TMNT

Posted on March 16, 2007 at 4:02 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for animated action violence, some scary cartoon images and mild language.
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Cartoon-style violence, a lot of martial arts and punching but no one gets badly hurt
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	2007
Date Released to DVD:	2007
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00005JPMZ

They’re teenagers, they’re mutants, they’re ninjas, and they’re turtles.

Up from the sewers by way of some handy toxic waste, those Renaissance-named, three-fingered, ninja-fighting, pizza-eating turtle siblings are back in their first all-CGI adventure. They say funny-tough things like, “I’m gonna drop-kick you to hurty-town.” They squabble with each other, but when it matters, they fight together. This time, their challenge is zillionaire Max Winters (voice of Captain Picard/Professor Xavier Patrick Stewart), a huge man in a huge office at the top of a huge skyscraper. Helping out the Turtles are their sensei (teacher), Master Splinter (voice of Mako) and their ninja-tastic pals April (voice of “Buffy’s” Sarah Michele Geller) and Casey (voice of Fantastic Four‘s Johnny Storm, Chris Evans).

Once again, the fate of the world is at stake. Thousands of years ago, the stars aligned to “open a portal of unknown power.” It also released 13 monsters and turned an army into stone. Now, that portal is poised to re-open. Unless all of the monsters are returned, well, a lot of bad stuff is going to happpen.

But before that can happen, the estranged turtles have to find a way to become a team again. Leonardo has been sent off by Master Splinter to learn some lessons of leadership. The others have gone off on their own, one entertaining at kids’ birthday parties, one doing computer tech support, and one, well, the TMNTs may be great fighters, but they aren’t too swift if they can’t figure out that when Raphael sleeps all day and there’s a mysterious Nightwatcher vigilante fighting crime every night, there just might be a connection.

The real power in the TMNT stories is the transformation, but in this movie that’s all in the past, and it is difficult to get much satisfaction from the comeback premise or the attempts to create some sibling rivalry. And there is no way the intended audience could be interested in the generic commitment-phobic romance between April and Casey (“I don’t know if I can be the grown-up she needs me to be”) or the references to the Gilmore Girls and “those kind of” phone lines. The movie has the challenge of creating a sense of danger and combat without exceeding the limits of the G rating. The bad guys have red glowy eyes and there’s some fancy footwork and weapons-wielding peril but, even with a nifty skateboarding scene, it’s more video game than story.

Parents should know that there is a lot of cartoon-style violence in this film, mostly martial arts, with kicking and weapons, including knives. We do not see any injuries but some characters are evaporated and a tranquilizer gun is used. There is brief crude humor and there are some rude comments and epithets (“Dirtbag”). April has the wasp waist and bare midriff of a Barbie doll, raising body image and expectation issues for both boys and girls.

Families who see this film should talk about the sibling rivalry among the turtle brothers. Why was it hard for them to be nice to each other? How were they different? How were they alike? Where do you see the importance of compassion and humility in your own lives?

Families who enjoy this film will also enjoy the earlier live-action movies and the 3 Ninjas Trilogy.

Premonition

Posted on March 13, 2007 at 10:57 am

F+

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for some violent content, disturbing images, thematic material and brief language.
Profanity:	Brief strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Smoking, wine, pharmaceuticals
Violence/ Scariness:	Intense peril, some graphic injuries, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters have a close friendship
Date Released to Theaters:	2007
Date Released to DVD:	2007
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000QGDY0G

With little style and no substance, this low-wattage forgettable thriller plays like a rejected episode of “The Twilight Zone.” Linda (Sandra Bullock) wakes up every day in a different reality (and a different sleeping outfit — she has quite the collection of nighties and pajamas). One day, she opens the door to a cop who tells her that her husband has been killed in a car accident. The next day, he’s in the kitchen having breakfast and watching television. Another day, it’s his funeral, and she can’t remember how her daughter got cuts all over her face and some scary people are coming to take her to a hospital. Another day, she goes to see him in his office and wonders if there might be something going on with that pretty new assistant manager (Amber Valetta). She begins to figure out that she’s living the days out of order. Can she change the future she has already experienced?

Bullock is appealing and committed as always, Valetta shows again that she has a sympathetic screen presence and can make the most of a few moments, and Nia Long as Linda’s best friend makes us wish the movie was about her. But the two things you are entitled to expect from a movie like this one are some “aha” moments as all the pieces of the plot come together and some “ahh” moments as the main characters learn something meaningful. What we get instead are a couple of “gotcha” fake-outs that are more exploitive than spooky (and no surprise to anyone who has the vaguest idea of the movie’s premise) and a “that’s it?” moment at the end that makes Linda’s character seem creepy rather than sympathetic.

Haven’t we lived through this before? And was it just as bad the last time? One reality she unfortunately can’t change is the ineluctable trudge toward the appallingly boneheaded ending.

Parents should know that this movie has some intense peril and disturbing images. A character is killed and a child is hurt. There is a bloody dead bird (later we see what happened to it). Characters use brief strong language, smoke, drink wine, and pharmaceutical medication is prescribed and forcibly injected. There is a non-explicit sexual situation and there are references to adultery. Issues of destiny and premonition may be upsetting to some audience members. A strength of the movie is the portrayal of a close friendship between diverse characters.

Families who see this movie should talk about times they have felt they knew something that was going to happen. What did Linda decide was worth fighting for?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the much better Frequency and Deja Vu (intense and graphic violence and terrorism). The Family Man and Me, Myself & I are non-thriller explorations of roads not taken in family relationships.

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Ghost Rider

Posted on February 18, 2007 at 12:20 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for horror violence and disturbing images.
Profanity:	Some brief strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Action-style peril and violence, some graphic, many characters killed, disturbing images
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	2007
Date Released to DVD:	2007
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000OVLBF8

“Ghost Rider” needs a new ghost writer.

Well, it needs something. You might not think that a movie based on a comic book about a flaming skeleton in a leather outfit who rides a (literally) hot motorcycle and has a (literally) penetrating stare would be dull, but this one is.

Johnny Blaze has a motorcycle carny act with his father, riding through fire. The night before Johnny is to run away with his true love, Roxanne, a stranger (Peter Fonda) appears, telling Johnny that he can cure his father’s lung cancer if Johnny is willing to trade his soul.

Johnny does not believe and does not exactly agree, but he spills his blood on the contract, and that is good enough for the stranger, who turns out to be none other than Mephistopheles. Meph, a master of the loophole, cures the cancer, but Johnny’s father dies anyway. And now he belongs to the devil, who tells him he’ll be back when he needs a rider.

Flash forward a couple of decades and Johnny (now Nicolas Cage) is a sort of Evil Kneivel with a bit of Tony Hawk, and a touch of rock star. He performs daredevil stunts in front of huge arenas, his latest a plan to jump the length of a football field. And who should show up to interview him for television but his old friend Roxanne (now Eva Mendes), last seen as he left her standing in the rain.

He persuades her to meet him for dinner, but before he can get there, another old friend shows up, that mysterious stranger again. It turns out that it is now time for Johnny to become “the devil’s bounty hunter” and chase down Blackheart (American Beauty’s Wes Bentley) before he can beat Meph to a missing list of promised souls.

It just doesn’t work. Writer/director Mark Steven Johnson showed with Elektra and Daredevil that he has no feel for comic book stories. The pacing is sluggish and the action scenes are static and repetitious. There are some nice special effects as GR uses a chain like a flaming lasso and Blackheart’s henchmen exert their power over air and water. But the movie violates its own rules so frequently that it removes any real sense of involvement or meaning. Blackheart and his thugs seem like weak attempts to recreate Kevin Smith’s clever street punk demons in Dogma. And as Blackheart himself, Bentley smolders less persuasively than he did as the drug-dealing, video-taking teenager in American Beauty. When the poor guy is called upon to make sarcastic clapping work in a key confrontation, it teeters on the brink of parody.

A hero with a skull face is a cool idea in a comic, but in a movie the inability to show any kind of expression makes it difficult for it to seem menacing or sympathetic, and it is impossible to take advantage of all Cage (a comic book fan whose very stage name is a tribute to another comic book character) can do. Since he can’t play a skull, he is limited to a few expressions of agonizing isolation, longing, and painful transformation. If Ghost Rider wanted to fetch something of value, he should have been out there looking for a better script.

Parents should know that this film has a number of disturbing images, including a flaming skull and other grotesque characters and graphic violence and injuries. Characters drink and smoke and use brief bad language. The issue of selling a soul to the devil and damnation may be upsetting to some audience members.

Families who see this movie should talk about some of the other stories about characters who sell their souls to the devil and what they think about Johnny’s decision at the end of the movie.

Fans of this movie will enjoy reading the graphic novels, starting with Essential Ghost Rider, Vol. 1.

Blood and Chocolate

Posted on January 25, 2007 at 11:33 am

C-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for violence/terror, some sexuality and substance abuse.
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, drug dealer
Violence/ Scariness:	Intense and graphic peril and violence, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	Strong female character
Date Released to Theaters:	2007
Date Released to DVD:	2007
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000OCY7TY

There was enthusiastic applause in the theater when the name of author Annette Curtis Klause appeared in the opening credits. The book, about a teenage girl in Maryland whose werewolf issues serve as a metaphor for the sometimes-disturbing forces in adolescence, has a devoted following. But by the time the movie ended, there were only a few half-hearted claps from that same part of the theater. And the book’s fans were not the only ones who were disappointed.

The movie version’s lead is a little older (she seems to be out of school, with a job in a chocolate shop) and the location has been moved to Romania, for no particular reason.

Vivian (“ER”‘s Agnes Bruckner is a lone wolf, so to speak, regarded with some suspicion by the rest of the pack, and some jealousy, too. There’s some yadda yadda about a prophecy and her being chosen and “these are the ways of our people,” but it boils down to the fact that the leader of the pack, so to speak (Olivier Martinez, oily as always) has picked her to be his new she-wolf. Apparently, they have solved the whole seven-year-itch thing by giving the Big Bad Wolf the chance to select a new mate every seven years. But Vivian is different. The wolf pack loves to find a human to chase and kill, but she just loves to run because it makes her feel free.

Vivian meets Aiden, a human (Hugh Dancy), a graphic novelist with his own backstory, and soon he has her feeling hungry like a wolf, but only metaphorically. A couple of montages later (trying on clothes for the big date, running through fountains, looking up at the sky, all to some faux-indie music),

But wolves have strong feelings about their territory. They don’t like Vivian’s relationship with Aiden. When a confrontation with Vivian’s cousin ends in his being killed (by Aiden’s silver pendant), the young couple has to find a way to trust each other and create their own destiny.

There are a few nice touches — a falling red ribbon, an abandoned historic church, Vivian’s exuberant race through the streets. But the dialogue is weighted with dull claptrap about prophecies and “these are the ways of our people” and howlers like, “If you cared a Goddamn thing about me, you’d have left me before we even met,” the transformation scenes have no special vibrance, and Vivian’s existential angst just seems petulant. This wolf story is toothless.

Parents should know that this movie has intense and explicit peril and violence for a PG-13, including close-up shots of cuts and wounds, and fights with guns, knives, and very sharp teeth. Many characters are injured and killed. Characters use some strong language and drink and one deals drugs. There are some sexual references and there is brief non-sexual nudity.

Families who see this movie should talk about why Vivian felt responsible for her parents’ death. How did Aidan’s family background help him to understand her situation? What will happen to them? Are the wolf people cursed or blessed? Why?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy An American Werewolf in London, The Lost Boys, Sleepwalkers, and Wolf.

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Arthur and the Invisibles

Posted on January 8, 2007 at 12:43 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for fantasy action and brief suggestive material.
Profanity:	Some colorful language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Sleeping drops
Violence/ Scariness:	Action peril and violence
Diversity Issues:	Strong female characters
Date Released to Theaters:	2007
Date Released to DVD:	2007
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000N4SHNU

Director Luc Besson is known for his striking visuals and his mash-ups of sentimental, even corny moments with intense, graphic violence. At his best, in films like The Professional and The Fifth Element, these juxtapositions work well. But here, in his first film for a family audience, it feels more like a collision. The combination of themes and tones comes across as uncomfortably jarring.

It begins in live-action, beautifully designed to look like traditional children’s book illustrations, with golden tones and intricate details. The characters, language, and behavior also have a timeless feel. Though it is set in the 1950’s, it could easily be taking place in the Depression, especially given the musty colonialism of the set-up. Even the main character’s inexplicable English accent contributes to the feeling that perhaps this is a forgotten classic from the same shelf as The Secret Garden or Wee Willie Winkie.

Arthur (Freddy Highmore of Finding Neverland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and his grandmother (Mia Farrow) will lose their home if they cannot find the treasure hidden by Arthur’s grandfather before he disappeared. The only chance is for Arthur to get help from the Minimoys, a community of very tiny creatures Arthur’s father brought from his travels, who live somewhere deep inside the back yard.

But as soon as Arthur finds the Minimoys, the live action turns into animation, the ungainly and distracting roster of star vocal talent steps in, the tone begins to go haywire, and the story begins to fall apart.

While the opening sequence is understated and reassuringly old-fashioned, the underground adventures are an unfortunate mixture of po-mo snark and potty humor (some just plain pot humor as well). There might be some way to put Robert DeNiro, David Bowie, Jimmy Fallon, Madonna, and Snoop Dogg into the same environment, but Besson hasn’t figure it out, and the voice talents all sound forced and unhappy.

The action sequences are sluggish. The quips are even more sluggish. There are jokes about the age of the character voiced by Madonna, which are weak. But then there is something of a love interest between Arthur and her character, which is downright creepy. The movie tries to appeal to children looking for fairy tales, teens looking for satire, and college kids looking for something trippy. The result is too snotty to be genuine, too sugary to be witty, too uneven to be worthwhile for any audience.

Parents should know that the film has a great deal of cartoon-style action violence. Characters use some schoolyard language. Arthur’s grandmother take sleeping drops and he increases her dose so she will not know what he is doing. Some audience members may be upset that Arthur’s parents do not make it home for his birthday. A strength of the movie is the portrayal of capable, courageous female characters.

Families who see this movie should talk about how children sometimes feel responsible for solving the problems of adults. What was the most important thing Arthur learned?

Families who enjoy this film will also enjoy Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Secondhand Lions, Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, and The Ant Bully.