Arthur Christmas (2011) review

(9/10)

I didn't expect this to amount to as much as the critics made it out to be, but this really surprised me. I felt a certain sense of holiday joy I haven't sensed in a while.

PLOT:At the North Pole, things aren't all exactly as the media have made it out to me. In today's Christmas, the elves do most of the work, they use a big camoflauged spaceship, and it's all a steady-run computer operation. The current Santa (Jim Broadbent) and his elves run this year's mission practically flawless under the supervision of his son, Steve (Hugh Laurie), who is vying for the next Santa. However, the klutzy other son of Santa, Arthur (James McAvoy), stumbles upon a present forgotten and insists on taking it to this little girl. Santa and Steve both ignore the idea, but kind-hearted Arthur teams up with his Grandsanta (Bill Nighy), hitches up the reindeer to the old slay, and dashes into the night to deliver the missed present before the sun comes up. It's a good plot executed very greatly.



VOICES:The voice acting is pretty good. James McAvoy's voice could get annoying as Arthur's awkward British voice, but it actually fit his character rather well. Jim Broadbent did a brilliant job as Santa, and so did Bill Nighy as Grandsanta. The other shiners would be Hugh Laurie as Steve, Imelda Staunton as Mrs. Santa, and Ashley Jensen as Bryony, even though her voice acting is kind of like McAvoy's with Arthur.

SCORE:The score was mainly played for dramatic effect, but it was pretty good.

ANIMATION:This definitely wasn't the best animation I've seen, especially for being one of Aardman's production. It was computer animated instead of clay-animated, but it still held a certain precision and cleanliness.



OTHER CONTENT:This movie blew me away in some parts. This movie was wild, creative, and very emotional. This movie contained some very wild parts where it became funny and quirky, and it was also very creative with its thought process. The greatest high this has, however, is the emotional impact. This enhances the holiday emotion of getting up on Christmas morning as a child and feeling the magic of what you once believed to be Santa's joy. It will make you, if you have a warm enough heart, feel Christmas nostalgia toward your childhood. It was a really surprising outcome; I didn't expect it to be this much in-depth. However, this does have a noticeable shortcoming. The wackiness the humor in the story gives makes it a little unstable, like it's a children's movie that doesn't know what it wants. It's still a great, emotional holiday film either way.

OVERALL,an awesome Christmas movie with a great plot, good voice acting, good score, precision animation, wild humor, creative ideas, and a great holiday emotional impact, but it is a bit unstable for its own self

Dr. Suess' The Lorax (2012) review

(7/10)

I actually anticipated seeing this when it was first announced. It wasn't that bad! It's cute and very upbeat, but it does lose a lot.

PLOT:In the modern utopia of Thneedville, everything is fake and ruled by a greedy business man named Mr. O'Hare (Rob Riggle) who made big bucks selling fresh air due to lack of trees. Young Ted (Zac Efron) hears about these trees through his love interest, Audrey (Taylor Swift), and sets out to get one from her. His grandmother (Betty White) tells him to go to the Once-ler (Ed Helms), who knows everything about trees. Ted sneaks out of town to the barren wasteland outside and finds the Once-ler; this mysterious figure tells him the story of how the trees disappeard and the guardian of the forest that tried to help, The Lorax (Danny DeVito). It's a pretty good plot executed quite fairly.

 

VOICES:The voice acting was pretty great I'd say. Zac Efron actually did a pretty good job as Ted, but the true stars were Ed Helms as the Once-ler and Danny DeVito as The Lorax. Those two played pretty spectacular voicing parts and just played rather well of each other. The other shiners would be Betty White as Grammy Norma, Rob Riggle as Mr. O'Hare, and Jenny Slate as Ted's mom. Taylor Swift wasn't really bad as Audrey, but she just wasn't really special.

SCORE:The soundtrack in here is made up of many fun and catchy songs mainly made to get the kids going with some nice background score.

ANIMATION:The animation in here is the usual fun and colorful animation you see in any other of Suess' animated movies (Horton Hears a Who). It isn't extremely detailed, but pretty whimsical.



OTHER CONTENT:This movie wasn't as bad as others make it out to be. It's fun, cute, and has a good meaning around it. If nothing else wins you over, the overwhelming cuteness of it will. It does have a handful of flaws though. The Hollywood movie adaptation kind of took away the true emotion and lesson of it. Adding flash and pizazz to what's already meaningful doesn't add any new flavor to it. I also think it was kind of silly to make an entire movie centered around planting a tree; this doesn't mean I dislike the movie. I just think it worked better as a children's book. After all, at heart, this is just really another cute little kid's film.  It's not a bad one though.

OVERALL,a good children's movie with a good plot, great voice acting, fun and catchy score, colorfully whimsical animation, a lot of cuteness, and a good meaning, but the Hollywood flash took away most of the emotion and it seems a bit silly to make a whole movie on the subject of planting a tree.

Stephen King's The Shining (1997) review

(6/10)

This version may not be as scary, psychological, or popular as Kubrick's, but it stays to the book more accurately than Kubrick's ever did. However, it's still a typical TV miniseries.

PLOT:Jack Torrance (Steven Weber) is a former drinker with a wife named Wendy (Rebecca De Mornay) and a son named Danny (Courtland Mead). He's referred by his friend Al to a job as winter caretaker of the rich Overlook Hotel. Because he's in need of the money, he takes the job and his family up to the Hotel closing day. While there, they meet the cook, Dick Hallorran (Melvin van Peebles), who discovers that Danny has a certain power, known as the "shine", which can help him see the possible future and things his parents can't. Things start out fine for the Torrances until Danny senses via his imaginary friend, Tony (Wil Horneff), that the hotel has a mind of its own and wants Jack to be its permanent caretaker. Danny must avoid the hotel's tricks and keep his daddy from succumbing into the hotel's whims. It's a great plot executed fairly well.



ACTING:The acting in here was pretty good overall. Steven Weber played an excellent job as Jack Torrance. He wasn't as good as Nicholson in Kubrick's version, but he played a pretty accurate Jack. Rebecca De Mornay also played a pretty great part as Wendy Torrance, playing right off of Weber's lines. Wil Hornef played a supple role as Tony and the older Danny, but his lines and the execution kind of ruined it for him. Melvin van Peebles played an accurate part as the shining cook, Dick Hallorran, but he wasn't anything spectacular. The rest of the roles were hit-or-miss, but the worst performance in the whole miniseries was Courtland Mead as Danny Torrance. His childlike acting got annoying and unrealistic, which nearly ruined it all.

SCORE:The score didn't matter all that much, but it was spooky and intense. It set the mood rather well for this horror miniseries/movie.

EFFECTS:Aside from Mead's acting, this was the worst part of the miniseries. The computer-generated effects used to animate the ghosts appearing and the hedge animals moving was pretty bad and looked cheap and unrealistic. However, the make-up and blood effects weren't all that bad and actually worked pretty well.



OTHER CONTENT:This wasn't actually as bad as you'd expect it to be. It stayed reliable to the book, still was pretty scary, and had a decent emotional impact. This stayed way more reliable to the events in the book than Kubrick's star-studded version ever did. It captured nearly everything that his version missed. This one wasn't as scary as Kubrick's, however. It was still pretty spooky, I'd say, for a TV miniseries. This also had a pretty decent emotional impact toward the couple's marriage, the parental relationship, and the afterwards of the event. The con to this is that it's a TV miniseries; that in itself isn't a bad thing, but it has the feeling of one. The effects are cheap, the actors probably haven't had much work after this, the script was a bit flawed, and the execution had some major problems, especially with Tony's scenes. I believe this was a great attempt at rekindling the relationship between King and his book, but it is still just another TV miniseries/movie.

OVERALL,an ok TV movie with a fairly well-executed plot, pretty good acting, mood-fitting score, working make-up effects, reliability to the book, kept some scare, and had a decent emotional impact, but the lead child actor was annoying, the computer effects were bad, the script was flawed, and it had some major problems with execution.

Scrooged (1988) review

(6/10)

This wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It was fairly funny, freaky, and very modernized, but it's also shallow, bleak, and tacky.

PLOT:Frank Cross (Bill Murray) has been the manager of the IBC TV station for a while, and he's trying to make this year's Christmas special as can't-miss as possible. However, Frank is a shallow businessman who cares only about money and ratings for his Christmas. As he's preparing for the next night, Frank is visited by the dead apparition of his former boss, Lew Hayward (John Forsythe). He tells Frank that he will be visited by three ghosts starting at noon the next day. These ghosts are determined to change Frank's cold, greedy heart into a light, nice one in this modernized adaptation of the Dickens' story. It's a good plot executed fairly.



ACTING:The acting in here was alright for the most part. There were some bad performances and some good ones. Bill Murray mainly stole the role as Frank Cross, the Scrooge of this movie. He did a fine job. The other shiners would be John Forsythe as Lew Hayward, Karen Allen as Claire Phillips, John Glover as Brice Cummings, and David Johansen as the Ghost of Christmas Past. The rest were pretty sucky, I'd say.

SCORE:The score was mainly for dramatics, but it sounded pretty good. It wasn't anything special though.

EFFECTS:The effects in here are pretty good, I'd say. The effects used for make-up are pretty gruesome for each of the ghosts, and the effects used for the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come are pretty scary. The effects are used pretty well.



OTHER CONTENT:This wasn't too bad. It had a few good funny moments thanks to Murray's acting, it was pretty freaky, and it was a very modernized take for the time. I liked how they made everything scarier to make a better effect. It actually works in here thanks to the more mature audience and modernized society. However, this also brings on a few cons. This edition is much more bleak and depressing as compared to the others. The presence of the Christmas spirit is really hard to find until the end scenes. It just comes off as dry and overused. It also gets dreadfully chinsy and tacky near the end. I wouldn't use cheesy, because it's worse than that. It's not the best Christmas Carol, but it isn't horrible either.

OVERALL,an ok Christmas movie with a good plot, ok acting, unimportant score, good effects, a few funny moments, added scares that actually work, and more modern ideas, but it's more bleak and shallow from other Christmas Carols, and it gets pretty tacky near the end.

Prep and Landing (2009) review

(7/10)

ABC Family usually puts out some pretty crappy stuff, especially for Christmas, but this one isn't half bad.

PLOT:Everybody knows the story of Santa and how he gets to other kids' houses on Christmas Eve, but what we don't know is how he knows exactly whether it's  safe or not. This is the job of Santa's prep and landing crew. They test the waters and give the stats of the child's house the big guy's about to visit and put out the landing gear for him to hit each house. The lead elf of this division is Wayne (Dave Foley), who has been working it for over 200 years. When his partner gets a promotion instead of him and a new partner (Derek Richardson) gets placed in his midst, he falls into carelessness because he didn't get promoted. Because of him, the fate of everybody's happy Chistmas might be at stake. It is a very unique and modernized twist on Santa's flight story executed rather well.



VOICES:The voices chosen are very cartoonish and fit each personality perfectly. David Foley plays a pretty good leading role as Wayne, and Derek Richardson plays off of him rather well as Lanny. The other shiners would be Sarah Chalke as Magee and William Morgan Shepherd as the Big Guy.

SCORE:The score is mainly made up of random Christmas songs from the likes of Nat King Cole and others, with some dramatic score. It wasn't too important, but still pretty good.

ANIMATION:Since this is an ABC Family Christmas special, I expected the animation to be lazily done, but the animation was actual pretty intricate and detailed in a cartoonish way. The characters by themselves are no big deal, but the facial expressions made by the characters and their actions both expressed their emotions in a quite whimsical way. Then again, John Lasseter was in charge of some of it.



OTHER CONTENT:This is just a TV special, but it's really not half bad. Aside from the animation, it holds up a great Christmas spirit and some clever twists. The conflict that comes up in the middle puts an unexpected feeling of Christmas spirit and nostalgic feeling of childhood memories. The holiday humor in here is also pretty clever and funny, especially the holiday lingo used among the elves. Phrases such as "Totally Tinsel" and "Figgy Pudding" all make those aware of the references smile. However, this does have a few cons, as it is just a TV special. It's way too short, I believe. Clocking in at only 22 minutes, everything feels rushed and the attempted character development almost fails. Thanks to proper storytelling, everything is safe. I've noticed in rewatching this however, that it's quite cheesy with its dialogue as it is clever. It was purely for entertainment, but it did hold a supple amount of emotion, I'd say.

OVERALL,a good Christmas special with a unique plot, cartoonish voices, good holiday soundtrack, detailed animation, nostlagic Christmas feeling, and clever holiday humor, but it is just a really short TV special with rushed character development and a bit of cheese.

Better Off Dead (1985) review

(8/10)

This is really just another 80s teen movie with a basic plot and cheesy laughs, but this one does it oh-so-well with some surreality to it.

PLOT:Lane Myer (John Cusack) has been dating Beth (Amanda Wyss) for six months now, and things are looking great for his life. However, all spirals out of control when Beth dumps him for popular jerk, Roy Stalin (Aaron Dozier). Lane is hearbroken and attempts suicide at every chance he can get, but never ends up doing it, which is suprising due to his wacky family's obliviousness. If it weren't for his best friend, Charles (Curtis Armstrong), he'd be dead by now. He tries every possible thing from asking another girl to trying to impress by skiing the deadly K-12 slope. However, he doesn't know that the new French exchange student across the street, Monique Junet (Diane Franklin), may have caught a liking to him. It's a good plot executed fairly well.



ACTING:The performances in here are nothing really special aside from the lead actor. John Cusack plays a rather entertaining role as Lane Myer, and the beautiful Diane Franklin plays off of him very well as Monique Junet. The other shiners would be Curtis Armstrong as Charles, David Ogden Stiers as Mr. Myer, Laura Waterbury as Mrs. Smith, Dan Shneider as Ricky Smith, and Yuji Okomato as Yee Sook Ree.

SCORE:The score was composed mainly of cool 80s themes. The soundtrack included a few nice pop and rock songs from Van Halen to Elizabeth Daily.

ANIMATION:The animation in here is great, and ranges from drawn animatics to claymation. Both the animatics and the claymation are imaginative and fairly detailed. These random moments are what make the movie somewhat more interesting.



OTHER CONTENT:This is pretty much another 80s teen movie, but it has a few things that stand out: the animation sequences and heartbreak seen in Lane's character. His suicide state of mind brings a strange surreality to the movie based on emotion of teens who go through heartbreak: how they feel and overreact. Plus, this 80s film does everything right and borrows material from all of the right places as well as including its own jokes. However, it's still just another cheesy 80s movie at heart.

OVERALL,a great 80s movie with a good plot, average performances, cool score and soundtrack, imaginative and detailed animation, a certain surreality from the suicidal heartbreak, and everything an 80s teen movie needs, but it's just another cheesy and formulaic 80s flick.

Disney's A Christmas Carol (2009) review

(7/10)

This adaptation of the popular isn't as bad as some may think, and it does make itself different from the others in many ways. However, all of the Hollywood jazz and added scares deter from the meaning.

PLOT:Seven Christmas Eves after his business partner, Jacob Marley, dies, Ebenezer Scrooge (Jim Carrey) is still as cheap as he's ever been, turning away charities and shunning his nephew, Fred (Colin Firth). He gives his assistant, Bob Cratchit (Gary Oldman), the day off Christmas and heads on home. However, when he gets home, he's visited by the tormented spirit of his former partner, Marley (Gary Oldman), who tells him that he shall be visited by three ghosts to help him change his miserly ways. It's the same great plot executed very differently this time around; however, it's still a good adaptation.



VOICES:The performances in here are pretty good I'd say. Jim Carrey played a great part as Ebenezer Scrooge, even though every bit of dialogue he spoke as him was over-enunciated. Jim Carrey also plays the voices of all of the ghosts: Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come (though he barely spoke). A good bit of the actors voiced multiple roles as well. The shiners besides Carrey would be Gary Oldman as Bob Cratchit/Jacob Marley, Colin Firth as Fred, Bob Hoskins as Fezziwig, Robin Wright as Belle/Fan, Cary Elwes as many multiple roles, and Fionnula Flanagan as Mrs. Dilber.

SCORE:The score is mainly made up of popular Christmas songs and some dramatic score. It was a pretty good soundtrack, though it doesn't really matter as much as other aspects of the movie.

ANIMATION:The animation in here is very great. It's like that of The Polar Express, but better. Every character's main role is animated as if they were acting that role visually on-screen. The animation fit the characters' faces to the last wrinkle, minus what they added on for effect. The animation is dazzling, to say the least.



OTHER CONTENT:This adaptation of Charles Dickens' classic novel isn't as bad as some make it out to be. It follows the book's dialogue to the letter, adds the emotion needed, and dazzles with its animation and performances. However, some things Hollywood adds take the Christmas spirit out of the movie. The scares they added into the story are the main culprit. The director added a few unnecessary scares to make it worthy to Hollywood and the general public and to try to enhance the lesson in it. However, it does the exact opposite and covers up most of the warm feeling with dread and horror, from things such as a deteriorating Marley in the spirit world, to personifications of Ignorance and Want, and even demon horses led by Yet to Come. They put a little too much Hollywood sparkle and scare in here for it to be that great of an adaptation. Even I, as a horror fan, admit it's too much for a family holiday film.

OVERALL,a good Christmas movie with a differently-adapted plot, good performances, pretty good score and soundtrack, very great animation, and accuracy to the book, but the added Hollywood pizazz and scares take away some of the warm feeling and the lesson it's supposed to give.