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Badmouth » children http://www.badmouth.net Look, Ma! No pants! Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:04:13 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Coraline http://www.badmouth.net/coraline-2009/ http://www.badmouth.net/coraline-2009/#comments Fri, 06 Feb 2009 07:04:05 +0000 Brian McDonough http://www.badmouth.net/?p=1026 [rating:3.5] Director: Henry Selick Starring: Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher Animation director Henry Selick (James & the Giant Peach, Nightmare Before Christmas) brings to life the creepy adventure story, Coraline, by Neil Gaiman (Sandman, Stardust, The Graveyard Book). That's a pretty impressive combination, and it works as well as you'd expect—the movie is inventive, well-crafted and it makes excellent use of the silly 3D glasses they pass out at the door. It doesn't feel like the “must-see” movie of the season, but you've got talented, solid storytellers crafting an inventive world that unfolds for a charming main character. Related posts:

]]> http://www.badmouth.net/coraline-2009/feed/ 8 Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian http://www.badmouth.net/chronicles-of-narnia-prince-caspian-2008/ http://www.badmouth.net/chronicles-of-narnia-prince-caspian-2008/#comments Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:24:43 +0000 Brian McDonough http://www.badmouth.net/?p=808

[rating:3] Director: Andrew Adamson Starring: William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Skandar Keynes, Georgie Henley, Ben Barnes It’s round two of C.S. Lewis’ beloved adventure-story-as-Christian-allegory, and apparently at this point we’ve reached the Crusades metaphors. All right, there are no specific references to wiping out unbelievers, but there sure as hell is a lot of medieval war. Our cast of engagingly unengaging British waifs returns to Narnia a year after the last flick, finds out that something like 1300 years have passed, and spends the entire sequel battling Spanish conquistadors who apparently got very, very lost looking for a shortcut to Asia. “This is like Braveheart,” my companion whispered in my ear. And she didn’t mean anyone had painted their asses blue. She meant it was a huge amount of ragtag loser army fighting well-disciplined badguy army, only now with centaurs and dwarves as your crazy fictional characters (in place of Mel Gibson, then). Related posts:

]]> http://www.badmouth.net/chronicles-of-narnia-prince-caspian-2008/feed/ 1 Bee Movie http://www.badmouth.net/bee-movie-2007/ http://www.badmouth.net/bee-movie-2007/#comments Mon, 05 Nov 2007 05:10:19 +0000 Brian McDonough http://www.badmouth.net/bee-movie-2007/

[rating:4] Director: Steve Hickner & Simon J. Smith Starring: Jerry Seinfeld, Matthew Broderick, Renée Zellweger , John Goodman Jerry Seinfeld spent the nineties producing the most original and entertaining sitcom of a generation—but what has he done for us lately? The release of Bee Movie demonstrates that Seinfeld has not lost his ability to lampoon the mundane details of daily life and relationships, and, untethered from even the tenuous grip on reality his NBC sitcom maintained, can deliver a fanciful story with the same kinds of wild sways of story logic, but on a grander scale. I'm saying, Bee Movie is pretty damned good. Caveat: Despite the kid-friendly designs and the merchandising, this isn't particularly a story for little kids.

It's not too adult in the “nightmares for a week” or “Mommy, what does 'blowjob' mean?” sense—it's just largely concerned with lampooning the grownup world. While it held the attention of the all the under-seven children littering my screening, it didn't have them howling with laughter. In what has to be a first for animation released in the last 20 years, there is not a single fart joke. There is also not a single juvenile character. But hey, the thing is rated PG, and that's just what it is—not unsuitable for smaller children, but definitely not playing to them, either. It's playing to the rest of us. Put it between the closer-to-kid-friendly Simpsons and the not-so-friendly-to-anyone Family Guy. Related posts:

]]> http://www.badmouth.net/bee-movie-2007/feed/ 6 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix http://www.badmouth.net/harry-potter-and-the-order-of-the-phoenix-2007/ http://www.badmouth.net/harry-potter-and-the-order-of-the-phoenix-2007/#comments Mon, 16 Jul 2007 23:01:44 +0000 Brian McDonough http://www.badmouth.net/harry-potter-and-the-order-of-the-phoenix-2007/ [rating:3] Director: David Yates Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Gary Oldman, Alan Rickman, Michael Gambon So is it good or bad that the fifth Harry Potter film feels so much like the previous four? The Potter movies are always flawed in the same way — too crowded with characters, ideas and unfinished threads — yet they're also always weirdly enjoyable beyond their limitations. So the downside is that nothing really stands out in this film. I defy you to go up to anyone who has been watching the films, but hasn't read the books, and ask them to tell you the key plot MacGuffin of “Chamber of Secrets” or “Goblet of Fire.” In the end, they all blur into one underlit labyrinth through which three insanely fortunate child actors run to or from one excellent, aging character actor after another. Yeah, there are some differences this time — Daniel Radcliffe's Harry is mopier and angrier, with J.K. Rowling's plot to the fifth novel showcasing teen angst — but the movie still blends in with all the rest. Once again, we cover an entire school year, this time adapting with unreasoned fealty a book that ran nearly 900 pages, in a movie that's not quite two and a half hours. Again, plot points are touched upon to not disappoint the manic readers of the book series, but then dropped without satisfying the movie audience at all. And of course, most of the film is shot in darkness, and there's a vague and ill-understood menace that includes a noseless Ralph Finnes dancing through quick-flash insert shots and hissing menacingly. At least this one doesn't end with a big banquet scene announcing that Harry's sub-unit of the Hogwart's School had earned more points than its rivals, all while keeping to an acceptable body count. The backstory of Harry's late, lamented parents is filled in with some interesting details, and Harry's relationship with the villainous Voldemort is given a bit of a theoretical wrinkle that may play out interestingly in later films. The sameness of the films, despite different directors, is impressive when compared to other long-running franchises, though. “Star Wars” episodes never felt the same, and the series tanked midway through the third picture. “Alien” should've stopped at two, “Star Trek” films are a total crapshoot, and the James Bond movies have had more highs and lows than Robert Downey Jr. on a three-week Vegas bender. So the fact that you can go to a Harry Potter film and know that you're going to get exactly what you're paying for, in the exact same ratio of murky angst and dead-end plot threads, is actually an impressive achievement in delivering the promised product, which too few movies manage to do. Related posts:

]]> http://www.badmouth.net/harry-potter-and-the-order-of-the-phoenix-2007/feed/ 8 Shrek the Third http://www.badmouth.net/shrek-the-third-2007/ http://www.badmouth.net/shrek-the-third-2007/#comments Fri, 18 May 2007 01:34:15 +0000 Brian McDonough http://www.badmouth.net/shrek-the-third-2007/ [rating:2.5] Director: Chris Miller Starring: Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy, Antonio Banderas It feels odd to give Shrek the Third a half a star less than Spider Man 3, when Spidey was a jumbled mess and the the plot of this latest Shrek displays workmanlike competency. I credit it to my opinion of the Sam Raimi opus having dropped a peg or two as time has passed and to the fact that — in Shrek’s case — hitting all the beats does not a successful sequel make. Tediously competent, Shrek the Third is also strangely flat. While Eddie Murphy’s and Antonio Banderas’ voices are unmistakable, the lackluster performances of Mike Myers and Cameron Diaz as the titular ogres made me wonder if they’d priced themselves out of the third episode and been replaced by understudies. This movie felt tired and it dragged badly in several spots. I seem to remember (perhaps wrongly) Myers bringing so much more comic fire to the original. Related posts:

]]> http://www.badmouth.net/shrek-the-third-2007/feed/ 1 Meet the Robinsons http://www.badmouth.net/meet-the-robinsons-2007/ http://www.badmouth.net/meet-the-robinsons-2007/#comments Wed, 04 Apr 2007 01:28:32 +0000 Brian McDonough http://www.badmouth.net/meet-the-robinsons-2007/ [rating:4] Director: Stephen J. Anderson Starring: Angela Bassett, Daniel Hansen, Jordan Fry “Meet the Robinsons” is a light adventure story about the power of hope. In design and by design, it harks back to the ’50s-style shiny flying-car future that has mostly been replaced in science fiction by the grim and gritty worlds of “Bladerunner,” "The Matrix," “Watchmen” and “The Dark Knight Returns.” Like last autumn’s rerelease of “Nightmare Before Christmas,” the animated feature is released in 3D in many markets. The filmmakers make good use of the technology without letting it overwhelm the story needs. “Meet the Robinsons” is just fine without 3D, but see it that way if you can. The engaging, spunky movie follows Lewis, an orphan with a genius for invention that works against his desire to find a family — until he’s sucked into the future by two visiting time travelers. A time-hopping teenager recruits Lewis from a science fair because the time and place is also the destination of a mustache-twirling villain in a bowler hat who looks like the type of bad guy who tied spirited young girls to railroad tracks in the days of silent film. Along the way, you have to forgive a few kitchen-sink excesses such as singing frogs and dinosaur attacks. Related posts:

]]> http://www.badmouth.net/meet-the-robinsons-2007/feed/ 0 Happily N’Ever After (2007) http://www.badmouth.net/happily-never-after/ http://www.badmouth.net/happily-never-after/#comments Fri, 05 Jan 2007 22:08:32 +0000 Brian McDonough http://www.badmouth.net/happily-never-after/ [rating:0.5] Director: Paul J. Bolger Starring: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., Sigourney Weaver When a film is just blandly dull, just unremarkably sucky, it’s no fun writing the review. (Thus, no review of “The Good Shepherd.”) Yet here we are, considering “Happily N’Ever After,” which was unremarkably a waste of time. Best thing I can say about having sat through “Happily Never After” is that I woke up refreshed. The film starts its low-grade computer animation story en media res: The Wicked Stepmother of “Cinderella” fame has seized control not merely of the bucolic world in which all fairy tales are set, but of the stories themselves, tilting them in the favor of eeeeevil. Then the film lurches to a stop, marked by the sound of a record needle ripped across a vinyl record. This is the universal sound effect for sudden interruptions, but how many of the little kids this movie is aimed at (or even their youngish parents) have actually heard the needle ripped off a record? But I digress. As does the film. Related posts:

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