The Queen's Random Movie Reviews

Tales of Despereaux- J10X, Miss Wendy and I saw this at 10am on a Saturday with cold popcorn as breakfast - I'm not sure if this has influenced my opinion of this movie. The art & animation were glorious – but that’s about it for a positive comment on this movie. Drab, boring, rehashed story, unimaginative characters & ‘plot.’ Seriously, after the ass-kicking princesses in the ‘Shrek’ franchise, who is interested in the bland, blonde (of course), non-entity that serves in the ‘Princess’ role? Not many of the 3-10 years olds who I saw this movie with (of course, most of them also enjoyed the far, far more entertaining ‘Madagascar 2’ a lot more.) Oh, and the other ridiculous female character was not a princess, so she was not blonde, not thin, and was easily manipulated. There were also many overtones of ‘you’re must be a good person if you’re attractive/cute, and a bad one if you’re not’ – not the sort of philosophy I would want to impress on a child. If you’re an animation geek, go for it. Rating: minus 5 crowns out of 5.

Get Smart– This was far better than I thought it would be and fun. I was a big fan of the show when they used to show it on Nick at Nite and my expectations for the movie were not high, so I was pleasantly surprised. I wasn’t impressed by Anne Hathaway, but Steve Carell channeled Peter Sellers in several scenes (the dancing scene comes to mind) as well as giving his own tweak to the character of Maxwell Smart. Alan Arkin, a perennial fave of mine, was wonderful in his hysterical, screamy, I’m-in-charge-and-I’m-kicking-ass way. An enjoyable no-brainer movie. Rating: 3 crowns out of 5.

Deathrace – Gritty, incredibly violent, cars, guns, prison violence, Jason Statham shirtless with that killer bod, adrenaline-pumping goodness. Phew. A fine remake of the Roger Corman classic ‘Deathrace 2000.’ Rating: 5 gazillion crowns for Statham, 2.5 crowns for the movie out of 5.

Burn After Reading – I thoroughly enjoyed this movie right up to the end. WTF?! Rating: 5 crowns out of 5.

War, Inc. – John Cusack doing what he does best – dark political satire that is smart, sharp & funny. The story was developed from Naomi Klein’s reports from Baghdad and really skewers the Bush admin’s policies, politics and the whole military-industrial complex that runs them. For some odd reason, there was a little bit o' romance in this flick that didn't do much for it, but the rest of the movie made up for that. Rating: 4 crowns out of 5.