Reviews
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008)
Better than the original
I thought that the first Madagascar had promising characters and a decent premise, but it was very poorly put together. My son, who was 8 or 9 at the time loved the movie, however. We saw the sequel this morning and we both agreed - it was much better than the original. And, since part II begins with a brief summary of part I, there is no need to see the first one to understand what's happening in the new movie. All the main characters are back and there are many new ones as well. Going in, the big question on my mind was "do the penguins play a bigger role in the sequel?"... answer is "Yes, but not much bigger". All in all an enjoyable movie that outshines it's predecessor!
Speed Racer (2008)
better than I expected
I took my son to see this on Saturday. When I saw the running time I was filled with dread and I brought the Ipod in case of boredom. Well, I'm happy to report that the Ipod stayed off for the entire film.
Considering the source - a cheaply made cartoon from the 60's that was intended for 8 year old boys - this was an entertaining movie with a very cool "look". The acting was reasonably good and Christina Ricci was a beautiful mix of innocent/sexy!
BTW, I'm not really a fan of the Wachowski brothers - I liked the original Matrix, but thought the sequels stunk. Have not seen V yet - guess I need to get out more!
Meet the Robinsons (2007)
Could have been much better.
This was an "ok" movie about an orphan with a nice theme/message, but it could have/should have been much better. Some of the things that bothered me: Many ideas and characters were stolen...er..."borrowed" from other sources. Some examples: Lewis: A cute young Boy Genius..hmm. Anyone ever heard of Jimmy Neutron? Singing frog: hmmm.... directly taken from the Warner Brothers singing frog mascot. Traveling through time and making changes in your past can make you disappear.... very reminiscent of a little movie called "Back to the Future". There were many other such instances, but as I didn't take notes, I can't remember them all. But you get the picture.
In addition, when you "Meet the Robinsons" family, the scene is very odd and disjointed. My girlfriend said it felt like a "drug flashback" (not that she would know).
I will say that there were a few funny moments, but a lot of jokes just did not work for me. Thankfully, there were no f*rt jokes (a rarity these days). The animation was pretty good but nothing groundbreaking.