Shrek the Third

Posted on May 16, 2007 at 9:55 am

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for some crude humor, suggestive content and swashbuckling action.
Profanity:	Some crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Very mild drug joke, scenes in bar, references to alcoholic drinks
Violence/ Scariness:	Cartoon violence, but most confrontations resolved peacefully, sad death of parent
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	2007

Did you ever wonder what happens to the villains while the hero and heroine are living happily ever after? We get to find out in this third chapter in the saga of Shrek. In the previous episode, Prince Charming failed in his attempt to marry Princess Fiona (voice of Cameron Diaz) and take over the Kingdom of Far Far Away. Now he has been consigned to the vile dust from whence he sprung, unwept, unhonor’d, and unsung. In other words, he’s doing dinner theater.

Meanwhile, over in Far Far Away, Shrek (voice of Michael Meyers) and Fiona are a few happilys short of an ever after themselves. Fiona’s father, the king (voice of John Cleese), transformed back into a frog at the end of the second film, is very ill. And after he, uh, croaks, Shrek and Fiona will have to take over, unless they can find the next in line for the throne, cousin Arthur (voice of Justin Timberlake). And just as the journey to find Arthur begins, Shrek is presented with an even more terrifying new responsibility. He’s going to be a father.

Shrek, Donkey (voice of Eddie Murphy), and Puss in Boots (voice of Antonio Banderas) find Arthur in a terrifying environment filled with pain beyond measure — high school. Meanwhile, Prince Charming and all the other villains decide that they are entitled to some happily ever after, too. Captain Hook, the Wicked Witch, the Cyclops, some enchanted trees, and the rest of the baddies take over Far Far Away capture Fiona and the Queen (voice of Julie Andrews) along with the princesses who are visiting for a baby shower, Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Rapunzel (voices of Amy Poehler, Amy Sedaris, Maya Rudolph, and Cheri Oteri). And Prince Charming gets ready to settle things with Shrek once and for all — in front of an audience.

It’s still funny and even a little heartwarming, but it isn’t fresh anymore and — it has to be said — the character of Arthur isn’t very interesting. Because he is at the center of much of the story, for the first time the Shrek saga drags. The new voices and characters add very little. When Regis Philbin joins Larry King as the voice of the ugly step-sisters, there’s a joke about Merlin’s robe not quite covering all it is supposed to, and Donkey and Puss switch bodies, it feels like they’re running out of ideas.

The animation continues to get better and better and the faces are marvelously expressive, especially Arthur’s dimple and the frog king’s…croaking. The fairy-tale high school is a hoot, it is fun to see the princesses learn to rescue themselves, and it is a treat to see how cleverly the film avoids much of the predictable violence. The po-mo humor sensibility continues to stay on the safe side of snarky, though one has to wonder in the midst of all this grrrl power why it is that no one ever thinks of making Fiona the ruler after her father’s death. But by the time Shrek and Arthur are learning that it is okay for them to be themselves, it is starting have that “very special episode” feeling that even a kickin’ rendition of “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” can’t make work and we’re wondering if Shrek wasn’t a little more fun when he was a little more ogre-ish.

Parents should know that, like the earlier films, this one has some mildly mature material, including some schoolyard crude humor (the gingerbread man poops a gumdrop), some potty humor, and a mild drug joke (reference to puffing on “frankincense and myrrh”). There is some cartoon violence and some drinking (scenes in a bar, references to alcoholic drinks). Parents should also know that while the Shrek character is being used by the Department of Health and Human Services to promote healthy eating and exercise, he has also been licensed to promote more than seventy different products, including many different kinds of candy and junk food.

Families who see this movie should talk about why some people might think it is scary to be a parent. Why did Arthur change his mind about Shrek? Do you ever feel that people want you to be something different from what you are?

Families who enjoy this film will also enjoy Shrek and Shrek 2, as well as Ella Enchanted, Hoodwinked, and The Best of Fractured Fairy Tales, Vol. 1 (1961). They will also enjoy books like Outspoken Princess and the Gentle Knight, Tatterhood and Other Tales: Stories of Magic and Adventure, and the original book by William Steig that inspired the series, though its Shrek is not as cuddly.

Firehouse Dog

Posted on April 3, 2007 at 12:47 pm

Ths story about a mega-movie star dog who gets lost and finds a home with the son of a fire chief is an uncomfortable blending of three different stories that neglects the one thing we want to see — the relationship between the boy and the dog.

Instead, we get pieces of three other movies, none of them very compelling. First, there is the father-son healing and reconnecting movie. Second, there is the satire about Hollywood and celebrities. And third, there is a “mystery” about an arsonist. The connecting link is a superstar superdog and the lonely boy who finds him, but that essential relationship is neglected and finally lost in the mishmash of overstuffed and under-written distractions.

Rexxx is the dog star of such box office powerhouses as “Jurassic Bark” and “The Fast and the Furriest.” He is known for his trademark pouf of windswept bangs and beloved by fans all over the world. But when a movie stunt goes wrong, he is dropped into a tomato truck, and the bangs, which turn out to be a toupee, fly off in another direction. He is found by Shane (Josh Hutcherson of Bridge to Terabithia, who happens to be playing hookey that day to get out of a science test.

Shane and his dad Connor (Bruce Greenwood) are both unhappy. Connor’s brother Marc, who was the fire chief, was killed six months earlier in a fire. Connor has been given Marc’s old job, but can’t take Marc’s name plate down or move into his office. It does not seem to matter as the firehouse is scheduled to close, its members to be redistributed to other stations. Connor and Shane are too wound up in their own unhappiness to reach out to each other.

Shane at first can’t wait to get rid of the dog he thinks is named Dewey (the prop tag Rexxx was wearing). But then he sees Dewey do some wheelies on his skateboard and asks, “What else ya got?” Zip along to Rexxx/Dewey helping the firefighters find a buried colleague, and suddenly Dewey is bringing everyone together. He even has time to clean up Shane’s bedroom, quicker than you can say “Mary Poppins.”

It all feels patched together and as sincere as Rexxx’s toupee and as generic as the “mystery” behind the arson. It is as uncertain about its audience as it is about its story, with material that pushes the edge of a PG rating, including some crude language, a sad (offscreen) death, and intense firefighting scenes of peril and violence. “Boy and his dog” movies almost always work well, but this one fails because it forgets to make that relationship important and real.

Parents should know that this movie has very intense and explicit peril and violence for a PG movie, including fires and explosions. A child is in peril and (apparently) hurt. There are references to a sad death. Characters use strong and crude language for a PG and there is some potty humor. Kids talk about cheating in school and Shane is truant without any real consequences. Some audience members may be troubled by references to Shane’s mother abandoning the family. A strength of the movie is strong female and minority characters.

Families who see this movie should talk about how Shane, Dewey, and Connor all have to learn to move on and how that does not mean forgetting those who are gone, but honoring what they gave us. Why did Shane think he was not strong? Why did Dewey like being with Shane? Why did Shane like Dewey? What qualities would you say are in your DNA?

Families who enjoy this film will also enjoy Air Bud and My Dog Skip and just about any one of the various versions of “Lassie.” Older viewers will enjoy seeing Greenwood and Culp playing brothers John and Robert Kennedy in the excellent Cuban Missile Crisis movie Thirteen Days.

Related Tags:

Action/Adventure Comedy Family Issues

Are We Done Yet?

Posted on April 1, 2007 at 12:50 pm

C-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for some innuendos and brief language.
Profanity:	Some crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, scene in bar, drinking in response to stress
Violence/ Scariness:	Comic peril and violence, no one hurt
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters but some stereotyping and disabilities played for humor
Date Released to Theaters:	2007
Date Released to DVD:	2007
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000RBA6C4

Is it over yet? Please?

Ice Cube’s Are We There Yet? was tough enough to sit through, though unaccountably successful. Thus, we have this doubly unnecessary sequel. It is so creatively bankrupt that it has to teeter not just on the original, which was bad enough, but it has the temerity to call itself in part a remake of the Cary Grant/Myra Loy classic Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. This movie does to that one what dry rot does to wood.

In the first film, Ice Cube played Nick, who was happily single until he saw Suzanne (Nia Long), not only beautiful but, like him, a fan of Satchel Paige. He fell so hard for her that he offered to take her children to Vancouver, which resulted in a series of mishaps that were only slightly less excruciating than the phony sentimentality. Now, Nick, pregnant-with-twins Suzanne, and the kids move out of Nick’s bachelor apartment into a beautiful house in the country that turns out to be falling apart. It will take a village to make it habitable — a very expensive village.

The screenplay is as rickety and jerrybuilt as the fixer-upper Nick moves into, all pratfalls and muckishness. Its lazy contempt for the audience means that we never believe for a moment that Nick, Suzanne, and the kids are in the same movie, much less the same family. There is no sense of connection, not even a consistent sense of character. Nick’s insistent “I can fix that” persona comes and goes, along with his plans to start a magazine. When Suzanne tells him she is pregnant, his reaction is “By who?” (a poor choice for a movie aimed at kids) and then a stiff drink (ditto). Even the lovely Long cannot make Suzanne into anything more than a vague character who urges everyone to be nice all the time. She is so clueless about what is going on with her family that she seems a little creepy. The kids make no contribution (except for another classic pop musical number from School of Rock’s Aleisha Allen). The primary relationship in the movie is between Nick and his Renaissance Man contractor, Chuck (John C. McGinley). The script tries to have it both ways, making him a slick con artist and a warm-hearted guy who just wants to be part of the family, letting any latent humor out of the situation like a slow leak from a tire. The whole movie feels like a slow leak, no chemistry, no energy, as synthetic as masonite painted to look like pine.

Parents should know that this movie has a great deal of comic peril and violence, crashing through floors and falling off roofs. There are comic scuffles and there is some crude jokes. There’s a brief shot of a workman’s bare tush and some potty humor. Nick criticizes his step-daughter’s skimpy clothes and worries that she is getting involved with boys. There are some mild sexual references and a non-explicit on-screen childbirth scene. When Suzanne tells Nick she is pregnant, he asks “by who?” Characters drink, including drinking in response to stress. There is a reference to a sad death. A strength of the movie, particularly in light of the unintended racism (by today’s terms) of “Mr. Blandings,” is the portrayal of diverse characters, thought it engages in some stereotyping and portrays disabilities as humorous.

Families who see this movie should talk about why Nick always wanted Suzanne and the kids to think that he knew how to fix everything. Why did Suzanne feel she had to move out? Families might also like to talk about some of the issues that blended families face.

Families who appreciate this film will enjoy the much better comedies about home renovation, including Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, George Washington Slept Here and The Money Pit. They might also enjoy watching “Extreme Home Makeover” and other shows about home repair and decorating.

Related Tags:

Comedy Family Issues Movies -- format

Meet the Robinsons

Posted on March 22, 2007 at 2:19 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated G
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Cartoon-style peril, including dinosaur, no one hurt
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	2007
Date Released to DVD:	2007
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000ROAK2W

At times, all of us feel like strangers in the world. In Disney’s bight, colorful, CGI animated film (available in 3D in some locations), Lewis (voice of Daniel Hansen) is left on the steps of an orphanage as a baby and rejected by over 100 prospective parents. He constantly invents machines that will help solve problems. But his love for inventing just seems to make him feel more separate from the world, more isolated, more weird. It seems he will ever find a family or a place where he feels at home.

Mildred (voice of Angela Bassett), who runs the orphanage, is sympathetic and fond of Lewis, but that is not the same. He has a roommate, Michael “Goob” Yagoobian (voice of Matthew Josten), who is just as lonely as he is. Lewis is better at understanding the problems of machines than he is at understanding what makes people work — or not work. His head is so full of plans that he does not always see what is going on in front of him.

When he takes his latest invention to the school science fair, he does not notice that two very unusual people have taken an interest in it. One is “Bowler Hat guy,” an even apter name than first apparent. The other is a boy named Wilbur Robinson who says he is from the future and he needs Lewis to accompany him there right away.

In keeping with its theme, the movie is visually inventive, especially in 3D. The story is uneven and a little too long, its wacky characters not as adorable as it wants us to think they are, and the ending not quite as logically consistent as it should be. But any movie that has a chorus of frogs singing Big Band music and a healthy respect for failure is worth seeing.

Parents should know that the movie’s themes include parental abandonment and rejection by potential adoptive parents, which may be disturbing for some children. There is some cartoon violence and peril, including a scary dinosaur. No one is badly hurt, though a child has a black eye and refers to having been beat up. There is some schoolyard language and a reference to being over-caffeinated.

Families who see this movie should talk about what it means to keep moving forward and to let go of the hurts of the past. Why did Lewis change his mind about what he thought he wanted? They may also want to talk about the many different ways people create families — and about some of the more unusual hobbies of their family members.

Families who enjoy this film will also enjoy the book, A Day with Wilbur Robinson, by William Joyce. They will also enjoy the dazzlingly inventive graphics in another animated film about an inventor based on Joyce’s work, Robots. The bowler hat guy is a little reminiscient of villain played by Terry-Thomas in Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or Jack Lemmon in the delightful Great Race.

The Last Mimzy

Posted on March 21, 2007 at 2:41 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for some thematic elements, mild peril and language.
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Peril and confrontations, some tense scenes and possible peril
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	2007
Date Released to DVD:	2007
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000Q66FB6

Two children find toys that make them more intelligent and powerful and send them on an adventure in this fine story for 4th-8th graders and their families. After he plays with the toys, Noah (Chris O’Neil) doesn’t need his glasses any more. He can hit a golf ball like Tiger Woods. Instead of struggling in school, he puts together a science fair project that could earn him a Nobel Prize. Noah’s little sister Emma (Rhiannon Leigh Wryn) can make the rocks that came with the toys spin. She can create some sort of vortex and stick her hand inside, making its atoms come apart. And one of the toys seems to be a kind of a generator, so powerful that it blows out all the electricity in the city.

These are not the kind of toys you can find at the store. Noah and Emma find them in a box washed up on the shore near their family’s weekend home on the coast of Washington state. And shutting down the electricity in Seattle is not something that goes unnoticed, not in these days of the Patriot Act, where, as Noah’s father is reminded by Nathanial Broadman of Homeland Security (Michael Clarke Duncan), the government no longer needs a warrant to search your house.

Noah and Emma will need all of their new powers and the help of some grown-ups — their parents (Timothy Hutton and Joely Richardson) and Noah’s teacher Larry (“The Office’s” Rainn Wilson) and his wife to solve the deeper riddle behind the toys and help save those who sent them.

The very part of the story that is most likely to appeal to children — making the kids the central characters and giving only them the power to save the day — is also its weak point. A great deal rests on its young actors, and Wryrn falters in the big scenes, seeming to be repeating her lines rather than feeling them. The updates to the 1943 short story feel shoehorned in and the scenes of the government coming in to investigate are like an echo of the unforgettably powerful scenes in E.T. But the film wisely does not try to wow the CGI-savvy audience with its special effects, keeping them low-key enough to feel enticingly possible. And its respect for studying science, for taking responsibility for addressing the problems around us, and for family commitment, communication, and loyalty are lessons this toy of a movie teaches very nicely.

Parents should know that this movie has some tense scenes with some mild peril. There is some kissing with a very mild sexual reference and an unmarried couple lives together.

Families who see this movie should talk about the idea of “cultural pollution” and how each of us can take responsibility for protecting our environment and our communities. Why would someone send such an important message in the form of toys?

Families who enjoy this film will also enjoy E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Edward Eager’s delightful Tales of Magic books. The title of this movie comes from Lewis Carroll’s famous Jabberwocky nonsense poem from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.