The Kite Runner

Posted on December 14, 2007 at 8:00 am

B+
Lowest Recommended Age: High School
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for strong thematic material including the sexual assault of a child, violence and brief strong language.
Profanity: None
Alcohol/ Drugs: None
Violence/ Scariness: Disturbing material including child abuse, rape of male children and attempted rape of adult woman, woman stoned to death, abuse by occupying Soviet soldiers and by Taliban
Diversity Issues: A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters: December 14, 2007

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This faithful adaptation of the worldwide best-seller puts a struggle for personal redemption and atonement in the context of devastating divides, ethnic, cultural, poltical, and moral, set in Afghanistan before, during, and after the Soviet invasion of 1979. Loyalty, betrayal, even identity itself are themes that echo and circle back on themselves in this moving story of learning what it means to “be good again.”

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Based on a book Drama Epic/Historical Genre , Themes, and Features Movies -- format Reviews

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Posted on December 11, 2007 at 8:00 am

Everything is changing again for Harry Potter. Back when Hagrid explained to him for the first time at age 11 that his parents had not died in a car crash but in a battle with an evil wizard and that he was not an ordinary muggle but a wizard himself, Harry first began to learn that the world was not what he thought. Those lessons become more painful this time as in the fifth chapter of his saga he learns that the father he has idealized may not have been everything he thought, that the girl he has idealized may not be everything he hoped, that sometimes life is not fair and grown-ups can be cruel or unwilling to listen or unable to help him. In other words, Harry is 15 and that means that most of the time he is confused or angry or both.


Oh, and Voldemort is back, and stronger. Harry is getting stronger, too, but is he strong enough?

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Action/Adventure Based on a book Fantasy Genre , Themes, and Features Reviews

The Bourne Ultimatum

Posted on December 11, 2007 at 8:00 am

There is not much story here. The set-up was two movies ago, when a man with a gunshot wound was fished out of the water. He had no memory but when it came to the tricks of the spy trade, he had mad skills. Now, three movies later, he is beginning to put it all together and that is something that the bad guys do not want and will do anything to stop. So, the whole movie is just cat and mouse — that is, if the cat and mouse were equipped with some serious ordnance, the combat skills of an Ultimate Fighting Champion, and the resilience of The Terminator. This movie has no pretence of being about anything but the action scenes. Fortunately, the action scenes are choice.

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Action/Adventure Based on a book Genre , Themes, and Features Reviews Thriller

Atonement

Posted on December 4, 2007 at 4:07 pm

A-
Lowest Recommended Age: Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating: Rated R for disturbing war images, language and some sexuality.
Profanity: Some very strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs: Drinking and smoking
Violence/ Scariness: Wartime violence with some graphic images
Diversity Issues: Class differences
Date Released to Theaters: December 7, 2007

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Little toy jungle animals are lined up on the rug. Typewriter keys bang like gunshots. Briony (Saoirse Ronan) is writing a play called “The Trials of Arabella.” It is 1935 England, a dream of a summer afternoon on a sleepy but grand estate and Briony is the much-loved youngest daughter of the house. It feels like the biggest problem she will ever have is whether her young visitors will cooperate in putting on the play. She is already trying to impose her story on people. Briony is more imaginative than perceptive and that will lead to terrible betrayal, when the story she imposes is fictional but its consequences are very real.

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Based on a book Epic/Historical Genre , Themes, and Features Movies -- format Romance

The Golden Compass

Posted on December 4, 2007 at 11:38 am

B+
Lowest Recommended Age: Middle School
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for sequences of fantasy violence.
Profanity: None
Alcohol/ Drugs: None
Violence/ Scariness: Children and adults in peril, shooting, arrows, explosions, battle scenes, badly injured child (not graphic), some disturbing themes
Diversity Issues: Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters: December 5, 2007

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Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards) is disobedient, obstinate, crafty, and skeptical. In other words, she challenges authority, she is is a creative thinker, and she is in the grand tradition of the heroes of classic adventure stories. And this is a grand adventure indeed, sweeping, imaginative, epic, thrilling.
Lyra lives in an alternate world that looks like 19th century Oxford. She is an orphan essentially being raised through the benign neglect of a group of academics, with occasional visits from her uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig), an explorer-scientist. She runs wild much of the time, playing with the servant’s children rather than sitting in classrooms. In her world, “souls walk beside our bodies” in the form of “daemons,” animal spirits that are invisibly connected to their humans. The daemons of children shift from one species to another as the circumstances inspire — or require. But daemons assume one form at puberty and retain it.
Lord Asriel arrives with news of “dust,” a mystical force he has been studying at the top of the world. There are mysterious rumors of children being snatched up and taken away. An imposing and mysterious woman named Mrs. Coulter invites Lyra to stay with her. And one of the scholars gives Lyra an important gift called an althiometer, a kind of compass with mysterious symbols that when read correctly — or rather, when read by the person who knows how to use it — tells the truth. All of these developments come together as Lyra goes on a journey in search of her captured friend, a journey that requires the assistance of a cowboy (gravel-voiced Sam Elliott), a witch (Eva Green), and an armored bear (voice of Ian McKellan).

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