Ed's Review Dot Com

NWave Pictures, Serengeti Entertainment, Atlantic Productions,

Tim Allen

Rex (Tim Allen) the penguin has been off at sea for three years learning how to catch fish and avoid predators. Now it’s time for him to return to Penguin City and find a mate and settle down. But according to the laws of nature, when the egg is lain, the male must stand over and keep the egg warm all winter while the female heads out to sea to gorge herself with fish. This is the story of a year in the life of the penguins (particularly Rex) watching his egg and raising his child.

This film has some of the best nature footage I have seen. It’s certainly very high quality and very instructing and very entertaining. Seeing this in IMAX 3-D would have been wonderful. But there is a problem. Well, perhaps it’s a problem, but the narration is by Tim Allen who is a really great guy and a good actor, but it’s a voice over of everything from Rex’s point of view. The problem is that they fall into the trap of making up a story that probably has nothing in the world to do with real king penguins. It is really cutesy, with lots of made up thoughts that is really very childish. On the other hand, this might be really good for young children who could learn a lot about the species while hearing an entertaining story along with it. It’s a bit like on one hand there is DisneyNature Bears, and on the other hand there is “Charlie the Lonesome Cougar”. For those of you who are not familiar, Disney sent out photographers into the wild to capture wildlife footage by the mile. With what they brought back (and truthfully I’m certain a lot of it was staged), they turned it into two types of features. On one hand they had Disney’s True-Life Adventures (the childhood version of the new DisneyNature films) which were very educational and really tried to show nature in natural terms, and Charlie, the Lonesome Cougar on the other hand was a childhood adventure made for the kids, and shown on the Disney Sunday night TV show in 2 parts. Both served a different purpose. This version of the film is the childish one, and it loses a bit, in my opinion, due to the silly dialog made up strictly for entertainment. But there is a lot of information here. Now, one final point. There is a European version of this film narrated by David Attenborough. I have included both previews below. His version “sounds” like the serious version I was looking for, but unfortunately that soundtrack was not available to me. It would be wonderful for them to provide both tracks to allow you to choose both. Perhaps that will happen in a release at some point. All in all, this was a good movie, and really a lot of fun to watch. I recommend it.

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Hanna-Barbera Productions, Warner Bros. Animation,

Frank Welker, Mindy Cohn, Grey Griffin, Matthew Lillard, Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Eric Singer, Tommy Thayer, Jennifer Carpenter, Garry Marshall, Penny Marshall

A horrible ghost starts haunting KISS World amusement park where the rock band KISS is set to play and have chased all the kids away . It looks like the park is going to close until the Mystery INC. gang show up to help, only to find that they’ll have to work with KISS themselves to find the cause of the haunting. That’s not a problem as the gang are major KISS fans anyway as they search to expose the cause of the haunting.

I was definitely not impressed a lot with this movie, although I have to admit I have never been a major fan of Scooby-Doo! in the first place. When my kids were small I used to watch a good many of them, but quickly found them to be all the same. Well this hour and a quarter Saturday Morning cartoon is a little longer, but follows the exact formula of everything else they have done. It’s a TV Animation direct to DVD film that was made, obviously, to make a buck or two from the Scooby and Shaggy fans out there, and it’s good for that. Also, bringing KISS into the mix means that they are able to take the same material that could be a 30 minute cartoon TV show and blow it up to 78 minutes by including many of the classic KISS songs. That is actually one of the highlights of the show as KISS still kicks butt after all these years. So fans are going to like it, but I’m not sure (unless you want to hear the KISS tunes) that the average joe like me is going to care for this very much. Just be aware when you go in that it’s not a feature film. It’s a TV Cartoon with long music breaks. If you don’t expect a lot, you won’t be disappointed.

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Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Animation Studios,

Jason Bateman, Ginnifer Goodwin, Shakira, Alan Tudyk, Katie Lowes, Tommy Chong, J.K. Simmons, Octavia Spencer, Idris Elba, Jenny Slate, Nate Torrence, Bonnie Hunt, Don Lake, Raymond Persi, Jesse Corti, John DiMaggio, Tommy ‘Tiny’ Lister

The animal kingdom has evolved. In the city of Zootopia, predators and prey live happily side by side with no animosity. Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) is a bunny, who dreams of becoming a real police officer in Zootopia and is anxious to leave the carrot farm of her parents and head out to the big city. After graduating highest in her class at officer’s school, Judy is assigned to parking detail. But when she insists on being give a chance at a missing persons case, with the help of her new found friend Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) to solve the case, she stumbles on a bigger problem, and ends up making a mess of it in this new feature from the Disney Animation team.

This is a very, very well done film. Using traditional animation in a wondrous way, Disney goes back to the truth that it’s not the beauty of the animation, it’s the depth of the story. This is one very well told story. It is similar, in a way, to lots of other tales of a youngster starting out trying to prove their worth with all the cards stacked against them, but this story is really enchanting and it pulls you right in to the heart of the matter. Never boring, I think this is a film that kids and grown ups are going to enjoy side by side. The writing is very good, and that, along with the excellent animation and good voice actors makes a good film. This is one of the better ones of the latest batch of kid’s animation, and one you should make sure the kids get to see. It has great values, good lessons, and yet is very entertaining. Judy is one of the neatest characters to come along in a long time. I highly recommend this movie for all ages. I promise you will absolutely love Speedy, the Sloth

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Roth Films, Universal Pictures,

Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron, Emily Blunt, Jessica Chastain, Nick Frost, Sam Claflin, Rob Brydon

Long before Snow White the kingdoms were run by the evil queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron) and her sister Freya (Emily Blunt). Freya was in love, but was betrayed and she become bitter and hateful. Her powers arrived and she had the abilities of snow and ice, and headed out to the North to find her own kingdom. Her soldiers would conquer the other kingdoms and bring the young people to her ice castle in the North where she trained them to be her army while outlawing love. But a young huntsman Eric (Chris Hemsworth), the best male warrior and Sara (Jessica Chastain) the greatest female warrior fell in love and found themselves banished while the sisters set out to conquer the whole land and each other in an all out war.

This is such a very well done film. The actors, all four leads, are all extremely accomplished actors in their own right, but together they make an assemblage that is spectacular to watch. The special effects are fantastic, and there’s humor (especially with a group of dwarfs the join the heroes to fight the war) and lots of action in the battle scenes. The settings are breathtaking, including the snow and ice effects and such. The story is very strong and a very fitting prequel to the fairy tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. This was a really well done film and one of the best I have seen in a long time. Along with Disney’s Jungle Book, this is a very stunning time for feature films. Be sure to see both of these two films. This was a great experience, and this is one of those films you got to see on a big screen. This is what is best about going to theater. You can’t help but enjoy a night out for a blockbuster experience like this. Be sure not to miss it!

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Fox 2000 Pictures, Regency Enterprises, Bagdasarian Productions,

Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler, Jesse McCartney, Jason Lee, Bella Thorne, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Tony Hale

Alvin, Simon, and Theodore, and their potential step brother are under the impression Dave (Jason Lee) has gone to Miami with his new girlfriend to propose to her breaking up their happy home. They decide to set out for Miami to try to stop it, but after getting thrown off the plane by an angry air marshall, the guys have to hit the road to try to get there in time, falling into lots of problems while being chased by the marshall who wants to take them in.

Some of the previous sequels have been pretty poor, but this one is surprisingly good. The story is clever and the songs are current hits. There’s no Chipettes here which is a good thing I think. The locations are fun, and the story is cute. We’re very familiar with the voices and the characters now, so we can just jump in and get rolling right away. The jokes are Chipmunk jokes, so they’re pretty corny, but all in all it’s a fun ride across the countryside. I am glad that they made this one, and I really enjoyed it. I can recommend this one as the least sucky of the whole recent bunch of Chipmunk flicks and it’s really a enjoyable experience. I liked it.

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