Fantasy

Inkheart

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Inkheart
  • IMDB: link

inkheart-posterHow much do you like fantasy films aimed at kids? That’s really the only question to ask yourself when considering seeing Inkheart. If you enjoyed similar films such as The NeverEnding Story, The Spiderwick Chronicles, and Eragon, you might want to give it a chance. Maybe.

Brendan Fraser stars as a good-hearted but slightly dimwitted hero (hmm, sound familiar?) Mo Folchart. Years ago, accidently, Mo discovered he had the ability to read characters, objects and events out of books. That’s kinda cool, right? But there is a catch – whenever something, or someone, comes out of a book something, or someone, must take its place.

Years have passed with Mo hiding his gift from his daughter (Eliza Bennett) and searching for a copy of a book which holds something precious to them both locked deep inside. Things come to a head when characters from the book finally catch up to the “Silvertongue” with their own demands on how he should use his gift.

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Prince Caspian

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
  • IMDB: link

“You may find Narnia a more savage place than you remember.”

chronicles-narnia-prince-caspian-posterThe film begins with the exile of Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes), the rightful heir to the throne of Narnia.  His uncle (Sergio Castellitto), whose wife has finally given him a male heir, takes the opportunity to seize control of the kingdom.

In his flight Caspian blows the magic horn (your joke here) which calls the “great kings and queens of the past” back to Narnia.  And so the Pevensie children, Peter (William Moseley), Susan (Anna Popplewell), Lucy (Georgie Henley) and Edmund (Skandar Keynes), are magically transported from a London subway to the beaches of Narnia.

Narnia is quite different than they remember as thousands of years have past and the magical animals and creatures now live in fear of the human invaders which have driven them into seclusion in the woods.  Now Peter and the rest of his clan must help put Caspian back on the throne and give back Narnia to the Narnians, that is if they can stop bickering among themselves.

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Speed Racer

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Speed Racer
  • IMDB: link

speed-racer-poster

I’m always looking for reasons to love the Wachowskis.  I am one of the few and faithful who have stuck with the Matrix through all of its sequels, and still love it.  But then V For Vendetta came along, and if you know how I reacted to it, then you know that my faith in the duo was thrown into doubt.  With all that in mind, I was excited for Speed Racer – a silly cartoon adaptation that couldn’t be bogged down by politics or philosophy, all it had to do was be superficially awesome.  If the Wachowskis could pull this one off, it might finally justify my love for the writer/directors.  Did I find that validation?

Nope.

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The Forbidden Kingdom

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Forbidden Kingdom
  • IMDB: link

“I’ll kill you witch!”
“Not if I kill you first orphan bitch!”

forbidden-kingdom-poster

Based on one of the four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, Journey to the West, this new adaptation tells the story of a Jason (Michael Angarano) a young boy from Boston who finds himself thrust into a magical world and charged with returning the golden staff to the Monkey King (Jet Li) thus freeing him from his stone prison and freeing the land from the tyranny of the man who turned him into a statue, the Jade Warlord (Collin Chou).

Along the way to seek the wizard, um, I mean Warlord, Jason encounters companions who journey with him to help him on his quest including a drunken master (Jackie Chan), a beautiful girl hell-bent on revenge (Yifei Liu), and a monk (Jet Li).

Together this small band of rebels travels through forests and deserts across the yellow brick road to reach the fortress, take on the Jade Army, led by the Warlord’s assassin (Li Bing Bing), and defeat Cobra Kai, um, I mean release the Monkey King.

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The Spiderwick Chronicles

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Spiderwick Chronicles
  • IMDb: link

The Spiderwick Chronicles

The story begins when a mother (Mary-Louise Parker), now separted from her husband (Andrew McCarthy), takes her children Jared (Freddie Highmore), Not-Jared (also Freddie Highmore) and Mallory (Sarah Bolger) to live in the abandoned house of their great-uncle Arthur Spiderwick (David Strathairn).

The house comes complete with cobwebs, hidden rooms, a brownie named Thimbletack (Martin Short), and a book of mystical secrets made by Arthur Spiderwick before his disappearance decades ago.

After Jared discovers the book, and learns the secrets within, his family comes under attack from goblins led by a shape-shifting ogre named Mulgarath (Nick Nolte) who wants to use the knowledge in the book to take over the world.

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