Tag: Family

Hotel Transylvania review

Director:
Genndy Tartakovsky
Cast:
Adam Sandler
Andy Samberg
Selena Gomez
Kevin James
Steve Buscemi
CeeLo Green
Rated: PG

Adam Sandler and his entourage are invading animation now.

“Hotel Transylvani”a is the new film from director Genndy Tartakovsky, who was the director of the cartoon show “Dexter’s Lab.” The film is basically a play on the Universal Monsters from the 40s, with Dracula (Sandler) running a hotel for monsters. Frequent guests are Frankenstein (James) and the wolfman, in this movie named Wayne (Buscemi).

For the most part life is pretty normal for the monsters except that Dracula has a teenage daughter named Mavis (Gomez) who wants to explore the outside world; however Dracula feels it’s important to keep his daughter safe so Mavis is not allowed to leave the castle.

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Brave review

Director:
Mark Andrews
Cast:
Kelly Macdonald
Billy Connolly
Emma Thompson
Julie Walters
Rated: PG

Okay cool Pixar, now can we please get an “Incredibles 2?”

“Brave” is the latest film from the studio that has brought animated classics year after year. Their latest film follows the character Merida (Macdonald), a young princess living in a kingdom in Scotland. Merida is a free spirit and mainly enjoys practicing her archery skills in the vast outdoors surrounding the castle where she lives. Her mother Elinor (Thompson) however wants Merida to be more proper and formal, much to her dismay.

To make matters worse for Merida, she soon learns that she is going to have to marry a suitor to keep peace between the different kingdoms. This becomes the last straw for Merida as she becomes completely fed up with the direction her life is going and decides to try and find a way to change her fate.

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Madagascar: Europe’s Most Wanted review

Director:
Eric Darnell
Cast:
Ben Stiller
Chris Rock
David Schwimmer
Jada Pinkett Smith
Sacha Baron Cohen
Frances McDormand
Rated: PG

The epic conclusion to the Madagascar saga!

“Madagascar 3” follows our main characters from the past two movies, four New York Zoo animals who have by this film explored a lot of the world. In this film we find our characters in Europe preparing to return to New York City along with the genius penguins. However, they are spotted and an animal catcher named Captain Chantel DuBois (McDormand) goes after them stopping at nothing to find them.

Because of this, the animals have to go on the run and join a circus. The plan is to stay with the circus to get back to the United States yet as time goes on they become more involved with the other circus animals and have to decide whether to stay with it and help it out or not.

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The Secret World of Arrietty review

Director:
Hiromasa Yonebayashi
Cast:
Will Arnett
Bridgit Mendler
David Henrie
Amy Poehler
Rated: G

Surprisingly not directed by Hayao Miyazaki…

The Secret World of Arrietty is the latest film from Studio Ghibli which has been behind such films as “Spirited Away” and “Ponyo.” In this film, the story centers on the character Arrietty, a 14-year-old girl who happens to be a ‘borrower’, which is basically a little person. Her and her family live beneath a large house and borrow things that most people would over look.

The borrowers try to stay out of sight for fear of what would happen if they are discovered. This happens to Arrietty though as a boy who just moved in named Shawn sees her. The two start a bit of a friendship however this causes a bit of an uproar with Arrietty and her family.

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Big Miracle review

Director:
Ken Kwapis
Cast:
John Krasinski
Drew Barrymore
Ted Danson
Dermot Mulroney
Rated: PG

It’s like the Free Willy genre is making a comeback lately.

Big Miracle is a movie inspired by the true events that happened in Alaska in 1988. Three whales became trapped by ice and had no way of getting to the ocean since there was only a single hole for them to get a breath from.

Because of this, news reporter Adam Carlson (Krasinski) does a story on it and attracts many volunteers and attention from the media from across the United States, however with so many coming together disagreements begin to arise. So they have to come together in whatever way they can to stay on task and save the whales.

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We Bought a Zoo review

Director:
Cameron Crowe
Cast:
Matt Damon
Scarlett Johansson
Thomas Haden Church
Colin Ford
Elle Fanning
Rated: PG

Out of all the investments a person can make…

We Bought a Zoo follows the true story of Benjamin Mee (Damon), a man who is trying to cope with the loss of his wife and still trying to raise his kids right. He finds this difficult to do though since every place in the town he lives in reminds him of his wife. To deal with this he decides to take a leap of faith and buy a new house which happens to be a zoo.

Benjamin and his two kids soon learn that the zoo is in bad shape. Most of the facilities are not up to regulation standards and the zoo has a chance of being shut down. So Benjamin decides to make the best of the situation and roll up his sleeves and work together with the head zoo keeper Kelly (Johansson) to keep the place open, during this time, he also has to reconnect with his son.

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Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked review

Director:
Mike Mitchell
Cast:
Jason Lee
David Cross
Jenny Slate
Rated: G

This movie really started to chip away at my brain after a while. Sorry, that was worse then the title.

The third installment in the epic trilogy of chipmunk films is about the six rodents taking a vacation on a Carnival Cruise (Which is HEAVILY advertised by the way) and it going horribly wrong. Alvin, being the little jerk that he is decides that he wants to go hang-gliding and drags all of his brothers and the chipettes off the ship and out into the ocean where they become shipwrecked on an island. Except in this case they become chipwrecked since they’re chipmunks, so funny right?

The rest of the film is them exploring the island and meeting up with a crazed woman named Zoe (Slate) who talks to balls that she’s drawn faces onto, darn the references were only 11 years too late. During this time, Simon gets hit on the head and causes him to become a different, braver personality, which in turn causes Alvin to become the responsible one, what a twist. Meanwhile the film also follows Ian (Cross) and Dave (Lee) who are searching for the missing animals.

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Hugo review

Director:
Martin Scorsese
Cast:
Ben Kingsley
Sacha Baron Cohen
Asa Butterfield
Chloe Grace Moretz
Rated: PG

I’ll have to get my flame shields ready for this one.

Martin Scorsese’s latest pic Hugo is based on the novel “The Invention of Hugo Cabret.” The film follows a young boy by the name of Hugo (Butterfield), who after his parents dying is forced to work for his uncle in the main train station of Paris. After his uncle leaves Hugo continues working on the clocks and is left isolated. The one thing he has is a small robotic like machine that him and his father (played by Jude Law) were working on together.

Things change though as the shop keeper (Kingsley) of a small toy store in the station discovers Hugo and takes his notebook. When trying to get it back he meets the store keeper’s God-Daughter Isabelle (Moretz). Together the two of them begin to find out more about the robot and start to see a connection with the shop keeper and the machine.

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The Big Year review

Director:
David Frankel
Cast:
Jack Black
Owen Wilson
Steve Martin
Rosamund Pike
Rated: PG

Birding as it’s called seems nice enough sometimes in this movie, if it didn’t involve spending thousands of dollars to travel all over the world.

The film is told from the character Brad’s (Black) perspective, but it follows the story of him as well as two other men, Stu (Martin) and Kevin (Wilson). The three characters are all going after what is known in Bird enthusiast terms as “A Big Year” where people seek out to see the most species of birds they can in one year.

The movie follows the characters through their year as they not only travel the world, but deal with new friendships, romance, births and other personal experiences. It also features problems that arise with having such a commitment to this hobby when other things are happening with their family.

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Real Steel review

Director:
Shawn Levy
Cast:
Hugh Jackman
Dakota Goyo
Evangeline Lilly
Hope Davis
Rated: PG-13

Insert your “Rock’em Sock’em Robots” joke here!

Real Steal follows the story of Charlie Kenton (Jackman) who living in a future world where the big fighting sport is actually robot boxing instead of human boxing.

Kenton at one time was a great boxer himself and a contender for the title however once the fight game changed he started to go into a bit of a spiral downwards and now has any robot he can get, fight in any match up he can get.

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