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Reviews
Scary Movie 4 (2006)
The funniest spoof since The Naked Gun 33 1/3
That may sound like an overstatement, but considering how crappy recent spoofs have been, it shouldn't. This will not become a classic like Airplane! (same co director) or Blazing Saddles. The first 30 minutes try so hard to get a laugh that it even borrows from some of Zucker's past films. While the rest of it may not be as funny as the classics I listed above, its definitely the funniest modern movie I have seen in a long time (Mind you, I haven't seen any of the other Scary Movies, so I wouldn't know if the previous are funnier).
All that said, there isn't really much of a plot here. It's pretty much a series of sketches spoofing The War of the Worlds, The Village, and Saw; all strung together to form a story line that isn't very coherent. Sometimes it basically copies a scene and throws in some fart jokes.
That's all I'm going to give away, as probably the reason that I enjoyed it so much is that I had not seen any trailers for this.
The Snow Queen (2005)
A Low Budget TV Adaptation (and it shows)
The Snow Queen is one of Hans Christian Andersen's best fairy tales. However, there has only been a few adaptations of it, and most are mediocre and childish. This is no exception.
The best thing about this TV special is the musical score; which is so beautiful and mystical it could have come from a classical music piece. I can't say the same for the rest.
This made-for-TV special looks like it was made by a group of college film students. I'm not too sure how much of this is 'real', because it looks like every shot has been superimposed over an Adobe photo edit. Even worse, the motion capture has a weird, jerky style of action that really detracts from any 'magic'. This is proof that CGI can give authentic looking dinosaurs, and encourage some of the shoddiest special effects ever shot.
The character development is so weak that neither sympathy, nor an understanding of personalities is felt. The story mainly skims and summarizes the plot of Andersen's fairy tale, giving the feel of headline news when compared to the original book.
I would normally give an adaptation like this a three, but considering that this is a one hour TV special, a 'major motion picture' style cannot be expected. This gets a four.