su·per·cil·i·ous

Website: wall-e.com
Director: Andrew Stanton
Lead: Fred Willard
Co-Star: Jeff Garlin
Genre: Animation/Comedy/Family/Romance/Sci-Fi
Runtime: 98mins
Rating: G
Stars: 3

Pixar have actaully scored pretty well with WALL•E by actually making a kids movie that has all of the ingredients for a movie that will also appeal to adults. It includes great animation and has a pretty respectable science-fiction plot as well. 

The film itself it set 700 years in the future. We think we have arrived at a city, but as we get closer we find that the entire city is constructed by garbage. Amongst the garbage is one single creature. We learn that he is WALL•E and he is a solar powered garbage collection robot (that is funnily enough powered by Apple). He spends his time scooping up trash, and compressing it into need cubes before adding it to the piles of trash. He intersects this by conversing with a solitary cockroach and watching human TV and collecting knicks and knacks as he cleans up the planet. 

It becomes obvious to us that WALL•E is lonely. As he watches old romantic movies he obviously wants to meet a potential mate. We learn that all the humans have evacuated the earth because of the garbage levels. They are supposed to have gone for 5 years while the planet is cleaned up - but shortly after they go the world is declared uninhabitable and the human race just stays in ships in outerspace. 

One day WALL•E's world is disturbed when a sleek new spaceship arrives. He investigates and finds himself face to face (after almost being destroyed) with a girl robot called EVE. EVE is there to investigate if the earth is inhabitable - and WALL•E falls in love and follows her back to her ship in space. Here we find that the human race has become very lazy in their luxury lives and are all enormously fat - a mix of low gravity and the fact that they don't need to do any work. 

The adventure really starts after WALL•E gets onboard and I won't give anymore detail lest I spoil the plot. 

The film is fun to watch - that great mix of exaggeration and realness. The storyline has an environmental message as well, a bit like Finding Nemo and a message for the kids like Kung Fu Panda. Neither story will be lost on school age kids I reckon. Anyway, this is well worth checking out when it gets a theatrical release in Australia.

Website: bonnevillethemovie.com
Director: Christopher N. Rowley
Lead: Jessica Lange
Co-Star: Kathy Bates
Genre: Comedy Drama
Runtime: 93mins
Rating: PG
Stars: 2

Hmm. Three middle aged women contemplating their twilight years. Sounds appealing fodder for a road movie doesn't it? Well.. despite the obvious issues with plot it was actually surprisingly better than I ever would have expected. That said.. it could have gone so much further than the Hallmark moments that are put together for this film.

So what is good about this film? Well for starters the western USA landscape for the road trip is gorgeous and well shot in big expansive scenes. You should also be on a winner with casting like Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates and Joan Allen. But unfortunately the lack of anything new here just seems to be underscored by the calibre of the talent on show.

So what happens? Lange plays recently widowed Arvilla. There is a family squabble going on which means that Arvilla has to transport her husband's ashes from Idaho to Santa Barbara to be laid to rest alongside his first wife. She goes a bit crazy and decides to do this as a road trip in Joe's lovingly maintained 1966 Bonneville convertible. She can't go alone - so she takes along her two mates Margene (Bates) and Carol (Allen).

She knows that Joe wanted his ashes sprinkled in places they had visited together and she heads off sprinkling bits of him as they cross the country. It is transforming, not only for her but also for her companions. Conservative Carol gets to let her hair down and realise some independence while Margene cracks onto a trucker. There is also a nice scene with a young hitchhiker (Victor Rasuk) who tells them about how he is searching for his own father.

All in all this is full of sweet moments, but in the end it is fairly unsatisfying. I just wish it could have pulled a few harder punches.

Website: hellboymovie.com
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Lead: Ron Perlman
Co-Star: Selma Blair
Genre: Action/Adventure/Fantasy
Runtime: 120mins
Rating: M
Stars: 3

I quite enjoyed the previous Hellboy movie - which was stylistically a gorgeous flick - even through I knew nothing about the comics at all. It is obvious that Guillermo Del Toro manages to put together the fairly obscure serious into something pretty impressive. Hellboy II does not disappoint in that it is also a great visual movie.

The film begins with a young Red (the son of Satan) hearing the story of the Prince Nuada and families Golden Army. Who would have guessed that adult Red (Ron Perlman) would soon be in a battle with the Prince (Luke Goss - yes of Bros fame) for the future of the earth. We still work for the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defence, lives with his flammable girlfriend Liz Sherman (Selma Blair) and with the fishy character Abe Sapien (Doug Jones). In pursuing the Prince they come across some fairly interesting and odd ball characters in the troll market (at the east end of the Brooklyn Bridge) and then on to Ireland.

Del Toro has a fantastic eye of fantasy - up there with Peter Jackson - in fact it could be better sorted for this kind of sarcastic humour attached to this movie. I didn't know it until I started reading about this film - but Del Toro and Jackson are collaborating on the Hobbit films. 

The best thing about this movie though it that it is just good fun. Corny dialogue, wacky creatures, wisecracks and the surliness of Satan Jr makes it a total laugh. Well worth checking out.

Website: takenmovie.com
Director: Pierre Morel
Lead: Liam Neeson
Co-Star: Maggie Grace
Genre: Action/Thriller
Runtime: 93mins
Rating: MA
Stars: 3

I'm not quite sure how to take all of this. Liam Neeson just doesn't strike me as the ex-military type in the first place; let alone such a cluey vengeful one. It just seems too big of a stretch for me.

Anyway.. what happens in Taken? Neeson is Bryan who has sacrificed his marriage for the service of his country and now works personal security just to make ends meet and to buy presents for his 17 year old daughter Kim. He is a nervous creepy type that his ex-wife clearly hates having around. He has just learnt that Kim wants to take a holiday to France unsupervised. Her mother is all for it; but Bryan is deadset against it - offering to go along to provide protection. It seems bizarrely paranoid; but this of course is a set up for what is going to come.

Of course once Kim gets to Paris she is targeted by a people smuggling operation and snatched into prostitution. Bryan sets out to find her and sets up a number of chase scenes that any action director should be proud of. He starts off just being righteous, but predictably this turns into rage; just to add to the effect. Afterall, this is just about revenge - and if anything this film does revenge bloody well.

Neeson is very wooden in this film (but perhaps he is supposed to be); and we only get to see the seedy side of Paris. These are not bad things - but I wouldn't want anyone going out to see this expecting beautiful Parisian streetscapes. Perhaps wait for the DVD.

Website: sonyclassics.com
Director: Ira Sachs
Lead: Pierce Brosnan
Co-Star: Chris Cooper
Genre: Crime/Drama/Romance
Runtime: 90mins
Rating: M
Stars: 3

This movie is just odd. The storyline seemed enormously fanciful to me and I found it dragging on a little - but I absolutely loved its sense of style. The slow melodic music and the narration of Pierce Brosnan as Richard was just sublime. So why did I leave the cinema not entire satisfied by what I had just seen?

We start with Harry (Chris Cooper) meeting his friend Richard (Brosnan) for lunch. It is one of those long liquid lunched that were probably common in the 1940s and 1950s. Harry has come to tell his bachelor friend that he is no longer in love with his wife and plans to leave her for a new woman named Kay (Rachel McAdams). Richard had never thought Harry's marriage was a bad one - but he realises why Harry is smitten when the bottle blond with bright red lips arrives to join them for lunch. Richard soon desires Kay too - and we set out on what will be a little rollercoaster ride for this group of friends.

Richard sets in motion his plan to take Kay away from Harry, and also to undermine Harry's resolve to leave his wife Pat (Patricia Clarkson). Harry is working out how he can leave her - to the point where he considers murdering her to save her the pain of a divorce - a mercy killing with some bizarre logic. Oddly enough, Pat is also carrying on an affair with family friend John and wants out of the relationship just as much - but she doesn't want to hurt Harry.

The performances are mixed. Brosnan is excellent as the smarmy Richard; although Harry seemed a little too wooden for my liking - but there is every possibility that he was supposed to be portrayed in this light. The one thing that does stand out is the amount of passion that is portrayed in this story without anyone ever raising their voice. Check it out on DVD when it gets released.