Enchanted

Enchanted A classic Disney fairytale collides with modern-day New York City in a story about a fairytale princess who is sent to our world by an evil queen. Soon after her arrival, Princess Giselle begins to change her views on life and love after meeting a handsome lawyer.

Starring: Patrick Dempsey, Amy Adams, James Marsden, Timothy Spall, Idina Menzel, Rachel Covey and Susan Sarandon etc.

Rating: PG for some scary images and mild innuendo.

This movie was delightful. It starts off in Andalasia, where Giselle in animated form is waiting for her prince and true love's first kiss. Giselle meets her prince and they about to wed when Giselle is tricked by Prince Edward's stepmother and ends up in New York where she's turned from animated into human form. She meets up with a lawyer and his daughter who kindly try to help her.

What I found to be charming about this movie is that Giselle sticks to all of her naive ideas (true love, happily ever after, princes etc) despite all the bitter cynicism of Robert (lawyer). The songs are delightful and catchy and I found myself wanting to be a little more like Giselle in her openness and persistently upbeat outlook on life. While Giselle remains charming, Robert does cause Giselle to realize that there may be a bit more to life than just finding one's prince and living happily ever after. Just what does "happily ever after" entail after all.

This story was also interesting because it basically ran across the board of all the fairy tales out there and took different aspects from each one.

Amy Adams does an excellent job of portraying the sweet and naive Giselle. She also has a lovely singing voice and really conveys a genuine sincerity to her part. Susan Sarandon was magnificent for her role as Narissa. Not sure why she didn't get an Oscar nod.

Parental concerns:

Sex/Nudity: Scene where Giselle is getting out of the shower and birds hold up towel for her. Nothing is visible except maybe naked shoulders and legs. She also falls on top of Robert in this scene while only in her towel. Giselle does show a lot of cleavage throughout the film. Mild innuendo.

Violence: Prince's helper Nathaniel repeated threatens to kill the squirrel. Prince brandishes sword around at people in trying to find Giselle. Obvious that Nathaniel is trying to get rid of Giselle by making her eat poisoned apple.

Without spoiling the ending... Prince Edward's stepmother, Narissa, tries to kill Giselle and then causes a fight scene, windows breaking, falling off buildings etc.

Narissa can be quite scary and changes her appearance through magic and incantation.

I usually stick pretty close the rating guidelines for my children. However, if your child has read Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, they know that the evil witch was trying to kill the princess. Unless, of course, you edit it out. We tried editing it all out but other people are not always so quick on the uptake there. What we did do was skip most of the ending as we considered it too frightening. You can pretty much go from the ball scene where Narissa shows up and tries to ruin everything. Watch it ahead of time and you will know exactly where it would make sense to end if off.

Try it out. If not for your children then for yourself. It was a delightful movie and well deserving of all the nominations for and actual Oscar awards received. One other fun thing is that in the special features section, you can play your favourite music scenes. My girls and I loved to put it on and dance around to it.

Zeemaid

Wall E

Wall E

In the distant future, a small waste collecting robot inadvertently embarks on a space journey that will ultimately decide the fate of mankind.

Featuring the voice talents of:  Ben Burtt (WallE), Elissa Knight (EVE), Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard, MacinTalk, Sigourney Weaver, etc.... 

Rating:  G. 

LOVE IT, LOVED IT, LOVED IT.  

This was a cleverly and cutely done movie.  Basic premise, is we as humans have turned our planet into a garbage dump.  The solution?  To go on the longest vacation of your life, into space on a space cruise ship, while little robots left behind take care of the garbage and clean up.  The only problem is, is that it takes longer than anyone could have imagined.  Several centuries later, almost all of the cleaning robots (Wall E's) are fried, leaving one who keeps on plugging away at.  He develops a quirky personality and seems enthralled with the junk humans have thrown away.  

Meanwhile on the cruise ship, humans have developed into fat, lazy blobs who can't do anything for themselves.  So much so to the point that the ship's computer deems that the best thing for the humans is for them to remain the fat lazy blobs that they are.  EVE; however, is a robot programmed to return to earth every so often and search for plant life.  When it finally does find plant life the ship's computer does everything to stop the humans from breaking out of their lazy routines and from returning to earth.  Wall E meanwhile falls in love with EVE. 

This is a Pixar film and like most of their films, it was charming.  I love animated films but there has got to be some kind of draw to pull an adult in and keep them there.  Many of the movie elements were over my children's understanding, like humans who given everything they could ask for became lazy, fat and dim and the more obvious message of how we're littering our planet to death.   But they still enjoyed it from Wall E's hangout to the cute little robot who obsessively cleans everything. 

As for content.  It was pretty clean.  There is one part where Wall E plays with a bra he finds. Innocently though. 

For Violence:  There is also some shooting done by EVE with a futuristic gun but she does not shoot any characters, only inaninmate objects.  In another scene, a robot falls a long distance and breaks apart.  

For profanity:  There is a recorded message of  "Darn it All" and "Let's Get the Heck out of Here."

For frightening/scary scenes:  Very emotional scene when Wall E gets beaten up and is almost crushed. It all ends okay though. The space ship when landing is loud and almost lands on a visibly frightened WallE.  The captain gets into a fight with the ships autopilot and gets thrown around the room several times and jabbed in the eye at least once.  

Very small children might be disturbed by the damaged Wall E scene.  It does suck you in and makes you worry about whether he's gonna make it or not.  

Open Season 2

Open Season 2

After falling head over hooves in love with Giselle, Elliot's road to the altar takes a slight detour when Mr. Weenie is kidnapped by a group of pampered pets determined to return him to his owners

Featuring the voice talents of: Joel McHale, Mike Epps, Jane Krakowski, Crispin Glover, Cody Cameron, etc.

Rating PG for mild rude humour.

I found this movie to be mildly amusing. I did not; however, let my children watch it because they are all 5 and under. The storyline was pretty well paced. However, it is a stretch to believe a deer, who was not the handsomest stud in the pack, would get cold feet on tying the knot "forever and ever."On second thought considering he's entirely self-focused maybe it's not such a stretch. 

I did find the voices of the pet owners amusing and particularly found the plight of Mr. Weenie to be funny. Also the idea of a small poodle being the "evil" villain of the piece was hilarious. I am; however, tired of people or in this case animals of just not being nice to each other and trying to be top dog (pun intended) all the time.

This was a somewhat "cute and amusing" film and suitable for 8 and up.  Parents of smaller children be cautioned; there are more than one attempt on wienie's life as well as the use of shock collars by the "bad guys" on the "good guys".  

Overall, not my favourite movie. 

Igor

IGOR   

In a world filled with Mad Scientists and Evil Inventions, one talented evil scientist's hunch-backed lab assistant has big dreams of becoming a Mad Scientist himself and winning the annual Evil Science Fair. Only nothing goes as planned. 

Featuring the voice talents of:  John Cusack, John Cleese, Sean Hayes, Eddie Izzard, Steve Buscemi, Jennifer Coolidge and Jay Leno (to name just a few). 

Rating:  PG

I had big hopes for this movie.  I like John Cusack and usually enjoy his dry wit and humour.  Haven't really found a John Cusack movie that I didn't like.  Didn't understand mind you (thinking of War Inc), that's another story er review. 

As a mom with small children, I found this movie to be disappointing. The first time I watched it, I didn't enjoy it at all, saw nothing humorous.  The second time I watched it with my husband and I began to find it somewhat more amusing than at first.  We didn't watch the ending, it was getting late.  But I did find myself wanting to watch the rest of the film the next day.  

What I find disturbing in this film; however, is not really the level of violence etc but the completely disrespectful way the characters talk to each other.  Dr. Schadenfraude and his girlfriend Jaclyn have a stormy relationship and are continuously throwing out snide comments and barbs at one another. Their arguments escalate to hitting each other, which instead of actually hitting each other they hit their Igor instead.  While I get that these two people are "evil" and obviously are not going to have a loving and respectful relationship, I couldn't in good conscious let my children watch that and let them think that that is how two people talk to each other and that hitting is a good way of resolving conflict.  

As for violence, there are scenes of people getting blown up, references to being thrown into a recycler where your body gets chopped up and recycled, trying to kill each other, shoot outs, chase scenes etc. 

There are a lot of little things like that throughout the film.  The ending is good, poor Malaria's problems get resolved and the film has a good moral tone about how everyone has an evil bone in their body is just whether they choose to be evil or not.  

So please stick with the ratings guideline. If your children are under 8 years old, I highly recommend that you do not let them watch this film.  If your child is between 8 and 10 then I suggest that you prescreen this movie and then decide whether you are comfortable with them seeing it. 

As always, only you can decide what you feel is appropriate for your child.  I realize that each family is unique and has their own individual value system.  What's right for one family may not be right for another. 

Space Chimps

When Ham III, the slacker grandson of NASA's legendary chimpanzee astronaut, is recruited to help retrieve a lost space probe, he has a close encounter of the hilarious kind as he teams up with the lovely Lieutenant Luna and their by-the-book commander, Titan. But when the ship crash-lands on a strange planet, can this mismatched chimp crew work together to save the mission without driving one another bananas? Rated G

Featuring the voice talents of Cheryl Hines, Jeff Daniels, Stanley Tucci, Andy Samburg and (my favourite) Patrick Warbuton etc..... Apparently created by "one" of the primates that brought us Shrek.

This movie was alright. The graphics were great and the story was new and refreshing. My children found this movie interesting but I didn't hear one argument when I turned it off half way through (because we needed to go out). They were happy to return to the movie later but I don't think it really would have mattered to them one way or the other and they probably would have just forgotten about it.

Having said that, it probably is a movie well worth renting for something different. For older children than mine, it can lead to great talks about astronauts and NASA etc. I am sure, living in the USA, this movie is more of a hit because the whole space program is more real there than it is to this Western Canadian who is so far removed from rockets and the like.

I did have a few qualms about letting the children watch this as there is one particularly bad alien who dunks his enemies into cold lava and freezes them and is determined to take over the world er planet, plus NASA put the chimps through all sorts of rigorous tests etc to prepare the chimps for space which can appear almost tortuous. I find myself yet again having to explain to E why some people are mean and guess at why they want to put other people down. Then on the other hand it's no worse than any of the Barbie movies or even many Disney movies.

What the blurb on the back of the DVD leaves out is that Hami III is descendant from the first chimp who went into space. He's disillusioned and is more interested on getting back to his life in the circus than going into space and his antics causes the crew to be put into danger.

All in all, it's not a bad movie and since everything always works out typical movie style, I am sure your kids will enjoy this space tale.

Cheers,

Zeemaid

Kung Fu Panda

KUNG FU PANDA

It's the story about a lazy panda named Po, who dreams of becoming a Kung Fu warrior. Unfortunately, broth runs in his veins. (his family owns a noodle shop). Through some comedic mis-steps, Po is chose as the "one" who will fulfill an ancient prophecy and becomes the Dragon Warrior. Po leaves his home to join the world of Kung Fu and trains alongside his idols the Legendary Furious Five - Tigress, Crane, Mantis, Viper and Monkey. Po, along with the legendary Five, does not believe that he belongs which is even more apparent when he learns that the vengeful and evil snow leopard Tai Lung has escaped from his prison and is on his way to exact his revenge on the valley. Can Po rise to the challenge and become the Kung Fu warrior he has always dreamed about? Po puts his heart - and his stomach - into the task and the unlikely hero learns that his greatest weaknesses turns out to be his biggest assets.

Featuring the voice talents of: Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Ian McShane, Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu, James Hong and many others.

Rating: PG

What a star studded cast. I just love watching movies where you can recognize the voices of some of your favourite actors. My husband and I both enjoyed this film. We both enjoy the humour of Jack Black and this movie has typical Jack Black style written all over it. I love that Dustin Hoffman is in this film. You just don't get enough of Dustin Hoffman these days.

The graphics were great, the storyline was well written. It is rated PG (which typically means 8 and up) and parents, I definitely recommend that you follow the guideline. While this movie was clean in it's jokes; i.e. no over the kids head kinda humour meant to draw in the adults, it does have several dark scenes. Tai Lung, the villain in this movie, is held prisoner in a dark prison drawn in black and reds. The guards have glowing red eyes and and when Tai Lung does his thing, it is violent and very evident that he's fighting to the death. They do actually mention at one point "why didn't he kill them?" So for very young children, this is not appropriate and I was glad that we did not allow our 5 year old to watch it.

On the other hand, if your child is older and has already watched these types of movies in the past, there is nothing else in this film that should prevent you from allowing them to watch it.

What I particularly liked about this film was that they took a person (in this case an animal) that normally would not be the first pick for a kung fu warrior. Through the story everyone learns that it's not about your size or who you are but what's inside and sometimes you can surprise even yourself as to what you can do.

Cheers

Zeemaid

A Mom's Movie Review

Barbie Diamond Castle

Barbie and Teresa tells us the storey of Alexa and Liana, best friends who share everything including their love of music. One day their lives change when they are given an enchanted mirror and befriend the girl trapped inside. It is up to Alexa and Liana to help their new friend and embark on a dangerous journey to the hidden Diamond Castle. This puts their friendship to the test but through the power of song and the companionship of two adorable puppies, the girls face their challenges together and learn the true value of friendship.

Starring the voice talents of Kelly Sheridan, Melissa Lyons, Cassidy Ladden, Chantal Strand, Maryke Hendrickse and Lara Janine and featuring Katherine McPhee singing Connected. (to name just a few) Rated: G

My daughters were absolutely delighted with this movie. Even my 18 month old son found plenty to interest him with the bright colours and catchy music. Of course, I think what he really loved about the movie was the flying dragon. My youngest daughter (3) asks for this movie at least once a day.

I have to admit that this was a delightful movie. The story was well done and it managed to keep all of us interested throughout the entire movie. I have to really say this is a good gauge to me as to how entertaining this movie is... if my kids sit through it then it MUST be entertaining.

The bonus features include a music video with Katherine McPhee singing the Connected song. Warning... this song will begin to drive you crazy. It's lovely but it's catchy, a little too catch. I work in my video store evenings and we play one of those DVD loops promoting the latest movies and boy I think I heard that song waaaaaaaaaaay too much.

This movie does follow along the typical Mattel format in that there is someone evil trying to take over the world to make everyone miserable without really explaining why. Usually this person possesses some kind of magic which they use against the heroines.

In this case Lydia, a muse, decides she doesn't want to be a good muse anymore and wants to have all the power so she turns against her fellow muses, turns them into stone by a magic recorder and sets off the storyline. What isn't told is why Lydia decides to turn to evil or what has given her this thirsty lust for power.

So it does make it difficult answering my daughter's questions on the who what why and where of it but then on the other hand I don't want to get into big heavy discussions every time we watch a movie either.

So if you have any issues with witchcraft, I would not suggest this movie to you. It is by far one of the more milder magic movies of Barbie's to date but if you have concerns regarding that then this movie is not for your family.

As well there are some action fighting scenes, the dragon burns down their house and Lydia does attempt to do away with the girls multiple times through out the film. Most of it was pretty mild and subtle enough to go over the children's heads. They found the movie suspenseful but not to the point where they were hiding behind a cushion. Of course, the introduction of the darling puppies helps to keep most scenes on the light side.

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Up next: Kung Fu Panda


Cheers,

Zeemaid