High School Musical 2 (2007)

2/5

Apparently I am in the minority, but I thought High School Musical 2 was better than the first one. But not by much. The intro countdown to summer was actually really cool and creative, but after that it went downhill. Fast. With preposterously conceived perversions of reality that these "high school students" call "summer vacation" working in a country club. No aspect of the plot or story even remotely seems familiar to anyone going through high school and/or summer break. The characters themselves appear to be empty shells of what might have at one point in time constituted unbastardized versions of real people. The "adorable" relationships from the original become strained to their breaking points, just about eliminating the fun found in the first one. The benefit from this, however, was a more mature look at serious situations that might force audience members to question how they would react in similar scenarios.

Despite suffering from some weak synchronizing of song and video, the songs were actually a lot better than in the first one. More interesting, at the very least. Unfortunately, the dances themselves felt much more awkward and out of place; I wish that I could have told them to stop their dancing and that they would have then listened to me. While still unarguably a made-for-TV children's movie, it managed to make me laugh. Mr. Fulton (Taylor) was absolutely hilarious, even better than Ms. Darbus from the first one. Overall, I can't recommend this to anyone except those who have seen the first one and are in love with it. For everyone else, just walk away now.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0810900/

Up (2009)

5/5

Pixar's Up is a magnificent film from start to finish. The story follows a cantankerous old man named Carl Fredricksen throughout his life. He has a love of adventure, but is lambasted at every turn in his attempts to visit South America, until he finally reaches the end of his life and finds himself alone with unfulfilled dreams. After a violent mistake, and faced with few palatable options, he decides to finally make the trip to South America--by inflating hundreds of helium balloons and lifting his house off its very foundations. And from there, adventure is thrust into every facet of his life, in the form of a chubby Japanese wilderness scout, an exotic dinosaur-bird, and a talking dog.

The animation is clean and beautiful. For some reason, it seems as if Pixar is the only studio able to get the aesthetics of animation correct; even in Disney's own Bolt, I had a number of objections to certain visual choices. In Up, the pacing is absolutely flawless. With good movies, there is a paucity of unnecessary scenes; with this movie, there are none to be found. The music is brilliant, as expected. The dialogue is sparse yet poetic. While I found some lines to be far too subtle, especially considering its intended young audience, the rest brought multiple meanings and thematics to an already entertaining and hilarious picture. And as far as animated movies can bring emotion onto the screen, this one does it better than anything else I've seen to date. In fact, everything works together as a perfectly unified package that will make your pulse quicken, your heart break, and your soul lift up. Up is a movie not to be missed.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1049413/

Bolt (2008)

3/5

Bolt is the story of a young dog brought up in a Truman Show-esque world where he's a superhero with the ability to melt metal objects with his laser eyes and explode city blocks with his superbark. A studio exec comes to the shooting stage and informs the producers that the show is too happy, which is causing them to lose the 18-34 demographic. To capture that age group, the director ends a shoot with an exciting cliffhanger, only to have Bolt escape his trailer in an attempt to save his owner Penny. And that's when he accidentally gets shipped to New York, meets an array of animal friends, and road trips back to Hollywood to save the day. In the happy, sappy way they previously suggested 18-34 year olds do not appreciate.

Bolt is probably Disney's first non-Pixar CGI film (the movie isn't good enough for me to spend time fact-checking my own arbitrary allegations) and it's certainly not as good as their Pixar ones. There's a reason for this discrepancy. Pixar movies are surprising, fresh, new, and invigorating; Bolt is formulaic and predictable. Bolt plays right into expectations. Granted, it does so in a cute (but not adorable) way, but that's simply not enough these days. I can see this movie originating as a pitch to financiers instead of a novel idea built from the ground up and smoothed out over a long time by a love for filmmaking instead of test audience reaction surveys. Still, it's an enjoyable enough film if you feel like spending 90 minutes watching a cute dog, but don't expect anything even approaching Pixar quality.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0397892/

High School Musical (2006)

2/5

High School Musical is a made-for-TV movie--and it shows. The colors are oversaturated and almost garish, the acting is very much directed at the camera, and the plot and pacing progress in 20 minute increments. The story is simplistic and predictable, the characters are simplistic and predictable, and even the songs are simplistic and predictable. The musical qualities are just as uninspired and bland as the rest of the piece. In attempting to maintain its child-like innocence, the movie lacks a thematic maturity and professional sheen found in other films. And just to prove that those two are not mutually exclusive, compare this movie to any of Disney Pixar's nine nearly flawless films.

Still, the silliness is infectious and the budding romance is absolutely adorable. The characters' personalities, although flat, and their antics, although ridiculous, are pretty fun to watch. To the point where I wanted them to sing less because it took too much time away from the cheesy dialogue and preposterous scenarios. Another thing I liked was their wardrobe; they have some pretty awesome costumes. Still, I wouldn't recommend this movie to many people I know. (And the people I would recommend this movie to don't care about my opinions on movies anyway.)

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0475293/

Leatherheads (2008)

2/5

It's a shame that this movie was bad. It had so much potential, only to fall flat on its face. I love John Krasinski, I love George Clooney (both as an actor and as a director), and I love the screwball comedies of the 1930's and 1940's that this film paid homage to. But it was just so much worse than what I've seen before from all three. Krasinki was inappropriately cast in a role he didn't fit into, a role that was ridiculously one-dimensional to boot. Clooney's direction was uninspired and generic; he brought nothing new or interesting to the piece. And the movie just wasn't that funny. It was way too long and drawn out and carried with it almost none of the rapid-fire witty banter that characterizes the older films. The pacing was atrociously slow--with many unnecessary scenes left in--while bad jokes were emphasized and lingered on.

On the positive side, there were some very funny, clever moments. Unfortunately, they were fewer and farther between than the kind of crappy comedies from the late 1990's and early 2000's that I hate (you know, the ones starring Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller, and Adam Sandler). One delightful surprise was Renée Zellweger; I am far from a fan of hers, but she pulled off her role perfectly. All in all, this movie goes highly unrecommended by me. I can't imagine anyone who might truly enjoy this movie, except maybe the cohort of John Krasinski's adoring base of fangirls who will sit through anything he's in.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379865/

Star Trek (2009)

3/5

Star Trek is a very entertaining and enjoyable movie. And it was exactly what I expected, without any surprises to elevate it past the status of summer blockbuster. It's right where GI Joe, Terminator, and Transformers are gonna be when they come out. It's action-packed enough to excite the masses looking for a quick thrill ride, it's funny enough to defuse tension and keep people laughing, and it's got enough quotes from the original to appease superficial fans of the series. Now, I'm not a huge fan myself (I rated the original movie 2/5), but I can see how hardcore followers might be upset by the liberties the writers took with the series. But whatever. It's a glossy, slick reinvention of Star Trek that has the potential to bring some new fans and their wallets into theater seats. Now, to vent:

JJ Abrams uses too many lens flares. They're in pretty much every shot, even--bafflingly--dark environments. Lens flares are the worst. Also, he seems to love three-dimensional fonts, going so far as to re-use the sucky one from his less-than-stellar series Fringe. Three-dimensional fonts are the worst. Worst worst worst. Worst.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0796366/

Twilight (2008)

2/5

Twilight is a terrible movie. It is about an awkward high school girl who meets an equally awkward high school vampire (despite the fact that he's been around for 200 years or so) and the heroin-like obsessive love they develop for each other. You would think that after two centuries of existence, he would be less socially inept (and would've found someone else!), but you would be wrong. So after postulating that he's a vampire based on visual experience and an ancient tome, I can see how a silly girl might believe that to be the case. But isn't it far more likely that she's experiencing hallucinations or delirium? Maybe she should have checked herself into a mental institution. (Also, I may not have a great memory, but I'm pretty sure high school was never that awkward and weird. Granted, we did not have vampires in our class, as far as I know.)

The romance aspect was clearly unhealthy, with flat, uninspired pairings of flat, uninspired characters. The acting was monotonous, the directing was bland, the music was forgettable (except the Radiohead song they played during the end credits). There wasn't even any vampire action to speak of, just a lot of simple audiovisual special effects. Lots of unconvincing whooshes and time lag filters. The only thing that stood out was the rest of the high school class (the non-vampires), although their storyline quickly fell to the wayside about halfway through the movie. All in all, this is an unsurprisingly unimpressive preteen movie.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1099212/