2004 Movies:
After the Sunset: **
This could have been the movie of the year, Peirce Brosnan and Salma Hayek play as two diamond theifs
in love. They have never gotten caught and now have retired to a dream
house in the Carribean. The last Napolean diamond comes in on a
cruise liner, the one they haven't stolen...yet. Plot is great, but
hashed out poorly. There is more scenes of Peirce and Salma making-out
then diamond stealing. The amount of humor spoiled the movie to an
extent. Though had an unexpected ending making up for some of it's
flaws.
-The Next Ebert
Fahrenheit 9/11 (***1/2)
Release: 6/25/04
Michael Moore's latest movie, and this time his target is the Bush
administration. He chronicles everything from the 2000 election, to
9/11, to the Iraq war. It's hard to review this movie without getting
into politics, but all the content aside, Moore has made an
entertaining movie. He's generated laughs, as well as thoughts. Of
course he spun information in his direction. Of course he failed to
list the UK and Australia in his Cohilition of the Willing list. Of
course he left things out. He has a mission: to demean Bush, and he
didn't let anything get in his way. But this film isn't all lies. It
can't be. Moore gives a lot of truth that is real, such as Bush's
altered flight records and the bin Laden family getting escorted out
the country without being asked a single question. And what's with the
fact that you can't bring scissors on a plane, but you CAN bring up to
four books of matches and two lighters? Now that's crazy... and scary.
- The Next Roeper
Fat Albert (**)
Release: 12/25/04
Now, I saw this movie due to one long inside joke that I'd rather not
go into, but it pretty much involved a Fat Albert parody on South Park
that ranks up on the list of the best moments of the series. Of course,
if this movie was just like that parody, this movie would have been a
lot funnier, and a lot more interesting. "Fat Albert" is a peculiar
movie, in the fact that is it is embarassingly bland, formulaic, and
corny, but yet, it has a lot of heart, and it's basically harmless, so
you just can't be mad at it. Kenan Thompson (think back to
Nickelodeon's golden days of "Kenan & Kel") plays Fat Albert, and
he and his posse look exaggeratingly like the actual cartoon crew, who
jump out of a sullen teenager's TV set after the teen's tears dropped
onto her remote, causing some sort of rip in the space time continuum.
Don't think about that sentence for more than two minutes, or something
bad's gonna happen. There were some scattered laughs here, like Bill
Cosby's cameo, and the assorted happenings as the gang get into trouble
and such. Hey hey hey, needn't go out of your way for this one, but
it's still a pleasant distraction.
- The Next Roeper
The Forgotten: **1/2
This movie could have been the scariest film of the
year, a great plot about how a mother who is told everything she
remembers never happened. She never had a child, then becomes she never
had a husband. A great cast wanders around for an answer for an hour
and a half about these alien-type people who do experiments on earth to
humans.
-The Next Ebert
The Incredibles (***1/2)
Release: 11/5/04
Synopsis: Retired superhero Mr. Incredible (now Bob Parr) yearns for
his old glory days, but due to a ban, is forced to live a suburben life
of normalcy with his family, also gifted with superpowers
Evaluation: Pixar does it again. This is the first Pixar movie with
human characters as the focus, and they've gone a long way with humans
since Toy Story. What I like about them is that they're realistic, but
not too realistic to the point that they're not cartoony. The movie is
smart, funny, exciting, and profound, and while it may not be Pixar's
best, it's pretty damn close. The only thing I can say about it
negatively is that it took a little while to get interesting. But Finding Nemo had
that problem too, so I guess it can be overlooked. This is an amazing
spectacle of how far computer animation can go, and still look like a
good ol' fashioned cartoon.
- The Next Roeper
Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events (**1/2)
Release: 12/17/04
Yet another successful book turned into a movie, “Unfortunate Events”
makes the leap from page to screen fairly well. This movie actually
covers the tales of the first three books of the series, and cramming
all those locales and cast of characters into a two-hour film is
difficult. I found that many parts seemed rushed, and that the film
would have been helped if it was slowed down a bit. For instance, there
were no real relationships established with the Baudelaires and their
new guardians, as the movie just glides past it to get to the next
unfortunate event. Jim Carrey, always funny, got a little lazy as the
villainous Count Olaf. While he is usually very funny, he seemed to not
be trying very hard. But his alter egos he puts on as he haunts the
orphans at every turn were a lot funnier than his core character. This
movie had some laughs and you can see it is amazingly lavish and well
done. And I must say, all the buildings and locales looked exactly as
I’d imagined them. The people… not exactly what I thought, but they
still worked. All in all, any fan of the series should see the film,
and if this movie goes well, you just might see an “Unfortunate Events”
sequel. …but what would they call it? “More Series Of Unfortunate
Events”?
- The Next Roeper
Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events (Doesn't deserve a star)
An
extremely weird and unbelievable story. Jim Carrey had some nice
acting, but other characters were lacking. Pointless wondering about.
Horrible, weird, dumb, and felt as if two hours or so of my life had
been wasted.
-The Next Ebert
Meet The Fockers (**)
Release Date: 12/22/04
In 2000, “Meet The Parents” came out of virtually nowhere and was, and
still is, one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen. I didn’t know if
anyone else was into it, but apparently, others were, because now we
have “Meet The Fockers.” After meeting his new in-laws, Greg now has to
introduce them to his parents, introducing Dustin Hoffman and Barbra
Streisand to the cast of characters. Unfortunately two times the
Fockers doesn’t mean twice the laughs. And, sadly, that was the case
with this movie. This movie pretty much re-treaded the same ground as
the first one did. All of the cast are roaring and ready to go, but
there just wasn’t anything with them to work with. And it seemed like
the filmmakers saw this, so they just piled on subplot after subplot.
You’ve got a little baby nephew that they have to tend over, and of
course, babies always provide laughs, no matter what the hell they do,
especially if you’ve got ‘em cursing. Then you have the voluptuous maid
and the son that may or may not be Greg’s son, and the Focker’s dog
that always humps things, and all this irrelevant nonsense that was
practically exemplified the begging of the filmmakers, “Please laugh!
Pleeeease!” Well, I didn’t laugh very much. Of course I didn’t expect
this movie to be better than the first, but I didn’t expect this little
laughs. Chalk this one up in the ‘Disappointing Sequels’ column. Thanks
a lot, you Fockers.
- The Next Roeper
National Treasure (**1/2)
Release: 11/19/04
Synopsis: Nicholas Cage stars as a treasure hunter, who searches
relentlessly for a lost treasure that was hidden by our country's
forefathers, and whom left clues at different historical places.
Evaluation: Hey, it's a Bruckheimer movie. It can be about anything,
even something as stupid and proposterous as this plot, but he can
still make it interesting to watch. There's a map on the back of the
Declaration of Independance. I mean, how are we expected to think that
is the least bit plausible? But damn that Jerry Bruckheimer, he MADE me
interested! This is one of those movies you enjoy watching, but after
it's over, burning questions start to surface and anger you. Like,
these clues are so vague and so strange that no person could possibly
solve them, and Cage figures them out in about one minute. And if our
forefathers had this vast treasure, why didn't they use some of it when
they were busy fighting the Revolutionary War or establishing the
country? They kinda needed some money. Well, it was still fun to watch,
but I certainly wouldn't recommend it as a good historical movie.
- The Next Roeper
Shark Tale: **
Although hyped up to be the next Finding Nemo, the
plot of a fish taking advantage of a shark's death and being known as
the "Shark Slayer" wasn't brought out the way it could have been. The
movie was very satirical about our world, providing a lot of laughs for
older audiences, as well as having a moral for younger audiences.
Animation wasn't anything compared to Finding Nemo. Boring characters,
and over used plot. Had a typical Disney ending.
-The Next Ebert
The Spongebob Squarepants Movie (***)
Release: 11/19/04
Synopsis: In order to save Mr. Krabs' life, who has been framed for
stealing King Neptune's crown, Spongebob and Patrick journey to the
far-off Shell City to retrieve it, leaving Plankton ample time to take
over Bikini Bottom.
Evaluation: I speak as a fan of the series, as only a fan would see
this movie anyway. While not being too biased, I have to say that it
wasn't everything I expected it to be, but it was still really good. It
had a lot of those inside jokes and unusually funny poses like the
show, but there wasn't really as many great one-liners the show is
famous for. It also seemed a little stretched, but this was expected;
turning 11 minutes into 88 minutes isn't easy. But, this was an
enjoyable movie, well worth any Spongebob fan's time.
- The Next Roeper
Team America: World Police (****)
Release: 10/15/04
Synopsis: Trey Parker and Matt Stone (creators of South Park) weild an
all-marionette cast of a police team fighting the terror war.
Evaluation: Wow. I have not laughed this much or this hard at a movie
in a long long time. Not only that, but it was smart, edgy, and also
incredibley detailed, as every set and every prop had to be speacially
made to scale with the puppets. It also has some hilarious and very
catchy musical numbers. If you don't mind raunch, and you want a movie
that you will die laughing from, look no further than this.
- The Next Roeper
Wicker Park: *
Run! Run! Run! No not because the movie is
scary, because it's so horrible. About a girl who is so obsessed with
this guy she takes away his girlfriend from him which is her friend and
makes her think that he has forgotten about her. An interesting plot, flashback thing too confusing when watching it, but pulls together in the end.
-The Next Ebert
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