Posted on September 15, 2008 at 8:00 am
B+| Lowest Recommended Age: | 4th - 6th Grades |
| MPAA Rating: | PG |
| Profanity: | Very mild language |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | Social drinking |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Wartime violence, guns, explosions |
| Diversity Issues: | None |
| Date Released to Theaters: | 1991 |
In honor of my son’s birthday this week, my DVD pick is one of his childhood favorites: Rocketeer
Posted on September 9, 2008 at 6:00 pm
It’s not a good movie, but it is a lot of fun. It’s a fantasy with three things going for it: it does not take itself too seriously, it does take the action scenes seriously, and it includes both of the most popular martial arts movie stars working today, Jackie Chan and Jet Li.
Michael Angarano plays Jason, a generic loner-teen role that does not give him a chance to show off the impeccable comic timing he displayed as Elliot in “Will and Grace.” He seems to spend most of his time hanging out in Chinatown, renting kung fu movies and talking to Old Hop the ancient proprietor of the pawnshop (Jackie Chan under old-age make-up). When some bullies attack them, Hop hands Jason the mysterious staff and asks him to return it to its rightful owner. And Jason wakes up in ancient China. He quickly figures out how to understand Chinese, and meets up with Lu Yan, a tipsy immortal (Chan, in a nod to his early “Drunken Master” hits). They embark on a journey to return the staff to its owner, the Monkey King (Jet Li), who has been turned into a statue by the evil Jade Warlord. And they are joined by Golden Sparrow (Liu Yifei), who plans to kill the Jade Warlord to avenge the death of her parents, and Silent Monk (Li again), who first has to fight Lu Yan just because that is why we all bought tickets. “We can kill each other when it’s over,” they agree, deciding to work together to help Jason return the staff to the Monkey King.
Posted on August 1, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Wow — the trailer for “The Watchman” looks amazing!
Posted on July 31, 2008 at 6:00 pm
B| Lowest Recommended Age: | Middle School |
| MPAA Rating: | Rated PG-13 for adventure action and violence |
| Profanity: | Some strong language (bastard, son of a bitch) |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | Drinking, including drinking to deal with stress, scenes in bar |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Non-stop action-style violence, some graphic images (faces melting, characters on fire), disturbing themes (mummies coming back from the dead) |
| Diversity Issues: | Diverse characters, strong, brave, capable minorities and women |
| Date Released to Theaters: | August 1, 2008 |
Salt the popcorn and settle your gigantic soda in the cup-holder. Brendan Fraser is back and just as important, so are the mummies. Strictly speaking, these guys are not mummies, but they’re close enough.
It’s only been nine years since the first film, in which handsome, wisecracking, intrepid adventurer Rick (Fraser) met the brilliant, gorgeous, and equally intrepid librarian and Egyptologist Evie (Rachel Weisz). They found themselves battling mummies and falling in love. But this is movie world, so in the third installment Rick and Evie have a college-age son named Alex (the bland Luke Ford). Oh, and Weisz is not around any more, as we are informed with a brisk wink at the fans before the action gets underway. We first see Evie from behind, reading aloud from one of her books, and it is Weisz’s voice. But then she answers a question with “Honestly I can say she’s a completely different person,” and the camera swings around to show us that Evie is now played by Maria Bello.
And after that, it is just about all action, all the time. As is appropriate for movies in this category, there is just enough plot to give us an opportunity to have various kinds of conflict in various kinds of settings and otherwise stay out of the way of all of the chases, explosions, and battles. It’s sort of the same idea as Hellboy 2 — a sleeping army will awake and take over the world for evil if blah blah. This time, Rick and Evie end up in China mostly so that mummy honors can go to Jet Li as the evil emperor who was cursed by a witch who has the secret of eternal life.
Like the old movie serials that inspired it, the movie doesn’t take itself too seriously. But it takes the action scenes seriously and there are some great ones, especially a chase in a truck filled with fireworks. You can guess where that one is going. Yes, it is a little over the top by the time the Yeti show up. And Bello, as terrific an actress as she is, doesn’t match Weisz’s chemistry with Fraser and does not have his gift for finding the right mix of sincerity and spoof. The father-son-conflict and the romance are weak and predictable. But Fraser is spot on, Michelle Yeoh adds elegance and dignity as the witch, and Li is agreeably fast and fierce as the Emperor. When the silliness gets out of hand, just grab another handful of popcorn and before it’s gone the next fight or chase or near-plane-crash or fall or avalanche or mummy-esque attack will get things going again and remind you of the pleasures of the summer movie.
Posted on July 10, 2008 at 5:09 pm
B+| Lowest Recommended Age: | 4th - 6th Grades |
| MPAA Rating: | Rated PG for intense adventure action and some scary moments |
| Profanity: | None |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | None |
| Violence/ Scariness: | A great deal of action-style violence with some intense peril, many jump-out-at-you effects, reference to a sad death |
| Diversity Issues: | None |
| Date Released to Theaters: | July 11, 2008 |
The most impressive achievement from Brendan Fraser and Josh Hutcherson in this 3D action -adventure is holding our attention as it feels like we are being chased by a drooling dinosaur and squirted with something really ooky. Fraser plays a scientist and Hutcherson is the nephew who joins him on the title journey, and these two attractive and capable performers keep us interested in the story as the (almost literally) eye-popping special effects.
Unlike the the 1959 movie version 
Fraser plays Trevor Anderson, a vulcanologist whose program is about to be shut down by the university for failing to produce any results. Distracted and upset, he has forgotten that his nephew with the obligatory attitude problem (Hutcherson as Sean) is about to come for a visit. Sean’s father Max, Trevor’s brother, disappeared years before. Trevor looks at Max’s copy of the Verne book and realizes that Max had figured out a system for predicting volcanic activity. He and Sean take off for Iceland to see if they can find Max’s discovery and perhaps find Max as well. Led by a beautiful guide with the obligatory skepticism problem (Icelandic native Anita Briem), they set off for the volcano and are soon descending into the earth’s core, where they find dangerous plants and animals, terrifying terrain, endearing little glow-birds, and many, many things that jump out at the audience.
Fraser is one of Hollywood’s most underrated actors. His range is limitless — in drama (“Crash” and “Twilight of the Golds”), romantic comedy (“Bedazzled”), silly comedy (“Encino Man”) and fantasy-adventure (“The Mummy” series) he is always completely compelling and authentic and perfect pitch in calibrating the size and tempo of his performance to the material. Hutcherson is a promising young performer. Both of them make it all believable and just plain fun, whether they are trying to jump across stones suspended in air or trying to stay on board a roller-coaster-ish runaway mine car. Part thrill ride, part video game, part virtual reality, it is a lively and satisfying update of a good old-fashioned Saturday afternoon serial adventure saga.
