Saturday, June 23, 2012

Quick Movie Reviews: The Adventures of Tintin, One Day, Beginners, Hop

Here are some quick reviews for the lot of films in my goal for 2011 films that I was able to knock out in the last few weeks.

The Adventures of Tintin: Not as great as some made it out to be, but it was still an exciting adventure film. It had a real old-school adventure vibe to it which was cool. Steven Speilberg gets back into his element making rollicking adventure movies. As talented and diverse a director as Speilberg is, Adventure films are where he does his best work. Even though this is animated, his signature touch for excitement, mystery, and fun is on full display It's no Indiana Jones, but Tintin should delight fans of classic adventure films and kids alike.
3.5/5 Stars

One Day: Anne Hathaway does a fine job, it's beautifully shot and I appreciated the unconventional story structure for this type of movie (Each scene happens in a different year), but this movie still fell flat. It was boring as all hell and there is zero chemistry between Hathaway and Jim Strugess. It also doesn't help that Strugess's performance is laughably bad. I was surprised at just how bad Sturgess was considering how great he was in 21 just a few years ago. It's basically a Nicholas Sparks movie for the arthouse crowd and while it's better than a Sparks movie, it maintains the shallow predictability and overblown sappiness that plague all of his film adaptations.
1.5/5 Stars

Beginners: A touching and relatively sad story that is driven by the performances of Ewan McGregor and Christopher Plummer. It definitely aimed for higher emotions and it's maybe not as powerful as it should of been, but it's so finely acted that it balances out. McGregor does his best work in years in the lead role and Plummer give yet another excellent performance (Though I can't say I agree with him getting the Oscar for this performance, He was better in Girl with the Dragon Tattoo than this). It could of have been better, but Beginners is worth seeing for McGregor and Plummer's fine work alone.
3/5 Stars

Hop: This movie made me glad the Easter Bunny wasn't real. Easily the worst kids movie I've seen in a long time. All of the characters are obnoxious (Even the normally great Russell Brand and Hugh Laurie as EB, the Easter Bunny's son, and Hugh Laurie as the Easter Bunny are annoying here) and highly unlikable. More importantly than that though is the fact that the jokes miss horribly. It couldn't even establish any sentimental value or any valuable lessons at the end.I don't even think I would have liked this if I was 8. I actually think this would have killed Easter for me If I had seen this when I was a kid. It's not funny, It's not sweet, It's just garbage.
1/5 Stars



No comments:

Post a Comment