A few movies I've seen lately:
The Punisher: War Zone - fun but extraordinarily violent and graphic. Actually very well filmed and a great character, at least in my opinion. A guilty pleasure, but keep your children far, far away from it. Possibly the most violently graphic move I have seen yet, but I'm really not sure - there ahs been so many of them (why does showing two people having sex earn an "X" rating, but showing multiple beheadings, throat cuttings, and blown off heads is OK for the general public???? Tell me you haven't wondered about which is the worse thing to show to people....)
The Day the Earth Stood Still - remake of a true classic, which of course makes it impossible to judge without comparing the two. This new version fell apart for me because of the preachy environmental tone. I guess it didn't seem as bad when the aliens were wiping out humanity because humans had become too violent and were threatening to destroy the world and spread the violence into space. It was an obvious message that made sense at the time. I'm not saying climate change should be taken less seriously, but it doesn't seem as worthy of destroying humanity. The movie itself is clunky and the characters pretty much unbelievable as well. Keneau Reeves as the freshly cloned alien body? Give me a break - he's too recognizable, PLUS he has scars on his face. WTF would a freshly cloned human body be doing with scars on it already? (that's the engineer/geek perspective). And the totally hot babe as the "astrobiologist"? I suppose it's possible, but....
The Tale of Despereaux - My son loved it. I almost fell asleep.
Bolt - moderately more interesting.
Madagascar 2 - Escape From Africa Very promising first half. Much better than the first. But in the end it felt like the writers (or budget manager?) just said "OK I'm tired of this crap. Let's wrap it up." Seriously - there was so much comic potential in the tribe of lost New Yorkers roaming the African jungle. But then they disappear and suddenly only factor into the end scene in a very minor way. And then the movie's over.
[can you tell I have to watch a lot of kid movies?]
