Bee Movie (PG)
American Gangster (R)
30 Days of Night (R)
The Martian Child (PG)
Fred Claus (PG)
Lions for Lambs (R)
Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium (G)
Beowulf (PG13)
Enchanted (PG)
August Rush (PG)
The Mist (R)
Hitman (R)
Enchanted (PG) is a Disney cartoon meets live action story, of a beautiful country girl named Giselle (Amy Adams) who, as destiny would have it, finds her true love, Prince Edward (James Marsden). The happy couple is ready to wed after only knowing each other for a few hours, but Edward's stepmother and current ruler of the kingdom of Andalasia, Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon) has other ideas. To keep her kingdom, she sends cartoon Giselle to a place where there are no happy endings: real New York City. There, Giselle meets jaded divorce lawyer and single father Robert Philip (Patrick Dempsey), and his daughter Morgan. Giselle, Edward, and Robert have to escape the clutches of the evil queen, and find the way to their own happy endings.
As the previews suggest, Giselle is a combination of the best of all the Disney princesses, and the story itself is familiar, rather like the Cinderella volume in Morgan's bedroom. The combination of cartoon and live-action story might be a bit confusing for younger children, but the plot is very sweet, and a lot of the jokes resonate with adults as well. The rating is for cartoon and a bit of live-action violence which might be scary for very young children. I definitely recommend it as a great feel-good movie. – Ashley Merrill
Hitman (R) – Many times I've sat beside my husband Matt while he was playing the video game Hitman. Being the girl that I am, I didn't really understand what it was about. All I saw him do on the game was just kill people left and right. So when I heard there was a movie coming out, I had to go see it, hoping it would help me understand the game better. And trust me, it did. Timothy Olyphant (Agent 47) has been trained to become an assassin since he was a kid. He wasn't given a name, just a number, which was tattooed on the back of his head. He worked for the Russians as a great assassin, but came to find out his own people have turned against him and have set him up, to try to kill him, but he won't go down without a fight.
I thought this movie was awesome. If you liked the video game, then you will enjoy the movie. Timothy Olyphant does a great job. I give this movie two thumbs up! – Ginger Wright
The Mist (R) – Based on a short story by Stephen King, The Mist comes to a small Maine town after a thunderstorm, while the residents are in the grocery store stocking up. When one of the customers leaves, he's murdered by the mist, and mass hysteria follows. One nutjob says the answer to the mist is human sacrifice. Meanwhile, the level-headed members of the group decide the right answer is to get out of town, and away from the monsters that have come with the mist. Thomas Jayne, David Drayton, and Marcia Gay Harden star.
This movie let me down. From the previews I expected more, but I only jumped once. The creatures aren't very realistic, although they are pretty ugly to look at. The ending has a message, so that's not too bad. Lots of gore to earn the R rating. – Marilyn Merrill
August Rush (PG) is the story of an orphan named Evan and his search for his birth parents. Evan, portrayed by Freddie Highmore, is musically gifted and feels in his heart that he can use this gift to find his mother and father so he runs away from his boys’ home in search of them. He is helped along the way by a man named Wizard, played beautifully by Robin Williams. Evan’s story is intertwined with that of his mother (Keri Russell) and his father (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), first showing how they met and subsequently how lonely they are eleven years later.
There’s a big element of fantasy to the movie and if you’re willing to suspend your disbelief it is quite an enjoyable movie. Nick Castle, one of the writers, wrote the screenplay for the fantastic 80’s movie, The Boy Who Could Fly and this movie has the same sort of feel. August Rush earns its PG rating with no memorable foul language or sexual scenes. You can feel comfortable taking your older children to see the movie and you will enjoy it yourself. – Susannah Driver
Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium (G) stars Dustin Hoffman as the owner of a magical toy shop and Natalie Portman portrays the store manager. At the beginning of the movie, the audience learns that Mr. Magorium has hired an accountant, played by Jason Bateman, so that he can get the store’s affairs in order for Natalie Portman’s character, Mahoney, to take over the store. Mahoney loves the store and wants to run it but feels that she can’t because she does not believe that she has any magic in her. They also run into a big problem with the store starts to have a temper tantrum, turning all of the toys and walls a sad, lifeless gray.
This is an excellent movie for children but adults will find themselves bored and staring at their watches. It has brilliant moments where you really feel like it’s getting somewhere but those moments are never fulfilled. Zach Helm, the writer and director, would have done much better by turning this movie into a children’s book so that all the many wonders of the story could be explored. Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium is rated G and should probably only be seen by children and adults who need a good nap. -- Susannah Driver
Beowulf (PG13) begins with King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) announcing a night of eat, drink and as he says it, “fornication.” It would be easy to dismiss this as an action flick with computer images and a “nearly nude” Angelina Jolie, kind of a teenage boy’s kind of movie.
It’s more than that, but it would be a mistake in my book to make it a lot more than that. Beowulf (Roy Winstone) does more than slay monsters and lay with women, and I think you can enter into this 3D world of computer images blending with real life detail. You can even appreciate some of the moral struggles going on, as it is more than fighting and fornicating, but not a lot more.
It is an interesting diversion, the computer graphics are done well in my book, and it tries to tell a good story. I’m afraid it falls short as an epic tale.
Rated PG-13 for, well, I already told you about that. -- Barry Merrill
Fred Claus (PG) is Santa Claus's older brother, played by Vince Vaughn. Fred has always felt that he's lived in his brother's shadow. At Christmas time, not exactly Fred's favorite time of year, this year's a little different because Fred is having some money trouble, so he moves to the North Pole for a few days to make some cash. This movie is hilarious with Vince Vaughn's witty raves and Paul Giamatti as the soft-hearted Saint Nick. Kathy Bates, Rachel Weisz, Kevin Spacey, and Chris "Ludacris" Bridges also star. This movie is great for kids and adults. I recommend it to anyone who needs cheering up or just a good laugh. The rating is for mild language and some rude humor, but the movie is very clean, and sure to be a hit for Christmas! – Jerrie Barbato
Lions for Lambs (R) has three interconnecting plotlines, or so it tries. It stars Tom Cruise as Senator Jasper Irving, a presidential hopeful; Meryl Streep as Janine Roth, a veteran journalist; and Robert Redford as Professor Stephen Malley. It also stars Micheal Pena and Derek Luke as two former students of Prof. Malley now fighting in Afghanistan, and Andrew Garfield as a present student. The movie begins with Sen. Irving (Cruise) granting a one hour interview to Roth (Streep) about a military launch into Afghanistan. It then jumps to a university in Calif. where Prof. Malley is trying to convince his student Todd (Garfield) to stay in school and make a difference. Now jump to Afghanistan to Ernest and Arian (Pena and Luke) about to go on a mission to stop a terrorist. Following me so far? Great! Now jump around between all the characters every five minutes or so for 95 minutes and you've seen the movie. I could not tell you what this movie was trying to say. The poster outside the theater said "You have to stand for something...What do you stand for?" I wish I had stood up and walked out. Rated R for war violence and language. - Steve Edwards
The Martian Child (PG), overall, is an enjoyable film about a man who, still grieving the loss of his wife, decides to follow through on their desire to adopt a child. David (John Cusack) is a science fiction novelist who, through an adoption agency, is paired with Dennis (Bobby Coleman), a child who thinks he is from Mars.
The focus of the storyline is David’s struggle to encourage Dennis’s eccentricity while helping him deal with the years of detachment and abuse that caused him to develop this alternate persona. Though the storyline is a bit predictable, it was presented smoothly without bordering on corny. The characters are a wacky bunch, and I think the dynamic of real-life brother and sister John and Joan Cusack, who play siblings in the film, was amazing.
The only part of the story that felt lacking was an apparent developing relationship between David and his late wife’s friend, Harlee (Amanda Peet). The relationship seems to exist as a filler to break up intense scenes with the little boy, and I felt little resolution in the complex emotions that would be involved in a situation like that.
However, on the whole, the film was enjoyable, a little off-beat, and uplifting. The rating was for some mildly coarse language, but the many kids in the audience when I saw the film seemed to take as much away from it as their parents did. -- Sarah Wise
30 Days of Night (R) starts in Alaska, where Josh Hartnett plays the sheriff of a small town. Once a year the sun goes away for a month, hence the title. Everyone in the town moves away for the month, except the sheriff and ten or fifteen townspeople who decide to stay behind. A few days later, weird things start to happen. Animals end up dead, the electricity goes out, and the phone lines don't work anymore. Then people start dying. It turns out that vampires have invaded the small town, and there's no sunlight to stop them.
This movie had an awesome jump factor, and the ending was great. I'd recommend it to anyone with a strong stomach, because there is a lot of bloodshed. I give it two thumbs up. – Ginger Wright
American Gangster (R) is about Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), personal assistant to the head of the black Mafia in Harlem. When his mentor, nicknamed Lumpy, dies of a heart attack, Lucas takes over. He eliminates the middle man in a heroin-importing operation by going straight to Vietnam and purchasing from the source, and takes care of its distribution throughout New York. He takes from the rich and gives to the poor, like Robin Hood. The people love him and the cops hate him. Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) is a narcotics detective trying to pass the bar exam and become a lawyer, who sets out to take down Lucas and his operation, an act which implicates a quarter of New York's drug task force for corruption.
This movie was very violent and I would not recommend it for children. All in all, it was a great movie. Rating for violence, language, and nudity. – Matthew Wright
Bee Movie (PG) stars Jerry Seinfeld as Barry B. Benson, who has just graduated from college and is trying to decide what job he will do on the hive. The problem is that once you have chosen a job, you stay with it for the rest of your life. His best friend is Adam Flaymen, voiced by Matthew Broderick. The action begins when Barry decides to go out to the hive with the pollen jocks to collect pollen. In the course of his adventures, he breaks Bee Law by talking to a human, Vanessa Bloome (voiced by Renee Zellweger). Barry discovers that human are keeping bees and taking their honey, so Barry and Adam sue the human race and win. With the all the honey in the world coming back to the bees, the bees decided not to work anymore and just lay around. Barry realizes that because of this, there is not pollination and trees and plants are dying around the world, and the bees no longer have a mission in life. He joins forces with Vanessa to help find a solution to the crisis.
Overall, the movie is very good, not Academy award winning but pretty good. If you liked Toy Story or Antz, then you will like this one. It does a pretty good job of having something for both the kids and the adults. – John Joyner