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Reviews
Happily N'Ever After (2006)
One of the worst Animated movies I've seen
Being a huge cartoon fan I've learned to go into movies with more and more minimal expectations as I get older. That being said, I am 22 years old now, and hardly go into a kids movie with any expectations at all. Lately I've really been surprised at the level of quality these films have (Happy Feet, Flushed Away, Cars)
Unfortunately, Happily N'Ever after showed me that even with no expectations at all, a movie can still manage to drastically underwhelm.
I'd seen the trailers a couple of times, and laughed to myself once or twice. So last year after being happily surprised by Hoodwinked I gave this film a chance, and from here on the pain in my head got worse and worse.
The dialogue in this movie is perhaps the worst part, I was surrounded by kids and even they were not into many of the jokes that were thrown. The best jokes were mildly amusing at best and at one point I found myself being able to say the next line of dialogue 4-5 times in a row. The animation was sloppy, there were a few amazing backdrops (ie. the castle) but ultimately characters looked like they were still in development and clearly did not work on cueing up to the sound whatsoever. At one point I saw something happen and had to wait at least 5 seconds to hear the sound. It was laziness on part of the studios. The voice acting in this was really bad as well, I am a big fan of Patrick Warburton and Wallace Shawn's former voice work (See: Emperor's New Groove & Toy Story) Unfortunately, at one point I could almost cue up the nervous stuttering or cue up the scared "gulp"
I do understand that this is a kids movie, I always keep that in mind when I watch these, understanding that these are not made for my demographic...
But I write this to save anyone who might read this the money they would spend on watching it for a few reasons...
a) This is a movie you would have felt like you've seen over 100 times, nothing in here is original other than the premise itself. The premise was OK, the execution was terrible. b) This is a movie that will continue to be made if too many people go to watch it, we've seen this movie over and over again with shrek, hoodwinked, etc... c) This even failed as a kids movie. Going to the bathroom allowed me to see 2 of the 4 kids sprinting to the video arcade, telling their mother that they didn't like the movie. On top of that no kids laughed in the entire movie that I heard.
Save your money, please don't watch this
Hope Springs (2003)
Pretty Brutal
After seeing Colin Firth on SNL the other night I decided to give this a chance. I rented it expecting a tyical "chick" flick - a semi-stereotyical direct-to-video experience. But this movie is a mess. Not only does it succeed in making me not feel anything for the protagonist, but every other character in the film (except for Oliver Platt)lagged any real quality about them.
Colin Firth has potential, I mean he has the charm of Hugh Grant mixed with the Physical humor of Eric Idle. But he has absolutely nothing in this. The script gives us a sense of humor that we're more for rolling our eyes at (in a bad way) than like. And Heather Graham not only looks like a Barbie doll but acts like one as well.
Stay away from this movie. I usually send support out to those movies made in Canada, and the way they used the Fort Langley town hall was a nice surprise. But that doesn't make up for the groans I gave and the pain I felt for some of these actors for being in this film.
I'm sorry I don't usually like giving BAD reviews, but this one was worthy.
Dish Dogs (2000)
Good movie, characters annoying though
I saw this movie today, and it's one of the few movies that I can sit down and enjoy while actually think about. This is not a big budget movie although there are some big names in it.
One warning -- Sean Astin is really annoying in this. Which proves to me he played his part well. But I think the writers did too good of a job making him annoying. Matt Lillard is great in this movie, I really feel he will break out soon. You can tell a lot of his humor in this film is improv, it's great. Shannon Elizabeth is hot in this movie, but there is a seen where she takes it all off, which I really feel took away from the whole movie.
The story line is that Sean Astin and Matt Lillard are best friends who have philosophies on everything and vow to each other not to let love stand in the way of life. The only problem is that that their lives are standing in their way of finding love.
This is a movie I recommend to anybody who doesn't need a lot of action, or doesn't need humor to be spelled out to them.
Overall I rate this movie very high, it was enjoyable, but Astin analyzing everything to death made this movie good and not great.