Change Your Image
clairestruthers
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
The Jungle Book (2016)
Take some Ice Age and mix with Disney - contains no Kipling
If you are an aficionado of Rudyard Kipling, don't go anywhere near this infuriating mish-mash of sentiment and CGI bignoting. It is little more than a vehicle for Bill Murray, who lazily reprises his Garfield characterization - oddly, since he is on record as saying that the greedy cat was the biggest mistake of his career. Sorry, Mr. Murray - turning a smartassed fat feline into a smartassed blimp of a bear doesn't redeem you in any way.
The Disney cartoon has remained popular through the years because it doesn't pretend to be anything other than family entertainment with a good deal of humour and memorable songs, loosely based on the stories. This new effort cynically rips off the best-loved songs from the cartoon while masquerading pompously as the original - but it in fact twists the story of Mowgli yet again, taking it even further away from Kipling's uplifting tale of courage, family and friendship. Almost every element of this reworking differs from Kipling's stories, leaving you asking yourself why the heck the writers couldn't have just renamed the characters and the movie and pretended they'd made it all up themselves. Then again, they wouldn't have been able to capitalize on the Disney version.
Your kids will love it because it's full of cute animals, but I'd advise you spend the day with them at the zoo instead of wasting your time and money on this hokum.
Pan (2015)
Special effects and virtually nothing else
Well, okay, Hugh Jackman does make a very satisfying baddie, and the three points out of 10 my daughter and I have awarded are for him alone - the movie overall is about as unsatisfying as it gets. It's much too scary for younger children, and too tediously predictable and ridiculous for older ones and adults. Sure, the kids are cute and the special effects are amazing, but special effects alone don't cut it these days, and this movie is almost nothing but. The plot is slender and frankly daft - Oliver! meets Narnia meets Indiana Jones with a teeny bit of Peter Pan thrown in almost reluctantly. The love interests are yawnworthy, as is the sugary sentiment. Barrie would be spinning in his grave, particularly as Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, to which he left the royalties for any version of his immortal story, got precisely zilch for this movie because it is a prequel. All in all, a shocking waste of time and money.
Return to Nim's Island (2013)
Aaaaarggggh!!!
Apart from the presence of the wonderful Jodie Foster, the first Nim's Island had a well written, original plot with genuine tension and excitement. This sequel is a tedious, predictable load of trite nonsense, with cardboard cut-out characters, an almost complete absence of acting and plastic animals. Okay, the animals are real, but the sets are not. The plot (such as it is) is constructed entirely as a vehicle for Bindi Irwin, which ignores the unfortunate fact that Bindi could not act her way out of a three-sided room if she tried (which she doesn't, noticeably). She recites her lines as if from an autocue and has two stock expressions - sulky and slightly less sulky. Her love interest (eek - her character and his are aged 14!) is a rather more accomplished actor than she is, but presumably he had to audition for the part, while she obviously didn't. Matthew Lillard, who plays her father, never got out of first gear, and nor did the awfully naughty bad guys - who predictably got what was coming to them in the end (including, naturally, piles of bird poo on their heads). It was an afternoon I'll never get back, but at least I was able to catch up surreptitiously on Facebook ...
Santa Paws 2: The Santa Pups (2012)
Cutesy but likable
Well, first - hallelujah! This is a Christmas movie that actually mentions, if only obliquely, the REAL reason for Christmas! No, not jolly family get-togethers and being nice to strangers and animals, but Christ! Although, as I say, the mentions are very oblique and shouldn't offend any atheists.
Second - oops! Kids and adults alike will be confused by this movie. Kids will be confused because the little girl playing the lead role, Sarah (who has a dad), is the same actor who played the lead in the first Santa Paws movie - only in that one, she played an orphan called Quinn. Sarah looks precisely the same as Quinn (perhaps a year or so older), and has an absolutely indistinguishable character from Quinn (naive and cuuuuuute).
Adults will be confused because one of the three erstwhile sexy Charlie's Angels, Cheryl Ladd, plays a relatively glamorous but unmistakably matronly Mrs Claus.
Otherwise - the plot is predictable and clichéd, but bearable. And the pups, of course, are gorgeous. Oh - and this time, the majority of them (three out of four) are ... prepare for a shock ... FEMALE. Disney must finally be learning. Took them long enough ...
Brave (2012)
More like straight Disney than Pixar
The animation/effects were wonderful, the storyline just about lived up to the publicity (Pixar's first female lead - and no male lead at all - hurray!) ... but the humour - sadly lacking. A few flashes from Billy Connolly's character and Merida's mute little brothers, but that was it.
We don't expect much in the way of wit/irony from Disney, but we have learned to expect an extra layer from Pixar that just wasn't there. And that's why I left the cinema thinking "Is that it?" Age-wise, it would be okay for most kids from about eight upwards - but much of the film is very dark and ranges from quite spooky(with supernatural themes) to straight out scary.
Roll on Ice Age 4 and Madagascar 3 ...
Oh, and IMDb, I know you're American, but there is really no need to try to get me to correct perfectly good English spelling. Thank you!
Treasure Buddies (2012)
Enjoyable for a young child, and that's who it's made for!
I have only one question for parents who have reviewed this movie negatively.
Did your child enjoy it?
Thank you. Now go back and adjust your star rating, or just delete your comment.
The makers of this franchise are not going for Oscars, for heaven's sake, and they never were. Yes, the movie is obviously made in a studio - what do you expect, for it to be shot on location in Egypt?
I didn't mind it and my daughter loved it, and since I bought it for her, that's all I care about.