From the ArcaMax Publishing, Family Film Reviews Newsletter:
http://www.arcamax.com/news/familyfilms/s-562981-987796
"Imagine That" (PG, 1 hr., 47 min.)
Family entertainment, fantasy, and office comedy don't mix that well
in this marginally amusing trifle, which will engage kids 8 and older
only in fits and starts. Eddie Murphy plays Evan, a high-powered
Denver investment whiz and divorced dad who can't relate to his
7-year-old daughter Olivia (Yara Shahidi). Then she comes to visit him
and he discovers that her imaginary friends, whom she communes with
under her beloved "Goo-Gaa" security blanket, have better investment
advice for Evan's clients than he does. Despite its title, the movie
tries to have it both ways -- hinting now that Olivia's "friends" are
imaginary and at other times that they may be real, ready to move on
when she's old enough. Storywise, that failure to commit feels
half-baked. It becomes clear that the whole imaginary-friend idea is
just a kind of narrative operating system to force Evan to bond with
Olivia and learn what's important in life. But good storytelling
should reach beyond a merely cute central premise.
"Imagine That" has a cobbled-together, movie-by-committee feel,
and there are long bits pertaining to Evan's office life that made
kids super-fidgety at a screening the Family Filmgoer attended. His
rival at work is a slick broker named Johnny Whitefeather (Thomas
Haden Church, giving his all in a role that's borderline offensive),
probably posing as a Native American. Desperation leads Evan to follow
the advice of Olivia's "friends." She even comes to the office with
him one day.
The movie has rare mild profanity, brief toilet humor, a divorce theme
(Olivia lives mostly with her mother, played by Nicole Ari Parker) and
an awkward scene in which Evan sneaks into a little girls' slumber
party to borrow Olivia's "magic" blanket and gets caught.
Beyond the Ratings Game: Movie Reviews for various
ages
-- OK FOR KIDS 6 AND OLDER:
"Up" PG -- 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 fly to South America in a
balloon-propelled house and on the way forge a deep friendship. Kids
under 6 may fidget or get confused during the film's quieter moments
recalling loss of a loved one, sadness and memories. And there are
genuinely scary scenes for under-6s, 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 mini-masterpieces. After Ellie dies, Carl, a
retired balloon salesman, clashes with those gentrifying his
neighborhood and is ordered to go to a retirement home. Instead, he
rigs his old house with balloons and floats up, up and away -- only to
discover that Russell, a kid who's been trying to earn a "help the
elderly badge," is clinging to the porch. Once in South America, they
realize the old explorer Carl and Ellie had admired as kids has gone
mad and his dogs, wearing hilarious talking collars, come after them.
They meet one friendly pooch and a big, bumptious exotic bird. "Up" is
preceded by "Partly Cloudy" (G), a charming short about little clouds
who make babies, puppies and kittens for storks to deliver. Except one
cloud makes alligators, sharks and such.
"Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" PG -- Bursting
with special effects and plot, this lively yet 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. 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 (Ben Stiller), the night security guard
from the New York museum in the first film, hears that the old
exhibits, which came to life only while he was on duty, are being sent
to the Smithsonian to be mothballed. He 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.
-- OK FOR KIDS 8 AND OLDER:
"Imagine That" PG (NEW) -- Eddie Murphy plays Evan, a
high-powered Denver investment whiz and divorced dad who can't relate
to his 7-year-old daughter in this marginally entertaining family
comedy. The story has a cobbled-together feel (another Hollywood
movie-by-committee), and there are long bits about Evan's office life
that made kids super-fidgety at a screening the Family Filmgoer
attended. The film's central premise is cute: Evan discovers that his
little girl Olivia (Yara Shahidi) and her imaginary friends, whom she
conjures up while under her beloved "Goo-Gaa" blanket, have better
investment advice for Evan's clients than he does. His rival at work
is a slick broker named Johnny Whitefeather (Thomas Haden Church in a
role that's borderline offensive), probably posing as a Native
American. Desperation leads Evan to follow the advice of Olivia's
invisible friends. The movie never deals with the question of whether
they're "real" or imaginary, which storywise is disappointing.
Instead, Evan's entry into Olivia's world is used as a heavy-handed
metaphor to get him to bond with his little girl and learn what's
important in life. The movie has rare mild profanity, brief toilet
humor, a divorce theme (Olivia lives mostly with her mother, played by
Nicole Ari Parker) and an awkward scene in which Evan sneaks into a
little girls' slumber party to borrow Olivia's "magic" blanket for
work. Intermittently amusing for kids 8 and older.
-- PG-13s OF VARYING INTENSITY:
"Land of the Lost" -- Somehow "Land of the Lost" manages to be
a bit of a bore, though it's packed with clever visual jokes and cast
with comedically adept actors. Teenaged Will Ferrell fans may be
tickled by it, but only intermittently. Based on the 1970s
Saturday-morning TV series, it follows the misadventures of a crackpot
scientist named Rick Marshall (Ferrell). A pretty British scholar,
Holly (Anna Friel), believes in Rick and his invention, a machine that
will supposedly let them "travel sideways in time." At a cheesy desert
tourist attraction Rick's machine clicks on and he, Holly and the
place's loudmouth manager Will (Danny McBride) are transported to
another dimension, where the detritus of human civilization keeps
popping through the space-time portal -- a Viking ship, an ice cream
truck, old cars. They encounter a charging T. rex, herds of
mini-dinosaurs and a furry young man named Chaka (Jorma Taccone). They
meet the lizard-like "Sleestak" Enik (John Boylan) and his enemy The
Zarn (Leonard Nimoy). There is much sexual innuendo, gross toilet
humor, midrange profanity, an exploding dinosaur and a giant
blood-sucking mosquito that gets squished. The men drink a
hallucinogenic beverage, there is much gay humor and briefly implied
toplessness. There's too much sexual content for grade-schoolers and
very young kids may find the T. rex scary.
"My Life in Ruins" -- So predictable is this lame romantic
comedy, you can almost say the lines with the actors. A lonely
Greek-American tour guide (Nia Vardalos) 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 with her irritable charges. We
know from almost the first frame that the scruffy driver (Alexis
Georgoulis) of the tour bus will turn out to be Mr. Right. Vardalos
wrote and starred in the fun "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" (PG, 2002),
but this tired concoction, written by someone else, is an unworthy
follow-up. There are implied sexual situations, much sexual innuendo,
some of it crude and/or homophobic, occasional sexual slang, rare
profanity, and drinking. More for high-schoolers.
"Drag Me to Hell" -- Comedy and horror make inconsistent
bedfellows in this sometimes droll, 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, 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 into a fiery abyss.
Christine (Alison Lohman) needs to prove to her boss (David Paymer)
that she's tough. So she refuses an extension to a mortgage holder,
and the crusty old crone (Lorna Raver) jumps Christine in her car and
curses her. Soon, Christine is visited by a shadowy demonic tormentor.
A fortuneteller (Dileep Rao) warns it will drag her into hell. There
is rare profanity.
"Terminator Salvation" -- With its unremitting mayhem and gloom
this movie 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 as a PG-13, "Terminator Salvation" is grimly
violent, though with limited gore and profanity. A female character
faces the briefly implied threat 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). From his mother Sarah's audiotapes, John knows he'll meet a
teenager, Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin), whose eventual time travel will
be crucial. John must also decide whether Marcus Wright (Sam
Worthington), once executed (lethal injection shown), then
re-animated, is on the side of humanity or Skynet.
"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. "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 can still have a fine time at this smart, funny "Star
Trek" prequel, which works as a popcorn flick, but also as a
myth-origin tale for purist Trekkers. 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 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, an implied impalement, mild sexual humor and innuendo, a
brief nongraphic sexual situation and rare mild profanity.
-- R's:
"The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" (NEW) -- The dialogue and action
crackle to heart-pounding effect in this re-imagining of the 1974 film
(also an R) and the original book by John Godey. Director Tony Scott's
frenetic, showy style suits the subject matter to a tee -- a hijacking
and taking of hostages on a New York City subway train. The nervous,
in-your-face camera work and adept use of editing and sound -- along
with terrific actors -- conjure a sharp sense of the terror below
ground and the churning, chaotic city above. Denzel Washington is
terrific as Walter Garber, a subway dispatcher suddenly called to
heroism. He's the first to deal via radio with Ryder (John Travolta,
bringing great panache to pure evil), the smart, homicidal lead
hijacker. James Gandolfini plays the city's self-absorbed mayor and
John Turturro a somber hostage negotiator. High-schoolers who like
intelligent thrillers ought to find this one gripping from start to
finish. There are bloody, point-blank shootings of subway personnel,
passengers and hijackers. Children are among the hostages. Phobics
note: There are rats in the subway tunnel. The script contains strong
profanity, brief crude sexual innuendo and a couple of ethnic slurs.
"Away We Go" (NEW; LIMITED RELEASE) -- In this sweet, wise,
well-acted little comedy-drama, Burt (John Krasinski) and Verona (Maya
Rudolph) are a nice 30-something couple soon to have a baby. Devoted
to each other, but still unmarried (Verona's the hold-out), they have
yet to put down roots. Burt's self-absorbed parents (Catherine O'Hara
and Jeff Daniels) have decided to move to Belgium, and Verona's
parents are dead. So she and Burt set out to visit friends and
relatives around the continent in search of anchoring relationships.
Verona's former boss (Allison Janney) is inappropriate and horrid to
her kids; Burt's cousin (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and her mate (Josh
Hamilton) are obnoxiously New Age-y about child-rearing; college
friends in Montreal (Chris Messina and Melanie Lynskey) have a big
happy family, but private sadness; and Burt's brother (Paul
Schneider), who has a young daughter, has been abandoned by his wife.
There is sexual language and innuendo, homophobic humor aimed at a
child, talk of miscarriages, rare but strong profanity, and drinking.
Great for thoughtful high-schoolers.
"The Hangover" -- A frat comedy for grown-ups that will also
attract teens, "The Hangover" is very funny, but many parents would
find it too crudely sexualized and profane for under-17s. It follows
the adventures of sarcastic Phil (Bradley Cooper), dweeby Stu (Ed
Helms), and jerky Alan (Zach Galifianakis), who bachelor-party so hard
in Las Vegas that they wake up to realize they've lost the groom
(Justin Bartha). In their trashed hotel suite they also find a baby, a
chicken and Mike Tyson's pet tiger. Stu is missing a tooth and may
have married a prostitute. The clever thing about "The Hangover" is
that we never see the actual party. We just watch the guys retrace
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."