Tags: Spy Kids Stuff
C+ |
**½ |
+0|
Kids & Up*
Visuals aside,
Cars 2 is the first Pixar film ever (or at least since
A Bug’s Life) that could one could easily imagine as a DreamWorks film—circa
Shark Tale perhaps, with its punningly fishified analog of the human world. Or, with its frenetic action and gimmickry,
Cars 2 bears some resemblance to a Blue Sky Studios cartoon (circa
Robots, say, or
Rio, with its world culture flavor). In a word, not only is
Cars 2 mediocre, it doesn’t even feel like mediocre Pixar.
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A- |
***½ |
+1|
Kids & Up
It’s not quite Pixar grade, but
Bolt blots out tepid memories of the likes of
Chicken Little and
Home on the Range, standing comfortably beside the likes of
Kung Fu Panda and
Horton Hears a Who in the race for second-best computer-animated family film of 2008.
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A+ |
**** |
+2|
Kids & Up*
The Incredibles is exhilarating
entertainment with unexpected depths. It’s a bold, bright, funny
and furious superhero cartoon that dares to take sly jabs at the
culture of entitlement, from the shallow doctrine of self-esteem
that affirms everybody, encouraging mediocrity and penalizing
excellence, to the litigation culture that demands recompense for
everyone if anything ever happens, to the detriment of the
genuinely needy.
Read more >
D |
*½ |
+0|
Kids & Up*
Unfortunately, while this sequel is the least morally problematic of Muniz’s three big-screen outings, it’s also far and away the lamest, lacking utterly its predecessors’ fitful humor and excitement. When the high point of your movie involves a Queen Elizabeth lookalike getting down to a youth-orchestra Euro-pop version of Edwin Starr’s "War," something has gone disastrously wrong.
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C |
** |
+0|
Kids & Up*
If Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over were consistent, that
protest would become Juni’s mantra, repeated every thirty seconds
or so from that point on until the end of the film. Then again,
if Spy Kids 3-D were consistent — about anything at all — it might actually start making some kind of sense.
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C- |
** |
+1-1|
Teens & Up
In the original Spy Kids, dashing spy parents Gregorio
and Ingrid Cortez (Antonio Banderas and Carla Guigino) exchanged
the glamorous world of espionage for the even greater adventure
of raising a family. Their children Carmen and Juni (Alexa Vega
and Daryl Sabara) weren’t actually "Spy Kids" — a term that in
the movie actually applied to a line of robotic child warriors
designed by the only somewhat sinister Fegan Floop (Alan Cumming) — but became entangled in their parents’ exotic former life when
the latter were captured by Floop’s forces.
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A |
***½ |
+2|
Kids & Up*
The press kit calls it "James Bond for kids," but this
over-the-top fantasy romp might be more accurately described as a
family-friendly
True Lies: The Next Generation, or even a
married-with-children
Austin Powers — all with
Willy
Wonka-style wonkiness and inspired set design straight out of
Dr. Seuss.
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C+ |
**½ |
+0|
Kids & Up*
Not that I’ve anything against cats. But there’s a particular
breed of cat fancier who looks down at dogs precisely for
qualities like their obedience, loyalty, and desire to please,
explicitly preferring the fierce independence and proud
impassiveness associated with cats. I wonder whether this kind of
cat appreciation isn’t often rooted in a misguided human ideal — whether such people don’t prefer cats because they themselves
like the idea of being remote and independent.
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C- |
**½ |
-2|
Teens & Up*
Welcome to our second annual Spring Frankie Muniz Morally Problematic
Spy Kids Rip-Off Movie, featuring hilarious hijinks offending each year against a different one of the Ten Commandments.
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C- |
**½ |
-2|
Teens & Up*
In the end, when the parents realize all their son went
through to win their trust, they can’t help but be proud of him.
Another touching Hallmark moment brought to you by a Hollywood
committee, none of whom has any children or parents of their own,
or knows anyone who does.
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C- |
** |
+0|
Kids & Up
Parents may be interested to know that the movie tie-in toys are equipped with sound and movement as well as gear. Will the toy Blaster say things like “Pimp my ride!” and “That was off the hizook!” like he does in the movie? Will the toy Juarez riff on the Pussycat Dolls line “Don cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me”? Will the toy Darwin say “Yippie kay yay, coffee-maker!”? There’s a click moment waiting to happen in another ten or fifteen years (hopefully not before that).
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