Reviews

The metascore for this film is baloney. The same people who gave this a 54 probably raved about Rogue One. The CGI is pretty good and gets extra points for design and interest level. The action is frequent and entertaining. The plots works well enough as does the script. Perhaps the weakest part of the film is acting or actor chemistry but I've seen much worse in films rated much better. The film doesn't take itself too seriously and this is a good thing. Enjoy.

My wife likes Benedict Cumberbatch who plays Sherlock in the British TV series so she went along (though she usually avoids films of this type). My son and I both enjoyed it, it was a fun movie. I was surprised when my wife liked it. She likes very few movies and normally has no patience for excessive special effects/CGI.

The action is good (although the sequences of morphing landscapes do go on). In general the pacing is good. There are some clever twists to the CGI design and some editing could have made it more snappy. Still, I was pleasantly surprised because I did not have expectations for it. After all, it is a Marvel movie and I had not seen BC outside of the BBC (so to speak).

Overall, an interestingly designed movie.

I went with somewhat lowered expectations due to some very negative reviews. However, the movie was solidly entertaining. A few reviewers said the film did not live up to its name but I found it sufficiently beastly for me. There were some comments about it leaning heavily on the Potter franchise which don't appear to be true. It does follow the HP universe with an American twist. I particularly liked the actor who played the lead, Newt Salamander. He reminded me of Matt Smith who I've been missing ever since he left Doctor Who (Capaldi just doesn't cut it, sorry). I also found the subplot with the baker/cannery worker charming. It was just what the movie needed - a bit of muggle :^). In general the actors did a very good job. Many may claim the CGI was overdone but I found the film well-paced and enjoyable. It totters a bit before it finds its feet but comes together for a satisfying finish. Production values are excellent (to my eye) and the direction is good along with the script. I suspect there will be a ready audience for a sequel if they make one.

I like to check reviews before I go see a movie and London is Falling was no different. What WAS different was the level of vituperation and animosity directed at this movie. Looking at a large number of reviews I noticed common threads - many foreign based reviews with a remarkable level of antipathy towards the US and or Americans plus lots of crazy political comments (check it out). What got me were the comments about cowboys or patriots, etc. I started thinking I might like LIF, after all the trailer does show an action flick. With lowered expectations I went and was pleasantly surprised by an over the top action film in the Die Hard tradition. Yes, it is rated R but all of that is for violence and there is no more of that than in a Bay film. Pay no attention to the BS about unrealistic CGI or poor plot or all the pathetic excuses people find to criticize this film. If you want an art film - go see an art film. If you want a rousing shoot-em up, this is it!

Picked two films with very high ratings as possibilities to go see: Dicaprio's Inception with a very high rating (9 stars) and another film, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World with an incredible 10 stars. The Pilgrim movie seemed to be a bit young for me (about a guy in a band having to deal with a girl's evil ex-boyfriends in order to date her) so I plumped for Inception which is Sci-Fi and which I usually like.

I lasted about 30 minutes in Inception. It was trying too hard and delivering nothing. Starting off with 3 dream-in-a-dream sequences, mediocre acting, and non-existent dialogue, it got progressively worse. I didn't stick around, been there, done that.

Luckily for me, I walked into the Scott Pilgrim movie in-progress and saw a very different and funny movie. Yeah, it's juvenile but hilarious. A takeoff on bands, anime, gaming, and young love in general. The casting/acting was impeccable for a no-name film and the script made me chuckle through-out. If there weren't so many gay jokes, I'd take my kids to see it. Even if you aren't into computer games, you may appreciate a lot of the humor. Kids should love it.

Best thing of all, it was more than payback for having to sit through part of Inception, :^)

Boring. Adolescent. Bad enough to be camp if one could stand Downey. It started out disappointing and never looked back and, as people say, it's not the money, it's the wasted time.

If you want to see a good action movie, check out Prince of Persia. It's as under-rated as this dud is over-rated.

I went to see this because of the high rating. Well, I will think twice about that in the future. This film has the feeling of a straight to video production. If you want to get up or chat during the flick, feel free - you won't miss anything important. Uninspired scenes with dancing girls seem to abound.

We are treated to endless depictions of Iron Man's pathos (well beyond Downey's range apparently,even if it was interesting - which it is not). If you want to know how bad, think Will Smith in I Am Legend.

It is just amazingly silly to see the Iron Man 'hands down' flight take-off routine. It resembles a Warner Brothers cartoon, funny too.

Seriously, I wonder if a lot of these movie reviews are written by adolescents. It would explain much.

After reading some of the comments here, I went to see the film despite them. There were many positive ones but a lot of pans. Some reviews called it a bad video game movie. Other comments seem to stretch to criticize it. The good reviews did not mesh with the bad.

I was just surprised by the film. Nowhere, and I repeat nowhere, does one get the feeling that this is a bad game film. It seems the bad reviews are not even connected to the film.

This was a very entertaining movie. Good casting/acting, a decent plot - not as predictable as one might think, and a well-written, wry script. Lots of action too.

If past the halfway point I was satisfied with the disposition of my entertainment dollar, by the end I was delighted.

I had worried about how the film was going to measure up without 3D effects for impact. No worry, Enjoy.

Side note: It still is a bit of disappointment to me that the IMDb rating (6.9) does not reflect the quality of this film IMO. Normally I trust this site to give an accurate assessment of a film. It seems this particular film has attracted a lot of unwarranted criticism. I understand that tastes vary and this film won't appeal to many. It is in the "Romancing the Stone"/"Mummy" category. But it doesn't even get credit for that. This is a well-done movie. I don't understand the rancor.

I can't speak for the 2D edition since I have not seen it.

But I can say that the 3D version is exhilarating. Dicken's London is re-created with much of its beauty and, yes, ugliness. The visual design of many of the scenes and how we are swept into and through them is simply stunning.

On the negative side I have to put in a dig at some of the artwork, agreeing with another reviewer's comments that some inept Shrek artist seems to have been mistakenly allowed to contribute to the film. This is perhaps the main reason for the less than excellent rating.

However, the story is as good as ever and brought magically into the 21st century. The 3D effects are used masterfully to add atmosphere and, for the most part, are not overdone. Carrey brings that special flavor of his (as much as he can) to the animated feature. Overall, it is the same Dickens story but polished and made new.

A warning here, our smaller viewers may find the imagery and action too much. This is not really a film for sensitive toddlers. Both of mine (and they are 7 & 10) spent some time hiding their eyes from some of the more intense scenes, like Marley's ghost.

I have never seen a movie more than once in the theatre, at least for my own enjoyment. But this could be the first time I am tempted to repeat the experience. Merry Christmas.

Unlike many of the other reviews(it seems), I don't have an ax to grind. I vaguely remembered the character and actually thought it was a French cartoon. If it was on TV, I never saw it.

As such, my expectations were fairly plebeian - just a family film with good production values and some entertainment value. Well, Astroboy IS well produced and IS very entertaining. There was plenty of comedy to keep the film light and lots of action to keep things moving.

I might agree with those who think the portrayal of Toby's(Astroboy's) father was rather cold. However, it fits with the sequence of events and one assumes that the producers were following the original story (I'm not going to read the comic book to find out).

There are many endearing characters in the film and interesting villains to boot. The animation varied from good to excellent and the pacing avoided any significant lulls. All in all, well and cleverly done. Good job, Imagi, and all the talented people who contributed.

I recommend this to anyone who wants some light-hearted entertainment. My family loved it.

First, the artwork is eye candy. Designed to appeal to kids and adults, a lot of care and inspiration and, maybe, a bit of genius went into the visual design of this film.

Second, the music complemented the film almost perfectly. The feel of the songs fit the film. The melodies were appealing and well produced. Taken with the film they were very memorable. The available music for purchase, "Curious George: Sing-A-Longs And Lullabies For The Film", tho not exactly the same as in the film, is good.

It is, as others have commented, a very entertaining kid's film which doesn't include inappropriate content. This is to be appreciated in an era when the entertainment industry appears often to be working against parents.

A little truth in advertisement might have saved me a waste of time and money. It will be a long time before I attend another Will Smith movie, if ever.

Rather than some entertainment we must experience the range of Smith's dramatic acting, couched in soliloquies and imaginary conversation. It is not impressive, nor is the writing.

A little humor might have helped but there is none. The movie takes itself dead seriously and that makes it deadly dull (all zombies aside).

The sparse action sequences (which might have interesting in other context) highlight the protagonist's dissolution, making his lifestyle at the point the movie takes up the narrative more than a bit confusing.

If there is anything good about the film it may be the imagery of a New York gone feral. Some of which is startling. Too bad it went to waste. This is just a bad film.

First off, we did not see the original Garfield on the big screen. It took the DVD to spark our interest in the 2nd film.

Second, we were only hoping for an entertaining movie and "Tale of Two Kitties" scores ten out of ten in that department.

My seven year old giggled throughout the movie and my four year wore himself out jumping around. As in the previous Garfield movie, there are talking animals, serviceable jokes, and the romantic subplot between Jon and Garfield's vet, Liz.

As for me, I found it more entertaining than that cartoon epic, "Cars", which we saw a week or so later.

I am somewhat puzzled by the many reviews ripping the film for its appeal to small children. Du-uh

1st off this movie is not everybody's cup of tea. It is genuinely creepy in a nightmarish way. The scenes are fairly powerful and tolerating them will require an inured psyche or a jaded one. Indeed one wonders about the many reviewers who said the film was not scary.

I did read a few reviews before seeing the film. I can say I was drawn to the film having been exposed to the computer game (Silent Hill 4 for PC). I never did finish the game, principally from not wanting to spend the long hours associated with playing video games in such a ghastly environment. If 'you are what you eat' well then …

But the film seemed like it could be an interesting diversion, particularly if the producer had managed it well. And my first impression was positive. After checking IMDb, indications were that the film had received a high number of favorable responses. I don't recall the exact number but it was in the high sevens on a scale of 10. At that point it seemed there was reason to go. Imagine my surprise a few days later when, after discussing my intentions to see the film with a friend, I am directed to the Rotten Tomatoes site where the film is slated (ranking 2.5 out of 10). A closer look showed that this was the 'critics' rating, the 'users' rating was in the 7's. Well, not being a fan of professional critics, I set out to read some reviews (on IMDb of course).

Since the 'Hated it' reviews generally provide the most amount of insight (when they provide any), they were first. The gist of them seemed to be that the acting was poor. Bad dialogue was a close second. There were a lot people very upset that the dialogue did not measure up. This was rather mystifying since dialogue in horror films almost always sucks when it's not outright comedic. Some folks were angered by the ending of the movie and this is a complaint for which I usually have a lot of sympathy. There were also a lot of rather snide remarks about the film not being scary or 'little girls not being scary anymore'. Besides being unhelpful, the way they were phrased made one curious about the writers.

Checking the positive reviews they almost uniformly praised the quality of the adaptation and the cinematography. There were also comments about the poor quality of dialogue and plot flow. After seeing the film I can say that I agree with most of them. By the time I had finished checking reviews, I had learned the nature of the ending by catching a spoiler or two. Surprisingly, it did not ruin the film for me, I still wanted to see how it came out. It did remove the ending as a potential issue. Watching movies (like politics) is a game of expectations. If the audience's expectations are too high, even a decent film is bound to disappoint.

The Film's Impact:

The core issue is that whatever elements and effects the director, Mr Gans, did take from the game are adapted and implemented almost flawlessly – creating a genuinely scary and disturbing experience over much of the first 1/2 to 2/3s of the movie. It is true that during the last portion of the film it hitches and sputters a bit as a back story and some rather crude caricatures of villains are hatched to fill out the plot. The storyline created to fill the world of Silent Hill doesn't really mesh well and I sympathize with some reviewers' disappointments. However, if clumsy, the plot line serves and so is not a fatal flaw. The same comment applies to both the acting and the dialogue.

The director does not use all of the creepy elements of the game. In a way I was relieved that he did not add (for example) the ceiling crawlers to the movie version. The movie was scary enough and, though it would have added much to the surreal nature of the movie, it would have also taken away from the aspect of the female lead as he chose to have that actor play it (ie. limited combat ).

Lastly, some advice, don't see this movie if you can't stomach the fright. Some of the scenes (walls weeping blood, mal shaped human forms) are quite intense. You just might not want these images inside your head. I do accept that some of the reviewers may have found the film not scary - simply because of the variability of human experience. What scares one may not affect or even amuse another, etc. But then, this film was not amusing.

The director did shortcut the exploration of Silent Hill, the clues, etc. The eerie radio cueing is only used in one scene with a cell phone substitute. But the issue is not what was left out but how the director succeeded with the elements and sets he did use. This is a horror film that is different from the rest, at least until the final portions of the film where it is wrenched into sort of a standard plot. Even then it keeps its differences. Silent Hill may fade at the box office but it won't be forgotten.

First, the overall rating of the movie is good to very good. Narnia is true to the original story and well done. The production values are good and so is the acting. So there aren't any clinkers to trip up the audience as the story progresses. I do recommend it. I want to make this clear up front before I begin to criticize it since most of my disappointment stems from expectations. I don't expect others to have the same expectations that I had for the film.

However, Narnia has been on the horizon for some time, as has been the new Harry Potter film, Goblet of Fire. The difference is that with Potter I already knew what to expect – super design and production values, good to very good acting, and somewhat trying adolescent themes :^). With Narnia there was the hope that it might be entertainment of epic proportion. After all, the story lends itself to that end. It didn't seem to me to achieve that goal.

In the inevitable comparison between the Potter film and Narnia, Narnia comes up short. While there are equally stunning scenes in both films, the impact of Narnia is less. It is in the wonderment department that Narnia falls down. Watching the film, one has the thought that director is no Peter Jackson. The action flows, all the elements are there but the magnitude of the impact is not as great. The casting is good and I have no complaint there. The director has a good eye for faces and uses it in his film.

I was going to say originally that the film did not have enough inspiration or creativity in it. But upon additional thought it was clear that there is much to admire in the film. A lot of the sets, costumes, and makeup designs are superb. The integration of computer graphics and actors is well nigh seamless. Any inspiration that is missing seems to come in framing the shots or the storyline. In fact, if it was possible to have Jackson re-cut the film, he might make it twice as good. All the elements are there after all. It just seems to progress from event to event in a way that sometimes makes the story plod a bit.

It will be interesting to see if Narnia does well and, if it does, where Disney will go with the series. One thing about the Potter franchise is that the films have been consistently good - something that moviegoers know happens but rarely.

There is the issue of whether the film is suitable for children. Although the gore is not excessive, there are lots of battle scenes. And the makeup/design of the monsters is quite good, certainly good enough to scare young children. I am guessing 8 and up would probably be fine. Anyone younger and the violence or monsters could be a bit much or the quiet parts may make them fidget rather than stare properly. Children vary, of course, but I saw one Dad with his 3-year-old there. This film is just too much for a child of that age.

All of this commentary is from the perspective of someone who has read the books. I know the significance of Aslan to the series and the import of the allegories. I find I can't guess the reactions of people who are not familiar with the series and it will be intriguing to read some of those reviews.

Doom did not meet even the low expectations that I set for it! The introduction to the squad was promising with names with 'Reaper' & 'Destroyer'. But the film manages to go directly to the dumper. We are immediately subjected to low budget corridor creeping with the actors ineffectually sweeping their guns around and waiting to be carried off by monsters unknown and uninteresting. The beginning is thus sort of a low budget Aliens sequel. The film goes from bad to worse as the producers decide to add a plot twist to a movie with little plot. The set design is either ugly, uninteresting, or (practically) non-existent as little creative effort was put into it or the writing. The actors try their best but the whole film is a failure. This is definitely one film which should not have taken itself seriously. The least they could have done is change the name when they decided to make such a poor film.

The good news is that any future remake couldn't possibly be worse than this, that is, if anyone goes to see it.

Although there is a definite reward here for fans of the original Joss Whedon series, Firefly, this is a movie that stands on its own.

The original cast of the TV series returns in the film edition bringing their considerable talents with them. The movie can't bring the depth of character development to the screen that the series did, but succeeds nonetheless by setting scenes that bring the actors to life and entertain.

And the acting is good. These are people you want to watch. Some of the tension between captain and crew seemed overly contrived. But the tone of the movie is just right. It doesn't take itself too seriously but also doesn't fall to the level of camp or farce. It is good sci-fi ala space opera. The cast has fun with it and the audience will too.

Snappy dialogue, lots of action, good acting... it reminded me of the first Star Wars movie.

So. enjoy!

And... if you like it (if Sci-fi is your preference, you will) you have the additional pleasure of picking up the DVD of the Firefly series. The DVD content is complimentary to the film and vice-versa (as I am sure was Whedon's intent).

Unfortunately those of us who have already seen the series can only hope for another film. :^) Hats off to Whedon for a fine job and a fun film!