Monday, June 18, 2012

Madagascar3 stays strong



Madagascar 3 and Prometheus defended the first and second position at the Box Office ,against Tom Cruise's Rock of Ages and Adam Sandler's Thats My Boy.Both Rock of Ages (15million) & Thats My Boy (13million) opened to 3rd and 4th position and considering its poor openings both are expected to bomb.
Meanwhile,even though Madagascar 3 is doing quite well worldwide (277 million) ,Prometheus is slowly losing momentum (217million),dropping 60% in its 2nd week.

A Thousand Words (2012)


[plain idiocy]

A Thousand Words (2012)
IMDB- 4.5
Rotten Tomatoes-0
RJG Rating- 10

A book agent has his fast talking ways curbed when a tree pops up on his lawn.

Starring- Eddie Murphy
Director- Brian Robbins

With last years Tower Heist ,Eddie Murphy seemed to have broken his jinx of totally crap movies.But hes back with another worthless movie ,A Thousand Word.This was made way back in 2008 and got released this year.Any movie with such a long delay is already doomed.

Eddie Murphy is the only recognizable star.And he is awful.All his comic antics fall flat and its a pain watching such a comic veteran reaching such low standards.

The story has a concept but it has no idea with what its going with.It doesnt offer much common sense into the behavior of the main lead.For example a tree magically pops up in the front lawn and the couple living there doesnt even take notice of it.Many a times its hard to reason with the choices the characters make.There is a long list of mindless scenes.The movie is also highly predictable.It isnt the first time we have seen a rude/egoistic hero being cursed ,suffers the curse in a lot of funny scenes and towards the end learns his mistake.Whatever message the story wanted to get across is heavily obscured thanks to Eddie.

Direction is very poor.Eddie Murphy is known for his style of talking very fast,but in a movie which has no other attraction,Brian Robbins decides its better to keep Eddie shut for the entire second half.Towards the end he is confused whether he started off with a comedy movie and suddenly the movie takes a turn for the dramatics.And it isnt the usual "comic-hero realizes his mistakes and turns serious to learn his mistakes",this is complete u-turn into hyper drama.

The movie failed to even recover half its budget of 40million.Just give this movie a miss,its not worth the time.

Acting- 0.5/5
Story- 1/5
Direction- 1/5
Comedy- 1/5
Drama- 0.5/5

Mars Needs Moms (2011)


[complete disaster]

Mars Needs Moms (2011)
IMDB- 5.1
Rotten Tomatoes- 37
RJG Ratings- 20

Milo,a 9 year old boy ,witnesses the abduction of his mother by aliens.Will he able to rescue her?

Starring- Seth Green,Dan Fogle,Joan Cusack
Director- Simon Wells

Mars Needs Moms is an animated motion capture movie in the likes of Beowulf ,Polar Express etc.It was produced by Robert Zemeckis.

MNM is a completely cliched movie and is completely predictable.The use of motion capture usually turns up great (Polar Express ,Christmas Carol) ,but for MNM this was a bad idea.All the characters are weird to even look at.The human characters look too real and ends up in the "uncanny valley".
[*uncanny valley-It is a hypothesis in the field of robotics and 3D computer animation,which holds that when human replicas look and act almost, but not perfectly, like actual human beings, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers.]

As for the aliens,they too look extremely strange.But the actors have done a fine job.

Story is poor and predictable.Direction is average.If you could sit through the unbearable first half ,you get accustomed with all the weirdness and find the second half a bit more tolerable.The dialogues and scenes are all cringe worthy.

On release ,MNM was a big failure and is considered as one of the biggest box office bombs of all time.Producer Robert Zemeckis, who had decided to stop making live action movies after Castaway and solely concentrate on making motion capture animated movies, was forced to abandon his next animated venture- The Yellow Submarine.

Overall this is a movie which doesnt appeal neither the adults nor the kids.Give it a miss.

Animation- 2/5
Story- 1/5
Direction- 1/5
Drama- 1/5
Comedy- 1/5
Action-3.5/5

A Bug's Life (1998)


[a simple movie set in an amazing world]

A Bug's Life (1998)
IMDB- 7.2
RottenTomatoes- 92
RJG Rating- 80

Flik, an unlucky ant ,sets off to find a group of warriors to protect his colony from the Grasshoppers.

Starring- Dave Foley,Kevin Spacey,Julia Louis
Director- John Lasseter

A Bug's Life was Pixar's second movie after the highly successful Toy Story.John Lasseter returns to direct this movie.

The story for Bug's Life is influenced by the fable, "The Ant & the Grasshopper" and for experienced viewers ,you could also notice it was inspired from the Japanese classic Seven Samurai.
I felt the story was very simplistic in nature, compared to Toy Story (and also to later Pixar movies).It was very predictable and didnt stand out from the rest of the group.
But it did standout ,in terms of animation.Bug's Life sees Pixar's level of animation rise and its very noticeable.The beautiful background and detail that is applied to each and every scene is breath taking.The second half and mainly the climax is the best part of the movie.

As in most Pixar movies,the characters are given top priority.And in Bugs Life its no different.Each and everyone is well developed.The funniest part is the final credits ,when the movie's bloopers are shown.That itself shows how much the characters are developed and brought up by Pixar.

Even though a similar movie (Antz) was released a month before ,Bug's Life managed to defeat it and became a success at the box office.

The movie isnt meant for all ages ,it wont have the same charm and is meant for kids,but its still worth a watch.

Animation- 5/5
Story- 4/5
Direction- 4/5
Comedy- 3/5
Action- 4/5

Oscars--
Nominated (1)
Best Original Musical or Comedy Score-Randy Newman
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