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Reviews
Your Highness (2011)
Supriseingly, Stupidly Good.....
I came into this movie with typical expectations considering the many negative reviews I had read about it from so called "Expert" reviewers. I must say I was happily surprised by this movie.
While this is a far cry from Oscar material by far, the movie itself had a surprisingly good story, characters that were likable and you actually cared about, and a musical score by Steven Jablonski that fit very well in almost every scene of the movie.
Mc Bride and Franco played off of each other very well, and while Franco's performance of the older and narrowly wiser brother was a bit over the top at times, it was played off of very well by Mc Bride repeatedly throughout the movie.
Zooey Deschanel was delicious as the ridiculously-naive-yet-sometimes-insightful princess to-be. Despite having not very many lines of dialogue, she lent a charmingly innocent dopiness to her character that not many others could have pulled off.
Natalie Portman was a real surprise in this picture, however she lent an incredible amount of flair and dangerous sexiness to the film thru her character. She took this role and made it her own and it can be seen in her subtle charm and dry wit throughout the film.
The only downside to this movie for me was the incredibly over the top blood and gore, it just seemed overused to me. And while it was mainly done in a tongue-in-cheek manner, it was there nonetheless and I felt the film suffered a bit for it.
And while the toilet bowl humor is a bit overdone at times, it mainly adds instead of detracting from the overall flavor and tone of the movie.
All in all I was surprisingly more entertained by this movie than I thought I would be. And it garners a decent rating from me.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Supriseingly Good for a Disneyland ride movie....
I have to admit going in to this picture I had some reservations. I mean how desperate has the movie industry become that they are driveing around Southern California looking for amusement park rides for story ideas. I grew up in Anaheim right next to Disneyland so I am intimately familiar with The Pirates of the Caribbean ride there. I have to say that thankfully though this movie only has passing resembleances to things that take place on the ride; instead chooseing (correctly) to use the ride as inspireation for almost a completely new story idea.
First off I have to say that the special effects were incredible, of course what could you expect but the best from ILM. I dont think i've seen a movie in the past year where they dident have some part in the special affects in the movie if needed.
The movie itself was supriseingly rather well paced. I dident realize untill I got home that the movie was over 2 hours long, there simply are no slow spots in the movie, and certainly nothing you'd start thinking about sneaking out to get some popcorn over so you better come in with all the goodies you want for those 2 hours because your not going to want to leave.
The story is amuseing in enough places to make the movie generaly classed as a comedy along with the action/adventure/fantasy tag but it somehow manages to roll all this into one without boreing the audience.
It's sappy in some places, but comidicly so instead of being weepy. And the romantic sub-plot is goofy enough to be funny but romantic enough to be beliveable, and above all fairly original.
The only reason I don't rate this movie a 10 is I dident leave it with the heart pounding intensity of being totaly drawn into the movie and the story it represents, but to be honest this dosent seem to be the intention of the movie at all. Instead it comes off as a light hearted romp thru the imagination of someone who's probably been on the ride at Disneyland one too many times. :)
There are a few nods to the ride itself also, specificly 3 or 4 places where scenes from the movie could have been cut directly out of the ride, but it comes off more as an homage to the ride origin of the story itself instead of the movie relying on peoples familiarity with the ride to support it.
There is also an amuseing bit at the end that I wont spoil here you can click on the side bar under "Crazy Credits" to see exactly what it is but it's probably the only part of the movie that shamelessly plugs the possiblility of a Part II if the movie goes in that direction.
All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 (1996)
Uniquely Bad Sequel to a Decent Movie
All Dogs go to Heaven was a quirky, funny movie; With good name talent who's voices lended an adult familiarity to a cartoon basicly for kids. It was just interesting enough to be likeable by adults aside from something good for the kids to watch.
Unfortunately ADGTH2 is a valueless sequel trying to make a bit of cash rideing on the coattails of the first. Charlie Sheen is a passable replacement for Burt Reynolds in this second movie and Sheena Easton's voice in a few of the movies lovely but forgettable songs makes her a worthwhile pick as a co-star for this. Add Dom DeLuise from the first movie and you'd think this would be a decent mix to make this sequel at least relatively decent compared to the first one.
Unfortunately even with the addition of other good voice actors such as Bebe Neuwirth in the horrible role of Anabelle, this movie cannot be saved from the atrocious production values and animation skills (or lack thereof) present all over this movie. Horrible editing, syncronization of the voices, and flat out spaces where characters mouths should be moving to dialouge but are not combine to make this movie look like a college interns animation project instead of the decent sequel it could have been.
All in all i'd say unless you were a very big fan of the first movie i'd give this a very large PASS.
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
The Greatest Space Saga in the Universe Continues......
This movie is absolutely awesome. The special effects are excellent and the continuation of the story seems much deeper and meaningful this time around. Seeing the developing life of Anikin kept me rivited for the whole movie. I loved it. :)