep it interesting. In that respect, it’s a little like Men In Black where there is a whole world going on around us of which we normal humans are not even aware. It’s not highly cerebral, of course, but kids will love it, and this may be a pretty decent animated film that families can enjoy together. I didn’t pay to watch this film in the theater, as I was very willing to wait till it was out on DVD, but now that it is, I am glad I watched it. Though not the greatest animated film ever made, it’s certainly cute and funny enough to pass some time with the kids and enjoy the humor. I enjoyed this film.

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DreamWorks Animation,

Nicolas Cage, Ryan Reynolds, Emma Stone, Catherine Keener, Cloris Leachman, Clark Duke

The Croods is a stone-age family in a time that’s tough on stone-age people. One by one their friends and neighbors have come to a tragic end, but The Croods are still around due to the diligence of Grug (Nicholas Cage) who teaches his family to “never not be afraid”. The family is not allowed to go outside the cave except in broad daylight and as a group, but never at night. But daughter Eep (Emma Stone) is a free spirit and is really tired of being in the cave all the time. But the world is changing as the continents are dividing and when their cave is destroyed, the family has no choice but to leave their home and head off to safer places. It’s a long journey, but one filled with adventure, new friends, and exciting discoveries.

This is the latest film from the Dreamworks folks who brought us Shrek and the Ice Age series and many other films. This one is a really funny family comedy adventure, and is extremely well done. The humor is really good. There are so many really good gags here, that I found myself laughing out loud numerous times along with the audience. I was interested in the story and the fascinating characters. The little kids loved this movie, and my grandson watched it twice already. But the older folks enjoyed it just as much as it was really a crack up. I didn’t expect a lot from this film based on the previews, and I was prepared to be disappointed, but on the contrary I was very pleasantly surprised. It was an excellent animated film.

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Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures Animation

Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Fran Drescher, Steve Buscemi, Molly Shannon, David Spade, Ceelo Green, Jon Lovitz, Brian George, Luenell, Chris Parnell, Jackie Sandler

Dracula (Adam Sandler) is an overprotective Dad to daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez). He protects her from the evil humans who hate all monsters. But he’s also the owner and runs the Hotel Transylvania, a place for monsters of all shapes and sizes to go to have a wonderful vacation without the prejudices of the world. It’s all in jeopardy though when human, Jonathan (Andy Samberg) arrives at the hotel and is instantly smitten with Mavis. Mavis is dying to see the human world, so when a human shows up she’s immediately attracted to him too, but having a human in the hotel can bring their whole world smashing down.

This animated film is by far the best of the horror cartoon films this year. Much better than ParaNorman, and infinitely better than Frankenweenie, this film is really funny! The jokes are fast and furious. Sandler put together a great cast of comedians, and set them free to make a really funny film. One thing that I appreciated was that it has some classy humor for the big folks so that it’s not boring in the least, but it’s got enough funny happenings and plenty of story for the kids, featuring funny versions of all the classic monsters, to keep the kids interested. This is, in my opinion, the best film of the bunch for the whole family.

Excellent writing, this is an interesting story, and an animated film for the whole gang. I recommend this one!

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Blue Sky Studios,

Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Nicki Minaj, Aubrey Graham, Jennifer Lopez, Queen Latifah, Aziz Ansari, Joy Behar, Peter Dinklage, Keke Palmer, Josh Peck, Simon Pegg, Seann William Scott, Wanda Sykes, Patrick Stewart, Heather Morris, Rebel Wilson, Josh Gad

A catastrophic event sends Manny (Ray Romano), Diego (Denis Leary) and Sid (John Leguizamo) drifting away from Ellie (Queen Latifa) and the rest of the herd. They’re trying to work their way back when they are captured by bloodthirsty pirates. After escaping they try to steal the ship and make the long trek back home in this 4th installment of the Ice Age series of animated films.

I will admit that I was never a big fan of the Ice Age movies, not even the first one. I just didn’t get into the characters, nor the story from the beginning, although several of them I have tried to watch multiple times. So it was with a bit of trepidation that I went into this one. I stared at it in the “new releases” before finally deciding to give it a try and put it in my queue. Well, I was not surprised to come to the realization that I’m just tired of this story. Through about seventeen “Land Before Time” straight to video sequels, I didn’t find myself as bored as I was through Continental Drift. In the very beginning we’re treated to another round of that stupid squirrel trying to get his acorn and starting the earth to break up and the continents to split apart. Trouble is that unlike Luxor the Lamp from Pixar or Tinkerbell and the castle from Disney films, they aren’t just a mascot that appears during the opening seconds. We’re instead treated to a mini cartoon with this hysterical (not) creature chasing an acorn. Now Wile E Coyote was a one trick Road Runner chaser, but they were very original and were fun to watch. But this mini cartoon to introduce the film was completely shown in the trailer, so it was absolutely nothing new to see in the movie. I realize that they always do that, but it’s always annoyed me for some reason. (I just watched Wreck-It Ralph again in the bargain theater because my Grandson wanted to see it again, and watched with pleasure the opening cartoon about the guy and girl and the paper airplanes that was as fresh this time as the last time.) But I had seen the trailer for IA4 so many times that I know that bit about the core of the earth too well to enjoy watching it again.

The story is typical of Ice Age films, and a lot like the rest, and also a lot like other animated stories (like Happy Feet Two for example) but just left me disappointed. This has been a rough week, as I faced both Frankenweenie and this one in the same week. Of the two, I’d choose this one, but not by much. Now I must say that the younger folk won’t mind so much that the story is so similar. I have grandkids that have watched Monsters Inc and Finding Nemo hundreds and hundreds of times! The kids will enjoy the action and the animated characters just fine, and if you have a little one to entertain, you can put this on and they’ll love it. I don’t condemn the film, but just feel for me I’ve worn out the concept and I doubt I’ll be watching Ice Age 5 when it’s sure to come around. When it was over, I just said, “Eh!” and shrugged my shoulders. Not awful but just not very exciting.

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Walt Disney Pictures, Tim Burton Animation Co., Tim Burton Productions

Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short, Martin Landau, Charlie Tahan, Atticus Shaffer, Winona Ryder, Robert Capron, Conchata Ferrell, James Hiroyuki Liao, Tom Kenny

Victor Frankenstein is a young boy with a dog named Sparky who is very interested in science and the upcoming science fair at school. Sparky is hit by a car and is killed, but young Victor brings him back to life by a stroke of lightning. He tries to keep it a secret, but as the family, the neighborhood, and finally the whole town finds out about it, everyone, it seems, wants a part of the poor boy. This black and white cartoon is a homage by “Master or Weird” Tim Burton (director) to the original Frankenstein legend and particularly the original film.

Ok, so I get it that Mr. Burton does weird cartoon stories (The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Corpse Bride, etc.), and that he’s very creative in his own way. I even like a lot of his work. But I was left flat by this film. I think it’s pretty dark and probably pretty boring for young kids and will probably frighten them, and I don’t think there is enough meat and potatoes for anyone older. It seems like the story is just lacking so much. A couple jabs at Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Young Frankenstein, and the Rocky Horror Picture Show, there’s not much else going on here. It just seems they took a short story and turned it into a long, short story. I found a lot of it boring, and it lacked anything to hold my interest. Now I know that true Burton fans will adore his work, and I know people will be claiming that I totally missed his genius in the story, and the whole point went over my head. It’s that it’s too artsy and I’m just too unsophisticated to realize how genius it is. Well, I call that the emperor has no clothes, and that it was a good idea, and a nice attempt to pay tribute to the original, but simply more work needed to be put into it to develop the story a bit past this superficial thing we got. It could have been so much better, but it doesn’t have near the depth of his other works. Even Burton’s Edward Scissorhands, although one really weird story, has a lot more depth and detail than this story does. Certainly not up to the other cartoon fantasies he has developed, it just left me wanting a lot more and feeling I’ve been had. There have been a lot of comparisons to Paranorman. Paranorman wins hands down!

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog