Monday, December 19, 2011

This week in DVD - December 18th

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Original review is here.

This was a big surprise for me.  I thought this was going to be a disaster of a movie and it ended up being one of the better movies of the summer and one of the better sci-fi themed movies I've seen in a while.

I might have to pick this one up on Blu-Ray.   Definitely rent it!


Fright Night

In my original review I talked about my disappointment in the remake.  I thought this was just okay.  It's a bummer cause I wanted to like it more.  I liked the actors in it, and I think it was an inspired performance by Colin Farrell, but it was wasted.

I think it's worth a rental, but that's about it.


The Smell of Success

This movie stars Billy Bob Thorton, Ed Helms and Tea Leoni as empoyees of a manure sales company.  That's where the 'smell' comes form.  Get it?  It has an interesting visual style, but at the same time, it felt like the whole movie was done in green screen.  Overall I really just didn't think it was all that interesting.  About the only thing that kept me watching was that something about Tea Leoni just does it for me.  That's it.

It's just blah.  Seems like a movie that would have worked as a dark comedy, but it wasn't funny.  Skip it.


Tanner Hall

I kind of rented this because of the the Rooney Mara hype.  I'm hearing she's great in The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo remake.  She wasn't bad in this, but the movie itself wasn't very good.  It's another one of those movies were nobody seemed like a real person and you didn't care about anyone.  It was all drama for the priviledged and it was difficult to identify with anyone.

Skip it.


Kung-Fu Panda 2


I ended up really liking this.  I wasn't a big fan of the first one, but I actually enjoyed the sequel much more.  The animation is beautiful!  The original voice cast returns, but at the same time it's one of the things that bugs me about the DreamWorks Animation movies.  There's so much focus on a star-studded cast, that you spend the movie trying to figure out what famous actor is voice which cahracter or they use a voice that's very distinctive, so it's hard to get that out of your head.  I compare this to Arthur Christmas that used good actors, but you didn't really realize it until seeing the credits, so you focused more on the movie than who the voices are.

I think it's worth a rental and good for kids and adults alike.





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