donricodelavega Reviews

Robots (2005)

Not a lot of feeling

[6/10 · 5 April 2005]

I'm an animator and I can appreciate the work that went into this film. Its visually interesting, but at the same time cluttered. So from a technical stand point it had its pros. Overall the story was mildly interesting. It started out really slow and I wasn't sure whether I would be able to get through the whole movie. But it did pick up a little bit as the movie went on. Now for the major negative points.

• There are too many characters. The supporting cast is numerous and uninteresting. It comes off as if the art department designed a bunch of robots first then decided they didn't want to give up any of the designs.

• The characters personalities are kind of flat. Even the main characters don't really invoke an emotional connection. The secondary characters are just robots that happen to talk once and a while.

• I don't know what is with the trend to put in popular music into animated pictures but it just seems so off when you are watching in. When the story is progressing and then a bunch of characters break out into a dance routine set to a Britney Spears song its like someone suddenly turned on another TV in the room. And this kind of thing happens numerous times. Its even noticeable in the fight sequences and some others which appear to be designed to show funky and interesting animation rather than advance or even fit into the story.

Bottom line, Blue Sky Studios did a much better job on Ice Age. Just like PDI did a much better job on Shrek compared to Shark's Tale (Which was garbage). They just need to get some people involved who can trim the fat of the story and keep people who think they are directing a music video out of the editing room.

The Notebook (2004)

Why is this movie sad?

[7/10 · 22 February 2005]

This is a good movie, don't get me wrong. But its not sad because its romantic. Its sad because the end of the movie revolved around watching older people's lives fall apart. I'm sure anyone who has parents can relate to the fear of knowing they have fewer days ahead then they have behind. Now take some people in their later years and show their lives falling apart, well of course people are going to cry. Its a terrible thing. Tacking on flashbacks full of a moderately interesting love story is just a con into making people think this is one of the most romantic movie of all time. It is romantic, but so are lots of other movies. THIS movie just wanted to make you cry. So I'd compare it to watching a love story, then showing someone drown a bag of puppies. That would be sad too.

r

Chicago (2002)

Why women LOVE this film

[6/10 · 15 February 2005]

My girlfriend LOVES this movie. And it seems so does a great deal of the public. Eventually she forced me to watch it. As with most musicals I found it long and drawn out. The singing just doesn't appeal to me. BUT, I figured out why women LOVE this movie soooo much. Its because the main female stars of the movie kill men. And not only do they get away with it, they become famous stars become of it! I think it must be a guilty little pleasure women get seeing female characters getting away we being so terrible. Especially towards the opposite sex. Just to answer the skeptics about my theory, do you think this movie would have done so well if it was about a man who capped a bunch of women then went on to become a star of Broadway? Think about it ;)

The Phantom of the Opera (2004)

Boring.

[5/10 · 14 February 2005]

Unless you are one of those people who gets giddy when people sing everything I think you will find this movie very dull. I've noticed from my experience that musicals tend to be rather slow. A chorus of 20 people take five minutes to sings about something that could be easily be conveyed to the audience with a few lines of dialog. As a result the pace of the film is slow at best. It takes FOREVER for things to happen, and since the characters are little more than song birds they don't seem very real and you don't care about them. For example Christine is young and new the whole opera game. But do we ever really get to see her as a person? Not really cause even when shes remembering her dead father she sings. She's scared, she sings. When isn't she singing? The Phantom had a rough life, well I'm sure glad I learned why he is the way he is in that 30 second flashback of him with a bag over his head. Yah, that makes it ALL clear. Long story short... I think I hate movie musicals. And in this one, the opera style singing hurts my ears. And since they would sing at such a high pitch (and used the singing to tell the story) it was hard to understand what they were singing about and what was going on. The commercials say this was a contender for one of the best films of the year. Well if you believed that then you should have looked and the Golden Globe nominations.