From the ArcaMax Publishing, Family Film Reviews Newsletter:
http://www.arcamax.com/news/familyfilms/s-559146-591434
"Land of the Lost" (PG-13, 1 hr., 46 min.)
Though full of clever, if obvious, visual jokes and cast with
comedically gifted stars, "Land of the Lost" still manages to be a bit
of a bore between the funny bits. Teenaged fans of Will Ferrell may
be tickled by it, but only intermittently, as the film lacks a good
storytelling rhythm. Based (with many changes) on the 1970s
Saturday-morning live-action TV series created by puppeteers Sid and
Marty Krofft, it follows the misadventures of a crackpot scientist
named Rick Marshall (Ferrell) who studies "quantum paleontology." Rick
is a joke among his peers and is shamed by Matt Lauer while appearing
on "The Today Show" (Lauer is a good actor, it turns out.).
Depressed, addicted to junk food, and working as a grade-school
science teacher, Rick is visited by a pretty British scholar, Holly
(Anna Friel), who believes in his work. She wants him to try his
invention, which plays music from "A Chorus Line" when flipped on, and
will supposedly allow them to "travel sideways in time." While going
through a cheesy desert cave tourist attraction, guided by a loudmouth
named Will (Danny McBride), they set off the "amplifier." Rick, Holly
and Will, three virtual strangers, land in another dimension -- a
desert where the detritus of all human civilization seems to pop
through a space-time "portal" and drop in -- a Viking ship, an ice
cream truck, big 1960s American convertibles, a roller coaster. The
trio also encounter a marauding, drooling T. rex, lots of
mini-dinosaurs, and a furry young man named Chaka (Jorma Taccone) from
a local village, who befriends them -- Rick, always a jerk, treats
Chaka like a slave. Trying to figure out where they are and how to get
home again, Rick, Will and Holly meet the lizard-man Enik (John
Boylan), part of a slow-moving species called the Sleestak, and his
archenemy The Zarn (Leonard Nimoy -- or at least his voice).
There is all sorts of sexual innuendo (many breast jokes), gross
toilet humor, midrange profanity and comedic mayhem, including an
exploding dinosaur. There are swarming bugs and a huge blood-sucking
mosquito that gets squished. The men drink a hallucinogenic beverage,
and there is much gay humor and briefly implied toplessness. "Land of
the Lost" is not really appropriate for grade-schoolers because of the
sexual content. Really young kids may get scared by the charging T.
rex.
Beyond the Ratings Game: Movie Reviews for various
ages
-- OK FOR KIDS 6 AND OLDER:
"Up" PG - "Up" is a near-total delight, despite its
too-complicated second half. This wildly imaginative Pixar animated
film tells the tale of a little boy, Russell (voice of Jordan Nagai),
and an elderly widower, Carl (Edward Asner), who go on an amazing
journey to South America in a balloon-propelled house and forge a deep
friendship. Kids under 6 may fidget or get confused during the film's
quieter moments and its flashbacks about losing a loved one, sadness
and memories. There are genuinely scary scenes for under-6s, too, in
which threatening dogs chase Carl and Russell through jungle and
canyon. The villain, a crazed old explorer (Christopher Plummer), goes
after them with a dirigible, dart-shooting planes, and a shotgun.
Scenes showing how Carl met his late wife Ellie when they were kids
and a wordless montage about their loving marriage are profound
mini-masterpieces. After Ellie dies, Carl, a retired balloon salesman,
bops a builder in his gentrifying neighborhood on the head. He's
ordered to go to a retirement home, but instead rigs his old house
with balloons and floats up into the blue yonder -- only to discover
that Russell, a kid who's been trying to earn a "help the elderly
badge" for his scout troop, is clinging to the porch. Russell helps
Carl steer his house to Paradise Falls in South America, where an
explorer he and Ellie admired as kids famously went. Once there, they
realize the old explorer has gone mad and his pack of trained dogs
with (hilarious) talking collars comes after them. They befriend one
friendly dog and a huge, bumptious exotic bird. "Up" is preceded by
"Partly Cloudy" (G), a charming Pixar short about little clouds that
make babies, puppies and kittens for storks to deliver. But one little
thunderhead can't seem to make anything tamer than an alligator.
"Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" PG -- Bursting
with special effects and plot, this lively yet aggressively charmless
sequel to "Night at the Museum" (PG, 2006) will keep kids 6 and older
engaged, if not in stitches. Despite its often deliberately scrambled
facts, the film could spark kids' interest in everything from aviation
history to art (famous paintings, sculptures and photos come to life).
The littlest ones may briefly cower at a roaring T. rex skeleton, a
giant squid, Egyptian warriors with shrieking eagles' heads, the
statue from the Lincoln Memorial coming to life or planes zooming
around the National Air and Space Museum. Guns, swords and clubs are
wielded by come-to-life gangsters, Huns and Neanderthals, but no one
gets hurt. Larry (Stiller), the nighttime security guard from the New
York museum in the first film, now sells his inventions on TV. He
hears that the old exhibits, which came to life only while he was on
duty, are being sent to the Smithsonian to be mothballed. Larry bids
farewell to Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams), but later gets a tip
that the ancient pharaoh Kahmunrah (Hank Azaria) is wreaking havoc.
Larry and a spunky Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams) save the day on the
National Mall.
-- PG-13s OF VARYING INTENSITY:
"Land of the Lost" (NEW) -- Though full of clever, if obvious,
visual jokes and cast with comedically adept stars, "Land of the Lost"
still manages to be a bit of a bore. Teenaged Will Ferrell fans may be
tickled by it, but only intermittently. Based on the 1970s
Saturday-morning TV series created by puppeteers Sid and Marty Krofft,
it follows the misadventures of a crackpot scientist named Rick
Marshall (Ferrell) who studies "quantum paleontology." Depressed and
working as a grade-school science teacher, he's visited by a pretty
British scholar, Holly (Anna Friel), who believes in his invention, a
machine that will supposedly let them "travel sideways in time." At a
cheesy desert cave tourist attraction, in the company of its loudmouth
manager, Will (Danny McBride), the machine clicks on and they land in
another dimension, a sandy planet with several moons, where the
detritus of human civilization keeps turning up -- a Viking ship, an
ice cream truck, old cars, a roller coaster. They encounter a charging
T. rex, lots of mini-dinosaurs, and a furry young man named Chaka
(Jorma Taccone) who is from a local village and befriends them. They
meet the lizard-like "Sleestak" Enik (John Boylan) and his archenemy
The Zarn (Leonard Nimoy, or at least his voice). Rick's guesses are
always wrong. There is all sorts of sexual innuendo, gross toilet
humor, midrange profanity and comedic mayhem, including an exploding
dinosaur. There are swarming bugs and a huge blood-sucking mosquito
that gets squished. The men drink a hallucinogenic beverage. There is
much gay humor and briefly implied toplessness. "Land of the Lost" is
not really appropriate for grade-schoolers because of the sexual
content, and really young kids may get scared by the T. rex.
"My Life in Ruins" (NEW) -- So predictable is this lame
romantic comedy, you can almost say the lines with the actors. A
lonely Greek-American tour guide named Georgia (Nia Vardalos), who's
also a classics professor, leads a group of stereotypically crass
Americans through the historic sites of her ancestral homeland. Only
Richard Dreyfuss brings a bit of freshness to his role as a twinkly
widower who helps Georgia with her irritable charges. We know from
almost the first frame that the scruffy driver (Alexis Georgoulis) of
the rattletrap tour bus will turn out to be Mr. Right under that
beard. Vardalos wrote and starred in the fun "My Big Fat Greek
Wedding" (PG, 2002), but this tired concoction, written by another, is
an unworthy follow-up. Greece looks good, at least. There are several
implied sexual situations, much sexual innuendo, some of it crude
and/or homophobic, occasional sexual slang, rare profanity and
drinking. More for high-schoolers.
"Easy Virtue" (NEW; LIMITED RELEASE) -- The unfortunate casting
of American beauty Jessica Biel damages "Easy Virtue," but doesn't
wreck it. The fact that Biel is surrounded by terrific British actors
just calls attention to her ponderous way with what's supposed to be
sprightly dialogue. Set in pre-World War II England and based on a
1925 Noel Coward play, the movie is still amusing, but uneven and
finally disappointing. Biel plays Larita, a free-spirited American
widow who drives race cars and has a "past." When she marries young
aristocrat John Whittaker (Ben Barnes), his iron-willed mum (Kristin
Scott Thomas) is furious and makes Larita's life miserable at the
family estate. Only John's eccentric father (Colin Firth) seems to
understand Larita. There is mild sexual innuendo, a subtly implied
sexual situation, brief seminudity, drinking, much smoking, and the
accidental off-camera death of a pet dog (we do hear a yelp). For
sophisticated teens.
"Drag Me to Hell" -- Comedy and horror make inconsistent
bedfellows in this occasionally amusing, often gross parable from
filmmaker Sam Raimi about a timid bank officer cursed by an angry
customer. The film's deliberately cheesy horror images include demons
and corpses vomiting maggots and embalming fluid, eyeballs and false
teeth popping out, a projectile nosebleed, implied impalements and a
wormy scene in a reopened grave. It's implied that a kitten is killed
(off-camera) as a sacrifice. A prologue shows a boy pulled by a demon
into a fiery abyss. Christine (Alison Lohman), a loan officer, needs
to impress her boss (David Paymer). To prove she can be tough, she
refuses an extension to a mortgage holder, and the old crone, (Lorna
Raver), with filthy false teeth and a phlegmy cough, jumps Christine
in her car and curses her. Soon, Christine is visited by a shadowy
demonic tormentor. A fortuneteller (Dileep Rao) warns she's been
cursed with a "lamia," which means the demon will drag her into hell.
There is rare profanity.
"Dance Flick" -- The Wayans family of film and TV comics brings
us this crude, tiresome spoof of teen-focused dance movies.
High-schoolers who care (the film is too bawdy for middle-schoolers)
will recognize elements of "Stomp the Yard" (PG-13, 2007), "Step Up"
(PG-13, 2006), "You Got Served" (PG-13, 2004), "Save the Last Dance"
(PG-13, 2001), and even "Fame," (R, 1980), with break dancing and
other styles crassly parodied. Suburban wannabe dancer Megan (Shoshana
Bush) loses her mother in a bizarre series of road accidents (played
for laughs) and moves in with her derelict dad (Chris Elliott). At her
new high school, she meets Thomas (Damon Wayans Jr.). They fall in
love and work on dance routines for a school show. But Thomas has
violent rivals from a street-dance gang and a mobster named Sugar Bear
(David Alan Grier -- who is truly funny) after him. The film includes
gay jokes, gross humor about female body parts, and gags about teen
pregnancy and neglectful parenting. There is mild profanity, sexual
innuendo and jokes about drinking.
"Terminator Salvation" -- With its unremitting mayhem and
gloom, this new chapter in the "Terminator" series could even give
dystopian science fiction a bad name. Teens may find the intensity
gripping, but if they don't know the earlier films ("The Terminator,"
1984, "Terminator 2: Judgment Day," 1991 and "Terminator 3: Rise of
the Machines," 2003 -- all R's), this could be a hard slog. Even with
a PG-13, "Terminator Salvation" is grimly violent, though with limited
gore and rare profanity. A female character faces the briefly implied
possibility of sexual assault. There are huge gun battles and crashing
machines. In 2018, after a nuclear holocaust unleashed by the evil
artificial intelligence program Skynet and its killer robots, human
resistance fighters follow John Connor (Christian Bale), their
prophesied leader. From his mother Sarah's audiotapes, John knows
he'll meet a teenager, Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin), whose time travel
will be crucial to the human struggle. John must also decide whether a
bionic fighter named Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), once executed
(lethal injection shown), then mechanically re-animated, is good or
evil.
"Angels & Demons" -- Harvard "symbologist" Robert Langdon
(Tom Hanks) again uncovers secrets that make the Vatican queasy in
this sequel (to "The Da Vinci Code," PG-13, 2006). The pope has died
and several cardinals have been abducted. The kidnapper has threatened
to blow up Vatican City with antimatter. So beginneth another leaden
thriller based on a Dan Brown best-seller. Many high-schoolers will
enjoy seeing all the (re-created) church interiors and Renaissance art
as Langdon chases clues around Rome. Ron Howard directs pedantically,
lecturing us about the Illuminati, a secret 18th-century group who
fought church censorship of science. "Angels & Demons" has more
violence and disturbing images than "The Da Vinci Code," and may be
too intense for middle-schoolers. We see victims with raw brands on
their chests, or burning alive (not graphically), a corpse being
nibbled by a rat (phobic alert), and a bloodied eyeball. There are
shootings and mild profanity. Some will object to Langdon's critical
view of church doctrine.
"Star Trek" -- Teens unfamiliar with the 1960s TV show or the
feature films will still have a fine time at this smart, funny "Star
Trek" prequel. It works as a popcorn flick, but also as a myth-origin
tale for Trekker purists. It tells in boisterous and occasionally
jumbled detail how the young and frisky James T. Kirk (Chris Pine),
Spock (Zachary Quinto), Bones (Karl Urban), Scotty (Simon Pegg), Uhura
(Zoe Saldana), Sulu (John Cho) and Chekov (Anton Yelchin) become
junior officers on the maiden voyage of the starship USS Enterprise
and boldly go against the vengeful Romulans at warp speed. The film
will also work for many kids 10 to 12, but some may be unsettled by
the space battles and the Romulans' ominous-looking ship with its
planet-killing drill. There is a hint of torture, intense fighting,
and an implied impalement, mild sexual humor and innuendo, a brief
nongraphic sexual situation and rare mild profanity. Kirk and Spock
clash, romantically and over tactics.
-- AN R:
"The Hangover" (NEW) -- A frat comedy for grown-ups that will
also attract teens, "The Hangover" is very funny, but too crudely
sexualized and profane for most under-17s. It follows the adventures
of Phil (Bradley Cooper), a sarcastic teacher, Stu (Ed Helms), a
milquetoast dentist, and Alan (Zach Galifianakis), a classic jerk, who
bachelor-party so hard in Las Vegas that they wake up to realize
they've lost Doug (Justin Bartha), the groom, who's supposed to get
married that day to Alan's sister. They also discover a baby in their
trashed hotel suite and Mike Tyson's pet tiger. Stu is missing a tooth
and may have married a strange woman. The clever thing about "The
Hangover" is that we never see the actual partying -- only snatches in
flashback. The movie is about the guys retracing their steps. It
features very strong profanity, rear-view nudity and toplessness,
crude sexual language and innuendo, implied sexual situations,
homophobic slurs, gross toilet humor, drug humor, and a poor joke
about a grandmother's "Holocaust ring."