I see that Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted remained at #1 at the box office for a second weekend, and I am not surprised. I found this to be a really fun movie. It was like a non-stop roller-coaster ride.
Not having been bowled over by the previous two installments of this series. I'm only marginally familiar with the characters. Bottom line is that these are four animals from a NYC zoo that found themselves in Madagascar and have been trying to get themselves back home ever since. They have picked up some zany characters along the way.
In part 3, they have made it to Europe, but now they have an animal control crew, led by a Cruella DeVil type character with a French accent.
The only way that they can find to move across Europe is by joining up with a circus. Comedy ensues. Really funny! Sight gags, phenomenal. And, the zany supporting characters just great.
Okay, so the plot is somewhat predictable, but what do you want, it's a comedy. The visuals are stunning. There are aspects of it that remind me of Fantasia. Due to the effects that I saw in the trailers for the movie. I opted for 3D. It was so totally worth it! The film makers definitely gave us aspects of "fly on the wall" perspective with their use of 3D. It made it so much more fun. It wasn't overdone. I thought it was a very good balance.
If you want some summer fun, I highly recommend Madagascar 3. And if you can see it in 3D, go for it. Live a little. ;)
4 1/2 out of 5 stars. (Not sure how I could have liked it more, but...)
So, if you saw my Five on Friday from last week, you know that I was anticipating going to this film. One problem. I thought it opened last week, but no. * sadness-pouting * But the day finally arrived, and got to see The Pirates! Band of Misfits Friday afternoon. Three Cheers!
The question is, was there anything to cheer about? Anticipating a possible 3-D adventure I wore my contacts today instead of glasses. Right there it proves that this is an event. I'm still working out of a box of disposable contact lenses that I bought in 2005. As you can probably guess, I save them for very special occasions. It's such a hassle to wear the 3-D glasses over regular glasses. They never sit right. Always annoying. Definitely an aspect of the technology that has not been perfected yet.
I look up the feature times at my local movie house during the super matinee hours. I mean, who can afford to pay the full price to see a movie these days? Highway robbery, I tell you, but I digress. So anyway, I look up the times, and there is no mention of 3-D showings at all. Oh well, I've never been a huge fan of what I've seen. Hasn't increased my enjoyment of the film, so ...
When I finally get to the theater, I find out that it is a 3-D showing, so I haven't used a set of contact lenses for nothing. lol First thing I have to say about that is that a number of 3-D previews were shown, and I think that things are getting better in that department (especially as it applies to kids movies), but again I digress.
I really thought it was a fun picture. Was the 3-D important (considering that I've used so much space talking about it)? I'd say no. Still a lot better than some I've seen. It seems that there can be a tendency for 3-D films to seem a bit dark. They resolved that here. But, it's animated. It's not that important that there be depth of field. Nothing comes out of the screen to make you feel that you're part of the story, which I mean really. Isn't that the coolest part of a 3-D film?
I joke a bit here, but I'm also making a serious-ish point. It seems that most of the 3-D films I've seen from Avatar forward have moved away from "gimmicky" effects of throwing things at the audience from the screen. They've been making it seem like it's happening in front of you, more like a theatrical play. Personally, that's not enough for me to pay $2-3 more for the film.
However, putting gimmicks aside for a moment, I think that making it appear that things are coming out of the screen in a somewhat subtle way could make the audience feel like they were a part of the story, living in the story. It would be more the fly on the wall experience as opposed to the looking through the window experience. Now, that would be worth a couple of dollars more! If the previews I saw were anything to go by, we might be headed in that direction.
But back to this film. The Pirates! is a spoof of pirate movies, even ones which were themselves spoofs. Hugh Grant, as Pirate Captain, even spoofs himself. All kinds of jokes and references to other films and such. Underdogs try to become victorious. Will they succeed? That is indeed the question. Another one is, what is the meaning of victory? Visuals are great. Comedy is definitely more of the British variety, swinging from slapstick to subtle. Best film of all time? Ummmm ... no, but it was quite enjoyable. Probably geared more for an adult audience though it seems to be marketed for kids. Good for some weekend fun.
So there you have it. Now, I just have two more weeks to wait until ... Dark Shadows. :)
I've had so many things that I've wanted to write about. I've got a list, but several of them were time sensitive and the time has passed ... Juan Williams being fired from NPR ... Keith Oberman suspended from MSNBC ... Did you know that they're doing another Spiderman re-boot? Didn't they just do that? Has enough time passed? (Stan Lee is scheduled to appear with Craig Ferguson soon, so maybe we'll get some answers there.) Continuing on ... the Curse of the Oldest Woman ... Jon Stewart's rally ... the mid-term elections ... my Farmville addiction. The problem is not that I don't have material. The problem is that I don't have the energy to write anything coherent.
So now, it's looking like this blog is turning into a movie review site, which isn't all bad, except there hasn't been a lot out there to inspire me this year. Now, if the studios were willing to provide me with free tickets or private screenings like they do with proper film critics, we might be talking. But, if I have to pay cash on the barrel head, I'm going to have to be reasonably sure that I'm going to like it.
Enter Megamind in 3-D. I've been seeing trailers for this film for quite a while, and it looked promising. I have a love/hate relationship with Will Ferrell. I usually can only take him for 30 seconds at a time, maybe 2 minutes in a trailer. The thing is that his public persona is such a cartoon that an animated film is the ideal vehicle for him.
Then, there's the 3-D aspect. Gosh, probably 10 years ago now, I went to Disney World and saw some really amazing things that they were doing with 3-D. Gone were the paper glasses with two different colored lenses (and by "lenses," I mean pieces of colored cellophane) that make you nauseous if you tried to walk around while wearing them. The results at Disney were phenomenal. I don't know if I've shared this with you, but I'm partial to Muppets, and the 3-D show I enjoyed the most featured a recreation of the old Muppet Show. I remember thinking at the time. "Wow! If this is where 3-D's going, I'm in!"
Alas, I have been waiting ever since. I will admit that things have been getting a lot better as of late, but really nothing that matched the possibilities that I imagined after my Disney Muppet experience. While everyone was oooing and ahhhing over Avatar. I was left wanting. Though I am perfectly willing to admit that it might have to do more with what I felt was the "preachiness" of the film. I'm not usually fond of "message movies." As Big Daddy said in, The Long Hot Summer, "I get preached to in church on Sunday." lol I only approve of them when the message is so subtle that I can't consciously tell that it was there. (In my opinion, the best works achieve this.)
But back to the 3-D in Megamind. It was awesome. The best work that I've seen to date. It didn't have any silly tricks. (Okay, except for one, but that was during the credits.) The 3-D gave it depth. Was that extra depth worth the extra money that I paid to see it? Not really, but since I had paid for it, I certainly was going to enjoy the heck out of it.
None of that matters though if the story isn't good. (See comments about Avatar above.) I must say that I really liked it. In so many movies (especially reboots), we see a lot about the struggles of an aspiring superhero, but we get a relatively cardboard villain. And, that's okay because we need the villain to give the hero something to do. This movie takes the whole thing and turns it upside down. What does it take to create the supervillain? It is the villain who is shown as troubled and misunderstood. I thought the film did it in a way that showed Megamind as a sensitive young boy with so much potential. But, just a few accidents through no fault of his own, sent him down a different path than his Superman-ish classmate.
It was sensitive. It was charming. It was action-packed. It had great images.
I think that I'm going to have to give this one 4 out of 5 stars.
3D,film review,movie
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